Perfect Colour Vision

I have perfect colour vision, apparently! :D Also, I know some of you reading my blog will want to do the same test, so here's the link.

The Last Lions

The Last Lions is a heart wrenching, nail biting, gripping tale of maternal instinct, survival, battle, competition and call of the wild.

The movie, anthropomorphically, tells the story of Ma di Tau (named after her first born) and her cubs. The movie follows her attempts to procure food for herself and her cubs, her establishment on a new island and her struggle with a pride that attempts to defeat her and take over.

The movie kept me at the edge of my seat throughout, never knowing what to expect. Large cats hold a special place in my heart, despite that, the story telling had me wishing for the death of some of the lions in the movie. That shocked me and exemplifies some compelling story telling abilities. That being said, it must be acknowledged that all the story telling is man made and the thoughts, flash backs and ideas of the animals that are narrated are probably just excellent story telling gimmicks.

An excellent movie that definitely strikes a chord and hopefully will help lion conservation. Great job National Geographic. Fantastic job Beverly and Dereck Joubert!!!!!!

One of my favourite scenes from the movie :). See naaaa...so cute!!!

Look what the storm did!

The stormy weather from Saturday lead to flooding of K street near Georgetown!!!!!! This is the first time I've heard of it happening since I've moved to DC. Crazyyyyy!!!! Click here for more photos.

Houda's Engagement Celebration - Part 2

After lunch at Mussel Bar, we headed to All Fired Up in Bethesda to paint some pottery. While there we enjoyed win and cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcakes. I got the cherry blossom cupcake (flavour of the month), which had real cherries in it and was YUMMMM!!!

Mussel Bar

To celebrate Houda and Adnan's engagement a bunch of us girls from work took Houda out. First stop: Mussel Bar! 

This was everyone's first time at this place. Houda and I shared the Arugula & Goat Cheese salad (Herbed Goat Cheese, Egg, Shaved Baby Beets, Sherry Vinaigrette). We got it without the egg. For my entree I got the Provencal Mussels (Tomato, Capers, Basil). I liked mine best compared to what the others got...the classic mussels aren't their best. They are similar to provencal, but provencal is wayyyyy better

 Arugula and Goat Cheese Salad

 How the Mussels and Frites are served...the frites are also quite delicious, if you have place in your tummy for them

Provencal Mussels

Stormy Day

Sure was a stormy day in DC today. Some people even had to take cover in their basement due to tornado watches in Maryland

Himalaya, Path to the Sky

If I had to describe this movie in one word, I'd say it was precocious.

This documentary follows an eight year old Buddhist monk in Zanskar, Ladakh. Having come, on his own accord with his uncle, to the monastery Kenrap believes he is a 'grandfather monk'. At the end of the movie he says he is 68 years old. :)

He is wise in his ideas and understanding. This is illustrated time and again in the movie. At one point he tells the film maker, while treading a dangerous, narrow, snowy, mountainous path that she needs to make her heart strong and if she believe she won't fall she won't. She asks him, 'What if I think I will fall?". He replies matter of factly, "You will fall.". Another time, after he'd just finished doing the dishes he was asked what his uncle would say if he came to the room and found it dirty, Kenrap says he won't say anything but he would be embarrassed if someone came home and found it dirty. These ideas are definitely not something you'd expect out of a typical 8 year old. Despite being wise beyond his ears, the movie is filled with his child like behaviour. He enjoys his play time and sings and dances as he feels. :) It's just so endearing to watch him live his life.

My favourite part of the movie was when Nagyul, who's coeval with Kenrap, is pouring water into vessels for heating makes a mistake and Kenrap exclaims, "This child is unbearable!!!!" and stomps out of the room. It's just hilarious!!!!!

The backdrop of the himalayas, the ice, the snow, the stark landscape, the beautiful flowing river is just gorgeous.

Seek out and watch this movie.

A Souvenir I Never Want

Live fish/reptile key chains

Suspicious Package

After bootcamp this morning, as I was getting ready to hop in the shower, I hear someone scream, "Stuart (one of the gym managers), the secret service want to talk to you." I was convinced that they were kidding around. Who yells that the secret service are here? As it turns out, they were infact here and the block outside the gym was blocked off due to a suspicious package. I exited the gym from the back entrance and trekked up Wisconsin to find a bus stop where the buses could reach after their rerouting.

An unexpected start to my morning, for sure

Smelly White Flowers

I remember learning/reading that since a flower's main purpose is to attract pollinators, either they look pretty (nice colours) or smell good, or maybe both. Consequently, white flowers typically smell really good since they don't have much going for them with colour. This is seen (or smelled) in most white flowers; jasmine, tuberose etc. However, the pear tree, decided to be the exception to this rule, with pretty while flowers that smell horrendous! They smell like rotting garbage!!! I don't know what pollinators are attracted to! Blech!

Blue Nails! :)

After a winter of no pedicures, I finally got one and got to have blue nail paint!! I've been wanting blue nail polish for months now. The photo makes the nail polish look cobalt blue, but if you know anything about my blue preferences, you'd know I'd NEVER pick cobalt blue. In actuality, it is closer to midnight blue! :) :) :)

Ching Ching CHA

After lunch at Tackle Box (again delicious!) we ambled along in Georgetown and decided to stop for tea at ching ching CHA, a Chinese tea house. I really liked the place. It's relaxed and has amazingggggggg almond cookies. I had three!! I got the Jasmine Blossom tea and Saurabh the Yunnan Gold Needle. Both were excellent :) and the Jasmine bud opens up so beautifully. Oh, I also enjoyed the different teapots and tea cups that different people were served the various teas in. :)

Bugs or Baby Kiwi Stalks?

Gold and Copper

Smita and I went for Gold and Copper at the Avalon Theatre today. It's part of the silver jubilee DC Film Festival. An excellent excellent Iranian movie about an Iranian family having to deal with the debilitating disease of the wife/mother. The movie shows how their lives are impacted and how they deal with it. Extremely well made!

Schooling The World

Another movie at the NG museum...but a dissatisfying one. Carol Black tries to make the point that Western education is bad for all the smaller cultures all over the world. The movie tries to impress that western education is the bad guy, trying to take over the world and make it uniform, thereby wiping out the cultural elements in each culture that make it unique and make is subsist.

While, I think the movie had an excellent underlying point, I was very disappointed with its delivery of it. Throughout the movie it gave the impression that western form of education is bad and imparts bad things. Once or twice they did say that there is some good in western education, but it was hardly emphasised and got lost in all the negativity that permeated the entire movie.

I think, that western education isn't perfect, but there is no reason it needed to be dissed so much. I have always said that it's unfortunate how people forget their own culture and language in their race to master english and western cultures. Western educations isn't at fault alone in this outlook. In my opinion, Western education needs to embrace local cultures and fuse to form a better overall education. If the movie had expressed this in a more balanced way, I think the movie could have been very powerful.

Anyway, it was nice to watch, it made me think.