Scuba Happy List

Wow it's been awhile since my happy list making, been making more of other lists lately - mostly checklists and shopping lists hehe

• Scuba diving over the long weekend in Mozambique 
• Completing my open water dives, getting my "licence to dive" lol
• Seeing a sting ray and sea turtles, amongst tons of other fishies, what an experience
• Making lots of new friends
• Cafe, Pintos, and Kaya..... 'nuf said.
• Minimal stopping time over the road work section of our road trip, my praying worked! NMRK
• Watching the boys play the game of life.  Too funny.
• On a more scuba unrelated note, my payment to KYM finally went through~  Next step: plane ticket for India and travel clinic
• Exactly 4 months til I depart for my "pray, eat and eat some more" journey!

Oh how I love life~

Posted via email from Karen In Wonderland

Happy India List

Wow it's been a while since one of these lists and there are just too many things to be happy about lately!

• Registered for the Heart of Yoga at KYM 
• Booked and Paid for an ashtanga yoga retreat at Purple Valley Yoga in Goa with Han
• Registered and Paid for my Teaching Training Course (TTC) with Sivananda Yoga at an ashram in Kerala
• Got a pricing for my plane ticket to India + domestic flights and the price was so fantastic even the travel agent was in shock!
• Found out I can apply for a Working Holiday Visa for Australia which will make travelling a little bit easier and less damage to my savings!  Han be ready for me to bum with you for 6 months - a year!
• Just over 4 months left before my new adventures begin :)
• My amazingly supportive friends making my decision sooo much easier despite how petrified I actually am
• Chatting to my Quads on Skype.  I love hearing you girls' voices <3
• Scuba diving in Mozambique next weekend!
• Having an awesome chat with Ivy on the phone today
• It's the weekend baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabyyyyyyyyyy~~~~~

Posted via email from Karen In Wonderland

As Dreams become Realities...

Although it's still some 5 months away before I leave for India, plans are slowly becoming realities, more and more so with visits to the travel agency, lonely planet travel guide for India in hand, yoga retreat being paid for, etc...  I have been feeling a rush of emotions in the last two days.  I am leaving.  This is real.  

Over the past two years as some of my close friends left for Beijing, Taiwan and Australia (you all know who you are), I've build stronger bonds with my girls who are still here.  Despite my excitement and anticipation of travelling the world and starting a new life half way cross the globe, my life has been in South Africa for the past 19 years with some very solid roots in the ground.  As I was reading this book where the author described how she longed for friendships like the group in Friends, or the girls in Sex and the City, a sadness overcame me because these were all things that I have and will be giving up in 5 months time.

I will miss shopping with my girls.  I will miss Creme Brulee at Michelangelo and high tea sessions with my girls.  I will miss playing Mah Jong at my house with my gold sparkly mj and talking gossip with my girls.  I will miss KTV nights with my girls.  I will miss lying in bed with our face masks on together.  And holidays together.  And ghost stories and being scared together.  This could go on forever.

This is like totally premature sentimental-ness, if I feel like this now, how will I feel when the time comes?! I miss you guys already...

Posted via email from Karen In Wonderland

Our Yoga Dream

Okay so it's not 100% confirmed yet, as we have not even booked and paid our deposits yet, but I have a pretty strong feeling that KAREN AND HAN ARE GOING TO INDIA TOGETHER IN FEBRUARY!  

How did all this come to be?

Well so I've been going on about how I'm going to India and secretly I'm a little scared of going there on my own, since in all 27 whole years of my existence, I have not really traveled anywhere on my own especially a country like India.  To be honest I don't even know what to expect, although I am a bit worried about potential muggings I've read about online, or people taking your luggage on the train and refuse to give it back to you unless you pay them a ridiculous sum of money (by India standards) for "carrying it" off the train for you and taking their buddy's taxi.  

In addition to this, I am not sure how I'm going to survive washing my own clothes (hand wash, not a washing machine), no hair dryer, vegetarian cuisine (oh how I love my meat), amongst other things, and I was suggested by my beloved favourite yoga teacher in the world Nadine that I should read Yoga School Dropout by Lucy Edge.  Being the diligent student that I forever am, I quickly logged onto Kalahari.net and ordered the book as well as her second book, The Handbag and Wellies Yoga Club, without even reading the first one (oh you all know what kind of shopper I am).

I have yet to finish Yoga School Dropout but it has been wonderful, funny, inspiring and interesting read thus far which totally deserves a completely separate post which I will do so some time in the future (perhaps when I actually finish the book).  And I digress....  So at the back of the book Lucy Edge put in a list of useful contacts (I don't know why I was looking at the back of the book while I was only half way through reading it...), and at the top of the list for India was "GOA, The Purple Valley Yoga Centre, www.yogagoa.net".  Being the inquisitive and internet-junkie person that I am, of course I went on and checked out the website and O-M-G (with Janice's accent from Friends), this place looks AMAZING!  I then spent the next few hours glued to my netbook, searching on all info about Goa and this yoga centre and frankly I could not find one reason why I should not go.

A super excited Karen tells her first and perhaps only yoga buddy to this day/best friend/sister/everything else that she is to me, Han, about this amazing place for a yoga retreat and after very little convincing if any at all, she decides to come too!  Not only will it be amazing to go on holiday with your friend, it will be extra special as we haven't seen each other for almost 2 years by the time we meet again in Mumbai in February.  On top of that, we have always talked about going to India together for a retreat or a course of some sort for all the years we've been doing yoga, this is like our yoga dream come true!  All we have to do now is book for the course, which I'm running into a bit of trouble with for some strange reason that I am sure we will overcome, and Goa, here we come in 5 months and a bit!

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

Posted via email from Karen In Wonderland

Addition in My Master Plan

Consideration underway about two weeks of Ashtanga with Purple Valley Yoga and then staying behind in Goa for one week to enjoy the beaches and sightseeing before moving South to Kerala for my four weeks of teacher training course.  Or is that going to be too much yoga to fit in under 2 months?  Wait, can you ever have too much yoga?  Hmmm.....

Then come back to SA for two days and fly off to Mauritius with my girls for a week, fly back again pack my bags and off to Taiwan, Beijing, Bali, Australia!  How does that sound?  Mwahahahahaha my year of holiday here I come!  Just under 6 months to go!  Wooooo

Posted via email from Karen In Wonderland

Addition in My Master Plan

Consideration underway about two weeks of Ashtanga with Purple Valley Yoga and then staying behind in Goa for one week to enjoy the beaches and sightseeing before moving South to Kerala for my four weeks of teacher training course.  Or is that going to be too much yoga to fit in under 2 months?  Wait, can you ever have too much yoga?  Hmmm.....

Then come back to SA for two days and fly off to Mauritius with my girls for a week, fly back again pack my bags and off to Taiwan, Beijing, Bali, Australia!  How does that sound?  Mwahahahahaha my year of holiday here I come!  Just under 6 months to go!  Wooooo

Posted via email from Karen In Wonderland

Be the Change that you Seek

Ever since my scuba diving classes, I have not been able to get certain things I learnt in class out of my head:

• Did you know over 3 million sharks were killed last year?
• Did you know that much of the marine life by Seychelles is DEAD and there's nothing to see if you went scuba diving there?
• Did you know that there is a HUGE possibility that our children may not get the chance to scuba dive in their life time?
• Did you know that the result of all of the above is thanks to us, humans?

I did a little research after chatting to friends and thinking about all of this, I found this website http://5gyres.org/ which shocked me even more!  Human's excessive wasteful consumption around the world result in pollution, and much of this pollution ends up in the sea.  Worst of all is that the material that things such as bottles and tins are made out of are made to last, therefore, it does not disintegrate.  And even if don't litter, all the rubbish still has to GO somewhere, and a lot of that happens to end up in the sea.  Without trying to sound like a save-the-world-hippie-tree-hugger, there are things that we can do to minimise the damage that we are doing to our environment.  

But what can we do?

Here are some things that we can all do:

1. Recycle, recycle, recycle!
2. Try buy goods that do not have plastic or non-recyclable packaging (This is HARD)
3. Reusable shopping bags 
4. Do not print anything unless absolutely essential, reuse the other side of the paper for printing

And WHY should we do this?

Here are some interesting facts I found:

• Recycling one aluminium can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours
• An aluminium can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now
• Recycling a single run of the Sunday New York Times would save 75,000 trees
• 70% less energy is required to recycle paper compared with making it from raw materials
• Plastic bags and other plastic rubbish thrown into the ocean kill as many as a million sea creatures every year
• The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours. It also causes 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution than when a new bottle is made from raw materials
• Up to 60% of the rubbish that ends up in the dustbin could be recycled
• It costs at least three times more to dump rubbish in landfills that it cost to reuse and recycle
• On average, 16% of the money you spend on a product pays for the packaging, which ultimately ends up as rubbish
• As much as 50% of waste in the average dustbin could be composted
• Every person in SA produces between a ½ kg and 2 kgs of waste daily, which equates to two bins of urban waste per week

So what can we do?  I compiled a list of things people living in Joburg can do....

• http://www.urbansprout.co.za/recycling_bottle_necks_and_batteries   - apparently some of the Pick 'n Pay's and Woolworths around the country collect rechargeable batteries and energy saving lightbulbs for recycling
• http://www.computerscraprecycling.co.za/ - You can recycle computer scraps through these guys!  And for those living in Cape Town speak to them http://www.virginearth.co.za/   
• There's a serious lack of recycling awareness in this country, therefore a lack of recycling bins, but if you speak to these people, http://www.wasterecyclers.co.za/ or these guys, http://www.wholeearth.co.za/ and they will come to your doorsteps to collect your recyclable goods
• http://www.collectacan.co.za/ - if anyone is interested in starting up a recycling business in can recycling, you can have a look at this site
• Take your unwanted glass bottles (like beer bottles!) to these guys http://www.theglassrecyclingcompany.co.za/, if you take it to a buy back centre, they will even pay you for the glasses, so you can buy more beer with it!

You can also have a look at this website for more tips on where you can take all your recyclable goods!  Be the Change that you Seek, let's all do our part for our environment.  

Posted via email from Karen In Wonderland