Diwali is an official holiday here in India.  In short Diwali is the Festival of Lights.  You can read the whole description of Diwali here.

We shot off a bunch of fireworks in celebration.  The fireworks here in Kochi are a lot more scary than the fireworks in Utah.  One of them actually shot a bunch of times into the air and a piece of it came down and burned the top of my head.  It hurt, but I survived.  The sound of some fireworks is like bomb going off.  All in all, the celebration was a blast (haha).

Here is a short video that Liji filmed. Around 1:27 you can hear me say “It landed on my head.” That is when it burned me.

I have been waiting to write a post to share how amazing the Ramada Resort here in Cochin is.  Liji took me there for my birthday and it was just what I needed.  I have been on hiatus from my life in Utah now for two and a half months and so far it has been not what we initially planned.  I have been a bit stressed about the changes in our plans that have taken place and this hasn’t been as enjoyable as I thought it would be.  Thus, the trip to the resort was an amazing get-a-way.

I have never been to such a place.  The Ramada Resort in Cochin is just about 15 km from where we live, but it felt like I was thousands of miles away.  The resort is nestled right along the beautiful Kumbalam backwaters where you can watch a few villagers take their boat onto the water each day to fish.  I was able to enjoy the views of the backwaters from the infinity pool that is 90 meters long.  You can also enjoy this view from the cottages that are available or you can choose to stay in a room in the hotel, which is what Liji and I did.  The room was very comfortable.  The service throughout the entire resort was amazing.  When you stay at the resort you get a complimentary breakfast buffet each day that you stay.  The breakfast buffet has traditional south Indian food (fresh made dosa upon request, idle, curries, etc.) as well as western food (fresh made waffles upon request, toast, croissants, cereal, etc.).  Fresh juice is also made right in front of you.  The restaurant staff is very friendly.  The landscaping makes you feel like you are in a magazine.  It is incredible beautiful and it is surrounded by many different exotic flowers.

In the US a resort like this might be around 300-600 dollars.  The price listed was Rs. 10,000 ($200.00).  Liji sent them an email asking if we could stay for Rs. 5,000 ($100.00) and they agreed.  I am sure this is because it is off season here.  Come December I am sure the place will be regular priced and full of people.  There are something like 18 cottages and 24 hotel rooms so I can’t imagine the place would feel crowded even if the resort was fully booked.

I can’t wait to return there for another stay.  I give the Ramada Resort, Cochin 5 stars.  It was luxury without the price of luxury.

Those of you who have had a sunburn know how uncomfortable and painful it can be. I discovered the ultimate remedy awhile back and I thought I would share it.  I used to get sunburns all the time when I was younger.  I would spend hours in the sun with no sunscreen and come home beet red.  I would often cry because my sunburn was so bad.  My grandmother would soak towels in cold water and put them on my sunburn and less than five minutes later the towel was hot.  I tried Aloe Vera, but that just seemed to make it horribly worse.  I even had to go to the Emergency room twice because the sunburns were so bad.  My sunburns would inch under the skin and burn and the same time.  It was excruciating.

On one of the trips to the ER the doctor told me that as a result of being in the sun for so long and getting burned I had lost a lot of electrolytes and he told me in order to restore them I should drink Gatorade since it has both sugar and sodium and it would at the same time hydrate me.  I suppose you could drink water with sugar and salt,  it would probably do the same thing.

Advil is a great pain reliever for the burn because it is ibuprofen and will cause the swelling to go down.  Advil will help you not be in pain so that you can rest.

I discovered Ocean Potion Burn Relief Ice about six years ago.  Once I put it on my burn it was like I was healing instantly.  It felt so cold and smelled so fresh.  I was amazed at how fast this helped me.  It literally takes the burn out.  It made the redness go away within a couple of days.  Ocean Potion Burn Relief Ice works so well because it has tea tree extract and lidocaine.  I bought a huge bottle at Wal-mart six years ago and then stopped shopping there and couldn’t find it anywhere else.  I finally found it in Walgreens in Las Vegas.  There are also numerous places you can purchase it online.

I swear by this remedy.  Use all three and you will be comfortable and burn-free in no time

As you can probably imagine I have a lot of free time on my hands when we are not out and about so I decided to buy a sewing machine.  I love sewing and I love fabric.  I was missing my sewing machine back home so I thought getting one would be a good way to pass the time.

I had a hard time finding fabric.  There are fabric stores here, but the selection isn’t that great, but I discovered the clothing stores have a great selection of already cut fabric.  The catch is that you have to buy the whole package which is about 8 meters all together.  The package consists of 2 meters for the pants, 2 meters for the top, and a 2 meter scarf. There are usually two different fabrics that match in some way.  The price is only $10.00.  Great deal!

I found this great wallet tutorial online at Confessions of a Fabricaholic and I had to try and make it.  So here is my second project:

I had an interesting encounter yesterday.  Liji and I were shopping around for some fabric and we decided to go to a coffee shop for an afternoon snack.  We usually go to either Cafe Coffee Day or Cocoa Tree Cafe.  Yesterday we couldn’t decide which one we wanted to go to, eventually we ended up going to Cocoa Tree.  Soon after we sat down a blond woman walked in and sat at the table next to us and asked us for directions to Seemati, a clothing store, and the conversation took off from there.  Suzan, a fellow American, travels by herself and is a travel writer.  She is from the Seattle area.  The three of us had a great conversation.  We exchanged stories about our journeys so far and she gave us some tips on places to see around India.  In the end we swapped information.

The encounter was short, but I feel like I met someone I will never forget.  I can’t help but to think that our paths would have never crossed if we decided on the other coffee shop, or if we chose to go at a different time.  What made us choose that shop at that time?