The Adventure Continues

This blog is a sequel.

Before I immediately lose you as the word 'sequel' invokes the traumatic memory of the 60-year-old Bruce Willis huffing and puffing as he fights a fighter jet with his bare hands in the 50th 'Die Hard' movie, I would like to point out that sometimes sequels can be better than the original. Take 'Shrek 2' for instance - what would pop culture be like without Antonio Banderas as a cuddly and feisty warrior kitten with a keen sense of style that Lol Katz could only dream of? The key is that the sequel must be bigger, better, and more interesting than the first.

And with that, I take on the formidable challenge of living an adventure that is even better than my 5 months in India (HyderabadAdventures.Blogspot.com).

It must be worthy as a sequel to wearing a burkha and bargaining in Hindi at the Laad Bazaar at Charminar, Hyderabad, doing a puja as the sun rises through the haze over the Ganges on a boat in Varanasi, wearing a saree at the Taj Mahal at sunrise, participating in the evening ceremonies at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, watching the sunrise over the mountainous tea and spice plantations outside of Munnar, Kerala as music from the village festival in the valley below wafts up to the peaks, standing at the top of Golconda Fort during the call to prayer watching a monsoon blow in, rock climbing on a deserted white sand beach on Rottnest Island in Western Australia, kayaking in the clear blue waters of the Gulf of Siam in Thailand, clubbing until the wee morning hours at Enigma in Mumbai with friends from Dublin and India - then driving the empty streets of Mumbai at 4am, each singing Irish folk songs, Telugu love songs, and opera arias, and watching the city sleep, eating noodles on the streets of Singapore, riding on the back of a moped around Madras in a saree, exploring the streets of Portuguese Macau, riding the ferry from Kowloon to Central Hong Kong at night, and tracking down the school that my Great Aunt May started during the imperial era in Baroda, Gujarat.

Part of me is afraid that now that I've completed my 'freshman' year, my magical time where everything is exciting and new, and everything a new adventure, that I won't get the same joy and excitement out of my travels as I once did. But at the same time, with experience comes wisdom and the ability to understand things at a deeper level. To see below the surface in new ways. Plus, there are many, many more places see and people to meet.

I have been given the opportunity by Initech to be a trainer for the entire Asia Pacific region. In doing so, I will be shuttling between California and Asia until the summer when I will relocate to Singapore.

The only thing I am sure of right now, is that the adventure is just beginning.