Post-Primary Wooden Backbends & More B'bye Sydney!

Yesterday's full primary practice sailed along nicely. The one thing that jumped out as feeling exceptionally different were my backbends (and dropbacks).

The backbends felt like a dead, straight plank of wood. I was like "EH?!?"

Wow, getting used to doing regular Urdvha Dhanurasana after all those Salabhasanas/ Dhanurasanas/ Parsva Dhanurasanas in intermediate MAKE SUCH A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE to how open your backbends feel later in the closing sequence.

I had stopped doing reverse-namaste hangbacks before dropbacks coz my back usually feels nicely cracked open already after all the intermediate backbends. But yesterday's full primary practice meant I had to go back to doing those reverse-namaste hangbacks coz I could feel even in my 3rd Urdvha Dhanurasana that my entire spine just felt so stiff.

And the dropbacks were also quite rubbish. I almost grazed my head on the floor the first couple of times. And this hasn't happened in quite a while, so I was like DOUBLE "EH?!?"

It reminded me of what a twitter pal, @ruechel said: "Backbends are like pancakes. The first 2 are no good." HAHAHAHA!

On Thursday, the office made me a farewell card. I look like the (naked) 50ft woman of Table Mountain. (See how they photoshopped my right shoulder coz there was actually someone next to me covering it? I have 2 left shoulders. My shoulders look like one of Victoria Beckham's pointy jacket outfits!)


And if you've been following me on Twitter, you'll no doubt have read all of my moaning and whining about getting used to the Nokia dumbphone and trying to soup it up to be more "Blackberry-esque".

BUT.

I am also grateful that at least I have a phone (with data connection capabilities, no less). Heh. Since it is an inherited phone, I came across some beautiful shots of Sydney that Kelly had taken when we first got here.

Seems pretty poetic that as I'm leaving here, I stumble across the photos we took when we first arrived.

Here's a gorgeous view of the QVB (aka Queen Victoria Building) and the rest of town at night, from our apartment window.


And views of the iconic Harbour Bridge & Opera House (while on the ferry ride to Manly).




Gorgeous! OK, maybe I should stop the whining. At least this phone takes better photos than the Blackberry did.

...and a Merry Capitalism Day to all!

Wasn't Boxing Day traditionally when people boxed up all the excess food from Christmas the day before, and delivered them to the less fortunate?

Well in today's world, it looks more like a day celebrated as the day of BIG BLOWOUT SALES!!

Town today was UNBELIEVABLE. I have never seen so many people queuing up to GET INSIDE a store. Seriously. The Bally store in the Queen Victoria Building is in the middle of the mall. The queue to get inside the store snaked all the way to the other end of the building (where the classic Adidas store is). There was even a security guard walking down the queue and yelling out "You will only have TEN MINUTES in the store! So make sure you make your decision and purchase within the first 10 minutes that you're inside!"

And guys, this was only at 10am. I think the store hadn't even opened yet!

Capitalism at its finest.

Everywhere you looked, there were people queueing up. It was so flipping insane!! And then I realized... 99.99% of all the people queuing up outside these high-end designer stores were all... ASIANS!

Yup, that's right. My kind was out in top form today. I couldn't believe it, but I'm afraid the stereotype is true. They're all slave to the designer label... Witness Exhibit A, queue outside Coach:


Exhibit B, queue outside Oroton:

(Taken surreptitiously, while we were having brunch.) (We thought we'd have a quiet start to the morning. We got it all wrong today.)

Exhibit C, queue outside Guess (OK, so this isn't quite high-end, but still! Would YOU queue up to get into... GUESS?!) (Yes, I'm a snob. I mean, if it's good enough for Paris Hilton... then... do I really still want it?!)


I was so tickled by the number of people who were so hard up to bag a good deal outside Oroton that I had to shoot a video of how long the queue was just to show you. (The Bally queue was about 5 times as long as this!)


We made our way outside and thought we'd check out Myer, the department store (which incidentally was open since 5am this morning)! But er... look at this sea of people! It's a shakey shot coz I was walking as I shot it... there was no way I was gonna be able to stand still in one spot to get the shot coz the sea of people just pushed you through.


Myer closed all its entrances except for the doors on either end of George St. and Pitt St. The queue to get in from Pitt Street snaked about 50 metres down Pitt Street Mall.

We weren't that desperate to get in, so we thought we'd check out the other department store up the road, David Jones. This was probably the only store with NO QUEUE!! However, once inside, it was plain to see that it was all also 99.99% Asians elbowing their way through the "bargain bins" of designer handbags (er... they averaged about $300 - $500 a bag. Yes, a real "bargain" indeed!)

I walked past a Chinese man with his Chinese wife and Chinese baby, and overheard him saying in Mandarin to his wife "It's all Asian people!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
(Mandarin translation "Tong tong dou shi ya zhou ren!")

I found myself laughing at the incredulousness of the situation - it was just so unbelievable the lengths people will go to to grab a bargain! (I think we were the only people there who were NOT on a mission to shop.) (I also think it's a terrible idea to go window-shopping on Boxing Day. You need to know what you want and make a beeline for it on the day. No browsing unless you're crazy and actually like crowds).

This is the mayhem in David Jones bag department:


David Jones is one of these oldskool, traditional department stores that's a little bit up itself, and they even had a guy playing a grand piano in one of the corners in the bag section. (If I'm buying a discounted bag at $300, I would at least EXPECT a grand pianist next to the bargain bin. Wouldn't you?)

At one point, he was playing the tune of "The Entertainer" (I think? Maybe it was another one of those ragtime tunes), and I burst out laughing coz it really was like being in a Charlie Chaplin movie with everything moving in fast-motion at 18 frames per second with a funny music track playing in the background for added effect. I had to stand in the hat department (where there wasn't anyone interested in the hats) in order to get this video shot. Hope you can hear the pianist amidst the hubbub (I really didn't wanna elbow my way through to get closer to him just to video this!)
Note: If you're looking for some calm in a department store on Boxing Day, head to the hat section.


We gave up and decided to go watch a movie instead. We weren't spared from the queues at the theater either. Yes, I shot another video of the movie queue too! (When we got out of the movie, this queue was TWICE as long, leading all the way into the street outside).


If you're wondering what movie to watch next, YOU MUST GO AND WATCH AVATAR!!!

Seriously, even after all of the hype and super-high expectations of the movie, I wasn't disappointed (I'm usually exceptionally disappointed after reading and hearing rave reviews people have of movies). Not with this one though. It might be the first James Cameron flick I actually have respect for! It is just spectacularly BEAUTIFUL!! (Would also make a good acid trip, in parts.)

And oh man, the Na'vis are natural born yogis... I want to plug in and connect to Mother Nature like they can.

Which reminds me, I can't wait to get back on my mat tomorrow... I've had Christmas cake for dinner everyday for er... like... the past 3 nights now. So... yes, I have become completely disconnected from my body. Tomorrow's practice is going to be difficult, now that I have to push my instant pot belly aside!

Bondi Beach

It was a great day to be by the beach yesterday, and I went down to help out at a Cancer Council event. It was a PR event to raise awareness for skin cancer prevention. The news covered it here. There are some great aerial views here. And industry discussion about its effectiveness here.

1,700 people in Australia die of skin cancer every year, and we got 1,700 beach towels with crime scene murder chalk outlines on them laid out on Bondi beach, representing the number of deaths. Moral of the story: Wear sunscreen, y'all!


The team had been there from 3am to lay down and peg each towel down, but I got there later, to help with the packing up. The Southeasterly started howling through the beach and it was mayhem - towels were being flipped over and volunteers were running up and down the beach trying to straighten them out again. It was quite a sight!





The news crews were all there to cover the event, the TV stations had their helicopters circling the beach to capture the towels from the sky... it was pretty manic. (Quiet, relaxing day at the beach? Forget about it!) Here's a journalist getting a beach babe to pose for him. Wonder if she made it into today's papers.



The irony is... I forgot to put on sunscreen myself. So today, I'm sunburnt and have panda eyes around where my sunglasses were. *Kwa Kwa Kwa* (that's the Game Over sound effect)

Here's what packing up 1,700 towels looks like.




We had to gather them all up and take off all the pegs from each corner. And then of course the mob descended - people actually started nicking towels off the beach! THE NERVE! There were only about 10 or 15 of us to cover the entire area, and the towel-vultures moved in and started grabbing towels from everywhere.

I ended up having to yell at people (UNLEASH MY INNER KALI!) and it wasn't until I said "These belong to the Cancer Council, you're STEALING from a charity!" that some people actually felt a bit bad and put them back.

Human behaviour is so warped and UGLY sometimes.

Still, it was a glorious day to be at the beach, Sculpture by the Sea, an annual art installation project happening around the coastal walk, was on too. But coz it was the last day of the project, it was manically packed. I only ventured far enough to see the first few sculptures then decided to head back. I hate being in a crowd.





Bondi Beach is sooooo pretty. Packed, but pretty. No wonder people make such a fuss about it.

Sharath Is Coming To Town!

You could almost read that title as "Santa is coming to town!"

Well, that's what it feels like for us Ashtangis in Sydney anyways.

Photo credit here

He's doing a week in Bali from 19th Oct, and then moves here for a 2-week workshop from 27th Oct - 8th Nov. That's 6 - 8am, 6 days a week for those 2 weeks. I've signed up for the full 2 weeks of led Primary (in the second week, he's doing led Intermediate too, right after the Primary class). Our shala's organizing the Bali workshop as well, so lots of hardcore regulars will be doing the full 3 weeks in both Bali & Sydney. (it kinda makes me feel a bit less mad/ jittery for signing up for the full 2 weeks here... the fact that there are people who'll be doing all 3 weeks in 2 different countries!)

Got my pass last week, YEEHAR! It has started building up the excitement/ anticipation now. Short of going to Mysore, India, to practice at the hallowed KPJAYI with him (one day soon, this will happen!), this is the next best thing. A twittershala mate who did his 2-week NY workshop called it "Rangaswamy's House of Pain". Heh.


You can feel the buzz in the shala starting already. This morning, apart from us regulars, a lot of new faces popped up to practice. I thought it was coz it was Sunday morning, and the weather's starting to get nicer (y'know, just like how people start heading to the gym to work on their "summer body"). But a friend rightly pointed out that people are probably gearing up for his trip here.

We are usually pretty packed, 5 in a row with about 2 inches between mats, but this morning we had to squeeze SIX mats in a row. There was literally 1cm between each mat. (Teacher said "just like the good old days in India")

I was right next to the wall and crashed into it while rolling around in Garbha Pindasana, and my kind neighbour was hanging out in Downdog while waiting for me to finish rolling over her mat, underneath her! How could you not crack up at that! There were so many people, everything was steaming up inside the shala from the collective heat-generation. Even the walls were dripping with sweat/ condensation! Yeah, sounds kinda gross, but it was lovely feeding off the group energy.

To top it all off, an added bonus to this morning's practice: a live kirtan singer with his harmonium was singing as we practiced. It really helped to turn your focus inwards, especially in such a jam-packed situation. I took a picture from a few Sundays ago, when he was also playing.


It is pure magic to practice with live kirtan... it's like you're being held throughout the practice and all the chatter in your mind really comes to a place of stillness. At some points I found I even lost count of how many breaths I'd already taken coz I was just lost in the soothing dulcet tones of the music and his voice!

Ah, blissful Sunday. I am grateful.

Randomness

I meant to upload these photos a couple weeks back, but didn't get round to it till now... Kelly was away in Auckland on a shoot (and visiting his mom at the same time!), so I did a little city walkabout on my own.

Of course I ended up buying something! Check out my new biker boots.


When I took them off at home, I realized how much I love my boots...

(Plus, I'm seriously considering getting those ugly Ugg boots. They look so nice and toasty!)

The Sydney Winter Festival was on, so I thought I'd go check it out. They basically used the empty courtyard space in front of St. Mary's Cathedral, and turned it into a "winter wonderland". Well, considering it was 18 degress celsius at the time, there was absolutely nothing wintry about it.


...not even down to the non-indigenous pine trees with FAKE snow in them. Yes folks, they stuffed cotton wool on the pine trees!


The major attraction there was an ice-skating rink. People had to book their spots in advance to confirm a 1/2 hour joy ride, but I was disappointed when I turned up to see that the entire rink was probably about half the size of a tennis court. (no wonder they had to make bookings!)



The cutest thing was they also had "snow" in the area around the skating rink - of course it was also all fake, made by this snow machine.



That pointy black bit on the end of the machine starts filling up with white fluffy-looking things (goodness knows what they make it out of), and there's an industrial fan behind the pointy bit that blows off the white fluff. If you look on the top left corner of the bigger picture, you can see the white fluff being blown off against the green trees.

It was the most bizarre experience. I was starting to sweat in my winter coat, surrounded by so many people in not-cold-at-all weather, with fake snow and fake ice all around me. Hahaha! Suffice to say I didn't last more than 5 minutes there. The rest of the "festival" consisted of food stands, which I passed on.

Decided to take a walk through Hyde Park instead, and it was a really gorgeous day.