Around the World: Copenhagen!

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Originally uploaded by Avant Game.

I'm blogging from my Toki-Doki room in Hotel Fox in Copenhagen. Each hotel room is designed and decorated by a different artist, and I am thrilled to be sleeping under the watchful eye of Toki-Doki characters. Both my twin sister Kelly and my good friend Natalie carry stylish Toki-Doki handbags, which I could only afford if I weren't traveling around the world staying in fashionable Toki-Doki hotel rooms. However my Natalie had this to say about my email description of the room, which I think is lovely and made made feel all warm and happy: "It is like you are living in a toki doki purse, you and Kiyash have been shrunken down and some young hip girl is carrying you around Copenhagen." I felt much less stressed working on my powerpoint slides for my two talks here this week thinking about being carried around in a hip young girl's handbag! I love it!

Speaking of love... Kiyash and I have much, much love for Copenhagen. Kiyash, in fact, keeps saying "I LOVE Copenhagen!" Like, every 5 minutes. Literally. We are gorging on the crisp winter air, Scandinavian food and design culture.

Last night's meal included Elderberry cocktails, had lunch at the famous Bleu restaruant in Sankt Petri, we went to my favorite bakery in the world today for Sportskage, Alderkage and Rubensteinkage at La Glace, and we had nice mugs of Glogg with gingerbread as our happy hour in the central square. And that's not even 24 hours in Copenhagen! Woo! We are so happy to be here, India was an adventure of a lifetime, but also trying and exhausting. Copenhagen is pure pleasure!

If you are in the area, come to NEXT at ITU on Friday, and ping me if you want to play Werewolf here in Copenhagen!

4 Indian Wedding ceremonies down, 1 to go!

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Originally uploaded by Avant Game.

The Indian wedding ceremonies have been beautiful and spectacular. The groom rode an elephant, his two brothers on Arabian horses, the father and mother of the groom on camels... the main ceremony was on a palace floating in the middle of a lake in Udaipur... hundreds of photos from the four days of ceremonies are here in a Flickr set
Kiyash and I are taking a day off from festivities in Delhi to relax, recover (it's hard not to get a little sick traveling around India), prep some notes for my talks in Copenhagen next week, and watch some Bollywood movies in our hotel room hopefully! Tomorrow is the big reception and Sunday we go to the Taj Mahal...

Citizen Cows in Delhi

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Originally uploaded by Avant Game.

Delhi is too crazy to write a blog post worthy of the (mis)adventures we are having! Also sadly I am not taking nearly enough photos, it is so chaotic preparing for the Indian wedding (the amount of shopping required for our many different outfits for the 5 days' worth of wedding activities is insane) and avoiding being hit by random cabs that photos are not happening alas. However I wanted to say one thing: The fact that cows wander around freely like citizens is so unbelievable cool. As a vegetarian (for over 10 years now) there is something so happy about seeing cows walk around with dignity, not like "cattle" but like individual creatures each. I've never seen a cow with so much dignity before and I love it. The rest of Delhi is a little hard and crazy but we are adjusting. More soon!

Hong Kong Day Five: Buddhist yum yum

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Originally uploaded by Avant Game.

Kiyash and I visit the brand new Nan Lian Garden, a public park designed in the Tang Dynasty-style, that officially opened for the first time yesterday. It's beautiful, if a bit restricted in terms of activity and interactivity...

We have a Buddhist vegetarian feast at a restaurant that has just opened inside the park. It is a wordless transaction--we sit, and they bring us plate after plate of food, with no description of what any of it is. It is brilliant and delicious and by far the best meal we have enjoyed in Hong Kong!

We visit a nunnery and learn more about Buddhism, which I have to admit, I love for what strikes me as its fundamental parallels with existentialism (my own philosophy/religion of choice -- What Would Sisyphus Do? and all that).

Then we do a bit of shopping in a mall that feels like a theme park. As we take the train all over the city, we are reminded how much we love the MRT!

While I stayed in the hotel to finish up my research article for the MacArthur Foundation (all about collective intelligence gaming), Kiyash did our laundry. I love my husband!

Tonight, we're off to Art Jamming, an all-you-can paint party that is a bit of an institution here. According to the website: "Whether you are solo, or bring friends and family, artjamming has a way of opening up your imagination and pushing aside your inhibitions. Artjamming makes creativity contagious.The price of artjamming includes a canvas for each jammer, a buffet of unlimited acrylic paints, and the use of aprons, brushes, sponges and spatulas. Juices, teas, coffees and mineral water are complimentary for all in-house artjammers. .... Housed in a pre-war building, people from just-about-everywhere come here for a healthy dose of artjamming. There are 2 floors of artjamming; both have high ceilings with great acoustics. The music played rouses inspiration; a cool weave of acid jazz, funk and chill-out bounces off the ceiling joists into your imagination." They call themselves "the pioneers of paintertainment." How can you not love that?

Lucky Timber City! I win! I win!

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Originally uploaded by Avant Game.

Off to the races we go last night... Wednesday is the big night for horse races in Hong Kong, and who am I to miss out on mass live entertainment? At the Sha Tin race track, Kiyash and I each bet 20 Hong Kong Dollars on each of five races. In race #1, I bet on horse #6, the super-underdog Timber City, to place. My horse comes in second! I win! I win! It's the biggest payoff odds of any win the entire night (there are eight races total) I make more than six times my bet back, and it feels great to cash in my winning ticket for $132. However we both lose all the rest of the races all night, so collectively we're down $68, or about $10 USD. That's okay... it was a really beautiful night, watching the horses race in the drizzly cool fresh air, eating turnip cakes and drinking coke light from the food kiosk.