I have climbed Mt. Everest! Sort of...

So the conference I am attending in Kathmandu, Nepal is on disarmament and shared security, aka the eradication of conventional and nuclear weapons, and the shifting of global government military expenditures to other areas such as health, education, etc. It was... nice. Vague but nice. I've attended a United Nations conference before and they were both very similar. Vague. Wordy. All talk, little action. But then again, that's what conferences are. Lots of dialogue. I did have the opportunity to meet new and interesting people from around the world. But what was most astonishing and impressive was the conference's ability to bring many world religions into one room. There were christians, muslims, jews, catholics, buddhists, hinduists, and others. It was all peace and no conflict - awesome! Oh, and we got to meet the first elected president of Nepal - legendary!

Anyway, my welcome blog picture (above) has been changed to a general view of the city of Kathmandu. Beautiful. I cant stop expressing how beautiful this place and these people are. Sigh... I wish I was born a Nepali. They have no worries or stress written on their faces. Now some pictures to show Nepal...



Oh! An interesting thing to note about their culture is that it is very normal for men to hold hands but a woman and a man showing public affection, even holding hands, is frowned upon. Interesting? I didnt take pictures because I felt awkward so I just dug up an internet picture by googling "nepalese men holding hands"... lol


The food hear is wonderful too; I could eat this stuff everyday. I thought I was coming to India and Nepal to lose weight but it seems like the opposite. The conference took us out to eat last night at this very traditional place where all the utensils were bronze and there were dancing performances and stuff. It was a lot of fun. I tried their local beer called Everest (hence the climbing Mt. Everest joke) which was pretty good. The thing the guy is pouring is rice wine. And boy was it not wine, it was like... whiskey. Strong and totally warms the stomach. The food was phenomenal and spicy and the dancers were beautiful.



Today, I bought a scarf. Like those hip hop Palistinian scarves. It cost 175 Nepalese rupees. Or the equivalent of 2.35 US dollars. You do the math. Ridiculously cheap... as is everything else here. And in India too... Awesome! Maybe I should buy like a thousand and bring them back to sell at Urban Outfitter prices ($20-25?)


Scarf purchase = win

Ok tomorrow, I hope to visit Boudhanath stupa before I leave Nepal for hot hot India again... hopefully I wont get pickpocketed... (crossing fingers (or joining palms here)) Once I'm back in India, I dont know when I'll have internet again so I guess just patiently await the next post. Til next time...