I’m BACK!

After a mentally busy and challenging month between attending workshops and pimping myself out there as a yoga teacher, and dealing with the challenges of moving to a new country and away from friends and family, I really needed the Easter long weekend badly…  I needed some time away from yoga actually.  When you go all in to teach yoga full time, it consumes your life.  You eat, breathe, sleep yoga.

It’s ironic that it can become too much, but then again, yoga is all about balance, so all yoga and no play can make Karen a dull girl.  So it was time to get away and feel alive.  And as always, wonderful times means happy list time!

• Road trip!  I love road trips, even if it means driving on my own from Melbourne to Canberra (8 hours on the road), and driving all the way back on my own (almost 10 hours on the road due to some Easter holiday traffic).  I was blessed with good weather the whole time, with a slight bit of rain on the way back which washed away the dirt on my windscreen!

good weather the WHOLE WAY

• Being safe and protected on my first road trip in Australia on my own.  No kangaroos jumping out of nowhere.  No car trouble.  Chanted a few Om Trayambakam for old times sake (a chant we use to do everyday at the ashram where I did my teacher training, suppose to be good for protection before a journey).
• Spending the best Easter weekend with my bestie/sister-from-another-mother, drinking, eating, gossiping til late at night in bed.
• Wine and Cheese movie night.  Awesome.

• Going to the movies with my bestie.  We use to go to movies all the time when we were still studying in South Africa.  Now everyone is scattered all over the globe.  We watched the Hunger Games to see what all the hype was about.  Cinematically a good movie, but oh so twisted…

• Visiting Murrumbateman wine farms and coming home with a lot of yummy wine and dessert wine…  I want some dessert wine now…

• Climbing Mount Kosciuszko.  We took a chairlift to go up most of the way, then hiked up another 6.5km.  Despite being terribly cold as we weren’t dressed appropriately for the place, the view was magnificent.  Totally worth it.

• Laksa duck after being half frozen to death once we got off the mountain.  So yummy.  I want me some laksa now…
• Free coffee on the freeway on my way back to Melbourne!  How cool is that!  Gave me a chance to get out, get some coffee, do some roadside yoga~

And then some road trip unrelated recent happy items

• Attending my teacher Kausthub Desikachar’s workshop on the Yoga Sutras, then getting a copy of his new book The Heart of Asana and signed by the man himself!  Yay!

• My kids yoga class – I wasn’t sure whether I would enjoy it when I first started, but these kids are growing on me, and they really enjoy the yoga!

• Cold Melbourne weather which means I can wear my Hunter boots!!!  Love this colour but sometimes still wished I got the red pair so I can look like Paddington bear hahaha…

• Meeting up with a friend who I haven’t seen for almost 2 years.  Never expected we would be meeting again in Melbourne!
• Having brunch in Melbourne laneways

• Getting a hair cut.  It’s been 6 months or more since my last one.  Oh how good it feels to have someone wash your hair.

Lastly, coming back from my Easter trip and getting not one but, TWO, blogger awards!  Totally unexpected and totally awesome!  So expect more blog post in the next few days!

P.S. Two more days til weekend again!  Woohoo~~~