The Grass is Always Greener or How the Other Half Lives

When we lived in Montevideo we really liked our apartment, it was just the right size and close to work. It wasn't until we had visited some other apartments did we realize that the company provided much nice apartments, we just didn't get one. Neither one of us would consider complaining or mumbling under or breaths given that it's all provided for free.

Next stop Sri Lanka.

So here we have this big apartment, larger than our brick home in Virginia Beach. It has it's quirks (Maybe I will blog about that), but it's just the right size and close to work.

Well our rooftop swimming pool has been less than cared for lately to the point that we just avoid using it. And although our fitness room tries to be a fitness room, it's doesn't have enough equipment and it is tight on space.

A coworker told us we should come and visit her pool, it's large and in the full sun (Ours is covered with this strange architectural thing). So we walked over and into this big lobby and found the elevators, We pushed the button for the floor with the pool but the elevator wouldn't go up. Two security guards get in the elevator and place a swipe card by a reader and he pushes a button to a floor, we follow suit.

When we make it to the floor with the pool we can't believe our eyes, it's a big lap pool, a big clean lap pool complete with attached kiddie pool and jacuzzi as well as a padded running track, outdoor showers and a covered playground. After enjoying the pool and lounging around we toured the rest of the facilities to include a very large and very modern fitness center with lots of equipment, a locker room and what I didn't see was that they also have a sauna and game room. Did I mention they have a man there to provide you with towels?

We walked up a floor and there they have a restaurant with great views. A look at the men found a nice selection and extremely reasonable prices.

To me it would be worth moving there if just for the pool and fitness center! That and I wouldn't have to cross the street to go the food court anymore, LOL! Can we mover over there? Who knows. You'll read about it here.

Perahera Festival Colombo 2010 - Another Elephant

This is another typical scene from the festival, lots of elephants dressed up in these big Elvis capes!
View more of these videos at my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/njaneardude

Perahera Festival Colombo 2010

Here comes the main elephant carrying the special tooth in its special carrier. There is a truck that is following providing power for the lights. There are men collecting the white cloth you see and laying it down for the elephant to walk on.
What you don't see are that its (And every other elephant in the festival) has their hind legs chained together, lest they try to take off.

You put the lime in the coconut

One of the many local food treats we get to enjoy is coconuts. Now where you are probably picturing the classic round brown coconut with thick white meat we get the coconuts before they reach this point, called a king coconut here. They are for sale everywhere, around $.18 each, sold in bunches. They are heavy. Our faithful trishaw driver brought us some yesterday and the bunch of around 9 coconuts must have weighed almost 100 pounds! They are also difficult to open, without the correct tool, that being a machete'. Chris makes good use of her sharper kitchen knives to slice them open, then usually banging them against the patio to split them and get to the meat.

The coconut water is very refreshing, you can Google the many medicinal uses for it. We enjoy drinking one after a workout. A nice treat is to pour the water into a container then put it in the refrigerator to cool.

After drinking the water we split the coconut and spoon out the meat, very delicious.

We also buy virgin coconut oil and Chris makes good use of this in pretty much all of her cooking, the flavor infuses itself into whatever you are cooking, wonderful. Great with salads as well. You can also take it for health reasons.

I'll take a picture of the oil we purchase and post it soon.