Articles, Restaurants, and Happy New Year 2068

So the other day I was in the paper. The Kantipur Saturday edition is having a weekly article that gives an expats view of Nepal. Dinesh Wagle, who maintains a good blog over at Wagle Street Journal, interviewed me a few days before the article and translated it to me over the phone before it went to print. Since I can't read Nepali to save my life, I still have no clue how the article reads, and the only two words I can discern are harilo.com and smith-kathmandu.blogspot.com. Still I haven't received any hate mail, so it can't be too bad and I have had a couple people stop by the blog and give me a call as a result of the article.

I'm the article in the top left.

Some of the calls, and e-mails I received were about the fact that I'd like to do an American style restaurant. Apparently there are more than a few people looking for this, but the trouble with partnering is the compromises. I'm not really interested in Nepali food, as I'm not very good at making it, and there are a hundred places in this city already doing it. I'm also not interested really in a place that specifically targets tourists, as that demographic is very seasonal and largely are looking to experience "local" food, although 90% of them returning from a trek are very much craving food reminiscent of home. I've also mentioned it at the market a few times and have a few people showing me places in the Lazimpat and Baluwatar areas. Not sure where all of this is going, but it could be interesting.

Somewhat  unrelated, we celebrated four different holidays in a single week this last week. Nepal celebrates more holidays tan you can shake a stick at, but the big one for this week was Nepali New Year, celebrating the year 2068. So happy new year to everyone in Nepal, even if it's a little late. We had Losar earlier, which is celebrated by the Tibetan, and related peoples in February, and we'll have another new year celebration in the fall some time, followed finally by the western calendar which celebrates it in January. That's four times celebrating the new year, each year! The holiday schedule winds down a bit for the upcoming months until we hit August and everything picks right back up. By the time Fall rolls around we celebrate more holidays than days without holidays it seems. such is the pace of life here though, and may it be a good 2068.