Deepavali

This last week was full of blog worthy experiences!  First of all, our anniversary was very relaxing and thank you to everyone who wished us well.  Trip wrote such a nice blog post and he really went out of his way to make sure it was a good day for me.  I am so lucky to be married to such a sweet man.


Over the weekend we had the opportunity to experience an Indian (Hindu) holiday that is similar to Christmas for Christians.  It is called Diwali in India, Deepavali in Malaysia, but it all means the same thing: The Festival of Lights.  They believe that Deepavali is a time of renewal, a time to let light in and push darkness out.  It is symbolic of how good triumphs over evil and it is a time to get together with family, eat food and enjoy each other's company.  We were lucky enough to get invited to join in celebrating with a coworker.  It was really fun to go to their house and learn about their traditions, and the food was excellent.  The people here are very social and they made sure that everybody had someone to talk to.  There was one couple sitting alone and Trip, Shanti (the woman we were talking to at the time) and I were asked by the hostess to please sit with them so they would be included.  I was so impressed by that!  If only we all thought that way a little bit more...just think how enriched our lives would be.

This is made out of colored sand and it is Buddhist Monk art...so pretty!

Trip helping the ladies in his office create their own 'Buddhist Monk art' for Deepavali.

Anyway, it was a great experience and I learned a lot.  The rest of the weekend was dedicated to cleaning the apartment, swimming in our awesome pool and catching up on some much needed R&R.  We are settling in and adjusting to our surroundings, and I must say that we are enjoying our simple little life out here.  It hasn't all been easy, but it has certainly been a good experience and we are looking forward to the rest of it.