Himalayan Happenings: Birthday!

This past week we celebrated our joint birthday! We enjoy having the same birthday and Ramon says he married me because it's easy to remember my birthday! It fell on Wednesday, which is our "town day" when we go to Kathmandu. Before we left we were called to the Operating Room where we were given a gift (nice picture frame), card, and flowers by the OR staff. It was really nice!

Ramon told them it was fun to turn 25!

As we drove into Kathmandu, we again were treated with the beautiful sight of the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas! This was my second time (remember The Red Letter Day post?) and it definitely is a sight you never tire of!

(Double click to enlarge if you want.)

Nepal is in the middle of a two week festival (I'll tell about it soon) so it's slightly more crowded than usual when you're out and about.

Goats are in evidence everywhere as people are buying them to sacrifice.

I tend to think that this one is a family pet by the way he was (literally) knocking on the door.

Anyway, when we got to Kathmandu, we first went to the bakery like we usually do. Yum!

Here is the other side of the street, where you can see a usual site.

Then we headed to Bhat Bhatini, a grocery/department store. It's the kind of place that my dad would have said this about: "If they don't have it, you don't need it." Sometimes we see things that are new to us--at least I haven't seen these flavors before:

Actually, here is what we bought:

Although we are liking Yak cheese, it was REALLY nice to find these!!!!!!

Then we headed to Thamel, the tourist haven. It's a fun place to walk around.

Lunch was in a nice restaurant with our friends who also had "town day."

After lunch we parted ways with the others and went here:

the Crowne Plaza Hotel, where we ate lunch few weeks ago. We liked it so much we decided to spend the night for our birthday and go home the next morning with one of the doctors who lives in Kathmandu and travels to Banepa every morning.

Here's where we ate dinner--and yes, it really was good!

They brought us a cake at the end of our meal, and also brought us one to our room!

(I need to get Ramon's memory card for another picture.

He takes more time than I do so his pictures are a little better!

But for now, this will do!)

The happiest part of our birthday was actually when we turned on the TV and discovered that the Chilean miners' rescue was under way!!! We got to see quite a few come to the surface that night, and we woke up just in time to see the last two come up!!! Boy, what good news and we wish them all the best! (We found out that the Bibles sent down to them were from our church! Ps. 40 had been highlighted, and all the families received Bibles too.)

To round off our birthday celebration, we had a Food and Game Night on Saturday evening when we also celebrated Elena's (one of our volunteers) birthday, which was Sunday.