A piece of cake

Dear Readers,

You would think making a cake from a cake mix would turn out the same no matter where you are in the world, right? Wrong.  So dad comes home from work and he’s talking about how he has this cake mix and frosting, and we’re all so excited. American tasting chocolate cake! Well, not only did we not have the proper thing to bake it in, but we also put water in instead of milk. Who puts milk in cake mix though?! Besides, the milk here tastes weird (probably because it comes from a box and has a shelf life of about 4 months…) so we chose water instead.  After dad baked the cake and took out of the oven, he was still pretty excited…even though it looked a little bit like a chocolate pancake. He frosted it and posed for a picture with his little cake:

We ate it anyway, because flat or not, why waste chocolate cake? And it was pretty good. It wasn’t great, but then again nothing we’ve eaten here has been GREAT. But chocolate cake is chocolate cake. Here’s a close up of dad’s flat cake:

With all my heart, Kayla



Claytopia

Dear Readers,

While here in India for the past almost month, we've been staying in a hotel. And as you can probably guess that gets a little old after a while. So mom, being the amazing and clever mom that she is, has been trying to keep us all occupied with fun and exciting things to do. Which i would say she has been very successful at, as there haven't been any emotional breakdowns or fits yet... So on one of the normal hotel days, mom decided to try out a pottery place that she read about in her book about places to go in Bangalore. We told our driver where to go, and he took us to the address, but turns out the place wasn't there anymore. Either they moved locations, or went out of business, or who knows what, but they weren't there. So we went back to the hotel to go swimming (or tanning in my case, because the water was cold). But the next day we decided to try a different pottery place...and were successful. We pulled up to this cute little shop:

when we walked in, we were told to pick out a pot, or a plate or whatever we wanted and then we were to pick 4 colors. I picked out a vase, and chose blue, green, purple, and red. Collin chose a plate, Nathan chose a frog mug, Ben chose an elephant piggy bank, and mom chose a spoon holder for the stove. When we were all finished painting, the lady told us that we would get them back in 2 weeks, because they needed to glaze them and fire them for us. It was so fun! Here's the vase i painted:

They also had all of these beautifully painted plates hanging on the walls:





Cute boys alert ..

Dear Readers,

So today while at lunch with mom and Samta, mom was taking a video of me eating my fries (i think she thought it was on picture mode but then decided to keep it on..) and all of a sudden, a group of really cute guys walk behind me so she starts filming them and then....well you'll see what happens.

With all my heart, Kayla

Kenko Fish Spa

Dear Readers,

Have you ever been in a lake or the ocean and stood completely still, and had little fish come around your legs and nibble on you? If yes, then you'll have a slight idea of what the fish spa is like. So today, mom and i went shopping with one of the ladies i met at dad's work. Her name is Samta. She took us to Garuda mall and after we were done shopping, she asked us if we wanted to try the fish spa. She and some other ladies from dad's work had done it earlier and she said we should try it. We get up to the top floor where the fish spa is and we walk in and it smelled absolutely divine. We had to decide between 20 minutes, or 30 minutes, and we decided to go with a safe 20 minutes since it was our first time. The little lady took us to the other room and we walked in and there were about 5 large fish tanks on the ground. She told us to sit down and she washed our feet, and then she led us to one of the tanks. There were seats on the side of the tank (it was all very proffessional looking). So we sit down and put our feet in. Immediately hundreds of little fish swarmed up to our feet and start nibbling on them! It was so surprising that mom yanked her feet out of the tank but i just started laughing because it tickled so much! It was quite the experience. This picture isn't actually of my feet, but it gives you a little idea of what it was like.

With all my heart, Kayla



Hard Rock Cafe Bangaluru

Dear Readers,

When i found out there was a Hard Rock Cafe here, you wouldn't believe how excited i was. Burgers, fries, onion rings, malts...american food. So we told our driver that we wanted to go and when we got there, i was expecting the big guitar out front, but no. I was slightly disappointed. But when we got inside and smelled the delicious food, i was totally alright without the classic guitar out front. We went in the store to buy some t-shirts, because you can't go to a Hard Rock Cafe in India and not buy a t-shirt! It was so cool! Then it was time for us to be seated, and they gave us some menus. All the food sounded amazing and the music blasting in the background, it felt for a little while that i wasn't in India. We ordered burgers and waited for a bit and listened to the music and when our food came, i felt like i literally inhaled it. I hadn't realized how much i had been craving some good american food. It tasted amazing! I was quite impressed, and we'll definitely have to go back :)

With all my heart, Kayla