moody window UD

wow! i'm moody today. the culprits: insufficient yoga practice and eating a piece of chocolate cake and a small chocolate bar - all before 9:30am. it is a colleague's birthday and someone brought cake. more yoga practice for me tomorrow.

here are some early morning views from the window in the closet. the pile-driving from the construction site starts at 6:30am every morning, including Sundays. it's a good thing one gets up early for yoga. i like the clean contemporary architecture. i like the gardens as well. they are as structured as the architecture. maybe it's a fashion in landscape architecture.

it's true, i haven't come up to standing from UD yet. here is a baby back practice at the wall today.

ganda B. day

i'm doing Ganda Bherundasana today in honor of Boodi. happy April Fools day. photo is from the flickr page of anakrousis.

i do plan to visit Tibet some time, on the other side of Nepal, pictured here. from the flickr page of Eric Lon, who also has yoga pictures in the sand dunes. i should strike the Urdvha Danurasana pose, like Eric did, below. it's a great pose to do in front of a great view.

brushing inverted gurgly

another practice of half of primary this morning, from the Janus Sirsasanas onward. i have to find more time for yoga. this morning i thought i would multi-task during practice by brushing my teeth with the electric toothbrush while doing thoracic chest openings by hanging upside down from the bed. don't try that at home. it was not a good idea. one thing is to do tree pose while brushing your teeth. inverted, what happened was that the minty goo of the toothpaste coated the upper part of my throat, giving me a fake feeling of a cold. i started coughing to try to eliminate it. so i went to the kitchen and ate some yogurt to coat that part of the throat. i was able to return to practice, but was slightly gurgly. work today was fun; actually it's fun every day.

a saintly person in this community smokes. are there smoking yogis? there probably are. it's kind of a contrast between what is good for you and what is not. maybe 500 years from now they'll look back at civilization of this era and regard smoking as we regard lead poisoning during the middle ages from the use of silverware made from lead. people realized they were poisoning themselves. but it took time for humanity to change its habits in a better direction. something like that.

sunny Sunday in the community

it was sunny on Sunday afternoon when i went for a walk around the community.

from the kitchen window you could see Pudong and the Bundt in the distance.

an activity building

the building that houses the bank, across the highway, in an export processing zone

glass canopies in buildings are all the rage here.

the metal panel in the upper portion of the wall is not weathering too well.

they must invent things at that company.

part of the complex, across the bank

triangmukka 70 cents

i practiced half of Primary with good intent. the meditation discussion on Saturday had the effect of reminding me that although when i do asana practice i am not sitting quietly meditating, it is still a form of moving meditation. just as in quiet meditation we focus the eyesight, pay attention to the breath, observe good posture and quiet the mind, in asana practice we focus on the dristhe, pay attention to the breath and quiet the mind. these things helped me to stay focused in practice this morning. here is my triangmukkha ekapada paschimottanasana.

i went to the bank across the highway at lunch today to get help in re-setting the password access to my ATM card and Internet banking access. the pictures of the bank location are in another post. the bank teller spoke good English. for resetting the passwords, my passport had to be copied, two pages filled in triplicate, each page stamped with a big red seal, and each page stamped twice with a rectangular small seal at particular entry locations. this was all done with calm and collection by the teller, with the participation of a supervisor who had to be called in twice to authorize each procedure. i was then able to check my balance in the ATM in the hall, the 5 RMB or 70 cents that i placed in the account to open it.

yoga architecture

yoga deva studio in Gilbert, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. here's the article.

ashtangi's don't need the mirrors, but whatever. we should ask Kino, Tim and Greg to publish photos of Miami Life Center, which is beautiful. in SF, there are beautiful studios as well. Yoga Studio SF, which is now part of Santa Monica based YW, is posh. not that we need the posh surroundings to practice. but it's not bad to ride a flying carpet once in a while.

forbidden city snapshots

around Tienanmen Square and Forbidden City last Sunday. i would have taken more pictures, but the battery on the camera was conking out and the replacement one was out of juice.

now, for some postcards... i don't have a scanner in the apartment, so these are photographed outside in the patio.

forward stone cookie

i didn't go to yoga, but i finished my tax calculations. what a r-o-l-a-i-d. sign directing you to the metro service desk; i'm forwarding it to you building clad in stone, located outside the metro stop on the west side

a building famous for its facade

the community where the meditation teacher lives

one of the many Carrefours in town. i stumbled upon it. i vied for space in the aisles, pushing one of those mini carts. i forgot that you have to weigh and label things at stations, so i had to leave behind a cookie! there is suffering.

(note: i'm still not done posting last weekend's pictures of the capital because they take a long time to edit, so i will be posting more this week.)