Pettah -aphile

Ha ha,a very funny title if you've been there.  Pettah is the beehive of activity that is Colombo's retail and wholesale market.  It is really quite incredible and dare I say it...a bit daunting to go into.  Everyone tells me it's not safe for young women but, that I should be okay!  Ouch!  

9 day shitters

The area of the market that I was mostly concerned with is the textile and notions area.  You see I've decided to try and do a pop up store for yoga products.  There is nothing here other than nasty, crappy bags or the ones with corporate logos.  I have some great bag designs so I thought I'd put them out there.  Also I've have this pair of um...how shall I say?...nine day shitters that are the most comfortable and cool yoga pants I've ever had.  I always get lots of compliments on them so why not offer them up too?  But the funniest and most amusing thing I created, were the eye bags.  I always find yoga products to be so serious, either in design or intent so I made these bags with things appliqued on them. Each one will have a story attached.  (A shout out to the Torrington Gopher Museum for that idea!) So, for example, the eye bag with the x-ray vision glasses (remember those?) will have a story about using these to help you check out your chakras or maybe the ones of the cute yogini next to you.  Stuff like that.

However, I need to do other stuff like printing business cards.  Getting stuff done online here is a bit dubious so this coming week I'm down to the printers.  It will be a pretty simple design, I am just ruminating on what exactly to say on it.

So I went over to The Good Market today to meet with this young couple (www.thebludge.com) who have a stall.   They are thinking about doing a kind of cooperative for single edition items.  They looked at my stuff and seemed to be okay with it.  But as I had done no pricing, no nothing there wasn't much more to be said.  However I'm back there at 4pm today to do a yoga class outside, should be fun!

The class was fun but small...just 2 people but we had a big audience for sure!  Plus I had managed to put my mat down on the ant trail to the rubbish, we had dogs wandering in and out and helpful suggestions from the crowd!  Who said yoga's boring?

Speaking of yoga I also managed to pick up some extra class at the local studio.  It was fun but it's hard work teaching more than once a day. In Sivananda the teacher isn't supposed to be "doing the class", they are giving the class.  However these students for the most part,  are newbies so I had to demonstrate most of the moves.   I downdogged like a demon!  The lovely lass who runs the studio is also interested in seeing my designs.  This might actually work out better than The Good Market.

The whole family is planning to leave Sri Lanka this month for divergent vacations.  N and his dad are off to Beijing for 5 or 6 days.  G is thinking Forbidden City, N is thinking Gucci and Chanel!  M and I are off to Singapore.  M is such a jetsetter!  He is meeting up with a friend of his one day and they will hang out.  I am doing a full medical and can hopefully coordinate it so it is on that day.  Museum Nerd that I am, I am looking forward to the National Museum and then this design museum called "Red Dot".  There isn't much I want to buy except for books,mags and go to a movie.  We'll be home soon enough for other stuff though if a pair of shoes doth call my name....!

My ghetto crocs!

On the home front things have cooled down quite a bit.  Don't know if that's a good sign but it definitely has made life much more pleasant.  I am still anxious about the summer but I've done a lot of reflection and perhaps I'm the change I need to see.  Sucks 'cuz I always feel like I have to change but then it's always better to be flexible.