14feb - losar, chinese new year and valentines day!

i went to kim's house to do our make up and hair (as if there is much to do) haha.. the main reason is for her to teach me how to wear a chuba. mm.. its not difficult but it does take a little practise. we were quite late, hehe... rinpoches are having lunch so we went to school to give presents to our principal, konchog la first. you girls like my choice of chuba? warm grey with pink. kim made the right choice for me. i am so happy with my chuba! our classmates are all staring at us (drooling haha) when we walked in. haha they had never seen us in chubas. we feel like tibetan princesses. haha.. close up of our chubas. this is with tenzin oser, head of teachers. whats angbabu's hand doing at my neck? haha... joking. he is our good friend and a very sweet and helpful monk. then we went for lunch and then went to rinpoche's house to get his blessing. then we went off to our schoolmate, chimme's house for a visit and to see his dogs.
his dogs really love him! haha..
after that, i was totally exhausted. we went back to take a shower and a short rest. then off for dinner. kim gave a farewell and thank you dinner to principal and some graduating monks at hyatt. i changed to my other chuba. green one. this one is more plain. no embroidery. i love it too! i love wearing a chuba. i feel so much like a lady. haha... monks love cameras! haha.. they are pretending to be serious here. phuntsok and kunga 'chicken'. they are constantly joking. i love being with them.
i gave kunga this nickname as he is actually one of the dancers with the bird mask during the lama dance in monastery last week. and also becos i know 3 'kunga's (kunga chicken, kunga big eyes and kunga 007), about 8 'tenzin's i think, and 5 'tashi's, 3 'chimme's, another 4 or 5 'sonam's, 3 'pema's, 2 'dechen's, tibetans have very common names. therefore almost every one has a nickname. haha every morning when attendance is called, we have sonamA, sonamB, sonamC. and also most names are unisex. girls and boys can be tenzins. they do not follow a family surname. they have 2 names, therefore usually the second names will tell you if they are a boy tenzin or girl tenzin. if you see tenzin dolma, tenzin lhamo or tenzin khandro (the second name often refering to some female deity names or meaning goddess) then you know its a girl.
ah this photo above tells me that i put on weight! haha my face is so round here. hey to my dearest friends (especially to rachel) in hk, who asked me if i put on weight earlier, i think you girls are right. haha.. i can see it for myself now. kim also in green, green inside and black outside. what a lovely day.