second birthday spent in nepal

my birthday was spent:
trying to sit under the bodhi tree to get enlightened!! and then rubbing Buddha Maitreya tummy in hope to find some sponsors for this 6 year course..... flera and i, 2 poor thangka students. we walked up to the surrounding hills to get away from the boudha crowd. and our favourite place has to be pullahari monastery, to look at the best wall painting in kathmandu. this is where we find most inspiration and peace.... slowly slowly.... we hope to become good thangka artists to help pass down the karma gadri style of thangka painting. in the evening, we walked back to boudha back to the big stupa just in time to join in the tibetan crowd for the daily kora. we did 7 rounds today and offered 3 butter lamps each. look! there are mandalas everywhere. the buddhas and bodhisattvas are all around us. it happened to be dakini day on my birthday this year. so many people are doing light offering. and this is my big special birthday cake. haha.. no i am kidding. this is shechen monastery all lighted up.
last oct was my first trip to the thangka school. its been a year since i know all my school mates. cant believe it! and every of my trip, i am so lucky to have the company of a lovely friend, first trip was marieke from netherlands. second was kim from hong kong, third was hazel also from hong kong and this trip is flera from latvia. all my thangka buddies whom that i love dearly. life is amazing.