Life in Katmandu

Because of a lack of internet time, please excuse my misuse of the English language...
We have gotten more adventurous with where we are eating to save money...new favorite meal--fly chowmein! Havnt gotten sick yet--but the stomachs a rumblin. Its looking like Bishnu will not be able to join us as the American immigration office sucks at doing anything in a timely manor--it would be really nice having him here, i always imagined id be experiencing this with him. Plus when we leave Kathmandu, it would be nice to have a native speaker--we climbed mt pulchoki last weekend, the highest mountain in the Kathmandu valley around 9,000 something feet, and we were discouraged from taking the actual walking trail because the locals warned us of tigers and thieves. Tigers apparently are not a threat though and i wish we would have encountered one--thieves on the other hand, not so much--were trying to keep Emma's camera this trip (I lost it in Amsterdam last summer). So instead we took the dirt road to the top and round trip we hiked 17 miles. We have figured out the minibus situation so we can save money by not using taxis. Its quite ridiculous...think buses the size of vw vans and cramming as many people in as possible--definitely private run not state. So we took two mini buses and road for an hour and a half to get to the base of the mountain. Didn't bring enough water/food and almost fainted on the bus ride back (probably also from claustrophobia and/or pollution). Emma said i looked as pale as a ghost. But we made it back to our neighborhood safe and sound only to have a nice dinner and laugh over our crazy adventure--apparently thieves may be a bit of a problem while trekking by ourselves and sleeping in our own tent next month--i think if Bishnu was with us this might not be a problem. As of now we are planning on doing the annapurna circuit--its a 17 day trek and the most culturally and environmentally diverse. We have been reviewing the topo map and route discription every night to become super familiar as well as gathering as much info on the side. This weekend was fun--on friday we had a nepali friend here at the school take us to Swayambu. We took a minibus at 5:30 in the morning to get to the top of the mountain and see the monkey temple when the sun was rising--saw tones of monkeys--emma found the babies quite cute--learned not to stare them in the eyes or they attack you. Afterwards our friend took us to a hole in the wall restaurant for some morning samosas--I was sure I would be vomiting the rest of the day but it worked out! From there we walked to thamel then took a cab back to Boudha and just hung out the rest of the day and read and planned for treking. On saturday, we woke up early and went to the school for breakfast and watched the junior boys basketball championship- I was guest of honor and was fed copious amounts of cookies and juice--life was good--played bball with kids the rest of the morning--in the afternoon emma and I walked all the way from boudha to thamel taking us about an hour--I have no idea how we ended up there--our plan was to just walk west and hope to end up in Thamel. Emma bought a down jacket for the trek--she spent $45 for a marmot 200 fill jacket (I am pretty sure it was real and if it was not it was the highest quality of "fake" jackets). We further explored the area then went to Saturday night raggae at sams bar... I no longer felt like i was in Katmandu--we had a couple drinks and chatted with other travelers and trekers. We took a cab back home arond 10:30 and were stopped by multiple road blocks--the city is really cracking down and trying to get everyone off the streets by 9. I think because we were tourist they didnt care about our taxi. When we got back to our room, we stayed up till 1:30 chatting with a Tibetan man about his plans to start a revolution for tibet. Since this was the latest we have stayed up by far, we passed out hard and awoke for work in the morning. Last night we went out to dinner with John Cook and ten of his sponsored students who just graduated from their plus two high schools. We are becoming better friends with workers for the South Asia Children's Fund like Nigel, Dawa, and Began. I hope to do more work with SACF in the future. Today we came to school and were surprised to see all the kids playing outside. Apparently their was an educational strike today so all the schools were shut down in Katmandu. We have been playing ping pong and music with the kids all day. I can still hear kids trying to play twinkle twinkle little star on the violin upstairs--poor emma, she has been teaching them now for about 3 hours... 
Workers here at the school need to use the computer now, so I will update more later... 
Thanks for reading.