My 30th Birthday

Best. Birthday. Ever.

Brian declared it so too -- the best birthday either of us has ever had. What made it so special? Well, see for yourself.

We started celebrating the night before with a trip to Garden of Dreams, which is maybe even more magical at night than during the day.

The next morning we woke up early to hit the trail head at Nagarjun, one of the Kathmandu Valley peaks. This was my third time and Brian's second climbing the mountain, and it was by far the best yet. We had the trail almost entirely to ourselves, save for an early morning trail runner who was headed down as we headed up. The skies were rather gray, but the early morning cloud cover was lovely in itself.




Plus, the air was fresh and the steep trail was invigorating, so I didn't much care that we probably would not be able to see anything at the top.

But then, miraculously, there was this.




An hour and fifteen minutes after starting the hike (and yes, in case you were wondering, we beat our previous time by 10 minutes), we reached the summit of Nagarjun and saw that Himalayan views were waiting for us. These views, to the north, are of the Ganesh Himal.






At the top we also discovered that we had the entire summit to ourselves -- just the two of us, some prayer flags, and mountain views. I had declared months ago that I had hoped to be on a mountain on my 30th birthday, and I got my wish.




We headed back down the trail, stopped briefly at home to grab some things, and then went directly to...the Hyatt.

Can I just move in here? 

We took advantage of the "Resident Relaxation Package," which includes use of the spa facilities and the breakfast buffet with a night's stay. Although it was tempting not to leave the grounds once we had checked in, we wanted to have lunch in Boudha, which you can reach through a back entrance that avoids the main traffic-choked road.

Ah, Boudha.

Unfortunately, our organic, vegetarian lunch at Saturday Cafe is not pictured because we ate too fast. Sorry about that.

After lunch we returned to the Hyatt and headed immediately to Club Oasis, Hyatt's on-site gym and spa. No gym for us -- just straight to the locker rooms for jacuzzi and sauna time. And, the obvious: indoor heat. HEAT!

Following our spa trip, we readied ourselves for the evening and went first to the Hyatt's Rox Bar, which has a two-for-one happy hour special from 6-8 PM (Kathmandu residents, take note: this is a great deal!). The name "Rox" refers to the rocks that cover much of the interior, including this staircase. 

It leads not to a dungeon but to this.

We ended the evening with dinner in the Cafe, which puts on a great buffet, including an almost Whole Foods-worthy salad bar.

Otherwise known as: heaven.


The next morning we returned to the Cafe for the buffet breakfast and lingered with frequent refills of coffee and tea. We finally peeled ourselves away from our sunny breakfast table to take one last walk around the Hyatt grounds before checking out (tear).

It was an amazing birthday. And it was made even better when I discovered that people made additional Kiva loans through my lending team. Thank you to everyone who helped me exceed my goal of 30 loans -- altogether, we funded 41 loans totaling $1275!

So far, I have good feelings about this 30s thing.