Why don't I live here.

Danika and I had a *total* blast running around Jaipur, scaring off creepy men, haggling fair rickshaw prices, gawking at ridiculous raw diamond 18k gold rings, and trying our hand at block printing. Rajasthan is known for its art, architecture and jewelry, and we did everything in our power to make sure we packed it all into 3 days.

Jaipur really is the pink city. All the walls and architecture are this beautiful coral color that just makes you want to run out and paint your house something rosey.

We stayed at the Shahpura House, which came complete with purple sequence curtains and maharaja paintings on the walls. I recommend this place wholeheartedly to any and all--so reasonably priced and impossibly gorgeous at the same time.

The Jaipur observatory, known as the Jantar Mantar, was incredible. It was constructed by Maharaja (King) Jai Singh II from 1727-1734. Sometimes I'm convinced people were smarter back then.

The observatory consists of fourteen major geometric devices for measuring time, predicting eclipses,
 tracking stars' location as the earth orbits around the sun, etc. etc..

The Giant Sundial, known as the Samrat Yantra is the world's largest sundial, standing 27 meters tall. Its shadow moves visibly at 1 mm per second, or roughly a hand's width every minute.

 
But my absolute favorite part was the Anokhi Museum of hand block printing.

We met with local block printers who gave us demos on the carving + printing process.

Then the gents let us keep the prints we worked on, as well as the stamps they carved during the demo. So sweet.

We've barely been gone 24 hours and are already concocting sneaky ways of making our way back. Have any of you ever visited Jaipur? Or any other cities in Rajasthan?

And in case you're experiencing a severe case of wanderlust,  here are three other weekend trips around India:

*Auroville
*Chandigarh
*Hyderabad