Queen's Court and the 12th Southeast Asian Food Carnival

Ok, so first things first, here at long last is the video of my apartment.

I noticed a few things I wanted to add to the narration after the fact.  Hard to think and walk and narrate all at once.  First, as I mentioned, if we want to take a cab we can just tell the cab driver "go-see-duck McDonald's".  That is my version of how to pronounce our street in Cantonese and then use McDonald's as a landmark.  Secondly, I'm sad I didn't get to include the security guard here.  There are a couple of them and they are super cute old smiley men.  You may have also noticed the small red square on the wall near the floor outside our apartment.  That is a little shrine and they're everywhere.  Many Chinese folks practice ancestor worship and make offerings in those shrines.  Usually this takes the form of incense or food - fruit is very popular.  Here you can see the burned incense stick remains.

Inside our apartment I realize I said Beth and Angie's rooms are to the left, when they're actually to the right.  I noticed, no need to comment on it.  Finally, I failed to mention that my bed has no blanket because it's soooo hot, but you wouldn't believe the hassle I went through for that top sheet.  Firstly, no one sells top sheets.  They don't exist here.  I looked all over the place.  This was hard enough in itself because they come in sizes like 4 or 5, instead of full or twin.  Who the hell knows what that means?  It's not 5 feet and it's not 5 meters, it's just 5.  But I digress.  Finally I just bought a second bottom sheet and took out the elastic, so problem solved.  As Carol T. sagely advised, improvising is half the fun.  You have no idea how many times I've quoted you on that already, Carol!

Luckily when it gets too hot we can throw on the AC.  We each have a unit in our rooms and another in the living room.  So it's quite comfy.  And Carol the Admin was absolutely right - at school, the AC is optimal.  Always nice to have a good Admin telling you what's up!  :)  So my fears about being too cold were unjustified.  Only a couple places (like the casino) were overly cold and I can just avoid or plan for those spots.

So, on to today.  I slept in late today because I stayed up late last night posting a bunch of photos to Facebook.  So check them out!  Some from MN, some from CA, and some from here.  I'm finally all caught up.  I then spent some time arranging my printed photos on my cork board, so now I can look at many of your bright shining faces whenever I wish.  Here it is if you want to see yourselves.  Sorry for anyone I don't have represented.  That just means I don't have a decent photo of you and you should send me one.  (I'm talking to you, Bobby.)

I went out wandering again in the afternoon and ended up back in the market area where last night's festival was.  It was still going on, and so I have some corrections to make.  It's not an Indonesian festival, it's the 12th Southeast Asian Food Carnival.  Last night the focus was on Indonesia, tonight was Miranmar and tomorrow is the Philippines.   And I realized, there was food!  They had one street sectioned off for the Food Carnival, so I had some yummy spring rolls and some kind of chicken and noodle soup.  Also, I was on t.v.!  Or I will be.  As we were walking toward our seats a news reporter and cameraman stopped me and asked if they could interview me about the festival.  I said sure and they asked what I was doing there, basically, and why I would come to a festival celebrating Southeast Asia.  They also asked if there were any foods I wanted to try.  Umm, yeah!!!  Funny!  Again, not sure if I got singled out for being one of two white people in the audience, or if it was just chance, but it was pretty entertaining.  It's interesting to have my first experience at being a minority.  So far everyone has been quite nice to me, but we think the fruit stand lady charges Beth and I more.

Here are two short videos from the festival - one of the confetti canons being shot (I was ready this time) and one of dragon dancing.

Also, the guy in front of us had a t-shirt that gave me a laugh.  All kinds of people have t-shirts with English phrases.  I saw one today that said "I (heart) cute guys".  I saw another this week that said "Big is beautiful".  The wearer was a tiny Asian lady.  So we've been getting a kick out of them.  When I saw this one I was like, so who's Benjamin Harrison?  Some new teen idol I don't know about?  No, actually he was our 23rd president and Levi P. Morton was his running mate.
What???
Who knows that?
Where does a Macau teenager even get a shirt like that? 

On the way home we saw lots of people in the street burning offerings - like the man pictured here.  (That's a fire in a metal container with decorative holes in the sides - he's dropping things in.  More fire to the right where incense sticks stuck in bananas are burning.)  It's the Ghost Festival right now, which is a month-ish long period of time in which extra offerings are made for the dead.  This is also done at funerals.  It can be food and incense as usual, but often people have more elaborate and expensive foods, or it can be things like (fake) paper money and even small paper versions of valuable things, like houses or possessions.  It's cool to see, but makes walking down the crowded streets a little more dangerous because sometimes the flames shoot up as you pass.  And the smell of incense is everywhere.  :)
Ok, 2am = bedtime.  Night, y'all.