Who wants a banana bread muffin?

The biggest excitement of my day today was a successful trial of my convection oven.  I bought it weeks ago, but it's been so hot out that I couldn't stand the idea of making it hotter by running the oven.  But I had three overripe bananas and the weather just turned cooler, so I decided the time was right.  Plus, I've been working hard and baking is a stress reliever for me.  As is eating the things I bake.  :)  They turned out quite well and I didn't even need to buy a muffin tin, thanks to these sturdy Chinese muffin papers that can stand alone.  Yum!

I was brave and bought my eggs in the outdoor market today, instead of in the plastic cartons from the grocery store.  These still come in plastic, but in the form of a small bag.  I had been hesitant because I didn't want to end up with something creepy like the salted duck eggs with red yolks.  (Scary looking!)

It finally dawned on me that the reason there were so many piles was because they are different prices for different sizes, not because they were something other than chicken eggs.  (I mean they do have other things, but it's pretty obvious.)  They held them up to a little light as they put each one in the bag.  I asked Angie why and she said probably to make sure it's not fertilized.  Gross!  Now I'm going to be paranoid about that for the next 8 months.

 A couple other sights I saw when I was wandering.  The dog photo is solely for Beth's entertainment.  The red dress was waving in the breeze and calling to me from afar, but when I went to look at it the lady asked me what size I wanted and when I told her my increased Chinese size she just laughed.  I guess that means it's too small.  When I got home, I looked to see if "bitch" was in my Cantonese phrasebook.  It is!  Lonely planet thinks of everything. 

Today was yet another round of fireworks in the international competition and this time my coworker Rex invited us all over.   That's him and his wife, Lua, standing up.  Also pictured going clockwise from them are Barbara, Monica and Janice, fellow teachers; Porfirio, a friend of our hosts; Tom (Kim's husband) and Kim, Beth and Chris, also teachers.  Mark and Sumi and Mario also came later, and I'm starting to get to know people a bit more, which is fun.  The food was incredible, they have a beautiful home and the fireworks were great as always.  This time it was the Philippines and Portugal.  Sorry I didn't take any video, but there was a glare on the window that I didn't want to deal with.  After a couple glasses of wine I get somewhat less ambitious about such things and just sit back to enjoy myself.  :)

I've mentioned before my love of chandeliers.  They had a really lovely one.  I bumped up the colors in Photoshop because my camera didn't do a very good job of capturing the round purple crystals.  It kind of looks like a jellyfish...