So now that I've turned the big 35 this sign catches my attention a little more easily than it used to. I wonder what exactly they do during the "reyoungification" process. Probably best not to find out.
I have no terribly exciting news from today, so I've decided it's time to share some of my favorite signs from around Macau. I've been collecting these for a boring day just like today.
This one is on the door of a coworker's office.
(Full disclosure: I took this image from Beth's blog.)
The infamous Purple Colon - purveyor of fine women's clothing.
I've heard of Baby on Board, but Honey in Car?
Is honey a noun or a verb in this instance?
I hate it when I find myself in a "no bugle zone".
I'm not entirely sure how chaining and padlocking a drop of water equals not wasting it.
Seems like a waste to me.
I can't even guess what this is about.
I'm gonna start using it though, complete with hand gesture.
I'd like to start today's blog with a photo that someone (Amanda, I think) took at my birthday party and I just got off Facebook today.
It's a little easier to see than the other one I posted, plus we're still wearing the party hats Karen provided. Pictured L to R are Azita, Angie, Moi, Chris, Monica, Miranda, and Karen.
Mmmm, just thinking about it makes me want to go back for Indian tomorrow. Or even right now.
I did get to try some new tasty food today, though. Sumi, (who was pictured in a previous post at Old Taipa Tavern), likes Malaysian food and knows the owner of a Malaysian restaurant in Taipa. When she found out Angie is Malaysian, she offered to take us there for lunch. We were joined by Teresa and Carol as well and it was a lovely meal. I had the Yin Yang noodles (the yin is the fried noodles and the yang is the crunchy noodles beneath) and a cold iced coffee drink. Yum and Yum. The noodles also had choy sum and shrimp and tofu in a white-ish sauce.
After lunch I worked for a few hours and then went back to the Senado Square area in Macau to pick up a birthday package from my parents! While I was down there I passed this enormous structure still up from the Mid-Autumn Festival. It lights up inside like all the other decorations around town.
I saw a smaller one with its lights on in the week leading up to the festival - pretty cool.
So here are the contents of my box - a new red cardigan, maps (including a snowmobile trail map of Itasca county), chocolate pudding mix, a new lunchbag made out of wetsuit fabric, a laminated copy of my photomosaic, two reference charts - one on ESL grammar and another on philosophy, a very sweet card designed by Maya Angelou and some markers that write on glass. I'd never seen markers like these before and they are pretty cool. If we'd had these back in high school, we'd have won the Christmas window decorating competition hands down.
I tried out the markers and they work very well. I tried them both here, on my bedroom window, and also on Angie's bedroom windows because she was out when I opened them. I left her a little surprise drawing. :)
Luckily she is a good sport.
The markers are also good for writing on other things, like fabric. This is convenient because I bought some pants in HK that I need to hem. Who'd have thought that would be necessary in Asia? But they came in "short" or "long" and the former were a little too short, so hence the hemming. A fellow teacher is going to lend me her sewing machine tomorrow, so I spent some time this evening getting them all measured and cut and pinned. My white glass marker worked like a charm! I also went out wandering at random looking for pins and thread and found some that matches really well! Yay for my unconscious and it's ability to find crazy stuff like that. (It's the same technique I use to play paper-rock-scissors, and I'm fairly hard to beat.) I also stumbled across a totally great art supply store. Always good to know where one is, just in case the mood strikes.
So tonight I'm sharing the blog limelight with my housemates. Not Beth and Angie, but the ones that come out at night and crawl around the kitchen. Yes, we have cockroaches. This guy to the right is one of the bigger ones I've seen and the second who has dared enter my room. (Or at least the second to get caught.) It's pretty easy to tell when one of us has spotted a cockroach. If you see me slowly creeping with a plastic cup and a piece of cardboard in hand, I'm probably on the hunt. (I practice catch and release.) If Beth finds one, you can expect loud slamming noises. (She uses her shoe.) Angie usually just screams and runs into another room. I have to say, compared to the bugs back home, these guys are pretty easy to live with. In MN you have to worry about getting bitten by everything and in CA the ants will carry away anything that isn't double ziplocked. These fellows just want to zoom around the kitchen after dark, which isn't too much to ask in my book. If they're in my room though, they get chucked out the window. If I can catch them, that is. They are insanely fast. I don't understand how anything can move that fast on leg power alone - it's amazing.
Because I have the mind of a parrot, every single time I walk in to wash my bedtime snack dishes and see them running around I get this song back in my head. If you've never heard it, these guys do a fun rendition.
Had a chill day today and got much less schoolwork done than I'd hoped. Will have to work a little extra hard tomorrow. Nothing too exciting happened - I went out wandering for a while in the late evening. The weather was lovely, but a lot of things were closed because of the holiday, so I didn't get much accomplished. I have a few more random pictures to share, however, and was waiting for a day like today.
This cool door pull was on one of the fancy stores in HK.
This restaurant has a good idea for storing utensils.
There is a dance studio on the 3rd floor of our building. Cute little ballerinas in and out all the time!
These cobblestone pictures can be found in the walkways all over Macau. This guy is my fav so far.
Many thanks to everyone who has made my past few days and an unforetold number of future days more fun to celebrate by sending emails, photos, videos, gifts, cards, well wishes, posting on my FB, or by spending time with me. It's been great! I have a few nice gifts already - water bottle from Angie with gel lining to keep it cold; magnet with our street name on it and a big bag of M&Ms from Beth; and a card from Grandma! For those of you that don't know my Grandma, she is 84 and always sends a card with a check for $25 dollars in it. Not only did she send a card and a money order for $25, but she somehow managed to get it here on my exact birthday despite the long trip it had to make. Thanks Grandma (and Grandpa)! I will save it for when I can spend it at the casino in your honor.
Gin, mixers and bars - a trifecta
Today I had optional classes since it was a holiday, so the students that showed up got to choose which movie they'd like to see off of my hard drive. First class picked Casino Royale, second one picked Back to the Future. Haven't seen that in ages. After work I went to dinner with Angie, Beth and Chris at a Thai place in downtown Taipa which was quite tasty. (Although they did not have Thai iced tea either, so I may have to give up on finding that here.) Then we went back to Chris's house to watch the fireworks. There's some kind of international competition going on right now and two countries per night show off their firework knowhow. Tonight's winner was Japan by far - not even sure who the competition was.
The infamous Pink Gin
As you can see, he has a lovely view of the city and likes to bake - both great qualities in a host as far as I'm concerned. I got to try the "Pink Gin" as discussed by my fellow teachers late last week on another outing with details posted previously. To quote Wikipedia:
Angostura bitters were discovered as a cure for sea sickness in 1824 by Dr. Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert (though their other medicinal uses had been discovered long before this), [3] who subsequently formed the House of Angostura, a company selling the bitters to sailors.
It was pretty good, but definitely a drink for sipping. A bunch more people from work came later, and here's a shot of them playing slapjack. If there's an activity that creates more noise than a bunch of intoxicated Asian ladies (and Beth) playing slapjack, I'd like to know what it is. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and the fireworks were great. I've included some shots and a short vid below.
Thanks again everyone!
Best show of all and the reason for the festival - the full moon!
So let me begin by apologizing for failing in my blogging duties last night. We finally took a trip to Hong Kong and didn't get back until around 12:30am. So tonight will be a superblog.
Yesterday Beth, Angie, Amanda and I all got up early and took the ferry to HK. It's about an hour's ride but seems to go quickly because the ferries are flying across the water. This was the view from my seat.
Once in HK we went shopping to supplement our teacher wardrobes. I got a ton of stuff, which was good, although it took a while to figure out my size. (Here's the formula: American shirt size + 1 = HK shirt size, American pants size + 3 = HK pants size. Nice.) I got 3 pairs of pants and 5 shirts in the end, and would've gotten a couple more, but they were out of my HK size in some things. Even with the inflated numbers they were out of a lot of "smaller" sizes. I guess they're catering to all the foreigners, and there were a lot of us giants there.
I was not a very good photographer yesterday. Our cell phones didn't work there, so much of the morning was spent trying to coordinate what we were doing and when to meet and it was just a bit overwhelming. Now that I have some decent clothes and know what to expect I promise to do a better documentation job on my next visit.
I did take a picture at one of the malls and of this fabulous mannequin. Awesome dress and pose, don't you think? Love it. Too bad I can't afford anything there. And too bad I'm not tall enough to wear a dress like that. Who's buying these?
In addition to shopping, I wanted to see an American movie this weekend and Contagion was playing in like 50 theaters in HK. (Probably because that city is a major part of the plotline.) It was good - not really a happy-go-lucky kind of movie, but well done and it made you think. Great cast, cool soundtrack and believable story. We lucked out because in this theater, you purchase your seat when you buy your ticket, and all that was left at the time we wanted was the front row. We took them anyway, but it was kind of a strain to look at the screen. About 10 minutes in I peeked back and saw some empty seats in a much nicer place so we moved and watched in comfort. Yay for flakes! So yeah, I would totally recommend it, unless you're already a germophobe and in that case, don't even watch the trailer.
I also met a new friend in HK. He's my friend Olivia's cousin Chris's best friend, Joe - but I call him Hong Kong Joe for short. He's from Brooklyn but has lived in HK for 10 years and graciously offered to help me out with getting settled when I arrived in Macau. Luckily I didn't need too much help since the school provided for us, but it was fun to finally meet him. We went and got food and wandered around a bit. He told me that there are some very nice hiking trails in HK so once it gets cooler I may have to go check those out.
Toward the end of my shopping day I noticed this balcony at the mall and took a little video footage to give you a look at the city.
So that's the highlight reel from yesterday. Today I woke up late and took it easy since tomorrow and Tuesday are holidays at work and Wednesday we have no classes. So with 3 days for lesson planning, I decided to just relax today. I guess technically I got up fairly early and went to get our traditional Sunday morning McD's with Beth, but then I came back and went back to bed. :) Then I went and got a massage at a spa recommended by another teacher. It was lovely and Phet did a great job trying to undo all the tension my body has acquired over the past few months. She only worked on me an hour, but it was great and I fully intend to go back to her. The spa itself was very lovely as well. First though, I'm going to try another woman (Jaja) recommended by a second coworker - this lady is cheaper and comes to your house to work on you. So I figure I'll try them both and then pick or alternate. A good problem to have - too many good masseuses.
I also bought some new maps in HK, so my walls are filling up, at last. I got one of the U.S. and one of S.F. and a nice one of Macau.
Then I read and listened to the new Muppets album while I picked up my room and put away all my new clothes. Nice chill afternoon. (The album is really fantastic. If you've never heard the soundtrack for The Muppet Movie you might not appreciate how delightful it is to hear a contemporary artist cover Rowlf's "I Hope that Somethin' Better Comes Along".) One of the best songs ever written.
Then it was dinner time or so I thought. Sometimes with all the new people we're becoming friends with our social outings get a little OOC, especially since everyone seems to want to make sure we're having fun, which is very nice. So tonight seemed like one of those nights, I kept trying to figure out the plan and Angie had told me one thing and Beth was telling me another and Angie wasn't back from HK yet, and we weren't sure on the name of the restaurant, blah blah blah. Chaos. Turns out it was all a big hoax and when we finally got to our "destination" it was actually a surprise birthday party for me that they had arranged with the help of the infamous Carol Wong. It was great and I was totally surprised, which many of you know is not that easy to do with a control freak like moi.
I had originally planned to celebrate with a group dinner tomorrow night, but hadn't realized that many Chinese families will be dining together since it's the Mid-Autumn festival, so we would have had a much smaller group. Luckily, they're on top of these things for me. Pictured are Chris, Monica, Miranda, Karen, Carol, Beth, Azita, Amanda, and Angie.
We fulfilled my dream and went to an Indian place - yay!!! It was delicious - we had butter chicken, aloo gobi, palak gosht, naan and really good chai. And they sang to me and brought me a mooncake (pictured) and Chris baked me a chocolate cake (very good) and then the restaurant brought us all kheer, also quite good. But by then I was full as a tick and still am. Monica brought me a gift she had in childhood - he tells the humidity by changing color, kind of like a mood ring. He was green (dry) when I took him out of the plastic, but has been growing pinker (humid) as the night progresses. I have a feeling he's going to be pink for most of the year.
Thanks again everyone!
Best of all, I now have tomorrow night open to celebrate again! Because of the festival there will be a lot to see and I'm looking forward to doing some people-watching; plus there is an international fireworks competition going on right now and Chris has a good view of it from his balcony, so he invited us over to grab dinner and watch. Should be fun!
Sorry, this is not the intro to some terribly clever joke - it was my day. First, morning class with 0 level. Gave my first quiz and they did pretty well so I was happy about that. Then I spent a couple hours eating lunch in my office and planning things to do in Hong Kong. Then more work because I had office hours. Afterward Beth and I took "The Shortcut" and wandered down to the Old Taipa Village, which is kind of off the main drag and has a lot of cute little restaurants. On our way we stopped to check out the UM Sports Center which is directly across from this enormous pile of trash. (There are a number of these places in Macau where it's like nice building, nice building, trash heap. It looks like they demolished something and forgot to clean it up. Weird.)
Anyway, I wanted to check out the sports center, not because I have turned over a new exercising leaf, no, but because I heard they have a sauna, and I'm planning ahead for the winter months when I'm cold and none of the buildings have heat. It's awesome! A real honest-to-goodness Finnish-style sauna! Can't wait! I just hope it's not as packed as the buses.
We also walked past a pet supply and grooming store called Dog|One and had to stop for Beth's sake. She has serious pet longing but is too responsible to make an animal spend the day in our tiny apartment, so she goes without. But luckily there were a couple of happy little dogs for her to lavish affection on in the waiting area.
We went to a sort of English/Aussie pub where a lot of expats go for dinner. We were invited by one of our fellow teachers and it ended up being a group of 8 or 9 by the time everyone arrived. It had nice ambiance, the food was great, and the drink selection was pretty decent compared to what I've seen so far. I had fish and chips with mushy peas (that's the actual name) and they were all excellent. Cat, if you're reading this, I know where you should come to try good fish. I took the two shots below on our walk: just liked the look of this old building and I love these trees with the hanging stuff. They seem like they might come to life at any minute.
Sorry, I know this photo is dark but it's the best my phone can do at night. Pictured here are Augusta, Chris, Beth, Miranda, Janice, Sumi and Marilyn. Monica joined us later. It was a fun time and I get the impression they go out regularly and that gin is the liquor of choice for many of them, so I'm looking forward to the next one.
Sorry, nothing too exciting happened today. Mondays and Thursdays are probably going to be lesser blogs this semester since I'm going to be at school all day and don't usually have my phone or time to think about using it. But here are a few shots that I've been wanting to share that didn't fit elsewhere.
I ran some errands yesterday morning, one of which was picking up my laundry. No one was at the counter when I arrived so I watched t.v. while I waited. I haven't watched any significant amount of American t.v. for the past 15 years, so maybe it's equally strange to outsiders, but Chinese t.v. is totally bizarre to me. I didn't even capture the craziest part of this show - I think maybe it's some kind of game show? Everyone is super loud and melodramatic though and there are even louder sound effects every few seconds. Total sensory overload. Plus, what are they holding? A 2-liter bottle of Coke and a trash bag and some kind of food item? Why does the guy with the headband keep yelling? At least it's not as bad as a show we saw last week. The purpose of that show was for contestants to try to trick the audience into thinking they're the incorrect gender. So they dress androgynously, and then have to do all these tasks - like folding laundry - so the audience can try to guess what they are. (Because only women can fold laundry? Have they met my friend Bobby?) It's like "It's Pat!" all over again, except somehow more horrible. I asked Carol, our cultural liaison, what these poor saps won if the audience was fooled. Nothing. Their only prize is the glory of knowing they tricked someone into thinking they were the opposite sex. Wow.
Another task I accomplished was to get a new light bulb for our fluorescent ceiling lights. I really like these kinds of errands because most of my thinking time is spent in very focused concentration on lesson planning, and a task like this is much more freeing. Basically I just took the information off the old light bulb and then wandered until I saw a store I thought might sell light bulbs, then went inside and did my usual hand-gesture-dance-routine until we reached an understanding. Plus, I got to look at all these cool chandeliers. There are a ton of these things in Macau - who has room for a chandelier in these tiny apartments? Weird! But I love them - I'm a huge sucker for crystal.
In the evening I was walking to MamaCare, a grocery store/prenatal goods and toy store that I recently found out about. It's right next to where we catch the shuttle to school, but I'd never gone in because from the outside it looks tiny. It's not. And it's full of unusual treasures from the States - like Golden Grahams. Yes, I got them and just finished a bowl. On the way to MamaCare, I passed a construction site and saw this pink and purple backhoe. Isn't it funny? I mean I guess there's no reason they have to be yellow, but they almost always are back home. Maybe this is a designer line.
And speaking of treats from the States, I finally found my one true love, Cook & Serve chocolate pudding. Thank you, U.S. Mart for catering to my dire gelatin needs.
