Thunder and Lightening and Memories

Pacaya Volcano

The other night there was a fantastic thunder and lightening storm. And this evening there was another one. I love these storms and got to stand on our 11th floor balcony and watch the neighbor buildings get struck by lightening again. It was so loud and bright. It's such a magnificent demonstration of what nature is capable of. And the rain was warm. It reminded me of one specific storm on one of my adventures abroad.

I was sitting near a central courtyard in the place I was staying because the power had gone out due to a crazy thunder and lightening storm. I had just arrived in Guatemala City that evening and was still a little confounded that I had made it there; my first solo trip abroad for three weeks! As soon as the storm started I came out to sit and watch it. Eventually, the power went out and the storm only became more awesome. I ended up hanging out there in the pitch dark for many hours while the storm raged on, despite being exhausted and in awe of the adventure I was embarking on.

Market at Chichicastenango

I went to Guatemala during my winter break from college in 1994. It's possible it was in 1995. It was my first trip abroad on my own. At this point I had actually been to many foreign countries for a variety of reasons (with my family, with a school trip, with a medical outreach program) but never completely on my own. I remember starting to get a little nervous as the plane touched down in the late evening. I hadn't even worked out where I was staying yet.

That storm and the more recent storms are so much alike. The temperature, the sounds, the lightening, the humidity. It just helps make these moments feel even more like an adventure abroad. And living here still is, but then again it's not so much anymore. I've been here half a year already and I have to say things have become "normal." I know the places I like, and I find something new here about as often as I did back home. It's just not that different, except for some details.

Exercise Equipment Everywhere

Did you catch that alliteration up there in the title?

You would think that people really like to exercise here using these particular simple machines considering they are all over the place. Except that I've rarely seen anybody using them. Except kids. They really love climbing all over them, or spinning on the rotating plates. I like playing with them too. But when I tried using them for some exercise I found that they didn't really fit my body that well. It felt all wrong. I suppose that's why there's all those adjustments on the equipment you find in modern gyms. 

What are these things? They're in every park and every apartment building I've seen. Always neatly tucked away in some corner. There has to be some kind of national organized exersize program that goes with these things. Required in all construction. If you know, could you please tell me? please? I'm really curious.

Thanks!

Finding Ingredients, Secret Indian Grocer

One of the first things I learned when I arrived here is how much work it takes to procure ingredients for our home cooked meals. I frequently travel 40 minutes by subway to get to the neighborhood of Shekou. This is where the majority of westerners live and there's a couple small (expensive) specialty import shops that basically sell everything you can't get in the grocery stores; even the International grocery stores. Things like ground coriander, basmati rice, avacados, orange lentils, garbanzo beans, corn tortillas, vegetarian refried beans, edamame and ricotta cheese, just to name a few. I'll admit that I'm so used to having such a wide variety of ingredients available at my local grocery store (Berkeley Bowl - I miss you!) that I assume that they should be things that I can get easily here. I'm sure in other parts of the US I might have to go to a "specialty" shop also. 

As vegetarians we eat a lot of beans. And unfortunately all of the grocery stores I frequent in our neighborhood, about 6 of them, only carry a couple types. They are black beans, a red bean (adzuki or kidney), black eyed peas and green mung beans. There are no lentils or garbanzo beans.

Kerry's gifts to me

Pretty early on I had the luck to meet a guy named Kerry. He was being relocated and posted in an expat forum for anybody interested to come take all his masalas and spices. I jumped on that opportunity and ended up getting a lot of information from him while I was there. I think he would have been a good friend if he hadn't been moving. He told me about the best Indian restaurants and about a secret Indian Grocery store. 

I say secret because it's not a store front. It's in an apartment that you have to be in the know about. Getting to that apartment was hard for a variety of reasons. First, the lower floors are commercial and you can't get through that into the apartment side. You have to figure out how to go around back, past the security guards at the gate, to find the correct entrance to get to the apartment side elevators. Second, inside the apartment building there is security and you need to know that you can walk right by them and that the doors that have the keypad locks on them aren't locked. Once you get past that there's the elevators. There are 3 elevators, but you need to know that one goes to the even floors only, one to the odd floors, and one to all the floors. I'm sure they're marked in Chinese. Then once you manage to get to the correct floor you might walk around and realize that only apartments A-H are present. Where is apartment I, the one I seek? Well, you then need to figure out that there are two towers in this apartment building and now you start all over trying to find the entrance to the other tower. If you can get through all that and find apartment I, you will be rewarded with the cheapest and largest variety of beans you have ever seen besides every other ingredient you might need to make an Indian feast. This tiny bit of information is worth such a huge amount to our culinary delights.

It was a pretty fun adventure, though I was worn out and pretty close to giving up, when I finally found it the first time. Each time I go it gets easier and easier to find. 

I went today because after looking for a month now, I haven't been able to refill my coriander spice bottle. Of course they had it.

I asked them if I could take pictures, and they understandably told me no. I really wish I could show you a picture of this place. It's so fascinating! Instead I'll leave you with a video of one of the better nearby grocery stores.

Weekend Adventures, Eaten Alive

The only open space in the park

This weekend we had two adventure filled days together. Saturday we went back to a park that we hadn't adequately explored before and Sunday we explored a part of town that I've been meaning to explore because a friend mentioned a really cool kids exhibit. 

There is a ton of construction here. Sometimes when they block off areas for the construction they make it really hard to get to certain areas. There's a coffee shop that I frequent that is surrounded by construction and thus only has one way to get to it which includes walking on the side of a highway. For one of my daily adventures, I decided I would walk the other way around the construction to get there. As a result of this I ended up having to frogger across a huge highway, 12 lanes or so. But the up side was I walked into a really beautiful park that is almost impossible to get to using normal walking routes. I brought Dylan to this recently discovered park and while we were there we found a coffee shop in the middle of the park. How random is that? The owner was quite excited to see us and really wanted us to stay there. We were on our way out for lunch at that point, so we didn't stay. But we wanted to go back. And we did.

Across the street from the park is a shopping area that I frequent. It's called Central Walk and has a really good grocery store. On the top of this mall is what looks like a highway overpass that goes into that park I've already mentioned. From looking at it from the street there's tons of plants growing up there; very green and lush. I know that mall really well and I felt fairly confident that you couldn't get to that green space from the mall even though it seemed to be partly on the roof. I was wrong. You have to go into the center of a clothing store and go up a spiral staircase to get there. Who would have figured that out?

On Saturday we went back to the park. We actually had a hard time finding the coffee shop again, mostly because the two signs in the park with the coffee cup were pointing in the wrong direction. (Ha Ha!) I had a really good drink and hung out for a bit. As a result of sitting there for maybe half an hour I walked away with 30+ bites all over my calves. Yuck! We decided to try and get to that overpass from the park and we figured out how to get there, and then went into Central Walk for lunch.

Craft fairs are the same all over the world

On Sunday we went to a neighborhood that we had never been to in search of a kids art exhibit that I had heard about. This neighborhood is filled with old warehouses; it reminds me of ABCO, the Oakland warehouse Dylan used to live in. Before we found the museum we ran into a craft fair! It's interesting that pretty much everything there is the same as you would find in the US. Custom T-shirts, lots of jewelry, leather covered notebooks, felted things, toys. 

We decided that we were hungry and so we went to lunch at a hot pot restaurant. It was such a great place! I wish we could always eat like that. Basically, the menu consists of raw vegetables, tofu, noodles and soup bases. You pick your ingredients and then cook them at your table. This is one of the first restaurants that I've been to that had their dishes plastic sealed and they gave you tea to rinse them with before use. I'd read about this before I came here, but hadn't actually seen it yet. 

After the art exhibit, which turned out to be really great (see video), Maddie and I explored OCT more. The neighborhood is so great. Lots of walking paths that are off the roads, tons of green. And the buildings are mostly shorter, except for a couple apartment buildings. I think if I had to choose right now, that is where I would want to live. Futian is nice enough, but OCT is funky and artsy.

More art exhibit. It reeked of Burning Man type stuff.

In this part the kids got circle stickers and the space was
covered, toilet included.

More art exhibit

Outside art exhibit

Hong Kong - Data, Stanley, Noodles, Rickshaw Tires

Yummie Noodles near Lai Sun Commercial Center,
Who can eat this entire bowl?

This was another exciting exploring adventure to Hong Kong. I'm so glad I went again because last time I spent most of my time visiting the main shopping areas. And while that was great fun, and the variety of sheek, swank, trendy clothes almost inspired me to lose the drab grunge style I've had my whole life, I didn't end up buying anything. I think I was just too overwhelmed with it all. I didn't buy anything this time either, but for a completely different reason (my debit card had expired days before my trip, and I didn't notice until I couldn't get money out. Oops! Thankfully I had enough to make it through the trip.)

One of the coolest things I figured out was how to get data on my phone in Hong Kong!! Just buy a CSL Power Prepaid SIM Card and activate the mobile broadband feature. Unlucky for me the instructions in the booklet, complete with menu selections, didn't work. I finally had to track down a One2Free shop and they set it up for me. He told me the printed instructions included with the card are out of date. Lame, but I had maps in Hong Kong! I'm a much more adventurous explorer when I'm confident that I can't really get lost. W00t!

Similar to the one I'm seeking a tire for

I also spent some time tracking down my friend's rickshaw replacement tire. It's a weird tire and so far neither he nor I have had any luck. I sought out the oldest bike shop in Hong Kong and talked to the owner who's easily in his late 70s. He gave me some leads, but unfortunately had never seen the tire I was seeking. Sigh. Next time I go to Hong Kong I'll follow that lead. It's actually kind of fun to have a scavenger hunt to help me end up in certain parts of the city. And I would never have been near that bike shop to find the noodle shop otherwise.

As I was walking out of the bike shop I was thinking how much I wanted just a simple bowl of noodles. And about a block later that's exactly what I found. The bowl was so big. How do people eat that much? And they're mostly smaller than me. It totally hit the spot and was cheap. Awesome!

And there's this (disturbing) phenomenon where people are using the sound of a cat screaming as their text message indicator. All over the trains and streets I kept hearing that sound. Yuck! I don't like hearing cats in pain.

Before this trip I did some research on more off the beaten path shopping places and other destinations and that's what led my path. Things like:

• where to find the best chocolate croissant (Le Salon De The De Joel Robuchon) and it was so delicious! I'm thinking it was even better than the ones I was eating frequently in Amsterdam.
• Stanley Market - where I discovered a cool beach town complete with a cheap street market and a plaza surrounded by ridiculously expensive things. Interesting and beautiful.
• Temple St Night Market - which I expect is typically much better without the rain. The stuff that was there wasn't that great IMO. But a fun adventure finding it nonetheless.
• Mandarin Bar & Grill - which is supposed to have a pretty mean eggs benedict. I had an hours long reconnaissance trying to find it. I ended up walking around the Landmark and throughout the many, many blocks of buildings all seamlessly hooked together with walkways and such. When I did finally succeed in finding it; it was closed for repairs. It should be faster next time, now that I know that area a little better.
• I went to TrendyZone and Kig Woh Centre which are malls with tons of tiny shops geared towards the Chinese teenager. They were kind of interesting, but not really my style. The people watching was the best though!

This time I stayed at the Kowloon Ramada which was sooo much better than the hostel I stayed in last time. I slept well there and it was in a cool neighborhood in which I explored a ton. I like it there. Lots of cool clothes!

Western kids: antagonism and being touched by strangers

Not relevant to this post. In another
I'll describe Maddie's paparazzi

There are many cultural differences between China and the US with regards to children. For me there are two behaviors that really stand out. One is touching the faces and hands of kids you don't even know, and the second is antagonizing them as a way of interacting with them. I probably notice these behaviors mostly because I don't really understand why people would do these things and they sometimes upset my girl. There's lots of other kid related details that I think are interesting and if I have room I'll include some here.

Before Maddie was in pre-school it was a lot harder to take care of the mundane errands associated with living. It's because I didn't always have a choice of wether or not to drag her out in public because something had to get done. It got to the point where sometimes she would just shutdown under all the attention and touching she was experiencing; and that was easily the worst part of being here. It's awful to not feel like I'm protecting her enough. Over time I got better at protecting her, but there's only so much you can do to prevent these behaviors. I am one person in a dense city surrounded by people. I think at this point she's gotten more used to it all. Since she's in preschool, she's simply not in public nearly as much as she used to be also.

The first is the way complete strangers will touch Maddie's cheek or grab her hands. Sometimes it's almost as if they're checking to see if she's real. She gets called baby doll in Chinese pretty often. People will do this that aren't even in her line of sight. Think of how strange it would be to have somebody reach over and touch your cheek as you're walking down the street. Now think about it if you didn't see them coming but only felt it. This is how it is with Maddie; often. Everybody loves to touch her and some people will repeatedly do it, like if we're on the train. Some people are at least only grabbing her hands. But even with that there were times she would yank her hands away and get upset. Who would want their person to be touched by strangers all the time? Certainly not me.

The other behavior I wanted to mention is the way people seem to antagonize children here as a way of playing. We had a friend from Dylan's work come over and he spent the entire 4 hours he was here occasionally taking something of Maddie's and saying it was his now. He'd grab her favorite doll and then say to her "Maddie, this is mine now, not yours anymore." It was really strange. She, of course, would get upset because she really believed that he was stealing her toys; not sharing nicely as we're trying to teach her, but fully taking them away from her to be his now. I've met people in our courtyard who have done the same thing. One took her tricycle helmet. All this does is upset her. Is this treatment unique to Western kids, or is this also how people interact with their friend's kids in China?

UPDATE: I've seen many, many other situations (now that I've been here 6 months and this post was actually written months before it was published) where people antagonize kids as a way to play. Most of these situations don't involve Maddie, so it's not specific to western kids or me as a Mom.

Being stalked by the shop clerks

I was holding off from blogging because I remember how I felt like it took up so much of my time before. Maybe that was because previously I was in the midst of the chaos of having our first baby. Now I'm thinking that blogging a bit might be something worth reading later on and it might help me with the situations I'm experiencing and lack of having anybody to talk to about them. The hardest part of being here is being alone most of the time. I guess you can never have it all at the same time - free time, money, and friends.

I'm not working while we're here, unless I decide to go and teach English, or something along those lines. So I've been cooking a lot. We don't have an oven in our apartment - they're not that common - and we bought a toaster oven recently. (At some point I'll write another blog entry about the scavenger hunt of finding certain ingredients. And the process and experience of buying a "bigger ticket item" like a toaster oven.) I recently ran across baking yeast; the kind you'd use to make bread. Since I have the time and the internet to tell me how, I was thinking I'd make bread while we're here. Why not? It's something I've played with a couple of times and it's something that Dylan eats quite a bit of. I'm not really such a big bread fan, though I will eat it from time to time.

There's a boutique store in this shopping plaza about a mile from our house that has niche baking things; bread pans and small silicon mini-cupcake sheets. I might not need to mention that this place is expensive for China. I'm guess that's because it's really targeting foreigners with it's products. The shop is small enough that you can see everything in the store from anywhere else in the store. There are no tall shelves or places to hide while you might shoplift something. Even though I know that has nothing to do with the experience I frequently have while shopping, and the experience I had again today.

I walk into this shop and immediately the two only employees are within a couple feet of me. They stand so close that they are actually in the way if I wanted to walk down the aisle and browse. When I reach to see a price tag, one that is sitting visible on the table, they try and beat me to it, so they can tell me the price. If I move around at all, they follow me closely. This experience is not particular to this store. I have this experience pretty much every time I walk into a store and it sometimes drives me crazy. If you look at it a certain way, it's sort of funny because when I'm not in the mood to ignore this stalking it prevents me from buying anything because I walk out so quickly. I don't really enjoy shopping anyway, so this is just icing on the cake. I did discover that if I go to a shop when it's slammed - like the weekend - I get a lot less attention.

I'm getting better at ignoring people, and not caring when I'm clearly being stared at, watched, or shopping clerk stalked. I care a lot less now than I did when I arrived. I had to or I'd go crazy. But I still have my moments when it just drives me to stay home, or to starbucks with my nose in my computer or a book. Sometimes I don't understand because there are actually a fair number of westerners here. I can easily see 20 in a day.

I stick out for reasons that go beyond my western-ness. Like my clothes, and my light colored hair, and my size. I stick out because I'm not one of maybe 95% of the women here who are wearing high heels. I'm not wearing girl shoes either, so I stick out from that other 5% as well. I'm not wearing dark drab colors or a skirt. My hair is still stuffed into a sloppy bun, unlike all the carefully dressed women here. I more closely match the workers who sweep the streets than the average women here.

So here I am, writing this after fleeing the cookery boutique without my bread pan. Maybe tomorrow I'll try again. I think the yeast will wait until then.