Luxury Cars

As I was reading an article about the rise of the middle class, it featured an apartment complex for the upwardly mobile here in S Asia whose parking lot is filled with luxury cars like Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas.

And they ARE luxury cars here. We never thought we would look at a Civic and be in awe of its size and luxury.

And yes, I know I need to post pictures of the little car we bought. Uploading pictures from our Mac onto blogspot still intimidates me.

"Dollar" stores have infiltrated S Asia

There is a store here called Always 99Rs. This is a take on the American dollar or 99 Cents store. The decor is red, white and blue and the are slogan is, "The original American bargain store."

Here's the thing, though - 99Rs. translates into $2.50 and nothing in there is a great deal like you would get in a dollar store in the US - especially Super One Dollar Plus in Houston. In addition, most of the stock is more than 99Rs. and they have started becoming a place that imports stuff from the US and charges A LOT - way more than 99Rs.

However, one way this place is like the dollar stores back home is the one-off brands like Sporty Cow cheese instead of Laughing Cow. Lizol, instead of Lysol. Lizol is a few bucks, whereas a can of Lysol is $8. I know!

Here is a sample of other things that are available at "The original American bargain store" and how much they cost converted into US dollars:

Box of Mac N Cheese: $2.50
Can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle or Tomato Soup: $2.50
Jar of Ragu spaghetti sauce: $4.75
Bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's pancake syrup: $6.12
12 oz. box of Crispix cereal: $6.75
24 oz. bottle of Pert Plus shampoo: $10
24 oz. bottle of Pantene ProV shampoo: $17.50
(and yes, I double-checked for typos - those numbers are correct)

So, although we get excited by seeing these products, the sticker shock causes us to walk on by...

Gone are the days where we would stock up on Kroger peanut butter when it would go on sale for $1 a jar. Here, the same size jar of decent peanut butter would cost us upwards of $6.

So, to our favorite Kroger on Buffalo Speedway - We'll be back in December, ready to buy cheap peanut butter and rent $1 DVDs!

copycats and more on the Olympics

Is imitation really the sincerest form of flattery? If so, the West should be very flattered by Asia. I remember seeing stuff from China/Hong Kong that were knockoffs like Suseme Street clothes instead of Sesame Street or LV bags that had VT on them instead. Well, I could cite lots of copycat stuff here, but I came across these two this week:

1. A new movie entitled Hari Puttar
2. A new convenience store named 610. (If you do not get this one, think 7-11)

Olympics news - Michael Phelps has been dubbed The Aqua Gladiator here. Also, the local newspaper wrote that Phelps has more medals than this country has earned in the last 108 years of Olympic competition.

cows and the Olympics

I have seen several more healthy-looking cows this past week. I really believe that things are looking up here as evidenced by this country's first ever individual gold in Olympic history for the 10M Air Rifle competition.

It's interesting to watch the Olympics in a country that is not your own. If I were in Houston, I would probably watch a few events that I like, but being here, I want to watch everything and I check the internet every day to see the US medal count. It's cool b/c even the people here are rooting for Michael Phelps to win 8 gold medals.

Some differences between Olympic coverage here and in the US:

1. There are no background stories of the athletes here. You know how in the US there is always the media piece where the reporters go to the hometown of the athlete and interview the family, friends, coaches and community members and sometimes re-enact hardships the athletes had to overcome to get to the Olympics? None of that here.
2. It never occurred to me how many resources the US has in terms of sports experts. Pretty much, there is a US commentator for every single event in the Olympics, or at least those in which Americans participate. There is a UK company that sells broadcasting rights to about 50 different countries who cannot afford and/or do not have the personnel to cover each of the sports. So there is no banter between previous Olympians about the athletes and what they must be going through or what they need to get that medal.
3. The sports that are given more attention are different from those that get attention in the US. There is a lot of field hockey coverage here mostly because this country won several gold medals in this sport many years ago.
4. There is no schedule available of what events will be covered. At home, we could check the newspaper or internet to find out when an event we wanted to see would be on TV. No such thing here. We kinda get Olympics potluck. (We missed the opening ceremony because it took us a while to figure out what channel and what time it was going to be shown here. Which brings me to another topic - every once in a while, the channels randomly change. And so we have to spend time figuring out what networks are on what channels. For instance, "Hey! There is Bollywood MTV on the BBC station. Now we have to look for BBC again!" AND, we have another TV in the living room, whose channels do not match the channels we get in the bedroom. Insane, I know.)
5. Weird coverage glitches. The network that is covering the games here is called DD Sports. Well, tonight, in the middle of the 100M final, the programming suddenly switched to soccer on ESPN, and not even Olympics. We had to look for a news station to find out who won. (Jerry is channel surfing right now and just found DD Sports on a different channel! So, my auxiliary comment from #4 has just been proved again.)
   

fatter cows

We explored a new mall on Sunday afternoon. It is pretty western and quite big (by S Asian standards). Most of the stores are from the US or Europe with prices out of most peoples' reach, but the whole building has A/C. Plus, it has McDonald's and a KFC ripoff called Broaster - two things the mall closer to us does not have.

Anyway, this blog is not about malls, but about how things in K seem to be looking up, as evidenced by two western malls opening up within 6 months of each other. As I was thinking about this in our car ride, I saw two cows on the street and both were pretty healthy-looking, not the skinny cows I usually see. Are fatter cows a sign of better times for everyone?

Chong Family Photo

This is one of my favorite/funny photos of my family while we were in Portland.
(Jerry left a day early to spend time with his parents)

strike hits Frankfurt airport; Maks delayed in Houston

Some of you may be wondering... why are they still in the US anyway? Well, we were supposed to leave on June 23rd, but then I started having severe leg pain as a result of a hip issue. So, we delayed the flight by a week so I could get treated and recuperate before diving back into our crazy existence in S Asia. Our rescheduled flight was for today, BUT...

My dad checked our flight departure time and saw that it was delayed by 3 hours. We called the airline to figure out what happened and how that would affect our connecting flight to S Asia. The airline said that due to an airport workers' strike in Frankfurt (our connection/layover city), flights were being delayed and canceled. We could have taken the delayed flight, but then we would have been stuck in Frankfurt for 2 nights because Lufthansa flies to our city only every other day. Plus, because of all the cancellations and flight delays, all of the hotels in Frankfurt are booked and we'd have to nowhere to sleep. Or, we could have left tomorrow and caught a flight to another city in our area from Frankfurt, but go on another airline to K and we'd arrive who knows when and maybe with our without our luggage (which has many precious items from the US that we do not want to lose). The airline suggested that our best option was to stay in Houston if we could. Given this advice and our dealing with my leg pain, we are staying.

Remember how a taxi strike interrupted my travel in Madrid? And of course all of the strikes in S Asia, some of which I have yet to blog about. Oh well...

My family in Houston is sort of ready for us to leave because of all the weight they have been gaining since we got here. Jerry and I have been indulging in our favorite foods, gaining weight in the process and it is affecting my mom, dad and sister as well b/c they end up eating with us, especially when the folks who take us out to dinner include my family and we all go together. For instance, last night Uncle S and Aunt S took all of us to eat BBQ ribs and brisket at Luling City Market and then to Grand Luxe for dessert. YUM.

My sister moved back from Madrid six weeks ago and was going to wait until we left (on 6/23) to start job hunting. Well, we're still here and she has stuck to her timetable of waiting until we are gone. They all joke about wanting us to leave so they can get back on track with their healthy eating and day-to-day activities. My parents were waiting for us to clear out so they could start getting ready for their trip to Mexico with their church. As it stands now, they will be leaving before us.

Such is our life... So right now, Jerry is taking a much-needed nap since we stayed up all night packing and I am updating the blog. We'll enjoy some more A/C, eat some more Chick-fil-A and we'll be off on Thursday. Maybe. Who knows what could happen next...