Zac Efron night at the Mak flat

It did not really start out that way and we not even fans of his, but we ended up watching two movies with him in them. So, here is the story of Zac Efron night and being cheered up by musicals.

One of my dear friends Lindsay was just cast in a production of High School Musical (HSM) in New Hampshire. We are so committed to seeing Lindsay in all her productions AND we love HSM, so we were trying to figure out a way we could go to New Hampshire during our furlough this winter to see her. However, we talked to her tonight and the show is in late November and we do not get to the US until Dec 18th. We did look on the web for things to do in the NH town and we could have also enjoyed brewery tours and Bingo games in addition to seeing Lin in the musical. (I guess we will have to settle for St. Arnold's Brewery and Family Bingo Hall in Houston.)

Anyhow, all the talk of HSM made me want to watch it, so watch it we did. We have the encore edition on DVD and watched the sing-along version. It is not the best of musicals, but it is so cute and entertaining. We even went to the concert tour in Houston at the Toyota Center! Sharpay is my favorite, followed by Ryan. And their rendition of It's Hard to Believe is my favorite song followed by Stick to the Status Quo. It was so fun watching a fun musical, that I thought of watching Hairspray afterwards. I love that movie. I remember going to the theater and from the first line of the opening song, my mouth turned into a big smile and I KNEW that I was going to enjoy the movie.

Well, I just finished watching Hairspray and felt so uplifted in my spirits. (Mimi - a big thanks for buying it for me!) The songs and dancing are great and the storyline is funny and inspiring. It made me feel like I could tackle the city of K. It reminded me of something I learned in a training on self-care. Of course, we all need to take care of ourselves, but this training was specifically for people in abnormally stressful situations and I think ours fits that scenario. One of the suggestions was to watch more comedies, to laugh more, because laughter reduces stress. Well, I think that fun musicals do that and even more for me. My heart literally felt lighter and more inspired by watching these two films, especially Hairspray because the plot and songs involve standing up and fighting for needed change.

So, thank you High School Musical and Hairspray!

Diarrhea

Yes, this is will be a little gross, so read at our your own peril.

I should be at church this morning, but instead I am at home and Jerry is at church. I had really bad diarrhea last night. I think it was because of a village trip we took and some food I ate, in particular a wedge of apple that I did think twice about, but decided to partake to be polite. (When we first got here, we did not eat fresh produce for 3-4 months.)

Well, I started thinking last night that this is not a good place to have diarrhea even though eating/drinking here gives me diarrhea quite often. I have it maybe 1-2 times a week. Anyhow, there are no places here to stop and run into the bathroom. In the US, there are fast food places galore that have at least decent bathrooms. Plus, even if you can find a bathroom here, it will probably be not very nice, especially if you have to poop.

So, my stomach this morning is feeling a little weird and it is a 10-20 minute drive to church AND the bathroom at church is literally right next to where people sit. In our church, we sit on the floor and people actually lean against the bathroom door for back support. And once you open the bathroom door, the squat toilet is right there. And I have enough trouble trying not to get pee on my feet or shoes... I have had only some success in that area so far!

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?