Better than a bidet

One thing I will REALLY miss about living here is this:

Not the toilet, but the white hose-looking thing to the right. I do not know the official name for it, but I call it a sprayer. Its cultural use is to spray your bum after you go short toilet (pee) or long toilet (poop) instead of using toilet paper. I use the sprayer AND toilet paper. The sprayer for the bits and the rinse and then the toilet paper for the dry.

I think it is better than a bidet because you do not have to move to another contraption to get the "rinse" and you have control over where the stream is spraying as well as the intensity. I have asked Jerry if he can install one wherever we end up living when we move back to Houston. He has said, "Yes."

So, if you end up coming over to our place in Houston one day and need to go to the bathroom...

well, it's interesting to me

I find that my facebook status is usually about the weather. And I think - this is probably really boring to most people, but the reason I put it out there is that it is really fascinating to me how hot and humid it gets here. Yesterday the heat index was 153 degrees. Can you imagine that? Well, I can honestly say that not only can I imagine it - I have felt it and it is HOT! I was just telling someone who just moved here that I used to try to describe the heat, but now all I can say is, "It is hot; it is really hot."

This is for my sister - I found myself telling Jerry a couple of weeks ago, "I know I am spoiled, but I have endured alot!"

First Meal

Even though we will not be going home for another six weeks, Jerry and I have already talked about what our first meal will be when we get to Houston - Chick-fil-A milkshake and Popeye's Fried Chicken!

My husband said so

I went by myself to cancel our membership at BigFlix, a DVD rental place, primarily because we do not rent enough to justify the monthly fee and we have already lost one movie.

When I told the clerk I wanted to cancel, he tried to persuade me not to. Then I told him why and he tried to persuade me again. Then I said that I just wanted to cancel and then he tried to persuade me again. Finally, I had to resort to, "My husband says we are canceling." That did the trick.

It is pretty interesting how women are identified through their husbands and fathers. On almost any application and definitely any gov't application, if you are a woman, you have to write your father's name or husband's name and occupation. Women are commonly announced as "wife of" or "daughter of" so-and-so.

I could go on and on about the treatment of women, but it's my birthday!!! Hooray for me - I love being a woman!

No news is good news?

Yesterday, Jerry was reading the newspaper and it said something about how there would be no May 2nd edition because of the May 1st May Day holiday. And sure enough, there are no newspapers in our city today. And when I went to check the online edition of the usual newspaper I read, it will give me the news only for May 1st - yesterday.

This happened to me before when I tried to access the newspaper online and kept getting a past date even when I refreshed the page. I just thought it was something wrong with the server. Now I know.

I have never really heard of this ever before in any place ever.

Something funny not related to life in S Asia

Instead, it is about E Asia...

We have a friend from Hong Kong visiting right now. She asked what she could bring for us and Jerry requested current, popular Chinese action movies. She brought several VCDs and told us that when we watch them, we need to turn one speaker off.

WHAT??

Well, she went on to explain that we have to do that because the audio is in Mandarin AND Cantonese - one language on one speaker and the other language on the other speaker.

So before I came home Jerry was watching one of the movies with the right speaker off, so he could listen to the movie in Cantonese. But now that I am here, he is using his headphones and so the audio is coming only in his left ear!

Another Adventure in the Heat

We walked into our flat at around 8:30pm tonight and just as I approached the bedroom, the lights went out. Yup, a power cut. And what of our inverter, you say? Doesn't work. Well actually, the inverter works but the battery is near dead. Does it surprise you that things did not work out as planned with this whole inverter thing? Does not surprise me. Here's what happened next:

M: What do you think? Should we stay or try to find some A/C?
J: Well, we'll see. Maybe it will last only an hour.
M: Okay.

five minutes later...
M: Honey, a heat rash is developing on my finger and hands.
J: Okay, let's go.

Our plan was to find a coffee shop that still had power and bring our Skip-Bo with us and play cards until the power came back. We first went to Barista. No A/C. Then Cafe Coffee Day (CCD). No A/C. Then the mall (who had the 4-6 hour power cut over the weekend). A/C!! Hooray!! We went to the CCD on the food court level, ordered iced drinks and played Skip-Bo and then War. Our friend who has a working inverter let us know when the power came back on (10:00pm) and we went back to our flat where the temp was 95 degrees. We turned on the A/C, took a cold shower and watched a movie on TV called Outsourced, a film about an American guy who goes to India to train his outsourced replacement. It was a blessing to watch this character try to navigate the culture. We were able to laugh quite a bit since we are now "insiders" and it improved our moods about living here. We really needed that boost since this past week has been particularly frustrating and discouraging for us. Hooray for the right kind of movie just when we needed it, especially since Jerry was just flipping channels and happened upon it just as it was starting!