Massive Post - Notes on Living Here

Accommodations

#1 Previous apartment

The greatest parts about this apartment are pictured below. They are a dugout canoe and a fern that the owner of the apartment rescued, plus all the other plants, which went all the way around the balcony. The canoe is actually full of water and floating plants, and has hundreds of tiny fish in it, who presumably eat all the mosquito larvae that I was initially worried about. This apartment was pretty mosquito free though. It’s location was also fantastic, close enough to the hotel I was staying in previously that I sort of knew the area, but far enough that it was exciting to learn more about the city. Plus I was starting to commute to school, so there were great things going on while I lived here. It also had the internet, which was great. The balcony area was great to hang out on, and drying clothes was super easy.



#2 Current Apartment

This apartment certainly has its upsides (safety, a channel on TV that shows formula one and motogp live, etc.) but it has taken a ton of adjusting, and I’m not sure I’m totally settled yet.



On the left you can see my balcony, which also houses my kitchen. The balcony, including kitchen, is about 10 feet long by 4 feet deep, so it’s not massive. I get a good breeze though, which cools the room off nicely at night. At the right of the frame you can see the second door you have to open to get into the room, more on that later. I am standing in my bathroom to take the picture, I didn’t take of picture of it but do want to describe my clothes drying system, which is a grid of floss tied to screws in the bathroom door frame and the tub curtain rod. It’s kind of hilarious to see all my clothes hanging in it after doing laundry, but it works. I have to do this because I’m not supposed to dry clothes on my balcony. Floss is also incredibly strong, in case you didn’t know. Initially my clothes had a slight minty smell from it, but that’s gone away.

The area around this apartment is very different from where I lived before. I almost never see foreigners, which is kind of cool but can be extremely isolating. As I have learned the area I have become happier, but I think it was harder for me to adjust to moving here than it was for me to adjust to the country when I first got here. Plus I kind of ran out of easy things to do after moving here, so it seemed like the move made me lose my momentum and sense of progress. It was pretty disruptive, over all. But one of the most important things to me about this fellowship is trying to learn how to adapt to difficult situations, and overcome things I’m not necessarily comfortable with. I’m making progress, but it’s a hard lesson.

On the plus side, I’m much closer to school, and the Olympic Stadium, which is fun to run at. Pictures of that should be coming soon, as I have promised before…..
Moving on, the long awaited food entry!

Food

#1 Home Made

My last term at Union, I worked at Hale House, Union’s on campus catering service, to pay for my meal plan. It was usually a very good time, unless I was washing dishes alone which got old quickly. The people there are great and I learned a fair amount from the experience. I fondly recall plating famous people’s dinners when they came to speak (most memorably Howard Dean’s) amid generous ribbing and story-telling. Anyway, I think about Hale while making food, and wanted to give them a shout out. I hope everyone is doing well.

While staying in the first apartment post-hotel, I cooked lunch and dinner for myself frequently. Generally the meals were quite simple, and some variation of a stir fry. Ingredients always included rice noodles, chicken or eggs, tomatoes, garlic, bean sprouts, and onions. A green vegetable would usually be thrown in, string beans or spinach being the most common. There was a disastrous meal using mustard greens, which I had no idea tasted so strongly of mustard. The combination of mustard and everything else was pretty unpalatable. Seasonings include fresh lime juice, soy sauce, chili sauce, and the like. The picture below illustrates an early version of a stir-fry, in the previous apartment.



Breakfast was easy and theoretically nutritious: Whole wheat bread with tofu and sliced tomatoes, with some soy sauce for the saltiness. Easy to prepare, and I think it tastes good.

In my current apartment I have cooked much less often. I don’t really know why. For the past several to-do lists I have made, grocery shopping featured quite prominently yet gets left behind. I have bought kitchen implements, and their purchase was probably my greatest bargaining success. I think it helped that I wore an 8 year old tee shirt that’s ready to fall of my shoulders. Hopefully I will use my utensils more in the future. Having read most of Michael Pollan’s books and articles, it’s hard to not feel obligated to cook my own food.

#2 Restaurants/Café’s

The dividing line here can be fairly thin. The most important distinction is wireless internet access, which is found in the more café-ish setting. Iced coffee is an important part of my diet thanks to these cafés, because it seems to quench thirst and wake me up in the morning or in the heat of the day. I have found a favorite one, which offers fast internet, tasteful décor (this is a joke, although it’s kind of true), bowls of tasty soup for around 2 dollars, and nice staff. Plus I’m usually one of few western people, which I find endearing for some reason.
As for restaurants, there are some very nice ones here. I wandered into this Dim Sum restaurant looking for chow su bow, which are steamed pork buns whose name I don’t know how to spell correctly. They are extremely tasty, and this place had them. Unfortunately, it was shockingly expensive. The CSB were 2.50 for 3 little baby sized buns, and in the menu I saw a large bowl of shark fin soup for 70 dollars. I think it was supposed to feed several people, but that is an astronomical sum of money for a meal, let alone a single bowl of soup.



Another terrific discovery has been that one of my favorite foods can be found here, well made and reasonably priced. This would be – chocolate croissants, or pain au chocolate as they are generally referred to here. I don’t know why they are called bread, but they are deliciously flaky and croissant-y. The danger encountered when purchasing these is that the places that make them well often have other delicious baked goods for sale, at less affordable prices. Case in Point below.



This is actually kind of empty, normally there are cake loaf things and actual cake slices in addition to the little tart/custard dealies. Plus they sell homemade ice cream. After I first found this place, I bought a few desserts that are about what I normally spend on an entire meal. This means roughly $3-$4, which while not the end of the world, definitely adds up. I quickly learned to avoid it at night, when I was most likely to think about dessert as a viable food option.

#3 Street Food

Ah, street food, that most varied of food groups. Below is a picture of one type of vendor that illustrates the carts this food is made on. This person has a sugar cane squeezing device. I haven’t tried this, but basically the Cane juice gets squeezed out and placed into a plastic bag with some ice and I believe some seltzer. The bag thing throws me off, I find it very odd. I guess they are cheaper and more compact than cups.



People use these carts in their various forms to make an incredible variety of foods. Stir Fried noodles are probably my favorite, but there are Fruit Salad carts, Bannana and Dough Fryers, Soup people, Waffle sellers, etc. Last night I found someone selling steamed buns, and was super pumped because I thought they were the chow su bow I have been questing for. Alas, though the bun part was excellent, the inside smelled vaguely of ammonia, and was emphatically not barbequed pork. It tasted better than the smell would have led me to believe, but I was still disappointed. The search continues.

Mostly Amusing Asides

#1 - Soccer
For a while, students from my school were playing soccer together. Three teams formed, and everyone who played would go over to the Olympic stadium after the last session of school. It was great, and while there was a healthy spirit of competition, people enjoyed themselves. The field had some natural obstacles, including a massive light pole and some concrete blocks to prevent people from driving onto the grass. I’ll try and take a picture of it when I document the Olympic Stadium.

Unfortunately, the goal was poorly defined, and unless the ball was on the ground as it passed through the coffee cans filled with dirt, people got argumentative. So to prevent ill will between students, soccer is over. While it lasted though, I had a great time hanging out with the guys from school.

#2 – Locked out of apartment

Coming back from School one day, I got to my door and realized I had locked my keys behind the two doors that need to be opened to get into my room. I nonchalantly went down to the front desk and explained. They realized I needed a spare key and handed a ring of them over. Unfortunately though, there were only keys for the first door. There was a moment of this information being digested, and concern growing among those behind the desk. They sent me up with a maintenance guy I normally see in the parking area, who had a screwdriver and a hammer. He hammered the ring around the handle loose, and spun it out. I don’t know what he was planning to do next, and apparently he ran out of ideas after that.

He went back downstairs and I got a call from my landlord, telling me they had called a locksmith. I did not want to pay for that, and thought about how to get the door open without cost and without damage.

I remembered back to my freshman year at Union, when after several beers and inspiration provided by a spy movie, a friend and I decided to learn how to pick door locks with credit cards. It took me a very long time with my friend watching and encouraging me (I think more than an hour) but I got a door open. I ended up using a borders rewards card I think, and the key was bending the card so that it fit flush between the door and frame when you were pushing against the angled part of the lock. Also, if the lock has a flat part before the angled part its much more difficult and potentially impossible. Finally, the further the door moves away from the jamb while being locked, the easier it is to open.

Calling on that experience, I searched through my bag for something that would work. I ended up using the plastic front cover of the notebook I bring to school, and it took maybe two minutes. I grabbed the keys from my room, and brought them down to the front desk. I explained what I had done, and the landlord laughed but was also sort of suspicious of me, I think. I don’t know if she didn’t believe me or questioned why I knew how to do that.

To better illustrate what I had done, I brought my notebook down. Another woman, who had been talking to my landlord during this 10 minute ordeal, voiced her surprise when I showed them the tool.

“This worked? It’s thin. I use my ID Card.”

I was surprised by her sudden jump into the conversation and more surprised when she pulled a thickly laminated card out of her purse with a telltale bend at 2/3 of its length.

Fortunately, my building has security cameras in every hallway, and as far as I know you can’t enter the building without going past the front desk. Also, I’m not sure it would be so easy to pick the first door. So I feel safe, but enjoyed the experience of having to break into my own apartment.

It reminded me of my senior project, when the motorcycle we bought was hotwired and joy-ridden, and then returned. Because the ignition wires had been cut, we had to hotwire it to move it anywhere.

I wonder if I was given this fellowship because of all these practical skills I have learned along the way?

#3 – Nissan GT-R and Bentley Flying Spur.

I wish I had had my camera with me when this happened. Down the street from my building is a multi-story restaurant that is pretty serious business. They employ 5 or so parking people, who wear fluorescent vests and aggressively wave glowing orange wands and LED flashlights around. They have limousine style golf carts, which I think shuttle people to and from the restaurant, like a designated driver service.

One night coming home from a café at about 10:30 (I stayed out extra late trying to call my grandmother to wish her a happy birthday, but I was unfortunately unable to reach her) I turned the corner this restaurant sits at, onto my street. There in front of me was an approximately brand new Bentley Flying Spur, and across the street was a similarly fresh Nissan GT-R. The Bentley is a four door flagship that costs $175,000 in the US, the Nissan a supercar with some of the most advanced electronic control systems in a car. Both are very difficult to acquire, due to limited supply and great demand.

They were both brilliant white, with aftermarket wheels, also white. So I’m presuming the same person owned both of them. It was wild.

#4 – Thinking I ate intestine

This actually happened the last time I went to SLP with Leb Ke. We got lunch, and i selected a beef dish and a pork dish, basically at random. When the Pork dish (on the right) came to the table, I was immediately suspicious of it. It consisted of a knobbly green tube filled with unidentifiable bits of stuff. I thought it was a funky vegetable at first, and tried it. It was super bitter, which is apparently a very acquired taste. I decided that I had eaten intestine, because it looked gross and tasted worse, which is what I imagined eating intestine would be like. I then took another big bite, to demonstrate to myself that I could overcome things such as revulsion for eating digestive tract organs with willpower.



Satisfied that I had not withdrawn from this challenging dish, I smugly explained to Leb Ke that I was going to stop eating the concoction, because it was so bitter. It being intestine had nothing to do with it, I was totally fine with intestine.

His response – “Yes, this vegetable has a strong taste.”

Queue embarrassment.

#5 – The not Amusing Aside

I saw a dead kitten today. It was on the sidewalk, and was not ‘damaged’, i.e. I couldn’t see how it had died. It made me sad, although if it had been a puppy I probably would have been more upset. Still though, seeing a small creature dead like that, for an indiscernible reason, was distressing. If it had been a rat I wouldn’t have cared, and at first I thought it was a rat. But it was yellow-ish, which rats generally are not. It looked…. not asleep, but as though it had given up on life and died mid-stride. One of its front legs was sticking out, which is what gave me the mid-walking death impression. That one leg being forward had an oddly large impact on me. Maybe I just see dead animals normally considered pets so rarely that I am very sensitive to them. If it was a deer or a squirrel I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

#6 – Laundry

Doing laundry by hand at the first apartment and the hotel was incredibly difficult. I actually gave myself blood blisters wringing out clothes the first two times I did laundry, from the fabric pinching my skin where my thumb met my palm. I quickly learned it was a game of diminishing returns, and that getting that last ounce of water out wasn’t really going to make the clothes dry that much faster. Plus it was speedily making any holes my shirts had bigger. I now have a tub, which makes doing laundry much easier, due to the larger quantity of water you can use, and it’s easier to do a large amount of laundry at once, reducing the total time spent. It still takes a darn long time though, like a couple hours if I need to do several ‘loads’. This is because it takes a few tub cycles to get all the dirt out, and a couple more to get as much soap out as possible. I only put in 3 or so inches in the tub, which is fairly short, but still, water efficient the process is not.

I have a new respect for laundry though, and how much effort it takes to do by hand. Washing machines are pretty great, really. Drying clothes on lines should come back in style though. It really isn’t that bad to dry clothes here, even though it’s fairly humid, and using no energy is nice. So maybe I’ll set up a clothes drying line for my parents when I get home. Winters could be a problem though.

This was a massive write-up, I hope people make it through the whole thing, and find some of it interesting. Let me know what you think.

Stay Well.
Ned.