No fan of the fan

The dog days of summer have ended, so to save electricity, I ran the fan at night instead of the air-conditioner. All my local friends say to never sleep with a fan on, because it will cause colds. But in America I slept with a fan on me all the time and never got a cold. So it just doesn't make sense that it could happen in one country and not another.


But every single time I try to disprove this "fan will make you sick" theory in Asia, I only prove them to be correct. I slept with a fan on me last weekend and now I have a bad cold. They may have to tear down another forest to replace all the tissues I've used in the past week.


I don't understand the fan thing, but I believe it. I'm done with sleeping with a fan on me. In Asia anyway.

Sweet little mutt 'o mine

 

Top: What a beauty!

Bottom: She's either

A: sniffing the air

B: doing neck exercises

C: being a snobby dog

Your guess is as good as mine! This dog has a mind of her own.

Note to those who could care less about my dog: My parents have met Mimi and like her quite a bit, so these pictures are for them. Other people post pictures of their children, I post pictures of my dog. Check back again soon and if you're lucky, maybe I'll have something you like better.

Gonna dig me a hole and crawl into it

Imagine, traffic so atrociously crowded that cars cannot reasonably get through town. The solution? Build a subway system to alleviate traffic! But during the 4 years of construction, the already crowded traffic will be detoured down 2-lane roads and make transportation even a bigger nightmare than it was before a "solution" was hit upon.

Sadly, this is the main road through Bamboo Forest. It has been torn up. And just about every road in town either looks like this or is a crowded detour road for cars trying to avoid the construction.

I have been in Bamboo Forest for three years now, and it has pretty much looked like this the whole time I have been living here -- in fact, it is getting worse! Getting across town is almost impossible. Trauma comes to those who try. It seems it will never end. Someday, presumably, we'll have a lovely subway system and all the annoyance will fade into our memories. But for now, we have chaos, mayhem and short-circuited nerves.

This is another view of the main road.

Will it ever end? 

Have passport, will travel

I am in Hong Kong for about a week. My visa has to be renewed, and I had to come here to get it done. I turned over my passport two hours after I arrived in town, and now all I have to do is sit around for a week for it to come back to me. I took a few days to roam around Hong Kong, but it is not really vacation (I have a lot of work to do that I can do on my computer). I used to live here, so I have visited old friends, done some sightseeing, and such as that. 


Since May, I have traveled in five different countries. Twenty-somethings think that's fun. I'm not in my 20's, so, you know, I find it half exhausting and half fun. :-) Hong Kong is definitely the best place in the world to have to wait around for a week though!

Stuff you don't see every day...

...unless you live in Hong Kong.

How about a cup of sun tea on a hot day? Be sure to flavor it with dead bees overnight.

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but besides the fact that the worship of false gods is distasteful to me anyway, it seems rather irreverent to light one's joss sticks with a blow torch.  

I think this is a painting of the false god, painted on the door to a temple. Looks like some cartoon character. You don't scare me!!!!

You've probably seen incense sticks before. In China they often burn them in public restrooms in an attempt to eradicate the bad smell. Yep, incense is burned in temples and restrooms. There's something really weird about that. But I digress. The above picture is of coiled incense that's hung from the ceiling.

Coffins for sale. Yep, right next to a repair shop, next to the bee tea shop, right in the middle of everything. So if you go out to the convenience store to buy a coke and a bag of M&M's, be sure to pick up a coffin on your way home.

I can understand if the guy played a flute or guitar, 'cause it is really popular in the Chinese world to play your music in public ... but why would a person carry such a heavy instrument to the train station to play it? Would you carry your grand piano to the station to play it? 

These are the mysteries of the Middle Kingdom. 

Little House on the Prairie

Between July 1st and September 9th, the grass at my apartment complex was not cut. Not even a little bit. On about September 1st, I pulled a random piece of grass, took it up stairs and measured it. It was 30 inches long. That's nearly a yard long (no pun intended)!

Poor Mimi would walk on the grass and get lost in it. It was taller than her. It also contained bugs. Last year they cut the grass once a month (which is not so great either), so I don't know why this year they took over two months to decide to cut it. Presumably they'd rather have the money themselves than pay someone to come cut it. The farmer who cuts it uses a weed eater.