Stone Clan Lotta Topp Cast Penang, Malaysia

We are now in Malaysia, on an island called Penang (or Pinang). Pulau Penang, if you want to be exact, but Pulau just means \ted experience, Religious standards Something That Are Not Are enforced upon the Population, as in Some Countries, the People Are Other relgions free to practice, Women Are Free to Not Cover Their necks and hair and so forth If They choose, etc.

I Guess What I did not like about Singapore WAS That large parts of it seem to Did not Really Have A "soul." Not That There Were not Things I Appreciate about it (eg, Little India), pero WAS the downtown area all very generic. Someplace That Would Be Hard to "fall in love with." Malaysia (again, so far) is Not Like That. There is definitely a lot of character here in Penang. Maybe There Is in Singapore too, and we just Did not get out to it, but here it's easy to find. We've seen lots

of Chinese temples and decaying colonial buildings. Today we took an hour-long bus trip outside Georgetown on a regular city bus (which was very clean, modern, and comfortable, I might add) to go to Penang National Park, and then took a boat to a beach called Monkey Beach. I only saw one monkey, but the beach itself was quite nice. Small, isolated, with white sand, and very few tourists there visiting.

Tomorrow morning we head off to Indonesia, to the island of Sumatra, to hopefully see some orangutans.

Blush Bridal Boutique Lisburn Road Be in Donosti Watery =^-^= watered-up meeting in San Sebastian

* Date: Sunday, May 30, 2010
* Day: Sunday, May 30th, 2010
* Time: I'm sorry. I do not remember
* Time: So sorry. I DO NOT remember
* Place: Palacio Miramar and frames from the beach of La Concha
* Place: Miramar Palace and La Concha beach porch
* Weather: wet-bobos Sirimiri
* Weather: rain Silly
* Reason: Quedada Resinera in San Sebastian and do the wave, that nothing (Tomorrow) Another
* Reason: Resin meeting up in San Sebastian and I make the wave, That Closely (Tomorrow) Another
* Assistants: Three potted counting the witch. Four resins. I took 50%.
Jijks * Audience: Three people resinning, with myself. Four people resin. I Brought 50%. Hehks


(Sorry for the publication. I have not managed to avoid it - Sorry for the spot. I Could not Avoid it)

's there and although we were little because they twisted things were there from the rain and the wind: It Was There
and, although twisted Circumstances Because FEW people, There We Were Against wind and rain:

face

group photo on the porch of the palace. What royalist than it sounds. Four, four big guys.
Front shot of the group at the palace porch. It sounds so monarchic. Of four, four Were large ones.





Akuma of DarkRed-chan, wearing his new shirt. Akuma
, by DarkRed-chan, wearing His new shirt.



Nefertari Vivi, my SD even shorter - For further reference, see group picture - with the wig that came recently from 4D.
Nefertari Vivi, my shortest SD - For more references, check out the front shot of the group - with the recently Arrived Which wig for her from 4D.



Sanji, premiering caMass burgundy also there. Not that I have yet blusher the body, too. Is that paled to be surrounded by like two beauties. For references, ditto with the previous. Sanji
, in His new wine color shirt Also Which Came From There. It is Not That blushing His body is still pending, That also. It Is That I Turned pale When He found Himself Surrounded by Those Two beautiful ladies. For more references, do the Same That with the previous one.



The baby surprise Barillas. What sweetest face and what more sweeping lips. Apart from that I love, I dig your makeup. Barillas
's Surprisingbeauty. What a sweet face and her lips What captivating. Apart from The Fact That I am charmed with her, I love her makeup.



would think that was a time of fable and Vivi boots were and are, but really they are, for SD. I will take them to the last. > _ \u0026lt;Jijks.
Who Would say it WAS doing a wheather of fable and Vivi That 's Boots Were and They Are, Though They really do plow, for SD. I Will Take Them to the mold. > _ \u0026lt;Hehks.



Nothing could be further from the truth. Nanaina fabulous time. I like the effect of reflection of the lamp by the water and at fondo will see the island of Santa Clara. But
That Had nothing to do with the reality. Nothing of fabulous wheater. I like the effect of the reflection of the lamppost by water and Santa Clara island That Can Be seen at the background.



Foteando in the rain. Cuquísima very cute and the Queen of Alabasta was the first to fall, but I think in the end not a single one was saved.
Photographing in the rain. Cute cutie, the queen of Arabasta Was the first one in falling down, Though I believe none of Them Could Avoid it finally.



Barillas's charm - Did we have found nombre? - Sitting on the grass like new shoes. Barillas
's charm - Have you found a name for her already? - Sitting on the grass as wearing new shoes.


back
picture group and a change of location. After five years of having most of the group, when I finally decided to sand them down, it rains. Back
shot of the group and an emplacement change. After five years HAVING These Almost my whole group, When I finally decide to lower Them to the sand, it rains.



The beauty of Barillas peliazul and the witch. Not the best of the photos, but for some reason I likethis image. Barillas
's beauty and my blue-haired girl. It Will Not Be the best of the photos, But For Some Reason I like this image.



Akuma of DarkRed-chan, to the poetic-errant.
DarkRed-chan 's Akuma at a Poetical wandering style.



Sanji, not pilla cacho with Vivi, who knows. Fishing plans without people in the background was quite an ordeal. Sanji
, Without Any chance, with Vivi , Who knows him well. Catching shots without people at the back kind of an Odyss WASey.



Here's an example of that with Akuma of DarkRed-chan and the preciousness of Barillas.
Here an example of That with DarkRed-chan 's Akuma and Barillas' s preciousness.



Sanji of inclined plane. There were not many bikinis with falling at times. Sanji
at a crossed shot. There Were not Many bikinis with the rain falling down from time to time.

And:
And to:

Borrosus extra bonus
Blurry extra bonus



I think it was the nervous shock of the moment. Barillas resin padded headlong into the sand next to Akuma of DarkRed-chan, stoically resisting.
I think it WAS for the nervous shock of the moment. Barillas 's resin Facing girl quilted and Against the sand, next to DarkRed-chan' s Akuma stoically resisting.



Dedicated to those who were, who could not, who will, who can no longer anyone who haswanted to stop by here to see them.
Dedicated to Those Who Went to Those Who Could not, to Whom They Will Go to Those Who Will Not Be Able to everyone and to pass hereabouts Who Want to See Them.

Thanks for visiting Arigato gozaimasu =^-^= =^-^= Thanks a lot for visiting us

V360 Unsupported Media Type (0x4f) Bonfires of San Juan San Juan Bonfires night =^-^=

Thanks for visiting Arigato gozaimasu =^-^= = - ^ = Thanks a lot for visiting us

Durasig Material Cleaning Singapore

So I'm in Singapore. My mom has a work conference here, so I flew down to visit with her and see someplace I'd never been before.

It's nice enough, but to paraphrase what my brother said about Macao, you kind of have to be rich to enjoy it. There's a lot of activities here -- theme parks and such -- if you're willing to pay the fees, but there's not a lot to do or see other than that. With the exception of just walking around the city, looking at skyscrapers and fancy hotels, and the architecture is varied and interesting I guess if you're into that, but they're just buildings after all.



One thing that's very cool about here is the diversity. They have four officiallanguages, and the people on the street Communicate, as best as my ear Can Tell, in all of them to. Mostly I hear Inglés and Chinese, But Also at times Something That I Do not Recognize spoken by East-Asian-looking people, Which I take to Be Malay, And Then the sizeable Indian community largely speak Tamil. I Have to Say That it's nice to see people of Different Colors walking around, to hear and see A variety of languages, available to Have a bunch of Different kinds of food (Including Some I've Never Been Exposed to before: we ate yesterday Nepalese for dinner), to see temples of Different faiths (so far I've seen a cathedral, a Methodist church, a couple Hindu temples around Little India, Where We Spent a large Portion of yesterday, and a couple of Muslim mosques) etc. Was a Little Indiacool place. The Abundant Does not Hurt Either Indian food. As far as the spoken Inglés here, everybody Seems to speak it, But Sometimes it's hard for me to understand. The common accent (or dialect) of the sounds a little bit similar at times to the Thai accent my classmates Have That When They speak Inglés, and the Indian people's sounds like Indian Inglés Inglés.

Today

Danielle * and I visited the Singapore Botanical Garden and National Orchid Garden, Which was nice and Not incredibly expensive, and peaceful and pleasant Until we started getting Rain on.

* Danielle is my mom's friend-and-former-colleague's daughter, we hung out together today while respective Our Parents Were doing work stuff
CHT
MLXC

Ok Kyum Kim Viloin Maker Four New Experiences

Before I set off on another trip tomorrow, I thought I'd post a few more pictures from my last trip (now that I can post pictures again). So these are from winter vacation, which is to say February, in China. I had been wanting to make this post earlier, describing some new experiences that I had on that trip, but then I decided I'd wait until I could put up the pictures.

So. Four things I'd never done before coming to China, that now I have:

1. Hand-wash my clothes. Here at the college, everybody washes their clothes by hand and hangs them up to dry. We have laundry machines in our dorm, and all the foreign students probably use them, but relatively few of the Chinese people, I think. My friends, in their Chinese dorms, also have a few washing machines available, But nobody I know uses Them, Because It Costs 3 yuan (about 45 U.S. cents) per load. So They Do What They've always done by hand and wash Them. I, of course, use the machines. But When We Went to Zhejiang, There Were not washing machines. Our So we washed clothes by hand. And I did too, for the first time in my life. Now, This Was Also February, and We Were Our washing clothes outside - using well water - so my hands Were freezing. Then we hung the clothes up to dry. That part I've gotten Used to by now, that's the only option where i live too. (Sorry, no picture of this one.)

2. Make zongzi. (Referring to the Pronunciation guide handy at the right, you will notice That z is Pronounced "dz" and or is Pronounced "oh". The last i is kind of like "ih". Kind of.) ThisThat is a Chinese food Consists of rice and whatever Other filling (in Our case, dates; Sometimes people put meat in Them or Other Things too) wrapped up in bamboo leaves, tied up with string, and boiled. The cooked rice and eat out sticky sweet and flavorful from the date (or whatever) juice Infusing Through It. When We Were in Zhejiang, Molin's mom let us "help" make zongzi. (I'm afraid we May Have Been about as helpful as you when to let your five-year-old "help" you cook.) Wrapping up the dry rice in the bamboo leaves and tying it all up and stuff is a tricky procedure Rather . Picture below. Zongzi, by the way, Are Also Traditionally eaten During The Dragon Boat Festival, Which Was the holiday We Had That I Mentioned this week we got off class for (and made it up on the weekend). So I've been eating a lot of zongzi this week too.



3. Make jiaozi (Chinese dumplings). I really like jiaozi, and I used to get frozen ones in the US all the time and make them. But here in Hainan I haven't really found any that are vegetarian, so I haven't really been able to eat them. So I was very excited when I was in Zhuhai at my friend Victoria's house and they told me we were going to have (vegetarian) jiaozi. Again, they let me help. I don't think I did too badly. Her mom had already made the filling, so it was just a matter of rolling out the dough, putting the right amount of filling in the middle, and folding it closed (in the right way, so that it is both sturdy and attractive).



4. Standing on a train for 19+ hours. O. M. G. For the trip from Zhejiang to Zhuhai, at the time we bought our train tickets there were no seats left. So we got standing-room-only tickets. It was supposed to be a 17-hour trip, I had thought, but it ended up taking like 19.5 for some reason. In other words, pretty much all night and all day: from evening, through night, past morning, to afternoon. Remind me to never do that again. The standing-room tickets are not actually in a separate car or anything; you just stand in the aisle between the seated passengers. I don't know if they have a limit to the number of people they sell standing tickets to -- surely they do, but they really pack the people in there. We didn't really stand up the whole entire time, which I think would Have Been impossible. When There Was enough space (Which wasn't always) We Took turns sitting on the luggage (Not That comfortable) or squatting on the floor. During The Night, Many of the Other Passengers flopped down in the aisle, leaning Up Against Each Other or the sides of the seats at weird angles Wherever They Could find a little space, But There really wasn't much to Be Had. I did not Do That Because I wasn't aggressive enough about myself Some space clearing, and when i did try to squat or anything I found it comfortable Even Less Than Continuing to stand on my aching legs. The last four hours of the trip so crowded Were That We Had to put the suitcase in the overhead bin INSTEAD OF in the aisle with us, so we Could not sit at all DURING That Time (with the exception of about ten blessed minutes when some of the seated passengers near us got off at one stop, and before the new ticketed passengers got on to take those seats).

Daytime:



Nighttime:

Toshiba P5225u Specifications Not about food

There's a holiday this week in China, which means we have class on Saturday and Sunday, to make up for missing Monday and Tuesday. I refuse to go out of principle. Here in general people are very lax about scheduling things at the last minute and expecting people to be free. Even classes and school events. It's kind of weird: students have their teachers' cell phone numbers and vice versa. I don't know how many times I've been hanging out with some friend and they get a call from their teacher telling them they have to go do something. (I've never heard of that happening in the US.)

Anyway, so yesterday was Saturday and I didn't have to work because of the holiday. (I have to work Monday and Tuesday instead of my regular Friday and Saturday) so I went to the beach. I haven't gone to the beach too much, but I feel like I should go more often, since it's right here. I didn't go that much when I was in Peru either, which I kind of regret. Anyway, on the way back from the beach there was this huge rainbow over campus, and since I was coming from the beach I had my camera with me, so I thought I'd share this with you. If you don't care about rainbows, then just view this as a picture of part of the Hainan University campus, which I have posted very few pictures of. (You may have noticed that I've started posting some pictures again; my photo-hosting site has started working again without jumping through a proxy, which means I can actually upload photos for you guys again. (I did try to use a different site in the interim, but it didn't work either.)
CHT

Bedwettingstore.com Coupon Eating in China

Most of the time in the US when we go to a restaurant, each person orders their own dish of whatever they want to eat, and they eat it. Maybe they share a bite with someone so they can try it and see what it's like. But mostly my food is my food and your food is your food. Sometimes, however, when it comes to Chinese food (in the US) we share more than that. I think we are aware that the Chinese don't hoard their food like we do; they share and share alike. But here's the thing, even when we share our Chinese food (in the US), we still have our own plates.

In China, you don't. Each dish is set out in the center of the table, but there are are no clean, common serving spoons (which nobody puts in their mouth) by which you take however much you want and put it on your plate, and then proceed to use your own silverware to eat what you have taken. No, here, everyone reaches with their own chopsticks to the communal serving dishes, and eats straight out of there. Chopsticks from common serving dish to mouth, and back to serving dish.

You don't have your own plate, but you often have your own bowl of rice. You can use this to put a bite or two of food onto if you want, but in any case you still don't have any clean serving utensil by which to obtain the food; just your own now-unhygienic chopsticks.

In the US, all restaurants give you cold tap water for free. In China, tap water is not potable, and anyway the drink of choice is tea. It's always served hot. (At most restaurants I've found, either tea or a brothy soup is served free.) It's weird to me to be in tropical Hainan where it's sweltering outside, to go into a restaurant at noontime, sweating, and instead of a tall glass of cold water, be given a small cup of hot tea. Does anybody really want to drink that in this weather? I can't believe they still serve hot drinks in this heat. But I completely recognize that it might be equally weird for, say, a Chinese person to go to the US and in the middle of the freezing winter to be served a big glass of ice water. For me, of course, that's not strange. Drinks are best cold, even in the winter. No doubt the Chinese think the opposite: drinks should be hot, even in the summer.

I have wondered if it somehow stems from the fact that the water has to be boiled anyway before you can drink it. Aside from the fact that I know tea has an important place in Chinese history and culture. But even when you get served water, it's still hot, recently boiled water. And I wonder if that has something to do with it. But it might also have to do with the Chinese ideas about health. I haven't gotten into this a lot, but there are a lot of sort of folk-medicine ideas floating around out here, many of which are not at all the same as the ideas we have in the US. One of the most common ones I've run into is the idea of not getting cold when you're hot. I'm not sure I know all the specifics, but people always say things like not to drink cold water when it's hot out and you're hot (really? that's when it's best!). One time shortly after I arrived I was walking with a friend and it was hot and they were drinking warm Coke and I was drinking cold water, and they were trying to tell me that what I was drinking was bad for my health. (!) Last weekend I played ping-pong off campus and worked up a sweat, and the friend I'd been playing with advised me not to take the bus back because it would be air conditioned, and I would catch cold. I told her I'd risk it. But people are always saying things like that. Don't take a cold shower right after you play basketball in the afternoon heat was another one I heard. Sorry, but that's the only time I'm ever going to take a cold shower. (My whole life I've hated cold showers, but here the weather is so hot, and the water from the pipes isn't even that cold, so in the heat of the daytime, coming in from exercising, the cold shower is actually bearable.) C
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I wonder if I can think of more to say tomorrow about food?

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Alprazolam 1mg Notense From Uk Qing bu liang

Three of my friends eating qingbuliang

One place I end up eating a lot That I did not mention the other day is the snack stands up after dark That Go Outside the university's south gate. There Are Things cheap and tasty and There's a good Variety (of oily Chinese food) available. Especially Before I Gain The Ability (or Rather, the appliances and implements) to cook in my room, I Probably Had dinner There MOST days, or at least it felt like it at times. Each item Costs RMB Between one and four, and I Would eat one or two and call it a meal.

I Mentioned That a long time ago one of my Favourite Things to eat here is a bizarre item Called Rather-bu-liang qing (清 补 凉, I think). It's a Hainanese specialtand, and I've heard They Might Have It in A Few of the nearby tropical Other cities on the mainland, But It's Not the Same smash hit it is here. Here, at least south gate at food stands Those I Was talking about, it's very popular. Out of the maybe 25 or 30 stands That Are there, a good three or four Are always qingbuliang - making it maybe the second MOST popular thing there, behind-shao kao (烧烤), Chinese "barbecue." And, by the way, the places qingbuliang Are always packed. What is qingbuliang

? It Was I Mentioned Hainanese. (Most of the university students, Who eats from around the country, seem to Have never seen it before.) If you know your Hainan Might Have you guessed Correctly That Means That it's coconut-based. (Coconuts Are the big thing here. Coconut palms are the most common type of tree around. Shops abound where you can buy a coconut and drink it through a straw. Then, if you want, when you're finished, they'll split it open for you and you can eat the meat. Each coconut usually costs three RMB, which is less than 50 US cents.)

Qingbuliang is kind of like a cross between a dessert and a main dish, which is probably why I like it so much. I can tell myself I'm eating a relatively healthy meal, but it feels like I'm eating ice cream. (I might be lying to myself about the relatively healthy part - but at least it's better for you than pure ice cream, and it's also a good source of protein for me that I sometimes worry I don't get enough of here, given the sparseness of nuts, beans, whole grains, etc.)

It is mostly made of sweetened coconut milk frozen into an ice-cream like texture. (They say there's no actual milk in it, just coconut milk. Which probably makes sense, since coconut milk might well be cheaper here.) But the bizarre thing is that along with that you have a whole assortment of chunks of things that would probably never have occurred to you to put in ice cream. Not all the qingbuliang stands make theirs with exactly the same 'toppings' if you will. But they tend to include things like corn, red kidney beans, mung beans, macaroni, taro root, crushed peanut, coconut shreds, red dates (also called jujubes, by the way), tapioca \g, raisins, sweet potato, pineapple, watermelon, and a variety of other gelatinousy things that are probably made from starch of some kind.

And yes, it all goes in there together. It's completely weird (or at least, it seemed so to me at first, although it seems pretty normal now). If you've been paying attention to my recent posts, you'll have guessed correctly that I order my qingbuliang without the egg or the watermelon. (I also sometimes get it without the dates, because I don't really like them, plus they've got pits and that's just 麻烦.)

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1920's Flapper Cigarette Holders Wikianswers Food 2

Yesterday I mentioned the lack of options when it comes to food here, and that I often end up eating the same thing several times a week. (Now that I've got the equipment to cook for myself this has gotten somewhat better.)

By way of personal example: I know I'm a vegetarian, but that doesn't mean I have to like all vegetables. I can eschew animal products and still dislike some things that aren't animal products just because I don't like them. Specifically, I've always hated cucumbers and carrots, which, among other things, taste very bitter to me. I know that most people say they're not bitter and that I'm crazy, but they're crazy and I'm right :-P. (Watermelons also fall into that too-bitter-to-eat category.) But here's the thing, I end up eating cucumber probably more Than days I do here. It's not because i love it Suddenly, it's Just Because my options are so limited That Became one of my Better selections (also, They Have a Way of Preparing That Can it take a lot of the bitter out s, which is nice). Also I eat carrots Fairly frequently, Just Because That's What There Is.

By the way, i also eat a lot of eggplant, and tofu, Because Those Things Are Also very common, But I've always liked Those. Also I eat a lot of cabbage, Which is really hard to like or dislike very Strongly, But It's Also very common. There's Also a much WIDER usage of leafy greens I've Experienced Than here in the U.S.. Which is good, not so much Are delicious greens Because (again, they're pretty neutral, it's hard to love them or hate them) But Because They're Notbad, and they're good for you, and I never really ate them before because I didn't know how to prepare them. But anyway, as far as vegetables go, that's kind of it. Those are the common vegetables. Other than hot peppers, which are also pretty common, I guess. Cucumber, carrot, eggplant, cabbage, unidentified leafy greens, maybe the occasional tomato, potato but that doesn't really count as a vegetable. There's not a lot of variety here. I haven't seen any bean dishes or nuts (beyond peanuts, which are thankfully easy to find). But tofu and other soy products are definitely abundant, which is good. And it's nice that they're treated as just another ingredient, like any other vegetable or meat, and not relegated to the meat-substitute classification like they are in the US, where they are only eaten as a replacement for other foods that they are not necessarily even that similar to.

Another good thing about the food here when it comes to being vegan (and there aren't many) is that almost no dishes use dairy or eggs anyway, so what's vegetarian is pretty much vegan. There are some egg things, especially in fried rice (which, by the way, is not overwhelmingly common here) and pastry-like things (which I don't really eat anyway). And there are some milk products, but not many. I think I've only ever encountered a few: ice cream (not nearly as popular as in the US, but it exists; here young people bizarrely go out for fruit together in the evening, not ice cream); yogurt (which is drunk, not eaten with a spoon - just like in Peru); and \lable everywhere, often in the form of \

Hair Loss From Swynthroid Food

I've been thinking Should I write about the food here. Probably I'll do so across the next Several days.

I've Mentioned Before That I do not really like the food here. It's not really That it's all bad, it's just that There's not much Variety, and Especially Not Many vegetarian options, and What Are There Are Things FEW only okay, not great. And everything's all drenched in oil and all kind of the Same, and the vegetables cooked down to Are mushy, and I'm never really sure if There's some kind of animal byproduct lurking somewhere in the dish, Which kind of spoils the appetite.

Partly it's hard to Be sure about the animal content Because the servers never know, and kind of look at you strange when to ask you whether it's Things like pork fat or vegetable oil,or whether the broth is made from bone (Usually it is). But They Can Go ask, pero Given the frequency Which events OCCUR mistakes as blatant as telling you a dish has no meat in it, And Then it comes out with meat in it, It Does not lend a lot of confidence to the small things . Plus, after eight years or so as a vegetarian, I feel like I have a pretty good grip on What do vegetarian dishes and do not look like and taste like. Even When They Say So it's Purely vegetarian, I do not always take Their word for it. (Given how little Usually They know or care about it anyway.) Adjusting

hard también dishes. I do not know about Other parts of China, but here in Haikou, at least at the more inexpensive restaurants That I Tend to Frequent, There is just no culture of customizing dishs (or of, like I said, even having a good grip on the ingredients of the dishes) like there is in the allergy-conscious, special-needs-catering, picky-eater-serving, customer-is-always-right U.S. of A. So asking for a dish to be made, say, without using the bone broth - just use water instead - can turn into an argument about whether it's possible (yes it is; I've done it at this restaurant before) and often them telling you that it won't taste good (I'm aware the taste may not be the same*, but I'm vegetarian; you can either make it vegetarian or I won't eat it). Which is obviously a situation I avoid as much as possible.

Things have gotten better since I first arrived. Partly it's been finding more and more specific things that I can eat. At first, it was a matter of asking about everything and getting it wrong a lot (does this have meat in it? - yes - does this have meat in it? - yes - do you have something that doesn't have meat in it? - this one doesn't - okay I'll have that one ... ... ... and then it turns out it has meat in it). So I've found a lot of things I can eat now. Or, at least, several things. I still tend to eat the same things really often. Partly things have gotten better on the food front because my Chinese has gotten better, so I can more easily express and understand nuances beyond \Sometimes, Apparently. Some Things Really Are vegetarian, and the sauce is brown Because of dark soy sauce or vinegar or sesame paste and Not Because of meat, and the taste is savory and Not Because of MSG meat, or Things Like That. So There Are Some dishes that I've enough times Asked at Different enough places (and Chinese with native-speaker friends Who Understand) That I Think They Are Actually really vegetarian, Even Though They Were I did not think at first. Aside from

the vegetarian issue, Another big issue with the food here for me is the Lack of Variety. Partly There's Lack of Variety Because I only eat the vegetarian food, of Which There Is little, and I'm aware of That. But really MOST Things Are pretty much the same, meat or no meat. There's Either or noodlesrice. There's a lot of oil, and some kind of sauce or broth. There's floppy vegetables. That's pretty much it. When I Went to Peru, the Peruvian I Found That Actually Chinese food was very similar to American Chinese food, Chinese Thought and Chinese food I Must Actually Be Not that far off. But - and again, I do not know about the rest of China - here in Hainan, Almost There is literally nothing available That is the close to the Same as What is available at Chinese restaurants in the U.S.. In my experience. That's not bad or good, but I'm just Saying, It's Not What You Might Be thinking of as Chinese food. When I Went to Shanghai I saw sweet and sour pork and That Was The First Time I Saw Something That Look familiar, like it Could Have Been on an American Chinese restaurant's menu. There's no General Tso's here.

Back to variety. It's just, I'm in college, right? They say there are some 30,000 students here. Even setting aside the cafeteria food, which is really bad, but really cheap, stepping off campus but right next to campus, at any school in the US, there'd be a whole row of different restaurants - probably be a sandwich place, a Mexican place, a pizza place (or, okay, a few), a Chinese place, maybe some sushi, maybe someplace to get hummus and the like, plus fast food... in other words, a whole lot of different kinds of food, completely different flavors. Here, stepping off campus, all the restaurants are literally the same. It's kind of flabbergasting. There's a whole row of restaurants, maybe a half-dozen or more of them, but their menus are almost literally identical. Foreign Students Sometimes we go there for lunch together, and at first we Put Some Effort Into Trying to decide Which one to go to, Until We Realized We Could Exactly the Same order dishes (and They taste similar enough to fool me) at all of Them, so it Did not matter. And When we go, we order the Same Basically do dishes Each time, no matter Which one we're at. Now, I know I'm not an expert, and There Are Large portions of the menus Because That I can not read my Chinese isn't good enough. And it's very possible That There Are Things That These restaurants do Differently, or That They offer Different Specialties. But they're all the same style of food, and They All the Same basic serve dishes. It's a far cry from "do you feel like Mexican? Or Thai? Or Indian? Or Italian? or...\ Thai place I only know because I saw an ad offering a sale at a special price of I think 28 RMB per person (and that sale is presumably over). One (very small) personal pizza at the non-Pizza-Hut pizza place was I think 38 RMB (and not filling), and at Pizza Hut each personal pizza was around 50 RMB, which means 100 for two people. Which is insane. And even if these places weren't so expensive, there's not many of them, so there's never one nearby or convenient.

More tomorrow.

*(And besides, if you add vegetable oil and MSG and salt and soy sauce and vinegar and hot pepper and whatever else, it will still taste good, even if it's lacking that delicious bone flavor.)

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New Baby Flower Card Wording NBA

Speaking of the NBA, here is a handy little bilingual map of the NBA teams that I made. The NBA is very popular here, and is also one of the main ways that many young people here are familiar with names of American cities. So this map can help teach US geography too, because it helps them locate those names in space.

(Click to enlarge.)



Speaking of basketball, it looks like our team is done for the year. Leo is gone, probably for good, and he was kind of our captain: organized all the games for us, found us teams to play with and communicated with them, and basically did everything that needed to be done that wasn't just showing up and playing (which the rest of us did). Also, we've lost our two best players. One went back to the US; one got kicked off the team for bad sportsmanship (meaning: taking things way too seriously, cussing out the refs, yelling and getting angry, and overall making the game no fun to play anymore). With Leo gone too, that's probably our three best players, or at least three of the top four or five. One other guy is still in Haikou but not on campus anymore so he can't come very often, which basically leaves me (and I don't really care one way or the other) plus a bunch of people who've never played basketball in their lives and are still learning how not to double-dribble (much less make a basket). So I think we're pretty much done. Our final record for the year was 15-7-1. (We were doing better than that until we lost those two best players, and lost three of our last four games.) Season over!

Speaking of the NBA finals, I blame Dan Sheeran for the Cavs Not Being in it this year.

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Gerber Training Pants \

One of the interesting things about languages is how they change. As much as purists would like them not to, they always and forever have and will continue to change. They change in lots of ways, but one way that has become perhaps increasingly common in our modern world is through borrowing from other languages. Along those lines, as you would expect, there are a number of English words that have been borrowed into Chinese. It's not that surprising, given the ubiquity of English language education (ensuring a familiarity with the basics of the language among most young people, kind of - kind of - like English in the US) as well as the ubiquity (and prestige) of American and English-language pop culture (movies, TV shows, pop music, etc.).

There are some words that have officially Been Adopted, transliterated, Given Chinese characters. Words like Fensi for "fans" (eg of a pop star or sports team), or hànbǎobāo for "hamburger." There Are some words borrowed That Are Rather unofficially - That is to say, They Are Used only in slangy speech, in writing They Have no Chinese version, and the letters Inglés Would Have To Be used. Examples include, I think, "cool" and "fashion." But

isn't my focus here on These whole words, But Something That I find even more interesting: acronyms, abbreviations, using Inglés (more Properly, Roman) letters in Chinese writing. They use

Sometimes we do the Same acronyms: DVD, CD, TV, NBA, etc. Borrowed from whole-cloth Inglés; What the individual letters stand for may or may not be widely known by the Chinese using the acronyms, but the acronyms as a whole are borrowings from English that are still comprehensible to an English speaker. Nothing strange about that; it's just like borrowing words, except the \thing is basically IM and SMS slang.

But the most interesting thing, and the thing that inspired me to write this post after not feeling like writing much of anything for a while, is the acronyms that use English letters, ostensibly to represent English referents, although the acronyms (and in some cases the referents themselves) are unintelligible to English speakers. These kinds of things are very interesting. These are the kinds of things that my Chinese friends all know (because they've become part of vernacular Chinese), but are surprised to find out that I don't understand (because they assume that - since they look like English, and may even come from English words - the acronyms themselves are a part of the English language. So, after a quick surveand of a couple of Chinese friends, I'm going to list here Some for you. See if You Can Understand and Stock of the Meanings. Then click to expand the post to see the answers. Some Of These You Might Be Able to guess. Also Some of Them Might Have Other meanings in Inglés Different from Their Meaning in Chinese. PK


PS (or just
P
)

MV (or MTV ) KTV
PPT QQ AA GL
OL / BL




== Answers
==
PK - The term PK is very Widely Known in China now, although nobody really Seems Where It Came From sure. When a Chinese friend Asked me what it meant in Inglés, I confessed to Not Knowing. In my life, That I can recall, I've heard two Meanings for PK: (1) penalty kick (very Commonly used in soccer) and (2) psychokinesis (Also known as telekinesis: the Ability to move objects with your mind) . But this is PK Neither of Thos. This originally PK eat from gamer lingo, and Apparently means "player kill" or "player killer" - so If There's Any gamers Might Be Out There you familiar with this term. I'm not a gamer, although gaming acronyms There Are Some That I am familiar with s, such as MMORPG, and it Seems to Me That PK is Not All That common in Inglés. Even if it is well Known Within the gamer community (Which I do not know about) That it hasn't burst Outside group. In China, On the Other hand, everybody knows PK. Here it means "defeat"or "competition", or Basically "OWN." Its popularity eat Exclusively from an American Idol-style
chāojínǚshēng
Street Program ("Super Girls"), where, the contestants "PK" each other in head-to-head (singing) combat. An interesting academic article about the spread of the meme is this here

PS (or just P ) - Photoshop. According to my friends, this Can Be Used as a verb as well as a noun, Which is just like in Inglés. En Inglés we can say a picture was "Photoshopped" in Chinese dog They just say it was "P'd." MV

(or MTV ) - You Might Have Correctly guessed this one. MV means "music video." Of course, we all Know What Music Videos Are, But we never call them MVs (at least, not that I've ever heard.) Here, MV seems to be interchangeable with MTV, which is not a channel, but instead just means \u want to go sing K?' They all presumably knew what that meant.

PPT -- Software names, like other borrowed words and names, are hard, and so are prone to being shortened. With software, one easy way to shorten the name is to just use the file extension. Especially in this case, when the extension and the program name are so close. PPT is \Basically Means is "going Dutch" Equally splitting the bill. Usually when it comes to eating out, although Not Necessarily (I've heard it Applied to KTV also). And it just does not have to Be Between Two people splitting it, as the phrase "Dutch" implied (at least to me), it Can Be Evenly Dividing the check out Among the whole group. By the way, That it's not common here. Here, Usually, you treat me, Then I treat you, Then you treat me, Then I treat you, and I guess it works out the Same in the end. In the U.S., we're more likely to get Separate checks. QQ

- It's not really fair of me to include this, Since it's just the name of the ubiquitous IM / chat client in China. (When and Where I WAS growing up, we all Used AIM. When I Went to Peru, everybody There used 'MSN' s, which is to say Windows Messenger. In China, everybody uses QQ (Which WAS originally spawned from ICQ, For Those Who Remember That, I do, barely). Everybody everybody. OL - OL Apparently means "office lady" s, which is still not a common phrase Inglés, pero I guess just means "businesswoman."

GL / BL

- Referring to lesbians and gay men (respectivamente) GL and BL ostensibly stand for "girl love" and "boy love."

This kind of thing has-been in the news Lately Because a ban WAS prop (I do not know if it was really implemented) on Inglés using acronyms in official media (TV, newspapers, etc.). Supposedly as a way to Prevent the Chinese language from being further corrupted by Western influence. From what I can tell, the ban met mostly disagreement and criticism. More on that
here
, if you're interested. And it really is stupid to have say, for example, the Chinese equivalent of \ho was watching with me) what that \