My colleague Rishi recommended a Korean restaurant about a kilometer from work. He told me that for $5.00 there was a lot of food. I didn't have breakfast and thought it would be a good day to check it out.
I drove up and looked at the building "this does not look like a restaurant", but it was. There must be other businesses and a home in the house. The restaurant room is small with three tables. In this restaurant silverware, chopsticks and spoons are in a small wooden box, not standing in hot water like in a Cambodian restaurant. The waitress brought me a cold wet towel and a plastic bottle with water that had been in the freezer.
The menu had a smattering of English and pictures, I pointed to a rib looking meat dish. I was not sure of the meat, pork, beef or dog.
Shortly the appetizer dishes arrived, an array of kimchi looking dishes. I opened the wooden box and selected a pair of metal chopsticks. I have used bamboo and plastic chopsticks but never metal ones. These were less than 1/3 the diameter of any others I have used. It took some getting accustomed to. I could not hold them the way I normally hold plastic or bamboo chopsticks. After five minutes was up and eating.
The appetizers were very good with the exception of the tofu, it was a bit oily and the tofu did not have much flavor.
As I was savoring the appetizers the main dish arrived. A small plate of ribs with meat attached and a plate of salad, cabbage, lettuce and long green peppers. I was still enjoying the appetizers as the waitress departed, few minutes later she came back with a gigantic industrial kitchen scissor. She cut the meat off of the bones and snipped it into large bite size pieces. That was great; my only tools were metal chopsticks and a spoon.
The meat, still not sure of the origin, was very tasty and tender, so that leaves out beef, I know it was not chicken or fish so that leave pork or dog. The ribs were too small for a large hog it is possible that it was a piglet's.
I will definitely be going back to try other dishes.
I came home about 21:00 and turned on the lights. As I walked past the couch, a large bug ran out from under the couch. A roach! It was so big that I stepped back to let it by.
I hate roaches. I went to the kitchen to get a broom. Brooms in Cambodia are a little smaller than in Europe and the USA, just a little bigger than a tennis racket.
Figure 1 Broom/roach racket
Where is this guy? I looked under the couch. There he is. I took a swing at him. He moved to the other side to the couch leg. Another swipe. This time I connected and he went sliding two meters to the front wall. As soon as he stopped sliding he was back in the game, he ran back to his hiding place. My next shot was a misplaced forehand. I missed. The roach tried to sneak by along the wall. A well placed forehand popped him back toward the front wall. He was stunned but he quickly ran back under the couch.
Wow, he's good. Two more misses with my forehand. Tom, plan your shot better and follow through. My next shot was better. I connected with a backhand and popped him under the moto. It was 30 all.
I can't let this roach beat me. He scurried back toward the couch. With a quick backhand, I lobbed him under the front door and out of the game.
In my house geckos usually stay on the walls and ceiling and I stay on the floor. Once in a while the wee ones and a medium size gecko will run across the floor. I look where I am walking but in the dark I can't always see them.
This evening I walked into the dark kitchen and saw something move on the floor. I was careful to not step in that spot. When I reached the far wall, I turned on the light switch. I looked around and there on the floor was a one inch (2.5 cm) gecko tail twitching. I was horrified, did I step on the gecko.
I don't think so. I Goggled "Why does a gecko's tail fall off?" and found the following: "A gecko drops its tail as a defense mechanism induced by fear. When a predator approaches, the gecko is able is drop the tail and leave it behind to entice the predator. However, the gecko then loses the fat stored in its tail that will keep it healthy during times when food is harder to find."
When I inspected the tail, it had not been squished so I assume the gecko thought of me as a BIG predator!
There will be one gecko without a tail for some weeks.
I was writing at my table in the living room. I must have dropped a crumb of something on the floor. I looked down to see the cleanup crew was on duty. There was a line of ants from the wall to the crumb and a large number of ants surrounding the crumb.
A bit later, I walked to the kitchen. I must have dropped a little something on the way to the kitchen, there was another cleanup squad working there. 10 minutes later, there were no crumbs and no ants.
Love that crew, they are so efficient.
Mom Gecko has hatched twins. I just spotted two wee geckos running along the ceiling. They are the smallest gecko I have seen. Now the family has five large geckos, three medium sized ones and three wee ones.
For some time, mom had been hanging out behind the wall calendar in the living room. I just about stuck myself to the ceiling one day when I turned the page to next month and she came running out from behind the calendar. A few days later I wanted to look back at last month and moved the page and out she came again. After interrupting her twice, she moved to the shroud where the fan is connected to the ceiling. From time to time I would see just her tail sticking out of the shroud.
Geckos are unique among lizards in their vocalizations, making chirping sounds in social interactions with other geckos. Every now and then I hear a bit of gecko conversation. If there was a special announcement for the hatching, though, I missed it; of course it could have happened while I was at work.
I was reading about their ability to climb. WOW, their toes have millions of special little hairs that allow them to climb (even better than Urs, my Swiss mountain guide) up smooth vertical walls and hang upside down on the ceiling.
Congratulations Gecko family.
Last week, before the screens were installed, covering the slits high in the wall of my ground-floor living room, a sparrow landed on the entrance to the front door, walked in, then flew around checking for things to eat. When she/he was ready to leave, it was up and out through the slits in the wall.
Today a sparrow (the same one?) entered through the partially open front door and surveyed the place. When she/he was ready to leave, there was a little problem: screens on the usual exit. The bird flew around trying different slits in the wall, but all were blocked. She/he sat on the ceiling fan, hopping from blade to blade trying to work this problem out.
I went to the front door, pulled the curtain back and opened it all the way. It took my little guest about a minute to see that there was an Exit. She/he dive-bombed out the door.
I arrived at work at 07:30 to find out if there were any items that I had missed in my testing of the new internet connection Sunday. After starting the server, I asked Ali another x-pat if she could test e-mail and the internet connection.
In about 15 minutes she was at my desk, telling me that neither worked. That's not good. I had expected a little problem but not that both the internet and e-mail were not working. After some research I found one problem, which meant that I had to change a setting on everyone's computer.
I changed the setting on several computers and things had gone well, then I went to change it on my computer. I still have not determined what the problem is but my computer will not accept the change.
Having awoke at 04:30 and worked hard, by 11:00 I was tired, at 11:30 I went home to take a nap. Lunch time is from 12:00 to 13:30 (just changed from 14:00). That gives me enough time to catch up on a little sleep.
I arrived home and saw the house open. My landlord was looking at the new screens that had been put up. Great new screen to keep the bugs out.
Not so great, I will not get my nap.
The man putting up the screens had a drill, something that most Cambodians do not have. We could use his to put up the mirror I purchased on Sunday. For the past three months, I have been shaving and combing my hair in a 3 ½" by 2 ½" mirror out of my toiletry kit.
The man putting up the screens had two drills, one was a hammer drill that had a cement bit. This will drill the holes in the bathroom tiles but you must be very careful the hammer can be hard to control. The other drill was a smaller easier to handle drill but he did not have a bit for it.
We started to position the mirror, looking back it was like the three stooges.
My landlord is a great buy and has good ideas but he has not had much of a chance to use power tools. He drilled two of the holes for the mirror and when he drilled the third, he was a little trigger happy and the tile he was drilling did not have cement behind most of it (the was a large hollow spot behind the tile). He pulled the trigger a little too much and the hammer ticked in and cracked the tile in half. Luckily the tile stayed on the wall. Most of the crack is behind the mirror.
We put up the mirror, soap dish, a shelf and towel bar. Another post on why I purchased a pinkish mirror set.
Some time ago, I wrote about the cleanup crew in my house.
They are back on the job.
This evening I killed a rather large beetle and did not pick up the remains, I thought I will just sweep him out the door tomorrow. When I looked down about 15 minutes later, the cleanup crew was already hard at work.
It's hard to make it out, but there are hundreds of ants on the job. As I was focusing to shoot the photos I noticed that the beetle was moving. There were so many ants that they were moving the beetle around.
I wonder how much there will be for me to sweep out the door in the morning.
Part of a fully furnished house in Cambodia is a Buddhist shrine. My house also has a calendar from my bank (in Khmer and English) that gives holidays and the days that you should make an offering.
My shrine has an addition that is not common in Cambodia, a Swiss bear. Mine is a Basel Fasnacht bear.
On days that an offering should be made my landlord comes over, cleans out the little cups, fills them with water, puts the food offering in front of the shrine and lights the incense. The offerings in this photo were pineapple and dragon fruit.
I felt energetic on Wednesday, so I went out and purchased an offering, placed it in front of the shrine and lit the incense. The next day my landlord brought me bananas for the shrine. I had made my offering on the wrong day. Oh well, an extra one can't hurt.
The landlord usually provides fairly green bananas, which are just right for eating the next day.
