They're so friendly when they're hammered
1) As I was walking to my apartment the other night, I noticed the manager of the Japanese restaurant below me helping someone down the street. As I got up close, I could see why: the guy he was helping was stumbling drunk, literally. But with a huge smile on his face.
I will say this for the locals: They may not be able to hold their booze, but they make for friendly drunks, not mean drunks. Compared to a lot of the Brits and Aussies here, who can drink gallons a night but often turn mean and nasty.
2) This weekend, I ended up in Sai Kung after a failed attempt to eat at a restaurant nearby. While grabbing beers with a friend, he explains the local customs for when his wife will give birth, sometime in October. (He's German, she's local). For a month, they hire a local woman who teaches the mom about rearing the kid and makes her batch after batch of herbal teas and other traditional remedies, because that first month's rest after birth will determine how healthy she will recover for the rest of her days. But it's mostly about making batch after batch of herbal teas and soups for her to have to help recover.
File under things I did not know before.
3) First day post-paycut at work. Ouch.
4) And, of course, after canceling a trip to Tokyo this month, I turn around and book a trip to Singapore. But I have a 3-day weekend, this will be much cheaper, and I was due to visit to meet friends I met in Hanoi last year who live there, along with the American brewer at a microbrewery down there, who another friend knows. And it'll be over July 4th weekend, so I can celebrate it by having American microbrews (they have real, honest, good brewpubs down there), buffalo wings and by loading up at the Borders down there that is as big as any US suburban branch. Hooray for American excess!
5) Another small victory: the Japanese restaurant downstairs now serves curry rice at lunch, which I am now getting at least once a week. You could guess which option I get between chicken, beef and pork.
6) A local coworker just got back from a month in the states, her first trip there. She loved it, and in the goodness of her expanded heart, brought back 6 bottles of Magic Hat for me. Some people are too nice for words.
7) Normally, I would be bitching about the weather for two months now. But in what should be the rainy season for two months now, it has been sunny more than half of the days, and we have gotten not even a third of the rain we normally would. Strange, strange days, but just when you think you should go outside to run in that beautiful weather, you step foot outside only to find out it still is 90 degrees with 90 percent humity. Ooofda.
8) I now find myself often leaving, or not entering my local bar, The Globe, because it is filled with loud Aussies or Brits. My tolerance for other expats is diminishing by the years as I become a crotchetty old coot.
I will say this for the locals: They may not be able to hold their booze, but they make for friendly drunks, not mean drunks. Compared to a lot of the Brits and Aussies here, who can drink gallons a night but often turn mean and nasty.
2) This weekend, I ended up in Sai Kung after a failed attempt to eat at a restaurant nearby. While grabbing beers with a friend, he explains the local customs for when his wife will give birth, sometime in October. (He's German, she's local). For a month, they hire a local woman who teaches the mom about rearing the kid and makes her batch after batch of herbal teas and other traditional remedies, because that first month's rest after birth will determine how healthy she will recover for the rest of her days. But it's mostly about making batch after batch of herbal teas and soups for her to have to help recover.
File under things I did not know before.
3) First day post-paycut at work. Ouch.
4) And, of course, after canceling a trip to Tokyo this month, I turn around and book a trip to Singapore. But I have a 3-day weekend, this will be much cheaper, and I was due to visit to meet friends I met in Hanoi last year who live there, along with the American brewer at a microbrewery down there, who another friend knows. And it'll be over July 4th weekend, so I can celebrate it by having American microbrews (they have real, honest, good brewpubs down there), buffalo wings and by loading up at the Borders down there that is as big as any US suburban branch. Hooray for American excess!
5) Another small victory: the Japanese restaurant downstairs now serves curry rice at lunch, which I am now getting at least once a week. You could guess which option I get between chicken, beef and pork.
6) A local coworker just got back from a month in the states, her first trip there. She loved it, and in the goodness of her expanded heart, brought back 6 bottles of Magic Hat for me. Some people are too nice for words.
7) Normally, I would be bitching about the weather for two months now. But in what should be the rainy season for two months now, it has been sunny more than half of the days, and we have gotten not even a third of the rain we normally would. Strange, strange days, but just when you think you should go outside to run in that beautiful weather, you step foot outside only to find out it still is 90 degrees with 90 percent humity. Ooofda.
8) I now find myself often leaving, or not entering my local bar, The Globe, because it is filled with loud Aussies or Brits. My tolerance for other expats is diminishing by the years as I become a crotchetty old coot.
posted by throm at 11:16 AM
2 Comments:
Tip for you in Singapore. Forget Borders. Two blocks away in Takashimaya on Orchard Road is Kinokuniya Books, seriously better than Borders.
You're not a crotchey old coot. You're just going local.
Post a Comment
<< Home