From Grits to Chopsticks

Here are a few recent random photos to give you some insight into our “random” realm.  We enjoy trying to figure out the English translations on public signs.  This one can be found on a number of the billboards at bus stops:

This advertisement was posted near our elevator for a couple of months.  We’re still not sure what constitutes an “anti-festival”:We constantly see reversed images, especially on the decals used for automobile decorations:On the subject of transportation, the sidewalk can sometimes get pretty crowded with big scooters:I’ve often wondered how people know when they reach the load limit on their big trikes.  Here’s how:

In the category of “old meets new” transportation, here is a traditional water carrier competing for highway space with a new Wal-Mart bus:I stood at the entrance to our apartment a few weeks ago and watched the restaurant staff butcher a side of beef on a dining table out front.  It is then hung on a rack to attract flies (and customers):Much of our time is spent eating with students.  I’m still not sure how to eat this part of a chicken:In the category of familiar food, Susan baked a pineapple upside-down cake for English corner last week:We are thankful for the modern conveniences in our kitchen.  We have a nice toaster that begins to push the limits of doneness when set to “2”, so we wondered what would happen if you cranked it all the way up to “7”:Well, I chickened out and decided to call off the experiment seconds before flames erupted:Based on news reports, we understand that World Cup is underway in Brazil.  Although we haven’t watched any of it, we did get to watch a very important soccer match on Saturday night.  While our 3-year old grandson was running up and down the field in Pennsylvania, we were able to watch live via Skype over an iPhone.  And amazingly, the quality was good.  Like a proper grandfather, I’ll end by re-posting our daughter’s photos of the future World Cup champ: