Routines

So I haven't been blogging, the reasons being I have since settled into the routine of things here and don't see much to blog about, the constant lack of electricity everyday (when there is the few precious 4 hours of power blogging is not really my priority), and most of the interesting things are negative and since this blog is currently being scrutinized by not just friends but my uber protective mum, I shall censor myself.

The house has been pretty peaceful and silent recently, since Yen Lin is away at Dhaka, Bangladesh attending a photo exhibition there and Zi Liang has gone away to Chitwan National Park for 3 days to do a story. So it's just me and Zak at home, and since we have different rest days I am now home alone.

The weather has been fluctuating, probably due to the changing of seasons, so sometimes it gets very hot in the afternoon and still pretty cold at night. I'm just hoping that the nights start to get warmer soon.

Oh and I've finally found my Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens in a bookstore here, and so I bought it, for only 3 bucks! My two main indulgences here are buying books and eating chocolates, the first because they are so cheap here and I can't resist and the latter because I'm becoming almost vegetarian here so chocolates somehow help to keep me warmer. There is not much seafood here and chicken meat costs twice as much as buffulo or pork or mutton, none of which I eat. And now with the bird flu I guess chicken is not what I should be eating anyway. So my lunch these days consists of either a big plate of 40 cents vegetarian Mo-Mos (dumplings), veg Thukpa (Tibetan spicy noodles) or a plate of veg chowmien (fried noodles). And Dudh Chia (milk tea) of course. And snacks include Pokora (fried potato/flour balls with onions and capsicum and spices) or Samosas (self-explanatory) with curry or cakes or some cookies made of coconut which taste like our CNY goodies. And dinner is either Dal Bhat (staple meal for all Nepalese consisting of rice with lentils soup/curry) or any of Zak's wonderful creations (Nasi Lemak, chicken rice, fried rice, potato salad, etc). Occasionally we splurge on treats, such as Japanese or Korean food, but those are not as authentic as the ones we get in Singapore.

So nothing much else to talk about besides food. Pictures of the week below:

I don't know why the traffic police here have to be on horses to direct the traffic in Kathmandu. Maybe they think they can see the chaotic traffic better on horses...

Street scene in Thamel, the local tourist area.

The old lady who lives in the house opposite my office, smoking while beating her dusty carpets.