Thursday, July 13, 2006

Two Weeks Down...

Sometime around half past six last night I decided I could do no more lesson preparation of any practical value, so I left work early and headed downstairs to a family steakhouse for dinner. Eschewing the frog curry, I ordered a chicken steak package meal and a large beer. The waitress came back with a knife and fork wrapped in card and a large napkin, which she gestured for me to hold in front of my chest. I understood why when the food came, still fizzing away and spitting grease viciously in the direction of my light coloured shirt. The food was nice, the beer tasted like toothpaste.

Back home, it was way too hot to stay cooped up indoors so I changed and went straight back out to investigate the neighbourhood. I walked up and down sidestreets lined with hole-in-the-wall shops selling dried fish, men's polo shirts and, bizarrely, cleaning implements and hard hats. I found a pond overlooked by decrepit apartment buildings and a main road with a bridge made out of two eight-metre-high dragons, their mouths closing over a pearl in the middle of the water. Further on, a wide street had a dozen tyre fitters on one side and the same number of hairdresser shops on the other. I stopped at a convenience store, bought two beers, and went home to sleep.

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