I'm aware that I need to spice this blog up a bit. The first shock and awe of being in an entirely new environment is starting to wear off and I'm beginning to fall into a routine. The little things are starting to become evident to me.  The way I chose my bakery, for instance, is solely due to the fact that the little woman who runs the shop knows, simply by looking at me, that I don't speak very much, if any, Chinese, but that doesn't stop her from babbling on with hardly a breath while she's checking me out with my purchases.  At the end of the transaction, with a bob of her head, she says "Sank you sank you. Bye now!" and moves on to the next customer.  I dont mind at all that the pork and egg luncheon roll that I buy costs $.50 less at the shop two doors down, or that the other shop has much more room and more natural light and less people crowding in and jostling about, snatching that last bun before I can.  The other shop is stark and has not nearly the level of friendliness or personality that is posessed by the quaint little St. Honour Cake Shop.

My laundry place, on the other hand, I'm starting to think is a rip off.  Yesterday morning I dropped off my laundry and was told it would be ready for pick up by the evening.  It wasn't.  My only set of bed sheets was in that batch of laundry, thus sending me to Muji (Its the Japanese version of IKEA but with a full line of stationaries, clothing and dried food.) for another set of sheets.  This afternoon, I went back to check on my laundry and received very blank stares from the two boys running the shop.  After several minutes of searching through bag after bag after bag of laundry, they realized that my laundry still hadn't been started! Sweet, glad I bought those new sheets though. I think I need a new laundry lady, and I definitely need to get a photo of the organized chaos that is the inside of most laundries around town.

Anyway, tonight I attend trivia night with Nicholas, Mr. Mau and his lady Alba. Lets see if I can understand any of it!