Black Sheep II

I saw the black sheep again today… he really is becoming one of my favorite people… just as long as he doesn’t feel the need to talk to me again… so I guess I should rephrase that a bit… he’s one of my favorite people to observe. Today I saw him riding a push bike. Now I ride a push bike too… but only to and from work… in the morning and afternoon…. He’s riding at like 12:30… its hotter than hell outside. But there he is biking along. Now you have to imagine a decent looking guy around 6’4”ish… athletic etc. Shaved head, goatee… on an oldschool granny push bike… we’re talking women’s bike, no gears, basket in the front. Now he also is doing this shirtless… which is really just unheard of hear… I mean, I’m wearing dress pants, and a three quarter length shirt w/ a tank top underneath… it’s a modest place… even the men here… the most they do is lift their shirts above their bellies… never off altogether. But that really wasn’t the funny part… he was wearing bright girly pink pajama pants. It made my day.

On another note… there is something to be said about developing a routine… My lunch routine involves going and eating at the herb café. I know there are other places to eat… I just never get to them. It’s a quick walk, fairly cheap… all the main meals are between 3-4 dollars. And they have all sorts of sandwiches and good lunch stuff. As long as they aren’t playing Christmas carols, it has great atmosphere… perfect for people watching. And I can just sit back w/ my book, dining outside, and just chill. And now they know me. They know that I don’t order the same thing everyday. They know to shoo off people trying to sell me things. They know not to make me wait a long time. They throw in an extra side salad. Today they even gave me a free glass of water. Of course I tip well (meaning that I actually leave a tip… somewhere around .50… which is a huge deal here).

Its also come to my attention that it may be costing me more to go grocery shopping than it is to eat out every night. Which is really a completely foreign concept. But it costs me about $40 a week just to pick up bread, cream cheese, milk, yogurt, peanut butter, cereal, apples, and gram crackers… plus a few other odds and ends… like frozen veggies, and easy things I can cook up. The cheapest way to go food wise is to hit up vendors and stalls… but there are some draw backs to this… first… they aren’t really around where I live… so it means I need to travel somewhere… 2nd… according to last years health report put out by the Cambodian government… 75% of all food stalls had significant levels of bacteria… so yeah… that’s a bummer… and its not like you ever know what your eating… except fruit stalls…. I love fruit stalls. And most exotic fruit has to be peeled… which works well… I love passion fruit, mango, magosteins, lychee, and rhambutan. I do no like dragon fruit or papaya.
What keeps me from eating out tends to be 1) there’s only one place really close to where I live… 2) it gets dark really super early here… like around 6:30 ish… So what I’ve done is I like to eat lunch out, making it a decent sized lunch, then make like a cheese sandwhich for dinner… unless my people call me to go out… then I go out