Another Out and About

I spend a lot of time in the car traveling around town. On one of my recent trips I spotted a belimbing (starfruit) tree right in the heart of the city.  I could see the fruit high up in the tree but they don't seem to show very well in my photo. Most likely all of the lower hanging fruit had already been picked. These escaped being harvested due to the height. It's not an usual looking tree except for the yellow fruit.

We are now approaching, hopefully, the end of the rainy season. It is predicted to finish towards the very end of April. We will just have to wait and see if it happens. In 2015, we went 5 months without a drop of rain. Last year the rain never really stopped though the intensity lessened. We are still having occasional flooding in some areas. One day it rained while I was returning home from another part of town that routinely floods when we have heavy rains. It took me over an hour to travel less than 8 km(< 5 miles). That same day, B traveled 90 km (56 miles) in 2 hrs and 20 minutes.  A couple of water shots.

Here's a small flooring supply shop.

Where do you go to get your scooter or motorcycle washed? Check out this steam cleaning place for just such a task. (Cuci means wash. Steam means, you guessed it, steam.)

A common sight in the malls here. Constant cleaning of the escalators. They place a cloth or dust mop on the sides and ride the escalators up and down and clean them. We don't see this in all of the malls, but in the most upscale ones we do see it. The handrails require a second trip.

One last photo from a trip out and about. This is a food warung(shop). It calls itself "Yuk!" Hmmm. Here it would be pronounced as in you. But my brain sees "yuck!" 

Miscellaneous- a quilt and a sign

I finally finished my group quilt composed of quilt blocks from 15 ladies in my group, augmented with several additional blocks I made. I admit I did not hand quilt this myself, though it is hand-quilted. There is a lady with a hand-quilting business. She employs ladies who do the quilting. I gave her no real direction, but the quilting is really nice. I don't know that I would do it again, but the process was interesting. 

Once I got the quilt back, I added the scrappy binding and violà! A finished quilt. My friend Yenny is holding the other side but she is hiding!

 A sign I saw in a shop. I thought you might appreciate this Brian.

Hosting the Needle Nomads

The Needle Nomads is my crafty group. We are knitters, sewists, crochet artists, quilters and more...
I hadn't hosted in a while but I've recently hosted twice. The first time included the usual coffee, snacks, chit chat and also a class in the quilting technique known as paper piecing. We have several newer members who have been asking for a class so that they would be able to make blocks for the memory mini-quilts we create for departing members of the group.

When we have these classes, quite a few of the ladies bring their sewing machines with them. The hostess provides her own machine for use, tables, and cutting mats, scissors, pins, etc. for those who don't bring a machine. Everyone learns together.

We had a large group of 14 for this class. Fortunately, we'd just finished our latest jigsaw puzzle so the "puzzle table" was available. I also have my large card table and 4 chairs. Even so, several of the ladies made use of the 3-seater, 2-seater and 1-seater sofas and chair in the living room.

Marble floors are hard on the feet, but they allow me to put heavy objects on a large towel and slide it around the apartment.  This is how I moved my sewing machine and table to the living room. I wish I'd taken some shots during the class but I was too busy. A couple of the ladies are experts with this technique. I learned this technique recently but I'm getting better with each block.

There is often only one outlet in a room which limits our ability to plug in half a dozen sewing machines. However, we have long multi-port power cords and it seems to be OK to plug in a lot of items all on the same line. 

The result of the day's class:

Half of the group topped off the class with a walk over to the nearby mall for a fabulous lunch! 

One of our members has returned home to Japan. She is a felter. She received her memento mini-quilt recently and she quickly got busy making gifts for all of us. 

The photo below shows a closeup of some of the gifts she made of various fruits available here. She's a true artist. In addition to fruit, she creates all sorts of animals, birds, anything! We are the proud owner of a small felted sirsak fruit.

Skyline Changes

My how time flies!  We've lived here for over 2 1/2 years already. In that time we've witnessed considerable construction in the area around us. And I should point out that much of the work is done in the middle of the night! I will also share that occasionally I am awakened by a loud detonation-like sound. I don't know if they are blasting or if they've dropped something very heavy from a great height or ???

Here are several "before" shots (August 2014) and "after" shots ( March 2017). So many changes. Look closely. Sometimes there's a new building tucked in just behind another building so only part of it shows in the photo. Building... building... building... .

The changes are even more obvious looking out my office window. The new buildings are being constructed in front of the existing ones.

This shows part of a huge apartment, retail, office mega development going in right next door to my main grocery store. The store is very near the apartment. Traffic is already awful so I'm not looking forward to what happens when this monster is completed and filled with tenants who have cars and motorcycles.

You can also see this development right from the front of our apartment building.

Interesting Food and Drink

Drinks, Green and Otherwise

Yes, more green drinks! I know some of you have missed these entries!

When B returned from the US he quickly went in search of new green drinks and found this one called "I See You." This was a matcha green tea latte with an "eye" entrement (a small individual cake) on top.

He also found this one, called Icey Green - not very creative name but was good - green apple syrup and soda.

Together we found this interesting sign for a drink neither of us was willing to try. Charcoal juice?

Lastly, just this week B enjoyed this number called an Iced Green Monster. Ingredients: melon syrup, soya milk and jellies.

US Grocery Store Finds

I may not have mentioned this before but I find grocery stores very interesting and enjoy visiting stores wherever I travel. Now, while visiting in the US, I find myself saying " Wow, look at that!" a lot. Here are just a few that caught my eye. Good thing I have a phone with a camera.

The Famous Dessert Mess

We enjoy a nearby restaurant. They had added a new dessert to the menu so we gave it a try. They call it the White Chocolate and Banana Mess. For those who can't watch the video, the dessert is lifted up into the air and dropped onto the serving tray from a height of about 18 inches. The result is that the white chocolate shell breaks apart. Pretty cool!

Back Home/Back to Normal

After a couple of months with family in the US, I'm been back home and trying to catch up for the last month plus. Admittedly, I did not immediately get back to our blog and even then I got distracted with other projects! But I'm back to writing again.

I had missed snow, though maybe not the cold temps that go with it. Today, I'm not missing snow that much anymore.  Lucky me got to experience multiple snow events while in the US. B could only remain in the US a couple of weeks so he wasn't able to enjoy as much weather as I did. I got to shovel,  and even played with the snow blower a few seconds. I took photos like someone who'd never seen snow before!

Just a small snowfall.

What fun! Snow removal at night!

Those of you who live in snow country will understand what I mean by snow that is totally not packable. No snowballs and no snow people! But, after the last big snow, I was finally rewarded with packable snow, tolerable outdoor temperatures and even some sun. Here are the results!

While on the subject of cold temps, check this out!

We had quite a few days like this. In fact when traveling from here back to the US, we underwent a 100F temperature change!

Our entry point into the US was in Chicago. While at the gate we got to watch a lot of de-icing going on!

Once finally on the plane we got de-iced a couple of times while waiting for clearance to take off. And the snow got heavier...

Early in our visit it was freezing cold all the time outside and inside. Layering helped. Eventually I did get somewhat used to it. We've stashed winter coats, hats, gloves, boots, etc., with family for these outside conditions. I needed to purchase an extra layer which I wore practically every day.  I also borrowed a pashmina shawl which I wore along with my other layers almost daily.

We tried a trip to Boston but that didn't go very well.

I don't ever remember being behind a quartet of snowplows all working in tandem!

The family dog also gets cold in the winter. I had some time to do some knitting so "Belle" got two new sweaters. I'm told she really likes purple so...

Isn't she sweet?

The two of us in the snow!

I think I'm over "missing snow" for a while. The big 2 footer came after I left! Whew!