Buses and bike lanes

I like the streets in China- footpaths, bike lanes, lots of buses and 2USD taxis.

Hot Pot

Mmm..sesame paste

Sunny morning in small northern Chines town

A little smoggy

Beijing is BIG

The friend I visited lives in one of these- I think they are 16 stories high! Designed so everyone has lots of natural light inside. Seem to be in groups with a nice gardeny area in the middle. Greenery and natural light, not so common in Cambodian city housing.

I was in a city in north China for about ten days, it was so huge, a town of about 3 million people. I thought it was funny that my friend refers to this town as small, but when I visited her in Beijing I couldn't get over how big everything is.

Me in front of the Birds nest

Some of the many many apartment blocks. I think this is the outskirts of the city.

So many huge buildings and so many people.

I arrived on 10/10/10, we saw quite a few weddings happening as it was a lucky day. The China Daily said that 11,230 couples were registered to get married in Beijing on that day.

Typical view from city apartment in Nth China

Modern China? McDonald's, Pizza Hut and KFC in one convenient location.

The good thing about flooding is our house stays dust free inside. I guess the water is covering all the roads so there is almost no dust in the air.
The bad thing is that we can't work out our water bill as our water metre is under muddy water.

While I was in China, Soeun was mainly at work in Phnom Penh. But during 3 day public holiday (when people take food to the wat for their ancestors) he went to visit preahvihea.

Flood season again

"Daddy I caught a fish!"

"Where from?"

"From under my bed."

Early one morning recently Kimsoeun was woken up by this conversation that our neighbours were having.
Our home is girt by brown stinky water again. This time of year is called rainy season, we call it floody season. Unlike other homes near us, the water hasn't made it inside our house as we are too high. I would hate to have rubbish and sewage floating around on my floor.

Here are some links to some of our flood photos:

The first lot- "Who needs rivers when you've got road like this...?!"3rd day of flood in 2008, i rushed around taking photos as everything looked so amazing and I thought it would only be for a short time- little did i know I had 3 months to go...

Water Log (all the bits on K Extra blog about the flood)
Day 77, Flood 2008 (photos from around campus on that floody day)
Day 83- photos comparing water levels over previous few months (August- Nov 2008)
Photo album from Kronicle Extra blog- all the photos we're put on that blog, many of them are flood ones.

China photo 3

The streets were very clean, lots of rubbish bins around. And people seem to use the bins.

2 weeks, no blogging? why?

See the tall  buildings in the distance? If only that white stuff in the air was fog.

Blue flower from the west and poor man's duck

new year etc

The Bible school started back this week, new year, new students, Kimsoeun has new subjects to teach. (I wrote this last week)





Mid Autumn festival 2003, I was given so many mooncakes!

This year the students weren't welcomed back with a flooded campus like last year. Since 2008 the campus fills up with water at this time of year, but this week it's been ok.




During term time I eat dinner and breakfast with students so first week back means new routine for me even though I don't work at school. It's nice to see everyone again, and eat pork and rice for breakfast.

The Bible school campus the other week- a little wet!

This week I went to visit a Khmer friend. We ate moon cakes and fished as we sat on her neighbour's bed. Even though the water around her house is not so high this week there is still enough to go fishing!




She had bought moon cakes at the market as this week China was having their mid autumn festival.




Dried fish hanging in our kitchen



Kimsoeun has been a bit sick recently, so currently has red welts all over his back see "What colour is the wind?"

Arb

"What would a head be like without a body?"


"Oh, you mean arb."


Thats not what I meant actually, I'd never heard of arb before. But the way the Khmer girls were talking about it they seemed to assume I would know. Another expat in my Bible study group also recently learnt about this from her language helper. I think her language helper is also a Christian, and also talked about this arb as if everyone knows about it.


A women's head can come off at night and float around with dancing intestines and green glowing gallbladder.


Some links:

The krasue (or Kra-Sue) is the floating head of a vampiric female ghost in Southeast Asian mythology.

The krasue is called Pi-Kasu in Laos and Arp in Cambodia.

The krasue is the floating head of a vampiric female ghost. Intestines hang out of the ghost's neck and trail behind the head.

Some other bits and pieces about it here and here.  

Bodyless

There is a word for a head without a body in Cambodian language if I understood the girls this morning. 



We were doing a Bible study on Ephesians 1, near the end, about how Jesus is the head of the church which is his body. I think we were meant to be talking about how important that connection is, and what the relationship is between the head and the body but we ended up on a big tangent. 

They told stories from their villages about how at night heads of some people (only women I think) leave the body and roam around at night to find food. The organs like lungs and tummy go with it, and one organ lights up like a flashlight (a green organ- which one is that?). When the head is full it can go back to its body.



One of the girls in the group said a girl had to leave her village because even though she wasn't a bad person, she had this strange power. Also in the village the pigs were stolen because people were too scared to stay and guard them. And one girl was scared to go outside to the toilet at night so they had to build a toilet in the house.



They said there are lots of these kind of stories as many people were killed during Pol Pot time and didn't have a proper burial, so their souls are still here. 


I'll ask Kimsoeun about it tonight.

Cooking at a friends house

After bike riding and walking through muddy and rocky flooded streets I finally reached a friends house. Before washing my feet and going inside she got me to pick a banana flower for the salad we were going to make. It's really yummy, I'll have to explain how to make it on my food blog sometime.
She has a small back yard but grows so much food in it. Lots of veggies and fruit (a melon/marrow thingy, papaya) as well as chicken and she can sometimes catch fish as well.
One time I was there she showed me a type of plant that people use if they only have old rice to cook. You pick the long green leaf and put it in the pot when the rice is cooking. It makes the rice smell nice, even though it's old. Her mum used to use it a lot cos her dad was in the army so they received rice rations.

Next time we are planning to make a banana and sago dessert, and I'm planning to wear gumboots.

Befitting a leader?

I remember overhearing some Aussie Christians talking about church leaders and how much they should get paid. One church leader had a nice car and some people were questioning this.

Should Christian leaders get paid enough to buy this type of car, when most of the church members wouldn't be able to afford such an expensive car?

I was interested to hear an opposite observation. Here in Cambodia a Westerner who is leader of an international Christian team was riding a bike as his main form of transport. Some of his team let him know they thought this was inappropriate for a leader. The implication was he should be in a car, or at least on a moto.