Train Etiquette

I spent my entire train ride home from Reading today trying to figure out why on Earth the woman sitting next to me pissed me off. There are two seats; we each had a ticket; we both had a right to be there. So why was I annoyed with her being there?

1. I sat down first. I could have been more obvious about the fact that I didn't want someone sitting next to me by doing what other people (predominantly men, it so happens) do- sitting in the aisle seat with closed eyes, pretending to sleep while listening to some music on an ipod, pretending not to hear anything. This strategy is a clear winner, as few people seem to feel comfortable with making another person get up and move to another seat (or stay put)- especially if they are sleeping ... and if there's no response to a polite, excuse me, is this seat taken?, it's likely the person will assume the seated person is unable to hear them because of the ipod. Unfortunately, I'm too nice to do this; I've dreamed about being mean enough to sit in the aisle seat, but whenever I see someone do that, all I can think about is how selfish that person is ... and I don't really want to be selfish. The closest I've come to being that mean is to sit in the window seat and to put my massive bag on the aisle seat in the hopes of people thinking that both seats are taken. That has never worked- not once.

The point of all of that is that ...

I sat down first. If you sit down first, that means that you got on the train first, which means that you probably stood in line and walked up and down the trains to find a set of empty seats in the hopes of sitting by yourself, undisturbed. I believe that the second person to sit down in a set of seats should try to make up for disturbing the first person by allowing them to have the middle arm rest. I've put a lot of thought into this. Of course, being the nice person that I am, even when the second person leaves the middle arm rest free (surely to make up for their rudeness in sitting down), I feel that I can not use it. In fact, between strangers, no one should really use the middle arm rest...right?

Ok, this rant must end. Argh!!

Marakesh, Morocco- Our Belated Honeymoon

Back in October, Rich and I finally had the chance to go on our belated honeymoon. We had a very relaxing time in Marakesh, Morocco ... and have been so busy since then that we are only now posting some of the pictures from our trip! Watch this space for updates ...



A typical Moroccan lantern and a stunning door knocker in the shape of a hand, which is meant to be a good luck symbol in Morocco


Rich studying a menu at a restaurant overlooking the night market in Marakesh during Ramadan (notice the Coca-cola bottle on the table- check this link: http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/islam.asp if you're interested in conspiracy theories about what the mirror image of coca-cola means in Arabic); Carol in Marakesh



A bicycle and its shadows leaning against a door in the centre of Marakesh; a shoe stall in the souk (market), which is the largest souk in northern Africa (or so I hear)



A snake charmer; a woman dressed in a hijab (head scarf) walking in the souk


To be updated soon ...

Jiaozi- Chinese Dumplings

Rich found a massive Chinese grocery store near our place last week, so we went there today to buy ingredients for some jiaozi.

Here's the recipe I used:

Ingredients:
filling:
500 grams ground pork
1 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup green onions

skin:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 c. water
(or buy jiaozi wrappers from a market)

dipping sauce:
red wine vinegar
garlic- chopped fine
ginger- chopped fine
soy sauce
coriander
chili sauce
(add to taste)

1. Mix filling ingredients. Let sit for 10 minutes.
2. Skin: in a bowl, add water to the flour and knead into smooth dough, let it stand for 10 minutes. Roll the dough into a long baton-like roll and cut it into 25 pieces. Use a rolling pin to roll each piece to a thin circle.
3. Place 1 portion of filling in the center of a jiaozi skin. Fold the circle in half and moisten the edges with water. Use index finger and thumb to bring the sides together. Pinch the pleats together then pinch to seal. Place the dumpling on a floured tray and repeat this with the remaining dumplings.
4. Bring 5 cups of water to a boil. Add the dumplings. Stir to prevent sticking. Bring to a boil. Add 1 c. cold water. Bring to a boil again. Add 1 c. cold water. Bring to a boil for a final time. Remove from pan.
5. Serve jiaozi hot, with the dipping sauce. Goes well with a qingdao beer :)

Xin nian kuai le!

Happy New Year! 2008 is the year of the rat- And if you are a rat (1996, 1984, 1972, 1960, 1948), then make sure you wear something red to ward off evil spirits ...

Today, Rich met me at Paddington station after work. We walked over to Oxford Street to see all the red lanterns and then on to China town, where there were even more red lanterns. We did a bit of shopping at the Chinese food shops (where I bought some very old white rabbits and some peanut nougut sweets). Then, we found a Chinese restaurant that didn't have a long line out the door. We ordered a few dishes (Chinese dumplings Peking style which didn't taste like any dumpling I'd ever had in China), gong bao ji ding, gu lao rou (sweet and sour pork) and ribs. The waiter laughed at us and asked us if we wanted to reorder because everything we ordered was very sweet. He suggested that we change the gong bao ji ding to the malaysian style one, which was hot, so we did. When the dishes came out, I felt a bit silly as the guo lao rou and the ribs were exactly the same dish, except that the ribs were actually on bone ... so why he didn't suggest changing one of those dishes, I don't know.

Anyway, we're both absolutely stuffed now, and it's time to go to bed, so ... Happy New Year!

Mind the Gap

A very frightening thing happened today to someone standing in front of me at the tube station today. Because the train I normally take was suspended this evening (and this morning- due to a power outage), there was a made rush of people trying to get on another train that goes in a similar direction. I queued up with the rest of them- the line being about 10 people deep, all squished in like sardines ...

Two trains arrived, people got out and pushed their way through the crowds, people got in, and finally I was pushed to the front. The next train arrived and people continued to push their way on the train - as they did this, the woman standing in front of me ended up falling in the gap between the platform and the train. Luckily, the guy that was with her saw her fall and was able to grab her arm just in time- had he noticed a fraction of a second later, she would have been on the tracks with no way to get out.

Being a true fashion Londoner (or wanna-be-Londoner?), all she had to say when she was back on her feet was, "I lost a shoe".

A near death experience for her. Heed my words- MIND THE GAP!!

The day before Shrove Tuesday's top ten Britishism list

Since we've moved to London - or possibly even before we moved - I haven't really had a moment to relax enough to sit down and write a bit about what we've been up to ... but today I thought, enough is enough, I need to stop waiting for that time to come and write before another year or decade or two goes by.

We're now living in a cozy, little studio flat which I really love. Sometimes I watch one of the many TV shows (I think I mentioned a while back that we are now television owners - not sure how I feel about that yet) where the hosts try to find a couple a home, e.g., Location, Location, Location or Property Ladder, and wish that we were settled enough to buy something ourselves ... and sometimes I watch them and just wonder what on earth people do with all the space they have. As a borderline obsessive hoarder (embarrassing, but true), I think living in small spaces has been really good for me. When we moved out of our two-bedroom apartment in September, I was quite embarrassed to stumble upon some of the collections of junk that I was certain would be of use one day. Now that we have little space, my compulsion to keep things that we don't use is virtually gone. I often think that everyone should live in a studio apartment at some point - especially now that everyone is trying to go green. It really puts things into perspective; it helps you to see that there is quite a large gap between what we think we need and what we actually need to live.

Enough of that. On to a new British words and phrases top ten list:

1. like a baby throwing its rattle out of the pram = having a tantrum about something to get noticed
2. a piss-artist = someone who goes out and gets drunk a lot
3. cut up = cut off (as in that stupid piss artist shouldn't be driving- he just cut me up!)
4. to catch someone up = to catch up with someone
5. how do you find sth? = what do you think about something? (this one makes me laugh- we were watching American Princess (great show... um, maybe not) last week when the 'princesses to be' were in England. A Brit asked one of the American ladies, "How do you find England?" and she answered by saying, "Oh, I didn't have to find it. I just got on a plane and let the pilot do all the work" ... she was funny, even though she wasn't trying to be!!)
6. punter= customer (especially a gambler or one who invests in risky business)
7. Shrove Tuesday = fat Tuesday = pancake Tuesday = the day before Ash Wednesday
8. sarky = sarcastic
9. duvet day = a sickie (today is the National Sickie day, by the way- apparently more people take a day off every year on Feb 4th than on any other day of the year- in the UK)
10. 'use your loaf' = cockney slang for 'use your head' (loaf and bread= head)

It's about that time ...