The Newmans

Food
We’ve had a decent time so far. Would you believe I’m a bit fed up with eating out? The food is pretty good, though, but usually not what you expect. Tried duck and didn’t really like it. It wasn’t Peaking duck though, so maybe that’s different. It was a Set Meal A-type, and they’d cooked a whole duck, then hacked it up into small pieces with a cleaver, had a lot of bone, gristle and fat in it.

Apartments
On the apartment front:
We looked at apartments today.
We looked at apartments yesterday.
We looked at apartments the day before.
Would you believe after 30 apartments, I’m really fed up with it? At least we’ve decided on one that will be fine. It’s actually a lot more spacious than I was expecting, and in the city centre, so don’t open the windows: noise and pollution is pretty bad. It’ll be home though for the next while.

Here’s a shot of the apartment we like and hope to get. Note that we have a wonderful view of concrete buildings shrouded in smog. At least there are plenty of windows, but you wouldn’t dare open one.

Taxis: The New Generation
The taxis think that they own the road. Pedestrian safety is negotiable. Horns really are an extra part of the driver’s person, and are used incessantly by just about every taxi driver.

We have decided that a ‘lemon squash’ is probably taken by every driver before he starts, along with 5 cigarettes, and the passenger probably should take some blood pressure medication and an oxygen tank. We were driven to one place, which took far less than reasonable time to get there. The driver was doing 120-30 or so km/hr in an 80 zone. There were no seatbelts (No taxi has them. It’s considered an inditement against their ‘driving’ to wear them. I decline to comment on that). The taxi driver was also straddling the white lines, and changing between right, middle and left hand lanes at an alarming rate. He must’ve needed to do that to steady his nerves after all those ciggies. Amazingly, all/most taxis have ‘do not smoke’ signs in them. That was amusing.