noodle quest 2006

yesterday after the internet we came to the riversie to visit this crew of little kids we met a few days ago and have been playing with. there are about 15 of them between 7 and 16. so one of the kids is very upset and jess is talking to him and he asks her to buy him some food which they know we will because we took out two of there friends (poung and his buddy) the other night. so then we say okay and then we get on a moto to go to the restaurant we wantd to go to with this boy and everyone else wants to come. we decide to just take everyone so 10 of us, piled on two motos and went to some local chinese restauarnt. we got a big table and sat around and laughed and ate. the owner of the restuarant did not speak khmer or english but he was very happy that we were all there and he sang us a very cool song in a chinese language and smiled very wide while he was singing. the bill for lunch was $9.60. not too bad for a full on lunch party. after that we went to this orphanage to see the performance but it had been cancelled so we hung out there for a while. afer that we took a nice walk to this afer school snack shop joint where we drank bubble ice cofffe and learned khmer from a nice lady named Srou. then we walked to the riverside, played with our friends, picked up a happy herb’s pie and took a tuk tuk back to the lazy gecko to watch the big lebowski which was rediculously good. then we returned home and payed our penance for our sins of not changing hotels (waking up the front desk guy to let us in and then hiking up 4 flights of stairs). today we woke up late, went to a little cafe called mama’s for lunch, hten went to the russian market where i bought a skirt and a bunch of gifts. now we are back by the riverside hanging out with our friends. tonight we will go back to friends restuarant for dinner. we are in the midst of looking for jobs as it has become apparent that we can not leave this place. so far we have a couple options including jobs at the lazy gecko (although juan is pretty weird) and some volunteer positions at a public health organization. life is really gracious to us.

yes- you can actually have your very own cliche made just for you. i saw a sign for it today. i also saw a sign outside of a restuarant that read; “we have to serve you a buffet.” Hmm… they do?
yesterday we woke up super late because we got home very late from the carnival. we went to another street kids restuarant called Le Rit’s with a swedish guy who we knew from the bus from saigon. after lunch, we went for a nice walk to an english bookstore and we also bought some funny khmer books. then we conitinued walking to ban ka (maybe?) lakeside area. on the way we stopped at a little cafe and had some tea. som epolice sat down to hang out with us and we thought it might be a good idea to have some police friends in town so we laughed with them for a while and they bought our tea. then we continued walking to the lakeside. the lakeside area on the east side of ban ka lake is complete backpackersville. it is all restuarants with happy food, tour agencies and little hotels. it could be cool but it felt more sketch than livable but definitely a fine place for a visit. we walked around and met Juan, an el salvadorian/canadian guy who runs a bar called the lazy gecko where we found out we could watch movies. so we ate some happy burgers at the pink elephant and then watched kill bill 2 in the movieroom of the lazy gecko. it was very nice. after that we got on a tuk tuk, droe around the city for a while and went home. [read on]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! it has been so difficult to get online lately and i think i have to come to terms withthe fact that i will probably not be able to post any pictures until bangkok. i have tried to upload ... [Continue reading this entry]