is it me, or is there some serious irony here? (or at least oxymorony?)
New York Hotel: ah, feels just like home!
how can anyone resist the prospect of dinner at the golden cattle seafood hotpot?
first i saw the 'phode' paris sign...then realized it was pho de paris.
the Big A 'super store' was one of the saddest markets i've seen. not that you could tell from the cheery, spiffy signage outside.
yo. all kinds of shoes sell here.
actually, i did buy some ice cream there. not the scoop kind, though. the kind in a cup in the freezer section. it was taro. i am unable, it seems, to resist taro anything!
For when you just can't take those wimpy guest houses anymore. (There is also a 'Man' hotel of some sort I've seen advertised on the backs of tuk-tuks but...sorry, no photo yet.)
so glad i got my sim card at the NICE phone shop!
ok, apparently the mormon church is everywhere and it is now my mission to find it wherever i am and snap a photo.
you can really shake your booty at that boutigue, i know. or is that what happens when you've been to one too many boutiques? boutique fatigue ===> bootigue?
ok, so the question is, if you get your hair cut here (i'm going to ignore the 'hair dress'), does it have to be a john lennon cut? do round glasses come free with every cut?
for true olive lovers only. not sure who else would dare to try what's inside.
i've long wondered what 'haw' was, thanks to my friend valerie, who used to buy haw flakes (a kind of wafer-like candy) in chinatown in philly and share them with us. now i know at least a bit more. haw is a fruit. the
some more pictures of haw. looks really appealing, no?
think, mango, think! (these taste *disgusting* by the way. and i bought the ones without chili.)
i can't figure out the appeal of these type of 'filled' cookies, but they are popular all over asia.
boy bawang cornick! these were actually corn kernels (like the corn nuts brand) with some serious garlic flavor (i mean, look at garlic boy!) and they were really very yummy!
flag truck!
The first time I went to the Lucky Supermarket in Phnom Penh I got in trouble for using my camera (will post evidence of that apparently illegal activity in a photo album soon). So the next time I was there, despite the fact that a Japanese family was taking pictures of themselves seemingly without reproach, I purchased the item in question instead. I mean, how could I not? You know, I’m still looking for a more permanent logo for the blog. Hmmm….)
this is the logo i am thinking of adopting...
went with my friends sven and olivier to see a well-known nonprofit arts group, sovanna phum, do one of their famous 'shadow puppet' shows. this one was about a man going off to war, his wife having an affair, his mother finding out, the woman burning down the house and killing the mother, and the man returning and finding her with her new husband. ouch. the only one he can trust, in the end, is his dog, for whom the entire play was named. it was called 'story of the dog.'
i swear that i forgot about this photo when i wrote the caption, just now, to the first sovanna phum photo. but....yeah. what a name, eh?
playing shithead (my favorite card game) at revolution (one of my favorite local bars) with olivier and sven
david, who lives and works at revolution, in the background. and one of the women on staff, most of whom are even smaller than me, some of them significantly so. i only realized later that the reason for this is that they may have been malnourished as children, as many orphans here are (the ones who are significantly shorter than me are very small even by cambodian standards). i have no idea if this is the case with these women, but i should try to find out.
sven kickin' back
this kitty is very friendly (as evidenced by exposed stomach). she belongs to anandi, who manages the bar and lives upstairs with david as well.
i know, i know, i'm such a catlady. i've befriended the cats at every bar here that has one. which is several.
One of the many mysteries of Cambodia for me has been that of the laundry hanging on the sidewalk, which you see everywhere. For weeks I wondered, 'Is it someone selling second-hand clothes or is it laundry?' And if it's the latter, why not just dry it *inside* the walls of their home? I think, however, I solved the mystery several days after taking this photo. I started to discover that near some of the racks of clothes (never close enough by for it to be obvious) was a home or shop with a small sign saying, simply, 'laundry.' So...creative and free advertising is what those clothes are doing there. I think...
They sell pickled foodstuffs on the street here. If you want some, it will be weighed and measured and given to you in a little plastic bag. Everything you buy on the street is given to you in a little plastic bag. Have I mentioned my greatly decreased hope for the future of the planet after spending time in Southeast Asia?
With a name like Rock, this brand of men’s underwear has all the advertising slogan it needs, no?
yes, this photo sucks but i had to keep it anyway for the memory. was sitting having drinks at sunset on the lake, which is lovely, and saw this borang (foreigner) had taken a boat out and was rowing his girlfriend (cambodian) in what was clearly meant to be a grand romatic gesture. trouble is, no one rows on this lake and he ended up just looking really silly. so, yeah, my entire group laughed at him and i got the camera out. poor guy. but really, this is not venice!
“Professional of beauty & slimming center” ...for all your beauty needs. In case you can't read it, they are advertising the following 'services:' Slimming, Face Lift, Stretch Mark, Breast Lift, Face & Body Whitening, Hand Treatment, Hair Regrow (that is the photo of the man, in case you weren't sure...) (PS I know how you can get your underarms, at least, whitened much more cheaply...)
this is an altar in the internet place i use regularly. seriously. yes, those are cigarettes. i don't know...some friends have suggested they are worshiping at the altar of the cancer gods.
Remember the clowns and the Volkswagen? Well, if you ask me, they got nothin’ on the cooking oil and the minivan.
and you can fit more on top, surely.
towels only today (again, why hang them outside on the sidewalk when you can hang them inside the gate, where your house is. and no, there was no 'laundry' sign to be seen. so perhaps the mystery remains unsolved...)
Not sure if this might have anything to do with the previous cancer-god-altar photo, but…all I could think when I happened upon this was, ‘What the…???!’
sunset at snow's, now officially one of my favorite bars in the world
boat on the river at sunset
the gorgeous 'striped' sky
woke up to two of these one morning: roaches on their back, not quite dead but immobilized. just randomly in the middle of the floor. took me at least an entire day and another roach-immobilized-on-its-back sighting to realize the owners of the house must have put out poison and what the poison does is paralyze them. i hope i helped give them a slightly more merciful death (ok, they are roaches, i really didn't care that much, but still...how awful, no?) death by flushing them down the toilet.
The reason this photo is upside down is because I took it that way. The reason I took it that way is because of the reason I took it at all, which was the ‘No. 1 in USA.’ Yet another brilliant slogan. ‘If they keep away American mosquitoes, hey, imagine what they can do for you…’ This in the land of malaria and dengue fever, after all. (Oy.)
Discovered a new part of Phnom Penh last week, and thought, ‘So this is where you go when you want to buy woven chairs and tables for your bar or restaurant.’ Little did I know I would also find where you can buy FUNiture!
“PASSENGER LIABILITY INSURANCE INCLUDED.” Need I say more?
this place is actually a chain of quite upscale cafes. coming up soon!
one of my favorite snacks is dried jackfruit, taro or other fruits and veggies that come from vietnam. and of course, the description is almost as enjoyable as eating the chips themselves. being produced by the special processing industry gives them the peculiarity of sweet, smelling, appetite and more, not to mention many nutritive facts!
the fried banana i bought on the street came wrapped in this. imagine how CIT WORD CO. LTD would feel if it knew it's finances were out there for all fried-banana-eaters to see!
i apartment-sat for some friends who went away for a week's vacation, and the bonus was that the downstairs neighbors (ie the landlords) had cats. there was this mother and daughter, and then the granddaughter, which regretfully i don't have a photo of, was a tiny kitten i nicknamed filthy kitty. and still let her sleep in my bed. didn't find the impossible-to-remove-and-kill bug crawling on her until morning. oops.
mama was very friendly but daughter was skittish...until my last day when she let me pet her and parked herself on my steps. figures.
another FUNiture shop! i should say, thought, that i conducted an informal poll, and the majority of these shops did indeed say 'furniture.'
i was walking down the street and the word 'urine' caught my eye (an interesting twist to the usual, which is the smell of urine catching my nose). the fact that 'cancer' is on this list deserves comment but i can't think of anything to say beyond that.
i stayed two night's at my friend nabil's apartment, and his balcony overlooks this great bustling market.
abandoned chocolate
new construction. for wealthy foreigners, of course.
and, really, what wealthy foreigner wouldn't want to enjoy the life of top from de castle?
don't you just want to strut in wearing your gun in its holster and say, 'howdy, pardner. i'll take a beer and a blowdry'?
so i had this one all ready to post on my blog with the caption 'i have no idea what mag international does, but--assuming saving lives and building futures is part of it--they are my clear choice for worst logo of the year. possibly of all time.' then i was told that the skull is the international sign for landmines, and mag is a landmine-clearing organization. oops. so much for my trying to be funny.
Is your child annoyed by having to eat all those pesky vegetables? We have your answer: Just give him PediaSure instead!
i'm not really sure where to begin here...bourjois? (that cannot possibly be a real french brand name, could it?) the eye makeup (you know all french women do their eyes up like that)? The odd angel and devil creatures presumably representing the eye makeup? ombre stretch?
see next photo to know why i took this one...
this sign, on a superfancy-looking place called the pavillion, made me really happy. then an american friend of mine was coming to town and told me he was staying there. so it's a hotel. even better.
sleeping motodup (motorbike taxi) driver.
kind of a sweet message for the back of a tuk-tuk, no? the main pupose of which is, in case it wasn't otherwise clear, tourism.
drugs deparment? (or at least the remnants thereof)
inside the drugs department (possible name for a new cambodian tv show?)
used aluminum foil hanging out to dry with the laundry (in order to be reused, presumably). perhaps i really do belong in a developing country. i clearly have the right mindset. in some ways, anyway.
finally got a shot of an ice man doing the actual sawing. still need a better one, though, as you can't really see the blade of the saw.
Now *there’s* a slogan. I have another: ‘Love beer? So do we!’ (I’ve never once seen Love beer sold, though. Black Panther beer, yes. Oral drinking water, yes. Love beer, no. I ask you: where is the Love?)
still haven't figured out the mystery of 'portland' cement. as in portland, orgeon? and why? is it known for its cement? this one is crocodile brand.
cha shop: home of the giant stuffed tasmanian devils...
...including one in a wheelchair.
this guy *looks* more like he would need the wheelchair, no?
there really are bags of cement lying everywhere. this time we have some cobra brand too.
coconut graveyard!
i don't know, so don't ask me.
yet more cement. this time, camel brand. clearly they all must be named after animals--sturdy ones, of course. no fish brand or anything.
wonder what happens when you mix cobra and camel cement...
here's one mystery i doubt i'll ever solve: the house with the dove stools out front.
dr. scholl's styrofoam-coated street planter? yeah. not worth asking, i'd say.
heading up the stairs to my friend's apartment, i saw such a lovely sight--this old woman cooking dinner and tasting just a teeny bit of rice. when i got upstairs i realized i could see her at least partially from the balcony. so this is the closest i could come to getting a photo of what i saw.
monk laundry drying on lines and tuk tuk? or just someone who uses monk-robe-colored sheets? (the purple and blue are definitely not monk robes, though.)
me and steve the day before he left for vietnam. at free bird, a place i never really planned to set foot in (as you can seek, it's pretty much what you'd expect from a bar called 'free bird.' as was the music selection.), but, you know, these are the sacrifices i make for my friends...
in this case, i'm pretty sure 'happy' is unrelated to my previous description of 'happy' food and drink. my theory about happy internet service, which is right across the main road from my house, is that the staff that work there are happy because it is never open. and i mean never. i've not once seen it without the metal gate shut. then again, perhaps they are so happy because they are consuming happy pizza and happy shakes all the time. that would certainly make you too high to come to work. ps ecstatic pizza (also in this album) is almost right across the street. hmmm. time to rethink my theories...
