Gabriel and I ordered lunch yesterday by pointing at the raw elements of what we wanted to eat in the kitchen of a restaurant. We have resorted to pointed and smiling or frowning a lot, we can't read the menus or speak the language. We had the choice of a live fish in a tank, a dried and salted cut of pork, or a blue-ish plucked chicken residing in the fridge. We pointed at the chicken and at the giant basket of steamed rice and hoped for the best.
Ten minutes later we got a heaping bowl of chicken, stir-fried with garlic and green onions. It looked big enough to feed a family of 6. We were also given a bowl of rice larger than both of our heads combined - and Gabe can have some fluffy-ass hair.
On further inspection, I discovered that we had an entire chicken in our chicken stirfry. Feet, wings, head, beak, skin and bones. Apparently they just chop the whole bird up without first deboning it. So every bite had to be taken gingerly for fear of cutting our mouths on a shard of chicken bone.
Later that evening I found myself throwing up for the first time in Asia. Followed by an equally enjoyable experience from the other end. On this evening, the porcelin God to which I prayed was a squat toilet in a hotel in the Red Light district (but $12 for a hotel room is a good price).
Lest you get the wrong impression from my past 3 posts - I'm actually enjoying it here. I'm finally in a situation foreign to the point that I can celebrate the experience instead of lamenting how the American-style breakfast isn't "quite right".
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