Still Alive...

Yes, I am still alive...so is the apple eating critter (for now, I'm going to pass on the offer of poison as I really want to know what this creature is, and I'm afraid if I use poison then I will never know for sure).

Talk about major body withdrawal...it is now Wednesday afternoon, and I haven't been on the internet since Friday afternoon. Yikes! I may go into convulsions at any moment now. The internet still isn't fixed at the house. I came to S's office building on Monday to check e-mail, but the free wireless wasn't working either. On the bright side, not having internet at the house is causing me to have a lot of time to work on my mom's scrapbook...I may actually get it done for Christmas.

Anyway, besides the internet still being broken and the apple eating critter still at large (I'm baiting the sticky traps with almonds tonight, since the apple chunks I used last night didn't seem to work), not too much else is going on here. We did have a cyclone over the weekend, which caused it to rain nonstop for about 24 hours. I kid you not, it didn't stop raining once all day Sunday. Luckily, we did not have the water issues that a lot of my friends had...including water coming in through the A/C units, windows, walls, electrical outlets, fuse boxes...plus causing a swimming pool to collapse among other things I'm sure I'm forgetting to mention. I'm thinking since none of these things happened to us, we are pretty darn lucky.

Well, Happy Halloween to everyone. Hope everyone has a safe and sane Halloween. Eat a Snickers bar or two for me. Don't forget to send me photos of your kids dressed up.

When I Grow Up...

I want to work for pest control in India. So, in my previous post, I have already told how "great" pest control is here in India. This story only gets better.

Still unable to catch the apple eating critter (luckily, it doesn't seem to have found any of our other food and only seems to like apples...knock on wood)...S had arranged for pest control to come out on Tuesday. Well, in typical India fashion, they showed up on Friday afternoon. About time, because I now refuse to go into our kitchen after dark by myself. Therefore, we have been eating cereal every night for dinner all week long. This is kind of silly on my part as I'm pretty sure whatever we have living in our house has been there for quite awhile...and up until the apple incident, I have been in the kitchen every night and haven't seen the critter. I just don't want to meet the creature face to face without a back up. (Note to D...I think maybe I have been reading too many Plum and Kinsey books lately).

Anyway, back to pest control...S was told that pest control would come with some "traps" to catch our critter. Well, guess what these "traps" are? They are the exact same sticky traps that I have been trying all week to catch the critter with. Ughh...if I would have known that the guy would just show up with 4 sticky traps, I could have saved him the trip. Not only are we trying to catch something that can clearly get off of the traps, but the pest control guy didn't even "bait" the traps. He just set them in places where the creature may be running along. Like I'm confident this is going to work.

Anyway, if I get really bored living here in India, I'm going to work in pest control...I can definitely handle placing sticky traps in houses.

In the meantime, I'm not buying any more apples...or if I do, they are going straight to the fridge.

Apple Eating Critter Story

Once upon a time…Yep this is how the apple eating critter story should start. S and I have been in denial for weeks now that something has been living in our air conditioner in our wet kitchen (just off the main kitchen and would traditionally be used by a maid to prep meals and clean up afterwards). How did we know something was living in our A/C?

It may be hard to tell from these photos what exactly you are looking at. This is the bottom of the A/C unit. The unit is installed directly into the wall near the ceiling. Somehow it is connected to the outside, but I’m not a technical person to tell you how this all works. All I know is that I have a remote control that turns the unit on and off and that I can adjust the temperature with. We have 7 of these units in our house (central A/C doesn’t exist here, but these units seem to work fairly well…of course, we haven’t been in the house during the DAMN HOT season yet). Anyway, the little chunks of stuff that you see are bits and pieces of I believe styrofoam. These little chunks have been falling out of the bottom of this one A/C now for probably around 6 weeks or so.

At first, we thought maybe ants or something like that was living in the A/C. The A/C works just fine, and besides the styrofoam, there weren’t any signs of anything wrong with the A/C…such as a critter living in it. Every few days or so, I would clean up the styrofoam. I think even for a week or so, nothing at all came out.

Well over the weekend, as more styrofoam was on the counter, I thought I should investigate the outside of the house to see if I could see anything. Well on the side of the house, I found a large wasps nest. Well after waking up Sunday night thinking that wasps were flying around the house, I decided that something needed to be done. So S had pest control come out on Monday.

Now, let me tell you about pest control. The guy came in and started applying cock roach bait to my cabinet hinges…hmm, we don’t have a cock roach problem (knock on wood). Then I had to point out every spot I wanted him to spray. I don’t know what kind of spray he was using, but I’m sure it had to be at least 99.9% gasoline…or at least, it smelt that way. I know I lost a few hundred brain cells sniffing it (not good, when I don’t have a lot of brain cells to begin with…after all, I’m the one living in India, and you have to be a few brain cells short to be able to handle life here). Then to top it off, pest control fogged our yard for mosquitoes while it was raining. I’m not an expert on pest control, but I’m pretty sure when it’s raining is not the time to be fogging the yard.

Anyway, this brings us up to Tuesday morning when I found the apple. I was pretty sure S hadn’t ate it as we don’t eat the skins of fruits when we are in Asia…much safer to peel all fruits and vegetables or to cook them. I called S to just make sure…I was right he hadn’t touched the apple. Now, I must tell you that the entire time we have lived in our house, we have always had fruit sitting in a bowl on our counter. Ants don’t touch it, and up until now we haven’t had a problem.

Well it is not a good thing to find a half eaten apple…especially since I’m pretty sure geckos don’t have teeth…or at least not teeth that would leave the very clear cut marks that were on this apple. Pretty much leaves only a few things…either a mouse, a rat, a squirrel, a raccoon, or a chipmunk.

I’m not scared of mice…and I am pretty sure this is a mouse. S thinks it is a rat. Anyway, I was determined to catch this apple eating critter. So, in our house, I have one mouse trap that was accidentally shipped instead of going into storage…plus I have a couple of sticky traps (hoping to catch geckos, but no luck so far). Anyway, I bait the traps with chunks of the apple. Plus I leave the remainder of the apple in the same bowl as the night before.

Well, we wake up Wednesday morning to find that whatever we have has in fact got caught in one of the sticky traps. Unfortunately, whatever it is has also managed to somehow free itself from the sticky trap. Not good as these traps are pretty sticky (I know since I stuck my finger in one by accident and had a hard time getting it off). Therefore, my guess of this being a little bitty mouse goes out the window. Whatever it is was big enough to get itself off of the trap (the trap was upside down on the floor). Plus, there is a footprint in the sticky trap. Unfortunately, I never was a hunter or animal tracker, so I have no clue what kind of creature the footprint belongs to.

Time for Plan B…call in pest control again...and let's hope this "once upon a time" story has a happy ending.

Still Don't Know...

what has been eating my apple. There is a big long story to go along with the apple photo. I will post the whole story soon, and hopefully it will have a happy ending for us and a sad ending for the creature.

P.S. Currently, our internet isn't working at our house, so if you don't hear from me for a few days, don't worry...I'm sure the apple eating creature is strictly a vegetarian and doesn't eat meat.

I'm Pretty Sure I Don't Want to Know...

...what has been eating my apple.

It wasn't me, and it wasn't S.

Snail Mail

E-mail and internet are great. Instant communication. I really can't imagine living overseas without today's technology. However, receiving actual mail is also nice. I know, I know...most of you probably only get junk mail and bills. However, when you don't even get that, you miss it. You really do. We receive our mail from our U.S. address once per month. It is shipped priority to S at his office. It's mail week here...S should be bringing it home to me any day now. Normally all that is in it are bills and an occasional card or letter from someone. However, I still look forward to receiving it each and every month.

I had heard that receiving mail at a residence address in India was very unreliable (after all, my friend here received her birthday package from her mother 3 months after her birthday). I didn't quite believe it since so far I haven't had any issues sending letters to the U.S. from here. The letters have been getting to the U.S. in about 7 to 10 days, and the cost is cheaper than mailing a letter within the U.S. I believe the cost of a stamp in the U.S. is now up to 41 cents. To send a letter to me here in India would cost I think around 90 cents or so. So, it's quite a deal for me to be able to send a letter to the U.S. from here for 15 rupees (about 38 cents).

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was talking to my cousin and our friend on the telephone. Somehow we got on the topic of mail and how I only get mail once per month since no one ever sends anything to me at my India address. Well they decided to send me a postcard. Ever since then, they have been bugging me about whether or not I have received this postcard...I can hardly wait to see what is on the postcard or written on the postcard...knowing them, it is hard telling what it will be.

Since it has now been a few weeks, I finally decided I had better check to see if mail is actually delivered to our house (after all this is India, so you should never assume anything). So, I talk to my driver...after explaining about 3 times what I was wondering about (he speaks great simple English, but trying to explain that I was expecting a letter from the U.S. and why it hadn't been delivered yet was a little more complicated for him). Anyway, he told me that he would check on the mail delivery. Well, he got back to me that when a letter is delivered to the local post office, it will then be delivered to our house...but get this...it will take 15 to 20 days to be delivered to us! Not to mention that in India whenever someone gives you a time frame, you normally have to double or triple it to get a more accurate estimate. So, 15 to 20 days may actually mean more like 30 to 60 days. Yikes, talk about snail mail!

So, yes Carrie and Beth, I think your postcard is still coming. You will be the first to know when it arrives. To everyone else, forget sending me a Christmas card here...I doubt if you even mailed it out today that it would arrive for Christmas. You might want to consider mailing my birthday card though since my birthday is in May...it might actually get to me on time!

A photo of a snail that I saw in Malaysia. Just thought it would be appropriate to add to the end of the snail mail blog post.

I HATE ANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, now that everyone clearly knows where I stand with the ant population, I feel a little bit better.

Hate is such a strong word. I really don't like using this word very much.

The definition of hate according to dictionary.com is to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest. Yeah, I would say that pretty much fits how I feel about ants.

As of last week, we had ants in our kitchen, in center square, in one bathroom, and in the master bedroom. One of my friends brought me her stash of ant bait to try out. I think I may have went a little overboard, as I put one of every kind of ant bait that she had out. I figured that the ants would have to like at least one of the "flavors" of the ant baits. It's now been a few days and the ants are gone in every room except the kitchen. Of course, like S pointed out to me...how do I know which of the ant baits is the one that made the ants disappear since I used like 5 different kinds? Good point, but as of right now, I don't care as long as they are gone.

I swear the ants must have our kitchen wired with a camera, so that they know the instant a crumb is dropped on the counter or floor. They're also not stupid enough to fall for the ant bait when they know if they just wait something better will be coming along shortly. Our countertops and floors are just the right color that they hide dirt and crumbs well. This would be great in the U.S., but here I'm not too fond of them when I can't see a crumb until I see the million ants it has attracted.

Anyway, my frustration with the ants continues. One of these days I'm just going to snap with the ants and go postal on them. Oh wait, how can I go more postal than taking bug spray and bleach to them? Maybe I should seriously consider getting an anteater as a pet. Maybe I should try ant voodoo.

Ugh, in the meantime, I'm going back into the battle zone. Now, I'm going to try sprinkling crushed red pepper flakes around...someone told me this may work to keep them away. I'll try anything. If you don't hear from me in a few days, don't worry as I'm pretty sure I weigh too much for the ants to carry me too far!

P.S. Did I mention in this post that I HATE ANTS?????

Have Tickets, Will Travel

S and I now officially have our air tickets booked to return to central Illinois in December. We will be traveling the first week of December to Illinois and will be returning to India before the end of the year. If you would like to know our exact travel dates, please e-mail me, and I will be happy to share them with you. I will now be taking bookings from people who wish to see us while we are back in Illinois. Right now our calendar is pretty open and flexible, but I have a feeling that will start to change fairly quickly. So, since I know everyone wants to see our smiling faces while we are in Illinois, send me an e-mail, so I can schedule you in.

Hope to see everyone soon!.

Happy 108th Birthday Olive Riley

Who is Olive Riley? She is an Australian lady who at 108 years of age is believed to be the world's oldest person to blog. Yep, that's right, she writes a blog just like the one you are reading right now (actually she tells it to someone else who types for her). I think this is absolutely amazing for a couple of reasons. First, just how many 108 year olds are out there? Just to make it to this age is in and of itself incredible. Then, to be able to still think and function at this age is amazing. Some days I find it hard to function and think at my age...I can only imagine how I'll be if I ever make it to be 108 years old.

But to blog at 108? I don't think there are words to describe just how truly amazing and incredible this really is. Will I still be blogging if I reach 108? I doubt it. Probably by this time, there will be some other great craze going on. Did Olive ever imagine 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, or 80 years ago that she would be telling stories that anyone in the world could read almost instantly? Blogging is the modern age diary...OK, diary may be stretching it a bit as I don't know too many people who make their diaries public. However, just think that years from now, I'll be able to pull up my blog and read what I've been writing and thinking in 2007. I'm sure I'll probably be thinking "what was I thinking when I wrote that?".

Anyway, kudos to everyone...even a 108 year old Australian lady...who writes blogs, keeps diaries, writes down their life stories, scrapbooks, etc...we truly are documenting the way life is now for future generations to reflect upon. Kinda of scary isn't it?

Anyway, Olive Riley's blog can be found by clicking on the following blue words: Olive Riley

And by the way, Happy Birthday Olive! I wish you many many more.

Diet Pepsi Update

With our diet Pepsi supply now getting critically low and another food shipment not due to arrive for probably another month, we decided to ask our driver to try to find us some diet Pepsi bottles.

This was a big step for me. Let me explain.

In Beijing, our driver did one thing for us...drive. When we weren't in the car, he was free to do whatever he wanted...sleep, eat...or the very popular activity of playing cards with the other drivers. We didn't really care what he did as long as he was there to pick us up when we were ready to go someplace.

I was surprised to learn that the drivers here in Chennai do much more than just drive. They fix things, clean things, run errands, and pretty much anything else you can think of for them to do. Now, if I wouldn't have lived in China prior to moving to India, this probably wouldn't have seemed so strange or weird to me. But it is. As far as I'm concerned, our driver is hired to drive for us. Period.

It is very easy to spoil oneself when living overseas...especially in Asia. Labor is very cheap. You can hire a housekeeper, maid, nanny, cook, pool person, etc for about $100 to $200 per month. When S and I originally moved to Chennai, we had thought we would hire a housekeeper. However, after the 6 week apartment experience, we have since decided that our privacy is a lot more valuable to us then having someone do everything for us. Plus, someday we will have to move back to the U.S., and I'll have to go back to doing everything for myself anyways...you can't even get your house cleaned once for $100 in the U.S. Now, please realize that we are in the minority here as far as not hiring a housekeeper. However, just being the two of us, not having kids or pets (just ask my mom how much my cats shed), it's really not all that hard to keep the house clean.

It has been a very slow process for me to accept that our driver will do more for us here than just drive. He has done a couple of big projects at our house with the help of one of our security guards...they were both compensated extra by us for doing what they did. Besides this, the only thing I have had our driver do is go to the post office for me.

However, with the frustrations of not being able to get any diet Pepsi bottles on my own, I decided it was finally time to turn this task over to our driver. So as we left for Malaysia, we gave him enough money to buy two cases of bottles. When we got back Sunday night, he told us that bottles were not available, but that we could get cans. Nope, not yet ready to pay $15 per case for cans.

Well on Monday, our driver took S to work and never came back to the house all day long. I wasn't too concerned as I had told S that I wasn't going anywhere. Well S came home Monday night to tell me that our driver had spent all day Monday looking for diet Pepsi bottles and finally had found them at the 15th store he went to. It makes me think that he didn't try to hard while we were gone to find the bottles. And, 15 stores...at what point do you just give up? Oh well, at least now, we have 2 cases of bottles. I'll probably make a point to try to get a couple more cases while it can still be found. This store told our driver that there should be no problem getting the bottles in the future. Yeah right, heard that story before.

Slowly but surely I will probably accept the fact that our driver can be trusted with money to do things for us. In India, sometimes it's just a whole lot easier to have someone else do things for you. Actually, most of the time it's easier.

Malaysia Top Ten

I apologize in advance that this post is pretty long and includes a bunch of photos.

S and I returned home late Sunday night from our quick trip to Penang, Malaysia. We had a great time! The only thing that could have made this trip better was staying a few more days. There were a lot of activities, tours, and shopping we weren't able to do because of the short time we were gone. However, we did try to make the best of our time.

With this, I present the Top 10 Things We Did in Penang, Malaysia: (this list is really in no particular order)

1. Enjoyed the View from Our Hotel Room

We had an awesome and amazing view from our hotel room. We got a corner suite on the top floor (8th) of the hotel. The room was really nice with 2 bathrooms, 3 balconies, 2 fridges, etc., but the view just made the room. We overlooked the hotel gardens, pools, ocean, and the hills of Penang.

We had a couple of pretty powerful down pours of rain. It was relaxing to just sit on the balcony and read while it rained.

Really the photos don't do justice to the view that we had.

2. Walked on the Beach and Watched People Para sailing

The beach wasn't actually as nice as I was hoping it would be. However, compare it to the beaches of Chennai, and it was a dream! There were a lot of water and beach activities available to do...jet skis, horseback riding on the beach, and riding ATVs on the beach were some of the more popular things to do. However, by far, the most popular activity was to go para sailing.

Continuously all day long, we would see people being pulled behind ski boats attached to a parachute. Often times, we would see 3 or 4 para sailers on the ocean at a time. While walking along the beach, we enjoyed stopping to watch the people take off or land. A couple of times we had to scurry out of the way of people who were having a hard time coming down on the beach in the appropriate spot. The best example of this had us running almost at a dead speed up the beach shore towards the grass (of course running dead speed in sand isn't really all that fast). When we were safely out of the way, we turned around to see two ladies (two people could para sail together at the same time) in complete black Muslim dress land on the beach by completely falling on their behinds (normally you would land by touching down on your feet). It was a pretty funny sight.

I kept trying to talk S into para sailing...I told him that there are people out there who would pay money to see video of this, but he wouldn't fall for it. Maybe next time.

3. Drank Root Beer

I was so excited to find A&W Root Beer at a grocery store in Penang. Normally, I only drink diet pop, but when you haven't had something in 6 months, you really don't care what form it comes in. Remember from my food postings, root beer is on the list of items that we cannot have shipped in our food shipments.

This is a photo of the can that I smuggled back into India. OK, actually, I just put it in my suitcase, and I'm saving it for a rainy day (or maybe I could auction it off to the other expats in Chennai as I'm betting I know a few who would pay highly for this can). Besides root beer, diet Coke and diet Pepsi were easily found in both cans and bottles. Also, alcohol was easily obtained. S was so happy to be able to drink his favorite beer from China called Tsingtao.

4. Ate Another Unusual Pie Flavor from McDonald's

The local flavor of Malaysia...Banana! It by far was the most tasty of any of the weird flavors I have been eating lately. You just have to like hot bananas, and this flavor is for you.

I haven't had an apple pie from McDonald's for a really long time, but I think if I had a choice between what I remember the apple tasting like and the banana, I would choose the banana.

5. Ate a Very Unusual Sundae Flavor at McDonald's

Any guesses on what flavor it was? How about I tell you about eating it before I tell you what flavor it was...I like to keep everyone in suspense.

While S and I were in town shopping one day, we passed a McDonald's, and they had a big advertisement for this sundae. We just knew we had to try one. So we actually ate lunch at the McDonald's...I had the old standby of a cheeseburger while S had what they called a chicken foldover. Anyway, for dessert, we ordered the banana pie and this sundae. The sundae ended up not being as bad as what we thought it would be. The texture of the topping was a little strange, and the taste wasn't all that bad...but it wasn't all that great either! I think next go around, we'll just stick to a chocolate or strawberry sundae.

So, what was the flavor? I think I'll make you read to the end of this blog before giving it to you. No cheating by skipping ahead to the bottom.

6. Ate an Awesome Seafood Buffet Dinner Two Nights

On both Friday and Saturday nights, the buffet restaurant at our hotel specializes in seafood. As dinner was included in our room package, we ate this buffet all 3 nights we stayed. Now, normally we probably wouldn't have ate on the seafood nights because the price is really high compared to the other nights, but being that it was included, S and I were definitely not going to miss out on some good seafood. Not only was it good, it was GREAT! We were able to get lobster tails and shrimp cooked to order among about anything else seafood that you could think of. We were stuffed both nights...it was great!

Sorry, no photos of the buffet...we were too busy eating to worry about pictures.

7. Went to Penang Butterfly Farm

One of the days, we took a half day tour around Penang Island. The island is fairly small, but surprisingly there are a lot of things to see and do on the island. We didn't get to go to Monkey Beach or to the National Park, but we did get to stop at the Penang Butterfly Farm on our tour. S wasn't exactly thrilled to be going to see some butterflies, but I think he had a good time as there were enough other critters to look at as well.

Besides butterflies, we saw scorpions, lizards, beetles, tarantulas, ducks, fish, and other types of bugs.

8. Had a Few Days of No Spiders, Geckos, or Ants

Surprisingly, we didn't really see any wildlife in Penang. The only animals we saw were the ones at the butterfly farm plus a local house we stopped at had a pet monkey on a chain. Oh yeah, there was also the snake temple. There is a Chinese temple on Penang island that is known for the viper snakes that hang out there. We stopped as part of the tour and sure enough in the temple there are vipers on top of picture frames (supposedly they have been de-fanged) and elsewhere in the temple. We also went to a little snake farm behind the temple. I think they had about every type of snake that there is.

Anyway, I really thought that there would be geckos and lizards in Penang. There probably are somewhere, but they definitely weren't seen around our resort. Anyway, while we were at the grocery store, I happened to find a product that I just couldn't resist buying to bring back and try out.

Yep, that's right...it's lizard repellent! Who would have ever thought that such a thing exists? Don't worry gecko lovers...it's non-toxic and won't kill the geckos...it's just suppose to keep them away. The can says it is made in Singapore...let's just say if this stuff works, a trip to Singapore or Malaysia to pick up a few cases of this stuff may be in order...especially since we had to deal with a gecko first thing this morning crawling up the side of S's favorite chair...luckily for now, the gecko escaped, but if S finds it, it may be a goner.

9. Enjoyed Watching Some Awesome Sunsets

Remember how I said that I wasn't too impressed with the sunset in the desert in Dubai. Well, the sunsets in Malaysia made up for it.

Beautiful! Need I say more?

10. FREE INTERNET!

No surprise $500 internet bill when we checked out. In fact, high speed broadband internet (that actually worked with S's computer) was free with the type of room we had. In lower grade rooms, the internet cost $30 per day (about the going rate in hotels these days).

Overall, S and I had a great time at the Shangri-La's Rasa Sayang Resort & Spa in Penang, Malaysia. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a place to stay in Penang. We are hoping to go back to Malaysia again next year. This time though we are looking at going to the eastern part of Malaysia on the Borneo island to the state of Sabah. The trip will involve a lot of activity, so I will have to plan well in advance...can't wait until the last minute and book everything a week in advance like I did for this trip. However, with only a week to figure everything out, our trip went very smoothly, and I won't be as worried in the future about booking things at the last minute.

OK, give up on what the sundae flavor was? It was...................................ready for this...........................................seaweed flavored!

OK, just joking, it wasn't seaweed flavored, but it actually was a green bean curd sundae! Goes along with the green bean curd pie I had at the McDonald's in China. I'm Lovin' It!

TV Shows

One of the most popular questions I get asked is what do we watch on TV?

Well, let me take a step back for a minute. For those of you who don't know S and I very well, we had 7 TVs in our house in the U.S. Yes, that's seven television sets for the two of us. In one room, we had two sets sitting next to each other in order to be able to watch TV and play video games at the same time. We also had 2 VCRs and a DVD/VCR combo. By far, the most valued item we owned though had to be our TiVo.

With TiVo, we were able to have it set to automatically record all of the TV shows we watched every week. I can't remember for sure, but I think we had around 30 shows that TiVo recorded for us. Everything from sitcoms to reality shows to cooking shows to dramas were on the list of things S and I watched. In all honesty, we were addicted to TV. Yes, my name is Julie, and I'm a TV addict. Surprisingly, the one thing we really didn't watch much of was movies...probably because we spent all of our time catching up on our weekly TV shows.

And then we moved to China. Talk about going cold turkey with the TV. In Beijing, we received probably around 10 English channels. These including the movie channels HBO, MAX, and Star Movies that all showed movies from the 80s. They only showed about one new movie per month...don't worry though, it you missed it the first time, they replayed it every other day. We also received ESPN, Star Sports, and one other sports channel. Pretty much useless to us as all they ever seemed to be showing was soccer. Even the Super Bowl was dubbed over into Chinese...nothing more annoying than trying to watch something and the sound is coming out in two languages. We also received Hallmark, AXN, and Star World. I think we received a couple of news channels, but they were out of Hong Kong or Australia, so we didn't really watch them much.

Anyway, we ended up watching Star World and AXN the most. On Star World, they showed a bunch of American sitcoms. Great! Except the problem was that they were at least a season behind, and we had already seen the shows. We ended up watching Desperate Housewives just because we had never watched it in the U.S., and so it was new to us. By far the most popular thing to watch though was American Idol. Star World showed it about a half day after it was on in the U.S. At least it was the current season. The only problem was is that if you didn't want to know what had happened, you had to stay off the internet that day, or it would be spoilt for you. Everyone was just happy to have something decent to watch...you didn't dare call anyone or plan any events during the time Idol was on. A friend of ours even threw a big party for the last episode of Idol.

Now, it is very popular in the American expat community to download TV shows off of iTunes. However, we never got into that when we moved to Beijing. Probably because at the time, we didn't own any iPods. Once you miss a season of a show, you find that you really don't care anymore about it. When we went back to Illinois last December after being in Beijing for a few months, we were so excited to be able to watch TV. Well, we didn't end up watching near as much as we thought we would...we found that the shows we normally watched, we had no clue what was going on with them since we had missed so many episodes.

So, now we are living in India. What are the TV channels like here? A little better than Beijing, but still not as good as the U.S. We now get Discovery, Animal Planet, ZeeCafe (shows a lot of sitcoms), Travel & Living (one of our favorite new channels), plus we still get some of the same channels we got in Beijing. Oh yeah, we also get around 5 channels that are dedicated to showing cricket. Also, there is PoGo that shows Bean (British show), Bean animated cartoon, and the Bean movies. I think they should just rename it the Bean channel.

In the U.S., one of the shows that I watched religiously every season was Survivor. Well, imagine my disappointment when I find out that this season is in China. My mom offers to tape all of the shows, and I can just have a marathon Survivor viewing when I'm back in Illinois in December. Well, the other night when I get up to go to the bathroom, the TV is on ZeeCafe, and as I am falling back asleep, I hear the Survivor theme song. Am I dreaming? I'm now wide awake...there is a Survivor commercial on. They are advertising Survivor China and how it is going to be shown on ZeeCafe starting on Sunday night. I'm so excited!

So, on Sunday night, I tune in, and sure enough, it's actually the first episode of Survivor China being shown! So, now every Sunday night, I will be ending my weekend on a great note by watching Survivor. I just can't be having any conversations with my mom about what's going on with the show as I think 3 episodes have already been shown in the U.S. I also can't be checking out the Survivor website, but hey, I can sacrifice these things in order to actually have something to watch...it's either that or cricket. Hmmm....hard decision.

P.S. I will also not except any Survivor spoiler e-mails from anyone!

Tax Time

By now, I'm guessing that probably 99% or so of the people reading this (I'm referring to Americans) have filed their 2006 income taxes a long time ago. I'm sure you either got out the pocketbook to write a big old fat check to the government, or if you received a refund, it probably has long been spent.

Well, S and I don't fall into either one of these groups. We haven't filed our 2006 taxes yet. Our company hires a well known tax company to take care of this for us. Yippee, I don't have to worry about this headache anymore...right? Wrong! It's even worse.

Now being that we moved to China in September last year, we didn't live in China enough days in 2006 to have to file a tax return with them. Since we didn't sell our house until 2007, our 2006 taxes should for the most part be similar to our 2005 taxes. Of course, you have to factor in our income is higher because of the "bonus" money we get for living overseas (but I'm no longer working, so it should be offset some). Plus, certain other items that are paid to us are taxable, but they are grossed up, so that ultimately in the end our taxes supposedly won't be affected. Or, so I understand. I honestly don't know. I was a Finance major in college, but this degree didn't involve me taking any tax classes.

Anyway, back to our taxes. Way back when all normal U.S. citizens were making sure to meet the April 15 tax deadline, our company was filing an extension on us. They automatically do this for all employees living overseas. However, we have to go online to a website and fill out a bunch of information. For example, we have to document every day of the year to reflect which country S is in on each day and what he is doing in that country (working, vacation, holiday). This is a big pain in the behind, especially when you don't do it for months at a time.

Beyond this, we have to go through and enter all of our tax information on to this website...basically I did the exact same thing as I have done previous years with H&R Block online...the only difference is that in those years, my taxes were done when I completely everything. Not so with this...I got done entering everything, and that was all I heard for months...no clue if we owed money or if we were getting a refund.

Now when we moved last year, we were told to submit copies of our 2004 and 2005 tax returns to our company. We actually didn't find this out until after all of our stuff had been boxed up. Then our shipment didn't arrive to Beijing until about 2 weeks before we were going back to Illinois for the holidays, and the last thing I was worried about was copying tax returns. So, I didn't actually get around to doing this until I think the end of January of this year. Then at the end of April, I did the stuff on the website, and when we were back in Illinois in May, I faxed some tax forms and mailed some tax paperwork to the tax company.

Great! I'm all done...now I just have to sit and wait until the tax company decides to get around to our taxes. As I'm pretty sure that our taxes are cut and dry easy, I figured that we would hear back on them around June/July time frame. As a precaution, I e-mailed the tax company at the end of May asking them if they had all of the documents they needed as we were moving from China to India and all of our stuff would be in shipment for a few months. I receive an e-mail back that they have everything they needed to do our taxes.

So, we don't hear anything at all on our taxes for a couple of months. Then at the end of July, S receives an e-mail that they need copies of our 2005 taxes. He sends them an e-mail back to check our file that this has already been sent in, and that at the end of May, it was verified that you had everything you needed. Well we don't hear anymore on this, so we're assuming that everything is OK.

Well, just last week, I ask S if he has heard anything on our taxes. Almost on cue, he receives an e-mail that they need copies of our 2005 taxes before they can proceed with our 2006 taxes. Ugh, talk about frustrating. We just went through this 2 months ago and had asked them to check our records for the paperwork. If the paperwork hadn't beeen found, why did they wait another 2 months to tell us?

Now, I'm not very happy about this. Sometime between the end of May (when they verified they had everything) until the end of July, our confidential tax paperwork has been lost. I'm ranting and raving about the whole situation while this time I scan all of our 2005 taxes and e-mail them off to the tax company (no longer copying anything). S isn't very happy either. How come it is taking months between communications with this provider?

Anyway, come to find out, I had copied our records for '04 and '05 and sent these to our company as requested. This is completely different than sending them to the tax company. Of course, no one bothered to tell us that both places needed the records. I had just remembered that I had done the copies...I hadn't remembered who I had sent them to until I went back and checked my records. I never dreamt that our company and the tax company who our company hired wouldn't be sharing information.

So, finally our taxes are done. Something that normally I would have taken a couple of hours to do in February has now been drug out to October. At least, we are getting a refund. You can't even imagine how mad I would have been after all of this if they would have told me I owed money!

We have already verified that we don't have to do anything with China for 2007 taxes (we didn't live there enough days). So, I can cross them off of my list. All I have to worry about for next year is the U.S. and India. Of course, I have already found out that because India taxes don't go on a calendar year as the U.S. does, there is a whole separate set of paperwork that has to be processed...in other words, we will have to do some of the same stuff twice...i.e. the calendar of where S is every day of the year.

Fun, fun...I can hardly wait. Now, I remember why I wasn't an accountant.

Feeling Old

I had a milestone birthday this year. You know, one of those birthdays that ends in a big old fat zero. It didn't really make me feel old. When S turned this same age, we went to Vegas. So, I thought when I hit the same age, we would go to an equally as fun place. Nope, we just went to Illinois. We were in the middle of our move from China to India and had to return to Illinois to get our visas for India. I didn't really have a lot of time to think about my birthday as the next day we were flying back to Beijing...plus at the time, I was really sick with a parasite and had to actually go to the doctor on my birthday. Talk about a fun way to celebrate.

So basically, my birthday came and went, and I really didn't give it much thought. No big parties, a few gifts, a cake I think (don't honestly remember because I was so sick I wasn't really eating much, but I'm guessing my mom made some type of dessert for me), and that was about it. Really, just another day.

This all occurred almost 6 months ago. However, today, I'm feeling old. Why the 6 month delay? OK, honestly it has nothing to do with my milestone birthday. It has to do with the fact that S and mine's oldest nephew is turning 16 today. Yikes! How did he get to be so old and grown up so fast? When S and I started dating, he was like maybe 2 or 3, and now he's turning 16!

A couple of weeks ago, my good friends' daughter turned 16. However, I've only known her for about 6 or 7 years, so even though it seems weird that she is driving now, it didn't make me feel old. Our nephew turning 16 though is a totally different story. Where has the time went? S and I aren't old enough to have a 16 year old nephew! But, we do.

Heck, I remember the day I turned 16. I had waited for it my entire life. I could finally legally drive. Before that, I had been driving for years...since I think I was like 6 years old...on the farm. I've always loved driving and never minded the long commutes that I had from where we lived to where I worked. There is nothing like having the freedom to hop in the car and go wherever you want whenever you want.

This I miss. For a year now, S and I haven't had this freedom. We are at the liberty of our driver. In Beijing, it wasn't as bad as here, because we could go out at any point and catch a taxi if we really wanted to go somewhere. Also, we could walk to a lot of places. Here in India though, it's a totally different story. No taxis and besides the beach, no place really to walk to. It's just one of the things we gave up in order to live overseas in China and India. We deal with it, but at times like today when our nephew can jump in a car and go wherever, and we can't, it really makes me miss my car and our SUV.

But, they'll be waiting for us come December, and we'll put a couple of thousand of miles on driving around Illinois for a few weeks. That will have to do until the next time we are in the U.S. In the meantime, I'm here in India feeling old, but hoping that our nephew has a great birthday and enjoys the freedom of having his driver's license.

Upcoming Blog Posts...

I'm still here. Just have not been in the mood the last few days to write out any blog posts. However, stay tuned for upcoming posts about: (will appear in no particular order)

Traffic Dangers
Taxes
Public Service Announcements
TV viewing

And, really anything else that comes to mind.

Now, I'm off to bed as the plan is to get up at 3:30am to listen to the Cubs game.

P.S. They have been mowing our yard again...today was day #3 of the process and still not done.

Diet Pepsi Crisis #2

If you have been reading my blog from the beginning, you will know that S has an addiction to diet Pepsi, which isn't necessarily a good thing when it is hard to come by and very expensive here in Chennai.

After we moved to our house in August, I went in search of where to buy diet Pepsi bottles close to us. The place near the apartment where I was buying them was just now too far away to shop. Well I went to the first grocery store near us and they told me no that they didn't have them, but that they would have them next time I came in. Well, I have been back to this store countless times and have never seen diet Pepsi bottles ever.

So, I went to a second grocery store near us, same response as first store...except this time I talked to the manager and gave him my telephone number to call me after he spoke to the supplier. Well, it's been two months, and I'm still waiting on that phone call.

By this point, I've given up hope that we are going to be able to find diet Pepsi bottles near us. A couple of days later I go to a 3rd grocery store near us called Nuts & Spices. I'm checking out and wasn't even going to ask about the bottles, but I thought at this point I don't have anything to lose, so I ask. Well the guy tells me that in this part of Chennai they don't have diet Pepsi bottles. I ask him if he can PLEASE call the supplier, because I will take a large quantity (by this point I'm pretty much begging)...like 10 cases. Well he takes down my number, and I leave honestly thinking there is no way I'll ever get a phone call back. Well 20 minutes later, my phone rings and it's Nuts & Spices telling me that they will have 10 cases of diet Pepsi bottles for me the next day. Great!

The next day comes, and I receive a phone call at about 1pm that my diet Pepsi is in and when could I come get it. So, I go pick it up. Well the guy assures me that the next time I need bottles to just let them know, and in one day, they can get for me. No worries. I take the diet Pepsi home, and at this point, we haven't received our food shipment, so I have more than enough room to store 240 bottles of diet Pepsi. The next couple of times I'm in this store, the guy asks me if I need any more diet Pepsi. I tell him no, but that I will let him know when I need some.

Well, the week before we left for Dubai, it is time to get more diet Pepsi. I stop by Nuts & Spices, but the guy I have been working with is not there (still haven't seen him, so I'm not sure what happened to the guy). So, I explain my situation to the new guy. He tells me that he will call the supplier and will let me know.

Well an hour later, I receive a phone call from the new guy...no diet Pepsi for 5 days. OK, fine...we are going to Dubai anyway, so I will worry about it when we get back (which by the way, in Dubai, diet Pepsi and diet Coke are both readily available in all shapes and sizes at reasonable prices...as a souvenir, we even brought back diet Pepsi in glass bottles). Well in the meantime, our food shipment comes, and I have some diet Pepsi in it, so I don't really worry about getting the bottles here. However, I do know that there isn't near enough to get S through to the next food shipment.

So, on Saturday, I stop by Nuts & Spices to inquire about the diet Pepsi bottles. He remembers me and even opens his notebook to show me that he has my name card taped into it. He says that he will call the supplier the next day to find out about the bottles. Well the next day is Sunday, and then Monday and Tuesday were holidays around here...and of course, no phone call back.

So, this afternoon I call Nuts & Spices to see what is going on. Well the guy puts me on hold forever, and I'm pretty sure that he is calling the supplier on the other line. Anyway, he comes back on the phone line and tells me that the diet Pepsi bottles will be available in 5 days, and that he will call me when it is in (like I haven't heard this story before). I ask him how many boxes will he get for me...and he says 20! Yikes, where am I going to store 20 boxes...or 480 bottles of diet Pepsi at???

Anyway, at this point, I'm not too concerned about the storage issue, because I'm pretty confident that I won't hear back from the guy. However, I will call him on Monday to follow up...and in the small chance that he does come up with 20 cases, I will take it and find room for it...after all, who knows when I'll be able to get it again? Unless S decides to kick this habit, I'm not willing to start paying $15 per case for diet Pepsi cans here...they definitely don't pay us enough for that price.

And, so goes life in India. A round and a round we go on the frustration wheel of life. The diet Pepsi saga to be continued....

Vacation Time Again

Didn't we just get back from vacation? Yep, but we're going again!

This time we are off to Penang, Malaysia. How can we afford all of these vacations? Well, we aren't paying for them ourselves...that's how.

Our company provides us with a very generous benefits package to live here (other major multi national companies aren't as generous...I wonder if they have a hard time getting people to move here?). Living in India is considered a severe hardship by our company, and thus we are allowed to take 3 vacations/trips per calendar year that are paid for. We do have a budget/allowance that we have to stay within...if we go over this set amount, then we have to pay the difference. If we don't take these trips, we lose the benefit...we can't roll them over to next year, and they won't pay us any money if we don't use all of them. So, it's either use it or lose it! In my opinion, someone would have to be really dumb not to use this benefit. Who doesn't like to go on vacation when it's free?

Living in China was also considered a hardship...just not as severe. If we would have stayed in Beijing, and not moved to Chennai this year, we would have only received one trip. Because this move was unexpected, we hadn't used our one Beijing trip yet...we had planned to probably go to Hong Kong at some point this year. However, with the move and getting settled in, it was already September, and we still had 3 trips to take plus home leave (going back to Illinois) before the end of the year. Well we went to Dubai a couple of weeks ago. Plus we have already been planning on meeting friends from Beijing in Germany at Thanksgiving. We are taking home leave in December. So, that only left October to get our 3rd vacation in.

Well, with us just being gone, and with S being off of work for 2 days this week due to the office being closed (although he did work a fair amount from home), I wasn't sure S was going to be able to get back away from the office. Well, last night, he told me that next week works for him taking a couple of days off. Of course, I have nothing booked for us. Instead of using a travel agency for this trip, I decided to just go online to see what I can find. I really wanted to go to Singapore, but S didn't. He wanted to go to Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia. I was OK with this until I did some research on KL and found that it looks to be just another big city. Being that we just did the big city thing with Dubai, I wanted something else. So, I found Penang, Malaysia, which S agreed to.

Now Penang is a little bitty island off the northwest part of Malaysia. We are going to be staying at a beach resort (trust me, the first thing we'll be asking when we check in is about their internet rates). We aren't beach resort type people...in other words, we don't like to lay out in the sun at the beach (or at the pool) all day long, we don't swim, and we don't do water sports. Well it appears as if Penang has some other things for us to do, and after Dubai (and life in Chennai), sitting in a lounge chair reading a book for an afternoon on a nice beach sounds pretty good to me. Plus, I have been wanting to try a beach resort...but for us, going for only a few days our first time will probably be better than going for a full week.

So, we are off to Malaysia...then home for 5 weeks...then off to Germany...then home for a week...then off to the U.S. for 3 weeks...then back home. All of this before the end of the year (not to mention that S may have a business trip to take sometime in there). Man, I'm tired just thinking about all of this travel. By the time I get back home here to Chennai at the end of the year, I don't want to go anywhere! OK, at least not for a few months that is. I think next year, our trips are going to have to be spaced out throughout the year a little bit better.

My mom was so right the other day when she made the comment that we spend a lot of time in airports and on airplanes. We have already gotten our money's worth out of the iPods we invested in this year. Now...if I could only learn how to sleep on a plane, maybe I would like traveling better.

Yes, that's right, I hate traveling. Now don't get me wrong, I am loving the fact that in the last year I have been seeing parts of the world that I never dreamt I would see (and very thankful that for the most part it isn't on our dollar)...however, the travel aspect of traveling really sucks! At least for me, it does. Now, I haven't flat out asked him, but I think S actually likes the traveling. When we went to Dubai, he actually read an entire book on the flight...and it wasn't for work either. I can't tell you the last time he read a book for pleasure. Plus, he can sleep on planes. Just snap your fingers and he's out cold. Not me though.

Anyway, for those of you considering a trip to see S and I, I would highly recommend you have an iPod, a good book, some magazines, and a lot of patience...you'll definitely need all of these things if you are like me and can't sleep! It's worth it though...it's definitely worth it!

Center Square

I've had a request to provide some more photos of the house. Here is a photo of what S and I call center square.

This big area is right smack in the middle of our house. If you look closely at the photo, you can see that it is actually open to the top of the house. Our landlord told us that he initially thought about leaving this completely open...all I can say is that would have been a nightmare during heavy monsoon season (he did leave the bathrooms completely open...yep that's right, rain and every critter I can think of could come in...we made sure that he covered those up before we took possession of the house). Luckily, he decided to put plexiglass over the opening. We have a lot of natural light in the house, and during the day, I don't have to turn any lights on. Now this may not seem like a big deal...but let me tell you, a lot of the houses I looked at here had a dark and deary feel to them due to very small windows.

Also if you look at the photo closely, you can sort of see that the center portion is sunken. My first thought about this was...remind me to be careful if I come stumbling home drunk some night...don't want to fall and break my ankle. Well, so far haven't been drunk...liquor isn't the easiest thing to come by in Chennai.

Anyway, this center square...although being very nice and decorative...is a big waste of space. What do we put here or do with the space??? The week we had our house guest, we had long conversations about what to do with this space. The best ideas included to set up a giant chess board. However, since S and I don't play chess, we ruled that out. We also had the thought of filling the sunken portion with water and putting piranhas in it. However, then we thought some of our friends may bring their kids over and someone would lose a finger...so we've nixed that idea. In one of the stores here, I saw a 18,000 piece puzzle...now this space would probably be big enough to put it together...but then I figured I would get frustrated with the puzzle before I even got all of the pieces flipped to the correct side, so I don't think this is the winning idea either.

The only thing we have really used this space for so far is when our sea shipment arrived...we just had the movers stack all of our boxes here.

Right now, the center square is vacant. When S is on a telephone call, he wonders around the center square. Also, he likes to go around saying "circle takes the square" (Hollywood Squares reference for those of you who don't watch game shows). I guess if we ever decide to have a large party at our house, we won't have to worry about having enough room to fit everyone. The one thing for sure that we are going to do with center square is put our Christmas tree here. However, I have a feeling that our 6 foot artificial tree will look a little dwarfed in this large space. We could easily fit a 20 ft tree here.

After Christmas though, center square will just be empty again. Oh well, at least we have something to always think about...what to do with center square?