#indian grocery austin

[foodinfo]

QUICKLY ENSURES A STEADY SUPPLY OF INDIAN PRODUCTS TO AVOID PANDEMIC BUYING DUE TO INDIAN RICE EXPORT BAN

India, which is one of the biggest rice exporters, has taken a bold step to stabilize its local market by banning the sale of Non-basmati Rice. This move is meant to lower prices and protect the domestic food market, but it has also caused people to worry about food shortages and a rush to buy. 

In the midst of this uncertainty about the ban on rice, Quicklly, the biggest marketplace for Indian grocery delivery in the United States, makes sure that people have access to different kinds of Indian rice, flour, and cooking essentials. This gives people both healthy food and a sense of security. Let's look at how our proactive method is making people feel better and keeping Indian food on their plates.

[ourtearsofrain]

Slow It Down (D.R.W/S.F.K)- Chapter 15

Pairings: Danny Wagner x Sam Kiszka, (background) Josh Kiszka x Male O.C.

Genre: fluff, smut ish? (they get spicy but don’t go far)

Word Count:  2.5k

Warnings: Sam’s anxious at first but that’s like it, ^ like I said things get spicy but don’t go too far

A/N: I hate to say it, but this is the last official full chapter, although there will be an Epilogue set in the future

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4:43 PM

“Hey.” Josh flashes the pair a nervous smile as they enter the kitchen where he and Austin had set in on unpacking the few groceries they had gotten to pass the time, trying to test the waters to see how their talk had gone. “Everything good?”

“Yeah.” Sam freezes, his mind racing out of nowhere. What if Josh doesn’t want me to live here? What if I don’t have somewhere to stay after all that? I can’t afford a place on my own, and I couldn’t make Danny leave Josh.

Josh’s focus moves to Danny, hoping he would elaborate. “Yeah, it did.” Danny looks to Sam, nudging him forward gently in encouragement. “Sammy has something to tell you.”

“Yeah, uh.” Swallowing hard, Sam’s eyes dart between Josh and Austin, looking to Danny behind him one last time before finding his courage. “I’ve decided I want to move here. I’m gonna finish the semester at Saginaw State, then transfer to NYU for the Spring term. I’m gonna start looking for jobs here like right now so I’ll try to visit as often as I can for interviews. And I- I was wondering if you would be ok with me moving in with you guys. Danny’s already agreed to sharing a room, I just wanted your opinion too, Josh. So, uh… yeah. That’s it basically.”

A beat of silence passes between the group before Josh whoops, startling everyone else as he practically throws himself at Sam, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and jumping up and down in excitement. “YES! IS THAT EVEN A QUESTION?! OF FUCKING COURSE YOU CAN MOVE IN WITH US, SAMMY!” He releases him, taking a step back to grin at him. “Austin and I were actually going to ask Danny if he would mind if he officially moved in, so now this’ll take our share of the rent down by half!”

“Woooow, so the only reason you’re fine with me moving in is to take the rent down, huh?”

“You know it, why else would I want to live with you? Did that for 15 years, never again unless I’m getting something out of it.”

“Fuck off.” Despite his words, Sam beams at Josh, his worries gone at the excitement his older brother had shown.

Josh’s eyebrows shoot up, as if he had just come up with a genius idea. “We should celebrate!”

Austin glances at his watch momentarily, speaking before his boyfriend could start rattling off ideas that would more than likely involve alcohol or weed as it was so early in the night. “Well, it’s almost five, darlin’. Anyone hungry?”

“Fucking starving. I’ve had nothing but plane peanuts since like ten AM.” As if on cue, Sam’s stomach grumbles, loud enough for everyone to hear as his face twists with hunger. “See?”

“Yeah, you’re all skin and bones, Sammy.” Josh swats his stomach as he passes him, too quick for Sam to retaliate as he darts towards the door. “We should go to Baazi, I’ve been craving Indian all day.”

Met with no complaints, the four men get ready to leave once again, slipping on their shoes and grabbing their phones, wallets, and keys before setting out with Josh in the lead. Out of earshot of the other pair, Austin leans towards Josh as they descend the stairs of their apartment, dropping his voice low just in case. “Not that I got any complaints, but you know Baazi is a bit pricey, right?”

“Yeah, I don’t care.” When Austin gives Josh a knowing look, he waves his hand in the air between them, slipping his hand into Austin’s as his arm drops. “It’s my treat tonight, and don’t try talking me out of it. Sammy’s moving here, we’re celebrating.”

“Fine.” Austin lets out a sharp sigh, slightly annoyed with his stubbornness but in admiration of Josh nonetheless. “You know, it’s sweet. You treatin’ us to dinner tonight, your reaction to Samuel movin’ here.”

Josh shrugs as if the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind, his actions coming naturally to him. “He’s my little brother. He’s finally taking control of his life, he’s finally gonna be happy. Sammy rarely makes this monumental of a step, this is really big for him. I love him and I’m proud of him; and I know how terrified he must be, so I’m gonna do all I can to make him feel welcome.”

“You’re easily the most beautiful person I reckon I’ve ever met, Joshua Kiszka.”

Josh missteps at his words, luckily having just stepped onto the ground floor, and he regains his balance before glancing over at him with a sheepish smile. “I don’t know about that, baby. I mean have you met yourself?”

Austin only grins down at him as he holds the door open, pausing to wait for the other pair. “Shut it and take the compliment.”

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7:28 PM

“That place was fantastic, best I’ve had in a while since Frankenmuth doesn’t have many good Indian places. Thanks for picking the bill up, Josh.”

“No problem, Sammy. Like I said, we’re celebrating. Speaking of,” Josh grins wide, the other three men immediately knowing what he was about to suggest. “We should continue this celebration back home, if you know what I mean.” He brings his pinched thumb and index fingers to his lips, winking theatrically as if his words and actions weren’t an immediate hint to what he was implying.

When Danny and Sam voice their agreements, Josh turns to his boyfriend, gently elbowing him in the ribs. “Yeah, yeah alright.” Austin laughs. “I won’t be smokin’ too much tonight though, gotta wake up early for work tomorrow mornin’ and I can’t exactly show up to the shop high… again.”

“Wait, again??” Sam exclaims, eager to know more. “Where do you work?”

“…local auto repair shop. Don’t remember any of that shift. Last time I try Josh’s ‘special brownies’ the night before I work, I’ll tell ya. Probably don’t help that I got a low tolerance since I haven’t been smokin’ for long.”

“Oh my god, I knew Josh was a bad influence!”

“Am not!”

“Yuh huh.”

“Shut the fuck up, Sam.”

“You’re just mad I’m right.” Sam looks over his head at Austin, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Did you know Danny and I were 15 when he let us smoke with him and Jake?”

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” Josh punctuates each word with a smack to Sam’s arm, resulting in Austin gently steering him to his other side to put some space between the brothers. “In my defense, there’s literally nothing to do in the fucking Midwest, especially Frankenmuth.”

“Aw don’t worry darlin’, I won’t hold it against you.”

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9:17 PM

“Bedtime.” Josh mumbles out as the end credits to Cars 3, Austin’s movie choice, plays on the TV across the room, his eyes barely cracked open from his high.

Sam immediately sets in on teasing him, having smoked less than his brother. “Awww, is Joshy tireddddd?”

“Shut the fuck up, I went through most of a J on my own. I’m higher than bat pussy right now.”

His choice of words sets the other three men off, snorting before dissolving into laughter before Austin finds his words first. “What?! Where the hell did that expression come from, darlin’?”

“Dunno, some random bar here. Anyways, I’m tired, sleepy time now.”

“Alright, c’mon.” Austin stands, wobbling on his sore legs before reaching down to pull Josh up. “It was great gettin’ to know you, Samuel. Heard so much about you but I’m glad I finally got to meet you, and I’m glad you’re movin’ in with us soon. Imma get him to bed, goodnight y’all.”

“Goodnight Austin, see you tomorrow.”

“Night, it was great to meet you too.” The pair watch the other two stumble from the room with Josh leaning heavily on Austin, Josh’s bedroom door quietly clicking behind them a few seconds after they disappear from their sight. Sam’s head falls on Danny’s shoulder, relaxing into him easily.

“You tired too?”

“Not really, I probably should be after all the traveling today and… emotional exhaustion, but I’m not.”

“Understandable.” Danny makes a move to stand, much to Sam’s dismay until he reaches down, offering his hand to him. “Let’s go, we don’t have to sleep, but my bed is more comfortable than this couch.”

“Oh, so you’re trying to get me into your bed now?” Sam questions with a mischievous grin, allowing the other man to pull him up nonetheless.

“Shut up, I’m not trying to pull any moves on you, I just want to get my ass off these threadbare cushions.”

“Likely story.”

Danny shakes his head as he opens his bedroom door, rolling his eyes as Sam passes him. “Keep it up and you’re sleeping on the couch, Kiszka.”

“You wouldn’t.” Sam puts on a wounded expression, flashing puppy dog eyes at Danny as he closes the door behind himself.

Danny melts at his act, making his way back to Sam and placing a gentle kiss to his lips. “I wouldn’t. Anyway, do you need anything to change into? I probably have some sweats if you don’t want to sleep in your jeans.”

“Na, it’s alright, I brought something.” Sam leaves him, crossing the room to where he had thrown his small suitcase and crouching to unzip it. “Usually, I sleep naked, but I won’t subject you to that tonight.”

“Who says I don’t want to be subjected to that?” Danny jokes, his tone lighthearted but his heart hammering in his chest as he swapped his sweater for a faded tie-dye shirt.

“Someone’s eager.” Sam cocks an eyebrow at him as he stands again, a pair of short, red and blue shorts in his hand.

Taking his comment as a sign of discomfort, Danny rushes to clarify. “I was just kidding, we don’t- we don’t have to do anything tonight.”

“I know, Danny, I’m just fucking with you.” Sam grins wide before unbuttoning his pants, barely giving Danny the time to avert his gaze out of respect as he pulls the tight jeans down his legs. He laughs when he sees Danny’s cheeks go red, his eyes darting around the room to focus on anything but him. “You’ve seen me change before, Danny. I don’t care if you’re looking.”

“I know… It’s just, it’s different now.” He looks back up at Sam, his voice timid as he began to fidget with his hands.

Sam makes his way over to him quickly, bringing his hands to his mouth before kissing his skin lightly. “I know. Thank you for respecting any of my boundaries, but again, you can look when I change. Especially if I’m just putting a different pair of pants on.”

“Alright.” Danny offers him a small smile before Sam turns away, making his way over to the bed as Danny strips his own jeans off. Noting the two pillows on his bed despite living alone, Sam hesitates by the side of it as Danny joins him. “You got a preference for which side you sleep on?”

“Nope, I end up sprawled in the middle when I sleep alone. You?”

“Can I have the right side?”

Danny smiles at him before making his way to the left side of the bed, pulling the comforter back before crawling under the covers. “Of course.”

“Thanks, Danny.” Sam follows suit almost immediately, clicking the lamp beside him off and settling into the bed. He hesitates for a moment as he feels Danny’s arm brush his, unknowing whether or not if the other man was a cuddler outside of unconscious camping habits.

As if he were reading his mind, Danny snakes his arm under Sam’s back, pulling him into his chest. “This ok?”

Sam breathes a sigh of relief into the fabric of his shirt, relaxing against him. “More than ok.”

Danny’s arms tense around him, as if he was holding something back. “Can I kiss you, Sammy?”

Instead of answering with his words, Sam tilts his head up, blindly searching for his lips in the dark until they finally connect. Danny’s hand moves up to cup Sam’s jaw as his other splays across his lower back, pulling him into his body. What starts out as a slow and tender kiss quickly heats up as Sam’s lips part, giving Danny the opportunity to test the waters by licking across his lower lip, reveling in the quiet hitch of Sam’s breath. As their breaths become more erratic, Danny moves his hand to Sam’s hip, grinding his body into the quickly forming tent in his boxers.

“Wait.” At the word, Danny freezes immediately, pushing Sam’s hip away from himself slightly to put some space between them, afraid he crossed a line. “Can we take it slow, please? Believe me, I want to but, maybe not tonight.”

“Of course, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” As Danny settles back against his pillow, Sam props himself up on his arm, bending slightly to reconnect their lips briefly.

“Thank you. Like I said, I want to eventually, I guess I’m just kind of in my head right now.”

“You’re alright, we can slow it down.” Danny hesitates again as Sam relaxes into his own pillow, the space between their bodies increasing as he untangles his legs from Danny’s. “Can I- can I hold you?”

“Yes, you can.” Sam’s heart soars as Danny wraps his arms around him again, pulling his back flush against his chest as he nuzzles his face into his hair, placing a gentle kiss to the back of his head. “Remember when we raced to the lake while camping?”

“Yeah, I remember you cheating very vividly.” Danny prods his finger into the soft skin of Sam’s side, grinning to himself as Sam squeals and tries to twist out of his grasp.

“I did not cheat, never have and never will, thank you very much. But I ask because I believe I still haven’t gotten my prize yet.”

“Oh, really? And what do you think your ‘prize’ is, huh?”

Sam turns, his front pressing into Danny’s as he looks up at him in the dark. “This. Us. This is all I want, all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Really?” Despite his best efforts, tears quickly come to Danny’s eyes at Sam’s words, barely succeeding in keeping them from spilling down his cheeks.

“Yeah.”

“I love you, Sammy.”

Sam grins in the dark, his exhaustion beginning to catch up to him now that he was in the arms of a man he could now proudly call his. “I love you too, Danny.”

Within minutes, only the soft sounds of their quiet snores can be heard, both men drifting easily into sleep with the other securely pressed against their bodies.

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taglist: @gretnavannfleet @aioba1503-sdm @jake-whatthefisgoingon-kiszka @milojames16 @sanguinebats @theres-a-tvjoe @jakekiszkapunchmeintheface @currentlyfangirling10

[disparition]

Still Life 1

I am at a cafe that I first started coming to in the late 90’s. Over half of my life ago. Dana Street Roasting Company in Mountain View, California. It has been decades since I could call myself a regular. I don’t know who anyone here is except for Nick, the owner, and no one here knows who I am - not even Nick, though maybe he once did, a little bit. When I started coming here, when I actually was a regular, the place was called Jumpin Java. Nick still owned it then, the name change came about when he bought a roaster and started selling beans. In the old days, everyone who worked here was a punk who had moved from Austin Texas or somewhere close by, the was a group of five or six of them. The main figure among them was a guy named Aaron who managed the place. He wore tattoos from Wilson’s Illuminatus! Trilogy, constantly played loud industrial music in the cafe, and led the Texas punks. If you were sitting outside and he came out and hung with you for five minutes while taking a smoke break it felt like a great privelege, like being chosen for something. Like most people I knew in Mountain View, he has long since left, first for Arizona, and now I believe he lives in Washington. It was a lively place, for a small boring town like Mountain View, often hard to get a seat unless you knew someone who’s table you could join, and there was a little stage with live jazz and folk bands playing from Thursdays to Sundays, three tables outside for smokers, and also a whole alley where people hung out. There were two other main cafes in Mountain View in those days - Red Rocks and Cuppa Joe’s - which also had decent crowds and live music on the weekends. Also two corporate cafes further up Castro Street, a Starbucks and a Peet’s, but I’m not counting those. Also a branch of a local bagel chain, a fake French bakery, two good pho places, a ramen place, several Indian restaurants with good lunch buffet deals - one of which, Sue’s, also featured a gallery of art by the owner. Also several good dim sum places, a handful of American style Chinese food places, a couple of bars I was too young to have much interest in, a large Chinese grocery store, an excellent taqueria called Los Charros (for the food, but also there was a bartender working there with a famous mustache), a hippy ice cream shop, a small Hong Kong style bakery with great pork rolls, and a number of acupuncture and herbal medecine shops. If you were to sit at a table outside the cafe and look towards Castro street, you’d see an herb shop, an attorney’s office, a small real estate office, and then on the corner there’s Easy Food Company, a Chinese convenience store that sold a wide range of imported goods from snack foods to liqueurs to statues, where I used to buy Parliament Lights for $2.50 a pack.

This town has been through many drastic changes. The above description applies to when I was in my late teens and early twenties. When I came to the downtown area as a young child, it was different, like it came from a different era. Appliance stores that looked like they were from the 50’s, wooden boardwalks on the sidewalks, a weird fake “old west” vibe. But I didn’t spend much time here as a child so I don’t know much more about it beyond that superficial impression.

Now it is over two decades later since the time I describe in the first paragraph. The three tables are still here outside the cafe, and I’m sitting at one of them. But the inside is a jumble of upside down chairs, plastic milk crates, burlap sacks of coffee beans and burlap sacks of burlap sacks. There is nowhere to sit, no music playing, no schedule of upcoming live bands, and nowhere for any bands to play or set up anyway. But the outside part of the cafe is unchanged, and when I look towards Castro street I see the herb shop, the attorney’s office, the real estate place, and Easy Food Company, which still sells a wide range of imported Chinese goods from snack foods to liqueurs to statues and they probably still sell Parliament Lights too, though I’ve long since quit and I doubt they are $2.50 a pack.

Beyond Easy Food, Castro Street itself, is where the most drastic change has occurred. The most obvious change of course is due to the pandemic. Once busy with cars, the street has been blocked off up at California Ave all the way down to the train station, which means about five blocks of it are pedestrian only, and the restaurants and cafes have spilled out into the street. This happened back in 2020, and a number of neighborhing towns did the same. Some of those, like Palo Alto, have reversed course and opened their downtown areas back up to traffic. But in Mountain View this seems to be a more permanent situation, and personally I think it’s a drastic improvement. On evenings and weekends Castro street fills up with families eating at the many restaurants that now have tables in the middle of the street and there are musicians performing on street corners. But if you come here on a weekday morning there are few people around and the lack of cars provides a peaceful atmosphere.

The other massive change is due to the growth of the tech industry, but this is a change that has occurred in waves, again and again, over the course of my life. The phrase “Silicon Valley” is often used in the media and discourse as a shorthand term for the computer/internet/technology business regardless of location, but also Silicon Valley is a physical place, it’s the Santa Clara Valley, and Mountain View is very much in the heart of it. The growth of this industry brings influxes of people - people from all over, but mainly from other parts of the US, from China, and from India and other South Asian countries. My own family came from Massachusetts in the early 80’s. This was of course several decades before Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. came into being. The main tech companies in those days were Sun, Hewlett-Packard, Apple still a fledgling but very quickly growing. In those days it felt more concentrated down in San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, towns where you’d see these huge corporate “office parks”. By the time I left for college there was another “tech boom” with a different suite of companies, this time around the internet. The age of Yahoo, Hotmail, Geocities, the personal web page, the AltaVista search. I wasn’t in the Bay Area at the time, and what I heard was that it changed a lot and then changed back. It was a bubble that burst. But it was to be one of several. There was another, later growth of the industry around a new set of internet companies - the ones we are dealing with now. Google in particular probably had more of an effect on Mountain View than most, when they set up a massive campus here. Now as I write this, any random person I see on the street in this town or a neighboring town has a good chance of either being an employee of one of those massive tech companies, or of being someone who was recently laid off by one of them.

In terms of this town, and my place in it, the change is both bad and good. The inequality gap has grown wider, and personally there is no way I could afford to live here now, unless my fortunes were to drastically change. I only come to this area a few times a year, when visiting my wife’s family, who are the only people I still know in this part of the Bay. All of the wonderful types of food that I describe in the first paragraph are here, and more, if not the exact same places. Los Charros is now called La Espuala, but the menu is the same, even if the guy with the mustache no longer works there. There are many good Indian restaurants, though they no longer offer cheap lunch buffets. Red Rocks, one of the other independent cafes, is also still around and even has an open mic night once a week, and more places to sit than Dana Street - but their coffee just isn’t as good. Some of the places are the same - one of the pho places that I used to go to on lunch breaks when I was a telemarketer is still here, and still looks the same. A lot of the other places are essentially just more expensive or “prestige branded” versions of the places that were here before, and there are a lot more of them, and even if I can’t afford to live here I can at least, sometimes, afford eating here, and in fact after I finish writing here I’m going to go to the Hong Kong bakery to get a pork roll.

During the time while I was writing this, someone came and joined me at the table to do some work on a laptop. After some time they mentioned that they “used to come here a long time ago” and I thought it was so odd that I was writing about the exact same subject, and wondered if this was someone I used to know. But further conversation revealed that by “a long time ago” they meant 2012, while I was thinking of the previous century.

If you’ve read all this, for whatever reason: this isn’t a story or a polemic. There’s no point to it. Just writing for the sake of writing, background without a foreground.

[scentedchildnacho]

She told me her dad makes mashed bananas with honey so her complexion gets so colorful so I said yes if my birth father would cook then we can have poor arts like gathered wood and real home pop corn on the stove......my mother took care of us though a baked potato with only butter and salt like greek medicinal films if sick or depressed so the allergen goes away....my friends were smokers so the bad people are who teach me the jesus of materialism always better....and aquisition but if its my mother then i get rest philosophy and what is it.......

She told me I should go to my mom....so I told her the story was genocidal not new York fantasies that the poor white is the Jew...its the Jew that does not always report itself to taxation the poor white is truly a third story....

My mother's life got to change it's a sad southern almost incest story for women to live with their mother....women are not men men own the house and take care of their mother like a good boy does it doesn't work that way for women....

My mother is like padre pio....you shouldn't torment her anymore with obligation to me and others....it's job bitch cop medical fucker that hasn't pulled its maturation promise to me and given me an lgbt family after all it's done to me....don't confuse my mother with cop complexes...my mother did pay her debt to me...

Jhumpa lahiri to speculate on Asian overachievement all these parts of my education can be stripped out it's you all as a human family that have failed to create a decent story not my mother to me....

That would be the women's health clinic that has refused to pay a tobacco settlement for barbaric humor and at times selective cruelty you all for pap retard has to finally pay a taxation not live out fantasies of battering me to lobotomy and Zionist saveing me shame on you to me and yourself

That would be hells angels it's white that learns African illegal worlds and shows off it can do some pretty mean stuff

He said he goes to the krishna's and wants to be a vegetarian or vegan so I told him he is going to have to consult an african grocery about that because most United States cultures are of hunting....Indians to Africans do find their emigration a useable disruption to be included in their dominance but Austin there was not agricultural theory without Africans and you will get a wicked nutrient deficit without Africans....

Sweden to Dakota my grandmother could trace her family to Gustavus Adolphus for Sweden's research with serial killers you just don't think women exist....

I'm not joking about Danny boy good Jewish boy.....he is always with us if there are chicks to compound and cult good Jewish boy is always with us with his business degree and neo Nazi position of pay and he dominates the mentals with his psychiatric ability...I am not Danny boy and cult of narcissism doesn't owe nobody anything

Ep Thompson the debt is in agency the truth is they don't know how to create a contemporary women's culture and I have had to create that possibility and they paid nothing to be ass for Jew boy charm....

I told her pacific beach is a very awful place for homeless Tucson is much better the emigration there at least tried to strengthen women and force men away from them...that's men everything is theirs and they suffer all the time for it

She was like why did ya leave...no where else had to leave poor women alone with placenta aids COVID...men...and so there kept being constant refugees to finally not have creeps like men that win off women and then can't pay anything to anyone the shelters in Texas are the most unsanitary and they stalk surrounding states with their refusals to stop being a tuberculin capital

I'm 42 and I swear I'm like I will be dead in 30 years or less and if people expect me to spend the remaining years of my life with harassive repetiive queers who don't think I can ever have a life I also would go sleep on the street of a foriegn city then ever hear go die at your mothers of some bad name given to you

David I love david I will then get some career certificate and die in four years of over stimulation then God

I will then get a landscaping certificate and go dig up all the mines the water hoses that keep shooting people and entry level mechanic and break all the lights that won't stop shooting at you and then just go die

Joining the military is better then gross cellulite stag ass down at the restaurant telling ya off...they were migrants did they let you in as you ran from militants or did gross bitch ass cellulite lock the door on ya till stag beat

Always remind bitch privilege down at the restaurant that it could not do for you what was done for it

The jobs are harassed migrants and the hotel said okay come in they will protect you did they do that for us no....left us out to die of those night stalker things

She asked me if I had ever been in a shelter in Portland or Washington..........so I said my friends really into addiction like really awful crank reefer alcoholism in high school liked it out there so I have always avoided it because they gave it a really bad helter skelter name like a haven for right wing pregnancy and other creepy dealer shit like they get to go to the legalize company and you can die of pesticide baggies

Helter skelter getting high in vans and birthing in Portland...

The south east not north west is where whites can have a confederate sanctuary....that part of the United States is where whites may think they can be in a better efficient sanitary world Portland is that lady that gets high in her van down by the river and learns lyndie england Stanford creepyness....

Right wing creepyness ya know it can get high and be with male dealers not her baby daddy a lot but still stalk up and say it's her and his fantasy....

That type of Jerry Springer stuff immigration scary I don't enjoy the West Coast and only do it because it's a necessary means to an end

Edward said...because he is a voice of authority about fixing what is without complaining and not ever having to fantasize there is anything else in life and I think that creepy Darwin frietal Zionist shit I came across in Ruidoso won't stop stalking me with Armageddon bullshit

But up on the mountain God finally cares there there will finally be a nuclear new deal Zionist freakshow

[mybikesurly]

Pretty decent weekend. 2 inches of rain Friday, first sizable amount in nearly 6 weeks. Cold front Saturday morning to take dotty for a walk, cup of coffee and muffin.

Work on house, found a new to me brewery and had decent non-Canadian poutine, a flight and watched ESPN for college football. (No cable at home).

As usual, fall disappeared on Sunday but me and my PBC went to north Austin to reload fridge with Asian groceries, feast at an Indian buffet and hit a couple goodwill stores so I can chase missing parts of my December outfit. Finally made it to Planet Fitness to get back into better habits than working 5.5 days a week.

[diabloindigo]

Are you the person to open a box of cereal just to get the toy inside? As a kid yes. Right now, I don’t buy cereals with prizes anymore. Do they even stuff toys in cereal these days? 

Do you get scared easy? If it’s in the anxiety induced variety, yes. 

What was one of the stupidest things you cried over when you were little? Not sure, it could have been anything from not wanting to wear a fancy dress or dress shoes to a party or a broken toy. 

Have you ever drank milk from the carton? Despite having a working dishwasher and plenty of glasses, I “waterfall” milk and juice from the containers. 

Juice or milk? I go both ways, leaning more towards juice. Apple or orange. 

Do you ever turn off your computer properly? Once in a while. 

Do you wish you were a fish? Not really, though I kinda envy the blue Dory (Doctor Fish?) in the tank at my gynecologist’s waiting room. It likes to swim to the bottom of the tank and ride up to the top on a bubble jet. That damn fish has probably had more fun than I have in the past several months. 

Who’s your favorite super hero? Invincible (Amazon Prime). Along with Spider-Man (2002) and the Big Hero 6 movie, that character/series is a rare superhero show that makes me feel strong and vulnerable at the same time. 

Who’s your favorite super villain? Slade Wilson/ Deathstroke as seen in “Teen Titans: The Judas Contract” animated movie and the 2003-2006 “Teen Titans” cartoon series. 

Spiderman or X-men? Spider-Man. Tobey Maguire and Peter B. Parker from Into the Spiderverse. 

Movie theatre or stay at home movie night? Theaters. Alamo Drafthouse. I love ordering boozy milkshakes and finger foods.

Do you have a Blue Ray? I have one of those external drives for my Mac though I never use it. 

How about HD television? Yeah

Do you think HD television is kind of a waste of money? No. 

Do you get why people get so frickin’ freaked out during football season? I do not, and living in a state with a hard-on for (American) football makes it weird when I tell people that I do not have a favorite football team/player. 

Do you ever sneak scraps to the dog even though you’re not suppose to? I don’t sneak him food. If I cook or order too much to eat, then I scrape a couple of cup’s worth of leftovers in his bowl. He’s probably got only a year to live so let him live it up a little. 

Are you reading a book right now? If so what? A friend gave me a copy of “The Only Good Indians” but I can't get into it so I’m reading “Full Throttle” by Joe Hill. 

What was the last book you were required to read for school? It’s been so long I can’t remember. 

O donuts or jelly filled? Whipped cream filled. I love Krispy Kreme’s whipped cream filled donuts with raspberry filled donuts as a close second. 

If I’m feeling bland then I do like crullers. 

Do you like your ice-cream in a bowl or cone? Bowl unless it’s a tasty cone. 

Marshmallows in your hot chocolate or no? I could go either way unless it’s a tiny cup of chocolate. 

Do you like cherry coke? Hell yes. I love going to Sonic for a cherry-vanilla-lime Coke or this greasy little 1950s type burger joint for their cherry cokes since they load the cups with several cherries. 

Do you really think diet Dr. Pepper is the equivalent of a cupcake? No, it tastes artificial. Like a bastard child of a soft drink that wants to pass for cherry soda. 

Do you snore in your sleep? Drool? Talk? Snore and talk (I’m pretty stressed out).

Have you ever sleep walked? no

Are you a morning person? I am now. 

How do you wake up in the mornings? by alarm during the work week, naturally at 6-7 on vacation days. 

Do you think guyliner is hot? What is that? 

Is variety the spice of life? yeah

Do you think strawberry milk is disgusting? I like it. 

Have you ever drank after anyone? Like sharing a cup/bottle? Yeah, loads of times.  

Have you ever drank after anyone you don’t know very well? No. 

Do you have any limits on who you drink/eat after?

If we’re talking about sharing, then I will share food/drink with family and friends. If someone offers me bite-size pieces that are individually wrapped or can be torn off the main portion, I’ll eat it, but only from co-workers or acquaintances. 

Would you eat a sucker if someone already ate some of it? No. 

Would you chew somebody else's gum? Hell no. 

Do you know anyone who’s going to die of mono because of that? No. 

Do you enjoy school? My English and psychology classes. 

Are you a teacher’s pet? no

Do you have a job? Yes. 

How did you get to and from school? Parents drove me or I walked for elementary through high school. I drove when I went to college. 

Do you have a bedtime? And if so what is it? I’m in bed between 11-12 a.m.

What time do you get up? 6 am so I can walk/exercise before the sun boils the earth in full force. 

Have you ever pulled an all-nighter? Yeah in college. 

What’s more important? Beauty or brains? brains

Do you believe in yourself? Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. 

Did you ever want to be an astronaut when you were little? No. Being a veterinarian or scientist were my highest ambitions as a small kid. 

How about the president? Never. 

What did you want to be when you were little? Veterinarian, scientist, cartoon character. 

Did you ever want to be a super model? no

Do you believe you’re attractive enough to be a super model? No.

Have you ever had an X-ray? Several in the past few months for pre-surgery and dental work.

What’s your favorite guy’s name? What’s your favorite girl’s name? Guys’: Shane, Mark, Tadashi, Austin, Cade, Trip.

Girls’: Quince, Sienna, Amy, Kit, Lizzie (Elizabeth), Raven.

Who’s your second cousin’s, grandparent’s, sister? The fuck...

Do you laugh to yourself whenever the ketchup bottle farts? No, in fact, I get annoyed when other people hear it and ask me if I farted. 

Do you have any real guns in your house? I have several. 

Do you know how to use nunchucks? No, I bought a pair at one of those Asian imports emporiums, but I donated them since I never learned to use them. They were these crappy foam padded ones with dragons printed on the handles. 

Do you know anyone who can use nunchucks? No. 

What do you want to be next Halloween? In better health and not shitting bricks about using up my paid time off to go to doctors’ appointments. 

Did you ever consider getting a job as a mall Santa? No. I’d rather be one of his elves or a reindeer. 

Are you the one responsible for taking out the garbage? Yes. Grosses me the fuck out sometimes with smelly discarded poultry trays or rotten food, but somebody’s gotta do it. 

Do you recycle? My city has the blue recycling bins, but I heard that since we’re an ass-backward community, “recyclables” and trash all go to the same place. I just place recyclables in the blue bin to help clear up space in the trash bin. Maybe I’m wrong and this city does recycle? Can’t hurt. 

When I was 11, I’d collect empty soda cans to take to the recycling guy since back in the day, they’d pay for aluminum cans. That’s how I scraped up funds for dollar movies and hot dogs. 

Are you a pyro? Yeah. I carry/collect Zippo lighters but mostly because the “click-click” is satisfying to hear since I flip the lids open and closed to relieve stress. And I burn a lot of old bills and letters with sensitive info on them. 

What was the last word/thing you wrote down? I was researching high fiber foods that are also low in carbs to make a grocery and dinner meal plan. 

Sleeping or eating? After my surgery, sleeping. 

Are you overall a positive person? I try to be realistically positive, if such a thing exists. The world will never be all sunshine and My Little Ponies, but I try to find some comfort and positivity when my world is a shit-show. Filling this survey out kinda helps. 

Do you hate hypocrites? Yeah, especially the “do as I say, not as I do” types. 

For instance, a certain family member is pushing good diet and health habits, but it aggravates the hell out of me if I see him drinking high sugar iced tea or eating ice cream. Or Door-Dashing Burger King, even if it is a Beyond Whopper with a diet Coke. 

Do you like to prank people? Yes, but I do benign pranks like leaving dirty riddles and meme drawings on their front doors. 

What was the worst prank you’ve ever done on anyone? I tried fucking with a telesolicitor but I could not stop laughing. 

Have you ever jumped on a trampoline in the ice? I don’t own a trampoline. 

Have you ever ice skated? No. I tried once after a local minor league hockey game. I got the skates on, but my ankles were bending/bowing out so I changed my mind.

Ever water skiid? No. 

Is vacuum spelled funny? Yes. 

Democrat or republican? I don’t associate formally with either party, but I hitch my pony a little to the left. 

Who’s the biggest asshole you know? My former boss circa 2013. Very unprofessional and a veritable loudmouth and a poor (shit) showman wannabe. 

Pen or pencil? Gel-ink pens. 

Should all paper have holes? nope

Speaking of holes. Swiss cheese, what’s the point of that? Fewer calories? Spinning slices in my hand like a TV cowboy spinning his revolver in the trigger guard with his finger? 

Have you ever been in a helicopter before? No. 

Own any airbrushed tshirts? Nope, not even in the nineties. 

Have you ever been suspended? No. 

Have you ever been in a fist fight? A few playground fights as a kid. 

Ever said something to someone that you didn’t mean to say? Yes. 

Do you forgive too easily? I don’t think so. 

What are you listening to right now? The AC running. 

Have you ever seen any of MCR’s music videos? Nope. 

Are you tan? No. 

Have you ever been in a tanning bed? No. I have no desire to look like a Cheeto or woo skin cancer. 

Have you ever played water volley? Once at my uncle’s neighborhood swimming pool. 

Ever had a sunburn? Yes, from neglecting sunscreen re-applications or underestimating the sun. 

How about wind burn? It hurts….. Nah, I don't live in a cold enough climate for that. 

What was the first word you learned how to say? I think it was “mama.”

[pandemicperipatetics]

Texas Cities: Austin

We spent 1 week in Austin, working from home at an Airbnb with 2 desks(!) in North Austin near a yuppie food/shopping area called The Domain. Most of our exploring was limited to a Friday that we took off work, and we were grateful to have our car to explore different parts of the city. Austin seems like a good place to live, and a fun place to visit anytime besides the extremely hot summer, when we were here. Below are our recommendations!

Veggie Food

Tex Mex We really liked all of these places, but there are plenty of other options in Austin as well!

The Vegan Yacht (south of downtown): Has an especially delicious tempeh burrito called the “freeto” ($9) with fritos! They are a bit salty but add a great crunch. It’s combined with a vegan store that had a really fun selection of vegan items that aren’t always found in grocery stores. Parking: free.

Velvet Taco (multiple locations): We love their korean taco (with tofu) and the cauliflower taco (surprisingly tasty). We tried their other 3 vegetarian tacos and didn’t love them. They have meat options as well. This is a chain that we also enjoyed in Houston. Both locations we visited had outdoor seating and had somewhat of a Chipotle vibe (in a good way). Parking: Varies. It was free and easily available at both locations we tried.

Torchy’s (multiple locations): We really enjoyed their migas taco ($3) for breakfast, friendly service, and outdoor seating. If Velvet Taco : Chipotle then Torchy’s : Taco Bell. We would eat here again. Parking: Free and plentiful at the location we visited south of the river.

Other

1886 Cafe & Bakery (Sixth St): This has turned into much more of a tourist attraction than it was when I was in Austin for SXSW 2012; it is listed as a top 10 Austin attraction on several lists online. While it used to have a slightly upscale vibe and involved full table service, now you line up to order at the counter, it’s more crowded, and the cafe feels slightly dirty. However, the Texas-shaped waffle with pecans, fruit, & whipped cream ($14) is still as delicious as I remembered, and eating in the lobby of the Driskill Hotel is pretty nice. Parking: Difficult. We lucked out and found street parking about a 5-minute walk away. You can pay for street parking using the ATX app or a payment kiosk.

The Driskill Lobby - you can eat your food from 1886 Cafe here.

Flower Child (The Domain): This is a great little vegan chain with True Food Kitchen vibes. We tried it in Dallas and really liked the Glow Bowl and a thai wrap. Parking: The Domain has free parking garages with plenty of space.

Pro Tip: Maybe avoid Indian food in Austin. We heard this from a friend, and tried a pretty highly rated South Indian restaurant in North Austin that was very mediocre.

To Do (Stuff We Liked)

Zilker Park Botanical Garden ($8 non-Austin residents, free with American Horticultural Society membership): This is a very pretty place to visit and walk around. In particular, the Japanese Garden has some stunning ponds and the Prehistoric Garden has a very nice waterfall. It opens at 9am - if you’re here in the summer, go as early as possible to beat the heat! The walking path throughout the garden is somewhat shaded but it is still very hot. And wear comfortable shoes - it can be a bit wet and muddy so sandals are not ideal. Parking: Free and plentiful.

Texas State Capitol (free): We really enjoyed our visit. The building is beautiful and allows visitors to roam freely through the lobby and halls. There are free informational tours every ~30 mins, or you can take a self-guided tour using your mobile phone (you call a phone number and enter a code for each item you want to hear about). We enjoyed visiting the Senate and House chambers - there are even staff there to answer questions. It’s also neat to see the portraits of Texas governors lining the rotunda walls on every floor. The air conditioning makes this a great break from the summer heat, and the restrooms were very clean. 

Parking: You can park at the Capitol Parking Garage for free for up to 2 hours, and rates after that are quite cheap. It’s also just a ~10 min walk from there to Sixth Street, so it could make sense to leave your car here rather than trying to find street parking or paying $30+ to use a downtown parking garage.

St. Elmo Brewing Company (or other breweries): There are lots of breweries in and around Austin! We happened to visit this one and thought the outdoor, shaded picnic table seating was very nice. Half pints were reasonably priced at $3.50-$5 and we really liked the “Since, Like, Forever” (a double IPA). There is also a food truck in the beer garden - we didn’t eat, but it was nice to have as an option. Indoor seating is also good if you need to cool off. Parking: Free and plentiful.

Walnut Creek Metro Park (North Austin): We somewhat randomly visited here on a Thursday evening for a scenic walk. The trail we walked was very pretty and right by a stream. This seems like a great place to visit if you live in Austin. Parking: Free and plentiful.

Sixth Street (downtown Austin): If you’re staying downtown + aren’t as much of a grandma as I am, I can attest from my college days that this can be a fun place to bar hop in the evening and listen to live music. There is also a Velvet Taco on Sixth Street, which is an automatic win.

To Stay:

Our Airbnb was in North Austin, right on the North Star Greenbelt (which was very pleasant for evening walks). The neighborhood was a bit run down and the house seemed very old and run down, so while we didn’t feel unsafe, we don’t necessarily recommend this area. 

Downtown Austin is probably a fun place to stay, but parking is very expensive. We looked at a handful of Marriott Hotels, all of which charged $50 per night for parking. Given this, we were happy to stay away from downtown; the 20-minute drive wasn’t a problem.

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

First Arctic Navigation in February (Bloomberg) A tanker sailed through Arctic sea ice in February for the first time, the latest sign of how quickly the pace of climate change is accelerating in the Earth’s northernmost regions. The Christophe de Margerie was accompanied by the nuclear-powered 50 Let Pobedy icebreaker as it sailed back to Russia this month after carrying liquified natural gas to China through the Northern Sea Route in January. Both trips broke navigation records. The experimental voyage happened after a year of extraordinarily warm conditions in the Arctic that have sent shockwaves across the world, from the snowstorm that blanketed Spain in January to the blast of cold air that swept through Canada in mid-February, moving deep into the South as far as Texas. The Arctic is warming more than twice as quickly as the rest of the world and the area covered by ice there has reached historic lows multiple times over the past 12 months. The melting in the region is already in line with the worst-case climate scenarios outlined by scientists.

Biden mourns 500,000 dead, balancing nation’s grief and hope (AP) With sunset remarks and a national moment of silence, President Joe Biden on Monday confronted head-on the country’s once-unimaginable loss—half a million Americans in the COVID-19 pandemic—as he tried to strike a balance between mourning and hope. “We often hear people described as ordinary Americans. There’s no such thing,” he said Monday evening. “There’s nothing ordinary about them. The people we lost were extraordinary.” The president, who lost his first wife and baby daughter in a car collision and later an adult son to brain cancer, leavened the grief with a message of hope. “This nation will smile again. This nation will know sunny days again. This nation will know joy again. And as we do, we’ll remember each person we’ve lost, the lives they lived, the loved ones they left behind.” He said, “We have to resist becoming numb to the sorrow. We have to resist viewing each life as a statistic or a blur or, on the news. We must do so to honor the dead. But, equally important, to care for the living.”

Texans Needed Food and Comfort After a Brutal Storm. As Usual, They Found It at H-E-B. (NYT) The past week had been a nightmare. A winter storm, one of the worst to hit Texas in a generation, robbed Lanita Generous of power, heat and water in her home. The food she had stored in her refrigerator and freezer had spoiled. She was down to her final five bottles of water. But on Sunday, as the sun shined and ice thawed in Austin, Ms. Generous did the same thing as many Texans in urgent need of food, water and a sense of normalcy: She went to H-E-B. “They’ve been great,” she said, adding with just a touch of hyperbole: “If it hadn’t been for the bread and peanut butter, I would have died in my apartment.” H-E-B is a grocery store chain. But it is also more than that. People buy T-shirts that say “H-E-B for President,” and they post videos to TikTok declaring their love, like the woman clutching a small bouquet of flowers handed to her by an employee: “I wish I had a boyfriend like H-E-B. Always there. Gives me flowers. Feeds me.” For many Texans, H-E-B reflected the ways the state’s maverick spirit can flourish: reliable for routine visits but particularly in a time of disaster, and a belief that the family-owned chain—with a vast majority of its more than 340 locations inside state lines—has made a conscious choice to stay rooted to the idea of being a good neighbor. “It’s like H-E-B is the moral center of Texas,” said Stephen Harrigan, a novelist and journalist who lives in Austin. “There seems to be in our state a lack of real leadership, a lack of real efficiency, on the political level. But on the business level, when it comes to a grocery store, all of those things are in place.”

Hunger in Central America skyrockets, U.N. agency says (Reuters) The number of people going hungry in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua has nearly quadrupled in the last two years, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as Central America has been battered by an economic crisis. New data released by the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) showed nearly 8 million people across the four countries are experiencing hunger this year, up from 2.2 million in 2018. “The COVID-19-induced economic crisis had already put food on the market shelves out of reach for the most vulnerable people when the twin hurricanes Eta and Iota battered them further,” Miguel Barreto, WFP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a statement.

Prison riots in Ecuador leave 62 dead (AP) Sixty-two inmates have died in riots at prisons in three cities in Ecuador as a result of fights between rival gangs and an escape attempt, authorities said Tuesday. Prisons Director Edmundo Moncayo said in a news conference that 800 police offices have been helping to regain control of the facilities. Hundreds of officers from tactical units had been deployed since the clashes broke out late Monday. Moncayo said that two groups were trying to gain “criminal leadership within the detention centers” and that the clashes were precipitated by a search for weapons carried out Monday by police officers.

Mount Etna eruption lights up Sicily's night sky (BBC) Mount Etna is erupting again, and its hot lava fountains are illuminating the Sicilian sky. The eruption began earlier this week, and Etna has since been spewing massive orange plumes of smoke and thick clouds of ash. Etna is Europe's most active volcano, and it erupts relatively often. The last major eruption was in 1992. Its eruptions have rarely caused damage or injury in recent decades - and officials believe this eruption is no exception. Stefano Branco, the head of the National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) in the nearby city of Catania, told Italian news agency AGI earlier this week: "We've seen worse."

Cow science (Foreign Policy) A new national exam on cows developed by the Indian government-backed National Cow Commission has been shelved following controversy over its less-than-scientific contents. The curriculum for the test involved erroneous claims about the virtues of Indian cows that were widely ridiculed by the country’s scientific community. Among the “facts” on display: That Indian cows have a special ���solar pulse” in their humps which can supposedly convert sun rays into vitamin D that is then passed on to milk, and an assertion that Indian cows are “strong” whereas foreign cows are “lazy.” The issue of cows, considered sacred by Hindus, and their treatment has become even more of a cultural wedge issue in India following the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, with sometimes deadly results. Attacks by vigilante “cow protection” groups killed 44 people between 2015 and 2018 according to Human Rights Watch, with Muslims among the majority of those targeted.

Japan creates Minister of Loneliness to fight COVID-19 suicides (New York Post) Japan just appointed a Minister of Loneliness—to try to combat its exploding suicide rate amid COVID-19. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga named Tetsushi Sakamoto, a cabinet member already trying to beef up the depressed country’s birthrate, to the post. Suga noted earlier this month that Japanese women, in particular, have been struggling with depression since the coronavirus pandemic began about a year ago—with nearly 880 female suicide victims in the country alone in October, a 70 percent increase over the year before, the BBC reported. Japanese suicide expert Michiko Ueda told the BBC that part of the problem involves an increasing number of single women in the country who don’t have stable employment. “A lot of women are not married anymore,” she said. “They have to support their own lives, and they don’t have permanent jobs.”

Facebook Strikes Deal to Restore News Sharing in Australia (NYT) Facebook said on Monday that it would restore the sharing and viewing of news links in Australia after gaining more time to negotiate over a proposed law that would require it to pay for news content that appears on its site. The social network had blocked news links in Australia last week as the new law neared passage. The legislation includes a code of conduct that would allow media companies to bargain individually or collectively with digital platforms over the value of their news content. Facebook had vigorously objected to the code, which would curb its power and drive up its spending for content, as well as setting a precedent for other governments to follow. The company had argued that news would not be worth the hassle in Australia if the bill became law. But on Monday, Facebook returned to the negotiating table after the Australian government granted a few minor concessions.

U.S.-Saudi ties (Foreign Policy) The families of the three U.S. service members killed and 13 others injured by Mohammed Alshamrani, a Saudi airman who went on a shooting spree at Naval Air Station Pensacola in 2019, are suing Saudi Arabia’s government, alleging that the kingdom failed to screen him appropriately before sending him to the United States for training. The families are filing the lawsuit against Saudi Arabia based on a 2016 law that allows U.S. citizens to sue foreign governments over terrorist attacks—legislation that was initially passed in order to allow the families of 9/11 victims to bring a civil suit against Saudi Arabia.

Italian Ambassador Among Three Killed in Attack on U.N. Convoy in Congo (NYT) For Luca Attanasio, Italy’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, humanitarian work was at the core of his mission. The 43-year-old had moved with his wife to the capital, Kinshasa, in 2017, where their family grew to include three young daughters. He rose to the rank of ambassador in 2019, the pinnacle of his diplomatic career. On Monday, Mr. Attanasio was among three people killed in an attack on a humanitarian convoy near the city of Goma, the World Food Program and Italy’s Foreign Ministry said, the latest in a wave of violence in that part of the central African nation. The deaths of Mr. Attanasio; an Italian Embassy official, named by the Foreign Ministry as Vittorio Iacovacci; and Mustapha Milambo, a driver for the World Food Program, have rattled the international diplomatic community and drawn condemnation from across the globe.

Flood damage and insurance (NPR) Right now, over 4 million houses and small apartments in the contiguous United States are at substantial risk of expensive flood damage, and the cost of flood damage to homes will increase by 50 percent over the next 30 years according to the First Street Foundation. As the climate changes, places that were perfectly safe to live in will no longer be as sure of bets as they once were, and the costs are about to be a serious reality check. The National Flood Insurance Program is $36 billion in debt because of underestimated risks. Over the next several years, FEMA plans to raise rates up to 18 percent a year until prices are accurate, starting this October.

[sarkos]

Hiʻilei Julia Hobart, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin, said current events allow students to see more clearly the shared legacies of African-Americans, many of whose enslaved ancestors were forced to work land stolen from Native Americans, whose agricultural know-how was also co-opted. “I always start with histories of dispossession as a way of contextualizing why food sovereignty has become such an urgent contemporary project,” said Dr. Hobart, 39, a Kanaka Maoli from Hawaii who has a Ph.D. in food studies. “Now we have this understanding about the fragility of our food system that has come in the wake of the pandemic.” She added that frontline food workers are disproportionately exposed to the virus, and that “those workers are mostly Black and brown.” For most of her professional life, LeAnn Littlewolf didn’t give much thought to how past injustices affected the people she serves as an educator and activist. That changed after she attended the Food Sovereignty Summit last year in Green Bay, Wis. “When I got back from the conference, I thought about how much land we used to have access to, and how much food we used to produce,” said Ms. Littlewolf, a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. “And I got so angry.” Ms. Littlewolf has since led the American Indian Community Housing Organization in Duluth, Minn., where she serves as the economic development director, to build a rooftop garden at its headquarters and buy a former corner grocery. The group is in the process of converting the space into Niiwin Indigenous Foods Market, which will feature food from Native American producers on its shelves and on a deli menu.

The Thanksgiving Myth Gets a Deeper Look This Year - The New York Times

[foodinfo]

Discover Authentic Indian Grocery Online in Austin

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[szopenhauer]

How would you describe yourself in three words? me, myself, I

How would others describe you in three words? depends 

Are you okay with long silences? Do they make you uncomfortable? depends

Do you believe in the paranormal?  some

How high is your pain tolerance? high

Do you bite your nails?: nah When you use stairs, do you usually hold the rail?: probably Have you ever eaten a snail?: nope Have you ever been stung by a bee?: I haven’t yet luckily  Are the best things in life really free?: no Have you ever planted a tree?: sure Are you wearing anything that’s gray?: not currently Are you more likely to text “Okay”, “OK” or just “K”?: ok or k or even kk but not okay When did you last check the time?: 20 minutes ago Do you keep spare change in a jar?: not in a jar Have you ever seen a deer (in real life)?: passing by (bus/train) Right now, what can you hear?: some noise from outside (neighbors’s music) and my parents’ voices Have you ever seen a bear (in real life)?: zoo Have you ever played Truth or Dare?: yup Are you wearing anything that’s blue?: not currently Have you ever eaten glue?: ewww, wtf Do you tend to buy clothes used or new?: used 

How often do you take painkillers? basically never Do you own any leather? fake only Do you party because you like it or because you’re supposed to? I don’t party

Do you have a therapist? not anymore Have you ever wanted to be a superhero? why not Ever used an online dating site? few Have you ever gotten a good grade in math class? yeah Have you ever seen a ghost? I think so Have you parents ever walked in on you having sex? sexting Do you think someone would ever want to marry you? maybe Do you like Thanksgiving? I’m against it

Have you ever thought you were drowning? as a kid

Do straight people make you uncomfortable? sometimes lmfao Would you ever dye your hair pink? doubt it Are you embarassed about your sex life or lack there of? sigh... Are you good at making conversation? dunno Do you go on a lot of dates? recently Are you a comic book geek? I don’t read comics

Did you just think of sex? why would I? Have you ever heard of The Cranberries? obvi

Have you ever lived in a mobile home?: I wanted to buy one

Have you ever had your bedroom in a basement?: nope

Do you think it would be cool to have a lion as a pet?: not really

In the house - shoes, socks, slippers or bare feet?: slippers or socks at least

Do you consider dogs inside or outside pets?: more outside

Have you ever had a crush on a friend’s parent?: nah

A teacher says she’s noticed you’ve looked sad, do you confide in her?: maybe

Do you like the sound of birds singing when you wake up, or is it annoying?: depends

If someone gave you a kitten, would you keep it?: doubtful

Do you like or hate to buy new shoes?: they’re expensive :(

Do you keep your phone on you at all times or forget it a lot: I keep it around often now as I have a gf but when I was single I didn’t 

Do you enjoy doing things outdoors?: some, at times

Which of your parents do you laugh more with?: dad

Where do you keep your phone at night?: on my desk

Do you feel comfortable asking your parents or grandparents for money?: I feel uncomfy :(

Five things you need to throw out: ugh...

Do you think you’re clever? I have my moments

Can you remember how you celebrated your 10th birthday? I don’t 

Do you sleep well most nights? not really, not recently

Is there music in your head right now? Sour candy by Lady Gaga

Did you ever play cowboys and indians when you were growing up? I did not

Would you like to become a dancer? meh

What colour is the bathroom of your house painted? green and purple - I was choosing and painting too :)

Do you like the Austin Powers films? no

Do you work better in a clean or messy environment? if it’s my mess then it doesn’t bother me 

Do you ever wear black lipstick? I did in the past, had goth phase :P

Which colour would you rather have your hair: pink, grey or green? green or grey

Don’t you just hate the sound of people eating? often

Would you rather play a good or an evil character in a play? good

Do most people annoy you? absolutely

When was the last time you just wanted to be left alone? kinda now, just go to sleep everyone omg 

Would you rather have a lazy day or a day of being really busy? lazy

Do you like the way that spoken French sounds? not really

Do people find you “cute”? mostly because I’m short

Don’t you hate it when your cell phone dies in the middle of a convo? yeah Have you ever had to cancel a bank account? yep Was the last conversation you had an argument? sigh... If you knew you had the right person, would you marry them today? maybe not today but soon Is the last person you kissed, going to be the next person you kiss? if I’m ever going to kiss somebody yet then her How long was your longest make out? short because she forgets to breathe XD Do you want to dance? not now for sure Are you mad at anyone right now? ugh... What was the last thing you found pointless? everything is? If you could have anyone as your roommate, who would you choose? dad Have you ever changed the prices of items at a store? no but I took price and put it on the same product in a different color because I wanted that specific one and someone teared it  Do you go for walks often? would say so Would your parents disown you if you got pregnant? my mom wants grandkids so maybe not How strange do people say you are? just weird, they don’t really say how much  Have you opened food at a grocery store & ate it without or before paying? nooo  Do you believe in the 10 second rule? I’ve only heard of the 5 second rule which I also don’t believe in - once it touched the ground - it’s trash Have you ever been in a limo? nope

You ever kissed someone at your house? not in my house

Will you be up before 7 am tomorrow? hope not Are you in a good mood right now? ... Do you want someone to call you right now? no thx How artistic are you? kind of Is it possible that you’ll ever be a cat lady? dog lady if anything Are you currently looking forward to tomorrow? blergh Have you ever been in a situation where you had to be around your ex everyday? luckily not Would you kiss anyone you have texts from in your phone? I did Could you go a day not talking to the last person you kissed? I could but I won’t  Are you comfortable sharing drinks with your friends? sorry but no Have your parents ever questioned your virginity? my mom questioned it Do you find graveyards scary? nah When was the last time you made a pinky promise? recently Is there anything written on the shirt you’re wearing right now? there is Are you shorter or taller than most of your friends? shortest Honestly, do you double dip? might Anything happened to you in the past month that made you really mad? more than one thing Have you ever kissed underwater? no, would never If you were paid 1 million dollars, would you kiss someone that was the same sex as you? I do it for free Who was the last person you cried in front of? my mother

Do you like sprinkles on your ice cream? meh

Can you say “Sally sells seashells by the sea shore” fast without messing up? I can  Is there anything plaid near you? What is it? not near Was today a bad hair day for you? obvi Do you have all teeth? still Have you ever been sent a postcard in the mail? From who? I even been part of this postcrossing website in the past Do you know how to do the moon walk? I know/can do it Which subject are you better at - science or history? was better at science but I forgot almost everything I learned in school by now Has anybody ever told you that you have a good singing voice? believe me or not but someone did even tho I think it was a lie Are you the youngest person living in your house? I am  Has anybody ever described you as a heart breaker? yep Are you wearing pajamas right now? not yet Has anybody ever told you that you talk too fast? mom When was the last time you attended a barbeque? I hate barbeques so never and don’t plan to What was your favorite thing to go on at the playground as a kid? swings? Do you know how much you weighed at birth? How much? I don’t remember

[sohannabarberaesque]

SPAM Hash, a la Yogi Bear

There was never a smell more aromatically tantalising emenating from the Jellystone Park cavern shared by Yogi Bear and his ursine buddy Boo-Boo on this particular spring Saturday morning than that of frying SPAM luncheon meat, all diced up and sizzling on Yogi's cast iron skillet ... awaiting nothing less than some frozen Potatoes O'Brien to turn such into something rather imaginative for breakfast running rings around canned corned beef hash. Which, as Yogi is bound to explain, "can only go so far on such appetites as we have!"

But what was particularly imaginative was the fact of that "smarter-than-the-average" bear ordering cases of SPAM online, not to mention the Potatoes O'Brien (and a few other grocery staples, come to think of it) ... and having such shipped by carefully-timed air drop so that such was close enow to the cavern entrance that Yogi could procure such sooner than Ranger Smith perhaps lying in wait to "catch Yogi in the act" of being too fond of the "tourist-type goodies" procured by sneaking around the camping areas, and hoping the tourists won't too easily take notice despite the inevitable warnings to visitors about Yogi and suchlike (and the recommended precautions such as tying up the food in a large sack and having same well off the ground away from ursine reach.

Just be thankful it's not bear fat as lines Yogi's skillet this morning; it's just fine-quality ghee (that's Indian-style clarified butter) used as cooking fat. Especially once the potatoes O'Brien (with added bits of diced green and red peppers and onions) are added to the SPAM in the skillet ... the sizzle certainly being music to as much Boo-Boo (who simply can't resist the prospect of Yogi's SPAM Hash) as Yogi's beau, Cindy (who, considering her appearence, has to take it easy in the portion department, but otherwise finds SPAM rather appetising. Not to mention--

"Heavens to George Hormel!" (It was Snagglepuss just outside the cave entrance, lured by the aroma of frying SPAM and potatoes O'Brien.) "Do I smell nothing less than that tantalising pride of Austin, Minnesota, otherwise known as SPAM?!"

To which Yogi replieth, "Nothing less than--SNAGGLEPUSS?!! What are you doing outside here?"

"I admit," the lavender mountain lion remarked, "coming from my cavern, just a couple miles down the trail yonder, the smell of SPAM and fried potatoes in ghee is driving yours truly to breakfast!"

"Well, well, well!!" Yogi chimed in. "Have yourself a plate of my SPAM Hash--"

"So this is what you call your morning-riser concoction, Yogi?"

"Make no mistake, Snagglepuss; make no mistake."

"And pray, what exactly do you use as the frying grease?"

"Nothing less than ghee, my mountain-lion buddy!"

"Ahh, ghee. Clarified butter, even!"

"Which," Boo-Boo rejoindered, "is what ghee is."

"So bring on the SPAM Hash, and a cup of coffee even!"

(And just be thankful Ranger Smith was on hiatus at the time. We can only imagine his reaction to Yogi's getting groceries by air drop, with the frozen stuff having to be packed in dry ice, the potatoes O'Brien included.)

[xclairbearx3]

Life at 25

The year is almost over....how it seriously flew by....before new years I got my heart broken...I left and entered the new year in a new place...literally... I landed in kamloops, canada. I made new friends and at the same time lost those friends when I defended myself during winter break over money situations and the car in Banff, Alberta. I found myself in a weird situation having two dates on Valentine's day and bailing on one. I was torn between two guys, like when does that ever happen?!?! Apparently I got along with the world other than my roommates. My best friends were the people at front desk and RAs, yet I hated my RA, i felt like he wanted me out by my roommates. Smoked tons of canadian pot legally. I moved in to the residence and by mid February/march I had moved in with my boyfriend and left room 1008 empty for the most part, just using my room as an escape from babe when I needed space. I ended up meeting my boyfriends grandparents, then parents, i also got introduced to strawberry rhubarb pie, my new addiction! I learned how to make indian food, i realized my second favorite grocery store brand is no name from superstore. I went to Vancouver and fell in love....im dying to go back but as a resident, and the goal to work at Lush cosmetics! I was blessed enough to ride a train west coast stop by Portland, Oregon amd check out this hippie town. Went to an arcade bar, visited some homies and drove to some waterfalls checking out some amazing views. We even went to forbidden areas and smoked while we checked out the views where the goonies filmed. Then I made my way to Los Angeles, the city where dreams are made. I stayed with my actor friend who showed me the life of a professional actor. I tried real raw sushi, found the selena star and so much more. Then coming down got a glipse of arizona and washington all the way back down to texas. Traveled through Mexico alone and made my way to Monterrey and met my family up in Acapulco after 10 years. It was amazing to be reunited with the family from mexico and colorado. Had such a blast being back at my second home. I got to see Rob Zombie and marilyn manson in austin! Next, backpacking in Europe, I explored 5 countries, 11 cities, in 26 days its crazy to think i went to New York, iceland, london, rome, venice, florence, cinque terre, pompeii, venice, paris, and Barcelona. I learned some Italian, did not learn french, and got by with my spanish in Spain. I learned that pesto lasagna exists, tried some crazy fishes, and swam in the middle of the ocean filled with fish in clear waters. Sometimes I really can't believe I did this....coming back ill be honest I was still dealing with heartache, slowly im healing, but man a friend showed me what type of love I deserve, the fact that if a friend can do this proves what a lover should be able to do for me, but yeah, it was really awesome I got to see underoath last week and it was such an amazing experience going back 13 years making my child self happy. Also after this trip from Europe I've been sober from weed. Low key miss it and forever love the smell and taste, but im moving on pushing for better things finding a career, and i will be prepared and not worried. I really wanna smoke but I dont wanna ruin an opportunity if I get one because of smoking....its a sacrifice but I know in the end it will be worth it. I slowly discovered who i truly am and honestly im really happy. Like I said im still healing, but I can feel myself moving forward and motivated to focus on myself, my future, and making my dreams into goals and make them come true. Just gotta keep telling myself dont stop and that I got this. ❤ I wonder how 2019 will be, im just hoping it lives to 2018's level or even better!!

[tamboradventure]

How to Find a Job Teaching in Spain

Posted: 2/22/2020 | February 22nd, 2020

Teaching overseas is one of a great way to earn money while you travel, stay in one place longer, and get to deeply experience another culture. I spent years teaching in Thailand and Taiwan and they were some of the most impactful experiences of my traveling. Living in a foreign culture, trying to get by day to day, and learning to create a life for yourself is a surefire way to become a more confident you and give you a deeper understanding of yourself.

I get a lot of emails from people about teaching overseas and one of the most asked about destinations is Spain! While we’ve written about the destination before, I wanted to add in another perspective from someone who just did it last year.

Natasha is a local Austinite who graduated from school and moved to Spain for a year. Here she is explaining how she did it and how you can too!

Tell us about yourself! Natasha: I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but my family moved to India when I was two months old. After a year, we moved to Australia, where I grew up until I was 9. Then we moved to Vancouver where I stayed until I was 15.

I consider myself to be from Australia, Canada, and the US in almost equal parts, and ethnically I am Indian and Pakistani. I double-majored in international relations and Latin American studies at UT-Austin.

In my free time, I make YouTube videos about travel and I am devoted to health and fitness. I also cook and practice yoga.

You recently spent some time teaching in Spain. Tell us how you got started doing that. Was it easy to figure out the process and find a job? I studied abroad in Madrid in college. While I was there, I met some people who were English-language assistants and kept in touch with them after I returned home. I knew I wanted to take a gap year and travel after graduation, so I reached out to them and they told me about different programs I could apply for.

I looked into a few, but the government program “Auxiliares de Conversación” was free and had good reviews, so I chose to apply to that one. It allows foreigners to visit and work as teaching assistants. You’ll be paired with a teacher and help the students learn English.

The application is quite daunting. It required an essay, two letters of recommendation, a lot of legal paperwork, and other forms. The essay I wrote was about a page long, essentially a letter of intent explaining why I was interested in the program and the qualities that make me fit for the position.

The program also requires an official college transcript as well, but it accepts applicants from diverse educational backgrounds. so as long as you show keen interest, have good letters of recommendation, and have decent grades you should be fine!

I didn’t decide to join this program until the beginning of March, but I would suggest starting the process as soon as it is available in January. That will give you more time to jump through all the bureaucratic hoops. After receiving your acceptance, I suggest booking your visa appointment immediately, as these fill up fast!

Did you have any prior teaching experience? Is experience necessary? I didn’t have any teaching experience, and the Auxiliar de Conversación program doesn’t require you to. As long as you have (or are completing) your bachelor’s degree and are a native English speaker, you are eligible.

What was an average day like? You are only required to work 12-16 hours a week with this program, so a workday is typically about four hours. Since we’re English-language assistants, we are paired with an English teacher and don’t have to create a curriculum for the whole class.

On an average day as an auxiliar, the teacher I worked with would mostly have me walk around and assist students with the activities she had assigned them to do. Since I was an assistant and not the main teacher, my job mostly consisted of providing help like that.

The teacher for the younger grades would have me work one-on-one with students that were falling behind or had special needs, to give them more attention, but we usually worked on the same activities as the other students. For about 10-15 minutes of the class, I would sometimes give a presentation or play vocabulary games, such as Bingo or Hangman.

I was never required to teach an entire lesson, but I would occasionally have to manage small groups of students. This allowed them to participate more since they would not be as shy to speak English (and it’s easier to control a few students than a whole class).

Regarding the actual teaching, it was the easiest and smoothest part of my time in Spain. As long as you can keep the students interested and engaged you won’t have any issues.

Did you have any unexpected challenges? Many! I lived about an hour’s walk from my school, which was inconvenient and isolating. It took me a while to figure out the bus system, so adapting to my location was the first challenge.

However, the biggest challenge I faced was having to come back to the US for a month, because I didn’t have a visa. I was informed that I didn’t need a visa prior to entering Spain, but upon arrival, I would need to get my NIE (Número de Identidad de Extranjero) and I would be set.

Well, when I arrived, I was the only applicant without a visa. I went to eight different foreign consulates, and no one knew if I had to leave Spain to get a visa. Ultimately I had to fly back to the US, score an almost-impossible-to-get appointment with the Spanish consulate, and get my visa. The bureaucratic system is slow and very tedious, so try to talk to former auxiliares if you can (there are lots of Facebook groups for this).

What is one thing you wish you knew before you started teaching? I wish I knew that one person’s experience could be very different from the next. I had an amazing overall experience; however, parts of my life didn’t go as I expected.

I went in expecting to make great connections with my colleagues more than anyone else, but the environment at the school I worked at wasn’t very welcoming. A lot of teachers at my school didn’t live in the community (they commuted from pueblos as far as an hour away). This made it hard to form close friendships. Moreover, my school was comprised of teachers who were still completing their exams, so every year the teachers changed schools. That meant that the sense of community was not very strong.

Fortunately, I became friends with other auxiliares in my area and was welcomed warmly into their community. I became friends with teachers at other schools, took trips with them, and received lots of help with life in general in Spain.

What kind of salary can auxiliares expect? Auxiliares earn a “scholarship” rather than a salary. I was paid 1,000 EUR/month ($1,100 USD) during my contract. I would say that one should expect around 700-1,000 EUR per month ($770-1,100 USD) (or about 15 EUR/hour ($16.50 USD). Auxiliares in Madrid received the same “scholarship” as I did, but the cost of living in that region is much higher.

If you are paid 700 EUR, you usually work 12 hours a week instead of 16, and you can definitely try and teach private English lessons to earn more.

What are your top three tips for someone interested in teaching in Spain? 1. Arrive with at enough to live off of for at least three months. I was fortunate to live in a city with decent prices for accommodation. I had two roommates and spent around 250 EUR/month ($275 USD) on rent. Groceries, rent, and transportation were my main expenses, around 650 EUR ($715 USD) for all of those (plus some miscellaneous things). This left me with just a bit of money to use for travel.

In the Valencia region, the government was three months late to start paying us and always late by at least a few days to a week after the first paycheck. Since it’s not a lot of money, you’ll want to have a lot of savings. That way, if you’re paid late, you will have enough money to get by.

2. Research where you want to work. I chose Madrid as my first choice and Andalucía as my second. I would have also liked to live in Barcelona, but that wasn’t an option. I applied late to the program and existing auxiliares have priority for where they are stationed. As a new applicant (and a late one), I was sent to Valencia.

When choosing regions, be aware that a region does not necessarily mean you will end up in the city it’s named for. By that I mean, the “Madrid” region does not only mean the city of Madrid but rather the entire region around the city. Regions are like states, and so you could end up living two hours (or more) from the capital of the region.

You should also take into account the language spoken in the region. Where I lived, people spoke Valenciano just as much (if not more) than Spanish, and school was conducted in valenciano (a dialect of Catalan). Luckily, Valenciano has similarities to Spanish.

However, if you’re placed in the Basque Country (northern Spain), they speak Euskara, which has no similarities to Spanish. So if your goal is to practice or learn Spanish, make sure you choose to live in a region that speaks it.

Weather is another aspect to consider. While in the summer it is warm almost everywhere, winters can be quite cold (more so in the north). If you’re not a fan of cold weather, consider living closer to the south and the sea.

There are auxiliar Facebook groups and blogs that have plenty of information and anecdotes about different regions, which can help you make your decision.

3. Learn some Spanish. Understand that you could be placed in a pueblo very far from a big city, so brush up on your Spanish a little. It isn’t mandatory to teach English, but it will really come in handy if you’re in a smaller location and want to connect more with the locals (and your colleagues).  

Want to Learn More About Teaching Abroad?

Here are some helpful posts about teaching English overseas to help you learn more:

The 9 Best Places to Teach English Overseas

Can You Teach English Without a TEFL?

How Emily Taught English to Fund her RTW Adventure

How Oneika Gets Teaching Jobs Around the World

For more teaching tips and advice you can follow Natasha on Instagram and YouTube.

P.S. – Want to meet other travelers in real life? This year we launched The Nomadic Network, a platform created to help travelers connect, learn, and get inspired in real life! Here are our upcoming events if you want to take part: Seattle (2/17), Austin (2/18), Fort Lauderdale (2/19), Portland (2/19), San Francisco (2/20), Los Angeles (2/23), Detroit (2/24), Boston (2/24), Dublin (2/24), San Diego (2/24), London (2/25), Chicago (2/25), and NYC (3/10).

  Ready to Teach Overseas? Get My Comprehensive Guide

This digital guide will put you ahead of your competition, help you land a high-paying job with a reputable company, and give you first-hand knowledge from real teachers! Get started today with this downloadable PDF (for your computer, e-reader, or mobile device) with the book PLUS 12 interviews about life as a teacher, plus job advice from one of the industry’s top recruiters!

Book Your Trip to Spain: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines, because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is being left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the largest inventory. If you want to stay somewher eother than a hotel, use Booking.com, as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. My favorite hostels in Spain are:

Sungate One (Madrid) – Super clean, in a great location, and very social. They organize pub crawls, communal meals, and walking tours too!

Kabul (Barcelona) – This is the best party hostel in the city. It’s fun, social, and really easy to have fun and meet people.

La Banda (Seville) – Another fun and social hostel. They have an on-site bar and host huge communal dinners too. It’s lively and agreat place to meet people and party.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it, as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel — and I think they will help you too!

Looking for more information on visiting Spain? Check out my in-depth destination guide to SPain with more tips on what to see and do, costs, ways to save, and much, much more!

The post How to Find a Job Teaching in Spain appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

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[wanderharryings]

Hong Kong from the eyes of an Instagrammer

Hong Kong’s places to visit was never of interest to me. It was all about their FOOD - I love warm meaty dim sums and sweet juicy roasts. It was a no-brainer that I will make it to Hong Kong some day for a dim sum pilgrimage.

Can’t recall exactly when but it was a day I flipped through the calendar and realised there wasn’t any holidays planned till 2020. So got onto skyscanner and booked 2 tix to Hong Kong! Boom! 

BEST. DECISION. MADE. IN. 2019.

We had a very very comfortable flight to Hong Kong via Cathay Pacific. We regularly fly via budget airlines to other parts of Asia so it was nice to fly via full-service airline on this trip. Food wasn’t fantastic but Haagen Daz on-board was a nice touch!

Landed shortly past midnight. Didn’t feel like figuring out the train services at that ungodly hours so we booked an airport transfer via Rideways by Booking.com. Wasn’t exactly cheap however service by our driver Ken Wan was top notch so I ain’t complaining. I highly recommend Ken if you are looking for an airport transfer in HK. He is so good with his instructions that it made navigating out of the airport so easy for us. 5 STARS!

Ken drove us right up to Hong Kong Island where we booked a 3-night stay at Hotel Jen via Booking.com . I have left my reviews on Booking.com so feel free to scroll through and read before deciding if you should go with our choice. It was a no-frills stay so we found it hard to justify the price we paid. However, you’ll appreciate the convenience of the location. The hood is very different in the wee hours and when the sun comes up! Love it!

Husband did the planning for most parts of this trip. He said he knew he had to pick the most instagrammable places to entice his wife to remain excited throughout the trip ;)

For the rest of this post, you’ll view snippets of my instastory to stay true to the IG-worthy theme.

Started the first day with a day trip to Tai O fishing village on Lantau Island. Wasn’t hard to get there via MTR and their bus service. You can google to find the varied ways to get to Tai O. A Singaporean we met on this trip advised to avoid Tai O during the weekends. Good for us we went on a Friday morning. There was barely any crowd. We took a leisurely stroll and munched on food we found along our path.

These spicy jumbo fishballs were the first thing we ate on this trip. It was the perfect pairing for the cold weather. My lips were on fire, in a good way.

Told ya - there was sooo much to eat as you walk around exploring the village on your own but eat sparingly because you shouldn’t miss out on this tiny dim sum stall. Their plump Har Gows simply glide down your throat one after another. Never ever had one that is this good! Do not worry about having more than 1 platter because there is soooo much walking to do (so you need to fuel up!) and of course a lot more to see besides food.

Tai O is an Instagram haven. There are so many activities and spots to photograph but I wasn’t sure how I would feel if I were to live there... at times I felt like I was intruding the locals’ personal space. Maybe no, there were plenty who greeted us with warm smiles and just went about doing their own things. 

Amidst the busy daily morning activities and the buzz in the marketplace, we stumbled upon a white building with massive Christmas decorations. Later realised it was a Church. We stood there thinking if we should go in to pay respects when a local greeted us with a big “Hello” and signalled us to go in. We entered but couldn’t find a prayer hall so exited almost immediately. Happy to have visited during the Christmas season to see the Church in it’s full glory.

We left Tai O to to check out the bargains at the Citygate Outlets located right smack at the MTR station where we have to transit. Very strategic I must say!

If you’ve been to the outlet malls in the US, then this wouldn’t excite you. Bagged a couple of items from Adidas and was mighty pleased with the discount. Left as soon as we gobbled down some roast meat on steamed rice for late lunch.

MTR’s well connected lines and undisrupted service ensured we arrived at the hotel on time to freshen up and head out for our night exploration. The moment we arrived back to HK Island, I missed the charm of Tai O. It was a great escapade from the concrete jungle. The city girl in me truly appreciated that side of HK!

For the night we decided on something a little more touristy - we cruised along Victoria Harbour on-board AquaLuna, a traditional Chinese junk boat. Hubs researched on the various cruise offerings and we unanimously agreed on AquaLuna. He got us tix on Klook . Each tix covered a complimentary drink for the 45-min sail. We ordered taro chips to go with our glass of red. It was indeed a beautiful start to our holiday!

We disembarked at the Victoria Harbour waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui and walked along the Avenue of Stars, an avenue to honour HK film celebrities. It was just about time for the famous light show ‘Symphony of Lights’ to begin so we promptly grabbed a cup of hot chocolate each to catch the show in the cold winter night. Hong Kong is a true stunner at night!

It was hard to end the night early when there was still so much going on around that area. We pressed on and moved on to explore Nathan Street. Nightlife in HK didn’t seem any different from SG - it was all about brightly lit streets, bustling crowd and many more food options.

After clocking 25, 663 steps, we stopped for a quick wonton mee dinner and retired for the night. Thank God for our Timberland boots investment else we couldn’t have managed all that non-stop walking!

Day 2 was a lot more slower... we had to as our energy was depleting after a full on day 1!

We took the MTR once again (we did all day err day alright) and headed towards Quarry Bay to take photographs of the famed monster building. While searching for directions on how to get there, Hubs chanced upon the news that a photo taking ban has been put in place since Sep 2019. Apparently the residents complained about all the mayhem created by instagrammers so they fenced up the area! Oh, well; we didn’t give up ;)

Saw the banner and the fence? Occasionally you’ll have people coming out of their shops to monitor your movements. We were constantly whispering to each other while we were there as we were afraid of being chased out before we were done.

If you got sick of HK food and looking for some Indian/Indo fare, this is also the place to visit. We caught sight of non-locals patronising the grocery stores around this area. There were plenty of hair salons in a single stretch too!

Quarry Bay is an unconventional mix of modern buildings, old school housing charm, marketplaces, traditional bakeries, modern cafes and way more. 

Then it was back on the MTR to head towards the Central for some touristy shopping and gourmet indulgence before the next item on our itinerary - Victoria Peak!

Victoria Peak via the tram ride was totally Hubs’ idea. He didn’t manage to go up the Peak during his first visit to HK so this was a first time experience for us both. Once again, we got our tix from Klook. It was basically a combo ticket so we opted for the tram ride to Sky Terrace and a pass to Madame Tussauds.

We met our Klook guide at an MTR exit closes to the tram station. He chaperoned us to the station and briefed us on what needs to be done once we hit the peak. Clear instructions that didn’t require us to ponder much about what to do next. We followed his instructions to a T and ended up on the highest hill on Hong Kong island known as Mount Austin, and locally as The Peak. Windy and cold yet breathtaking view of the city and sunset shortly after we arrived.

It was a certainly a night to remember. In fact, it was 2 consecutive memorable nights! This called for a celebratory dinner. Hence, we trekked down to Yung Kee which wasn’t very far off the tram station. Our hearts and stomachs were so full.

Roasts and rice game strong! Hard to beat the HK folks in their fried rice renditions. Every grain is coated in grease and flavoured so well. Every mouthful leaves you wanting more. Perfection!

Causeway Bay, HK’s most up-scale shopping district was next on our agenda. We were all geared up for more walking and sightseeing. It was the perfect place to head to on our last night in HK as there’s the Wellcome supermarket that is open 24hrs which is the most perfect place to pick up edible gifts for family and friends back home. We researched quite a fair bit on the supermarkets to go to and the items to buy as gifts. A couple of supermarkets we walked into before Wellcome, were very much for expats so you don’t get local produce. I got carried away with the cool Tesco/Waitrose products manufactured just for the HK market! 

As for the specifics of the edible gifts, we got bottles of XO sauce and dried scallops from Yick Cheong Ho at Tai O. I felt it was more appropriate to get 'em sauces from Tai O than from supermarkets. The XO sauces sold in the supermarkets are brands that are available back home too. At Wellcome we picked up the remaining items on our shopping list like Greatwall luncheon meat, Nissin XO instant noodles, Holland “Black and White” evaporated milk cans and mango-pomelo sago bottled drink. 

We were extremely exhausted after clocking a total of 21, 519 steps for the day. Besides, all the edible gifts were weighing a tonne so it was only wise we headed back to the hotel. 

We’ve experienced enough of the efficient MTR system. So, it was time to experience HK’s heritage tram system, Ding Ding. It was a nice and slow ride “home”. 

Hong Kong Tramways has done a brilliant job in preserving the charm and maintaining a traditional transportation system to be functional since 1904.

On the next morning, one last hurrah before we board the airport express and fly back home...

I heart you with all of my heart, HK! Till we meet again, XO XO (pun fully intended).