Monday, November 3, 2008

Tuesday morning

It is election day in the US! Or at least it will be when you sleepyheads get up. I saw the CBS evening news from last night this morning. I am anxious to see the tallies in the morning.

Monday is a day off at the center. I came in a did a little work, but mostly I spent the day walking around Macau. I went back to some of the places where we had shopped on Sunday. In the afternoon one of the teachers from the center in mainland China came to Macau to get her work VISA, and she spent the night with me in Mo Pa (the name of my apartment). She was in Macau for about a month during the summer and had become very familiar with the city. She and I went to the post office and then stopped at a couple of stores that I wasn't aware of. We also visited a very old Catholic Church which was beautiful and very peaceful.

Macau actually isn't in a very big area. It is built on a small mountain however, so all of the streets go around the mountain and to get from point A to point B one has to walk around the mountain. So you are always making a circle. There are lots and lots of steps throughout the city, where you climb up one side or the other. My apartment is located more toward the bottom of the moutain, and on the side of the hill. If I come in the back door, I save 3 flights of stairs, but I have to walk up a steep incline to get to the back door. Since it is closer to the bay it is in the old part of town where the street vendors sell fruit and flowers mostly and not clothing. I may have mentioned that the streets in the old part are very very narrow and there are tons of scooters. I have now had a chance to visit some of the newer parts of Macau where the apartment buildings have elevators. The streets are much wider, some 4 lane. And there are many more new stores. Yesterday I walked past Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, McDonald's and Starbucks.

When I walked back to Senado Square by myself yesterday, I know I walked twice as far as I needed to. When Bryn came and we walked back together, she showed me some shortcuts. By the time I leave here, I may know how to get around. LOL

Today I am applying for my Visa to go to Mainland China as well. I am hoping to go on Saturday morning. I have given up on going to Bejing. Too expensive, and I don't have enough time.

Phone books are arranged according to the number of strokes in the name. However, most everyone here uses cell phones these days. As in the US there are very few public phone booths anymore. I saw Superman the other day, and he was stressing out!!!! No place to change! I also wondered about computers. What I learned is that Chinese is typed one of two ways on a computer. Either the person uses a regular English keyboard and types the word phonetically
or uses a Chinese keyboard that has the radicals on it. The radicals are the main strokes When the person wants a particular character, he types in part of it, either phonetically or with radicals, and then choices of characters pop up and can be selected. If the person typing can type English, he can also type in the English text and use a translating program. But as with every translating program, it must be gone through very carefully to make sure it says what it is supposed to say. In any case, it is much easier to use a computer if you are using a language with an alphabet.

Well time to go to work. Hoke and Teresa.....are you out there? I miss you.

Lois

4 comments:

Norma said...

Hi Lois,

I am excited to go vote today. I am going first thing this morning. The polls open at 8am and I intend to be at the head of the line. I'll be watching returns tonight, so don't call. :)

Love you,
Norma

Unknown said...

I voted a couple weeks ago, but i saved my "I voted" sticker to wear today. The lines to vote look long..I don't know who the people are who would have time to stand and wait hours to vote!

asuman said...

Hi Lois! I am now officially a "follower!" I love reading about your travels and I wish you a very exciting and safe trip.
Angie

coffeejill said...

Absolutely fascinating about the phone books and the computer! I think that the whole process of typing would be such a long drawn out thing!

The weather is still just lovely here...so strange to be first week in November and be 72 degrees!!

Glad to hear you are learning your way round a bit more!

Love you bunches!!