Black noodles, Banyawol, Mia, and Troy

Today I took my newly acquired and newly stocked ipod and set off for my Sunday errands, namely a trip to E-Mart in order to re-stock Mia's imported Japanese catfood, and a trip to Nais Mart in order to re-stock my fridge. Yeah, not the most exciting of days, I know. I must say that my ipod has exceeded my expectations - I am absolutely infatuated with it, and with the fact that I can now walk around with the entire collected works of Jack White in my pocket. Not to mention Chorny Glaza and Pei Pivo. That little lime green wonder is one of the best purchases I've ever made. I'm sure the locals must think the Banyawol waygook's even weirder, now that I'm walking around dancing like those silhouette-people in the ipod commercials. And occasionally singing along, badly.

On my way from E-Mart to Nais Mart I stopped in at one of my favorite restaurants. It's just west of the Banyawol subway station, if any of you are ever in the area. (I've included its picture below in case you want to eat there.) It's a Chinese restaurant, serving the *best* jiajiangmyun I have ever eaten. Jiajiangmyun (or "black noodles" as my friends and I tend to call them) consists of noodles topped with a delicious black bean sauce. They hand make the noodles at this place... and you get to watch them make your noodles by tossing the dough up in the air. It's really quite amazing to watch this guy start with a long, fat hunk of dough and end with a handful of noodles. And the noodle-making guy is HOT. I could stare at him for hours. (Actually, there are two noodle-making dudes, and sadly guy number two is somewhat overweight and unattractive. Always kind of a let-down when the chubby guy's the one making the noodles.) The hotty was there today, although I did notice that he was wearing a wedding ring. Sigh. Perhaps someday I'll work up the nerve to snap you guys a picture of this fellow working his noodle magic. Yum.

This is the place!


Still life with ipod


Jiajiangmyun. Okay, so this picture doesn't make it look that great,
but trust me, it's delicious!

After Nais Mart, I decided that it was too nice a day to spend it running errands, so I went for a walk around my neighborhood and took some pictures :-)

Somebunny has been restricted to his cage since it got cold.
Poor Toto. I think he's lonely.
He's always so happy when I pay attention to him.


My villa, reflected in the windows of the apartment across the street.


A Banyawol alleyway


Trees and rooftops


An old door-knocker


Colorful gates


Blue gate and mailbox

Want to see some videos of my silly cat? Sure you do!

And oh yeah, I said I'd write about Troy. You see, the movie was on OCN last night. I'd never bothered to see it when it came out; why bother seeing a film when you know how it's going to end? (Obviously not everyone can know how it ends, or Trojan condoms wouldn't be such high sellers. I mean, who wants that kind of defense? Troy fell. The little bastards got inside. But I digress.) Anyway, I just wanted to ask what the hell were they thinking when they cast Diane Kruger as Helen of Troy? I mean she's very attractive, but a legendary beauty? The face that launched a thousand ships? If the face of anyone in that movie would be launching a thousand ships, it would be Orlando's (even if his Paris was rather weak). Hell, Brad Pitt's hot naked ass would have launched more ships. In fact, I expect that Rose Bryne's face (Byrne's character being the reason we got to see Brad Pitt's hot naked ass) would have launched more ships than Kruger's. But that's just me. I don't know who I would have chosen to play Helen, although Kruger wouldn't have been my choice. Who would you have chosen?