a day off, but not an off day

This morning I did laundry, skyped 3 wonderful people, took in the sunshine, cleaned the kitchen, and made our first piece of toast in our new-ish toaster oven! It was quite marvelous.

When I finally ventured out into the world after taking my time, I met a man named Hugh on the bus to Taipa. He and his wife are from Australia and have lived here 5 years. She is here as part of the development that Las Vegas Sands is doing. They are building a Holiday Inn, Sheraton, and Four Seasons all next to each other and owned by the Sands-Las Vegas. We exchanged info in hopes that maybe later I can pick his wife's brain about some economic development aspects on Macau (the research I'm doing here).

This was all a coincidence that happened on the way to a business and trade fair I was attending (also for research/ideas/contact info). When I got off the bus, I hopped into a 7eleven (yes, I know I said they were a rip off). I had a goal in mind. The other day at our Cantonese class, our teacher had this chocolate milk box on her desk that was Halloween Special edition. It was orange chocolate flavor. I thought I would track one of these down for the experience. It sounded like my mother to me--and sure enough, I saw one outside the 7eleven and it beckoned me in. An interesting dreamsicle meets Hersheys kind of masterpiece later, I had yet another smile.

After the adventure of the business fair, I crashed at CuppaCoffee for a bit because my bag of 'business fair goodies' was too heavy to carry around, and I had those dinner plans in Coloanne I mentioned yesterday so I didn't want to go home. While chilling and jotting some notes down about my day, lo and behold Taylor Swift's "Fearless" album got turned on over their speaker system. The girl is everywhere--it's a good thing I like her music.

Dinner at La Gondola (an Italian place on Choc Van Beach) was nice and very affordable compared to some of the other places. I split a delicious salad and a ham, mozzarella, artichoke, mushroom?, black olive pizza. It was delicious. Our new found friend from France, Xavier, who has been crashing at Ray's place, was there. He's got to be mid-20s, and he just decided to travel the world for a year because he's young and had the money. Along his way, he has video taped himself dancing across the video screen with a different accessory in each part of the world...with the same pair of boxers, and only that, on. He's been to Columbia, Brazil?, New Zealand, U.S., China, Macau, and he leave for Hong Kong tomorrow. He seemed nice enough, and I got my first official French cheek goodbye they do when he left (and thankfully, unlike Lauren has done in the past, I did not accidentally swipe lips).

I can't believe I'm still awake, but dinner was later than usual and Coloanne is a long ride back. Bed now. The greatest news is that I got in touch with the orphanage here today. It's a Christian orphanage and they were wanting someone to teach their kids English. How perfect. It seems I will be working with 8-18 year olds. I go tomorrow to figure out details. I think Angie might tag along.

Merci!