Jen in Bermuda

Halloween Fun

Saturday night was a blast.  And I am still recovering.  Tonight will be a quiet night to pass out candy!  I should be well stocked as I hit Target in the States to make sure I was covered this year.

Ladies Who Lunch

My mom took us to lunch at Bistro J while she was in town.

Bermuda Lunch Truck Review - Little Mexico

You know I love my Mexican.  And has anyone seen how well Chipotle's stock is doing?  Goes to show you that when you stumble upon a good product and it appears others love it as well - invest in it!!  

A few weeks ago, Bermuda got its first Mexican lunch truck.  Considering that the only other Mexican option is Rosa's, this was a welcomed addition.  

The truck is very attractive and they have a great set up with bright colored umbrellas & chairs very close to City Hall.

The food.  Well, it is overpriced.  It is tasty but the menu could use some work.  The tacos are priced individually and they are bigger than normal tacos.  Not big enough for a meal, so you feel like you need to order two.  So, you end up spending $18 and then having a little too much food.  My suggestion to the proprietor would be to make the tacos smaller, serve 2 in one order and then increase the price a couple of dollars.  So, instead you would order 2 smaller tacos for $13 instead of one larger taco for $9.

I had the fish tacos and they were not a disappointment.  My visit to the lunch truck was with Eve and Andrea and we basically broke the lunch truck down into a business plan.  I wish I knew the owner - I could make my suggestions in a power point presentation!!

Boot Shapers - Review

Okay - fall has set in.  Well, not really in Bermuda as the temperature is still in the low 80s.  But it is almost 11/1 and I feel like it is boot season again.  Boots are great.  But storing boots is tough.  You want to keep them in good shape when they are sitting in your closet.  Well, I now have a solution.  Boot Shapers.  They sell them all over the place - Container Store, Bed, Bath & Beyond and Target to name a few.

These come in a bunch of colors but I think black works fine.  They are between $9 and $10.

Pretty easy to insert.  Just squeeze and insert into the top of the boot.  They actually come with hangers so that you could hang them in a closet if you wanted to.

Really easy to use and makes the boots look great.  Not to pricey either.  

This has been making the rounds...

 

Tian'ammen Square, Beijing, China

Check out the picture on the left.  It is one of many light posts in the square.  Do you notice something odd?  How about all the cameras mounted on the post - and every light post looked like this.  Some posts had even more cameras on them than this one.  I was in middle school in 1989, but even at that age I remember the massacre that was reported in the media.  To this day, we still don't know how many people were killed, 400-800to possibly thousands.  One very large example of how controlling the Chinese government is.  The guide said it was the biggest square in the world but after some research it looks like it is the 3rd biggest square in the world.  Most of the victims were students and intellectuals (ironically this is the same group that ended the feudal system in 1911 involving Mao himself.)  The protests came out of the mourning of a Chinese leader who had fought for the liberalization of the Chinese political system.  A conservative was tired of this and the government declared marital law in Beijing and then allowed troops to open fire on peaceful demonstrators.  After the incident, foreign press were ejected from the country and the story was censored domestically.  In the evening when I was repacking my bag for the next day, I would often look through Chinese TV.  All the channels are through the government and the one English speaking channel was definitely biased.  From the stories that were reported, you could see the Chinese Communist propaganda being spread.  And of course the fact that facebook is banned there and that Google has experienced trouble in China - demonstrates the major limits of freedom on the people.  I really hope that in my lifetime I see the Chinese people win their freedom.  That would be wonderful.  

Vairocana Buddha at the Longman Grottoes outside Luoyang

This buddha is in the main temple but there are over 1,000 caves with little buddhas.  The caves were started in 493 under the leadership of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynastywhen he moved the capital to Luoyang.  They were built over 800 years.

Many of the caves are empty or the buddha's are missing their heads.  It seems that during China's cultural revolution, run by Mao Zedong from 1966-1976, anything of cultural, capitalist, or traditional was to be removed from Chinese society.  As a result many ancient Chinese relics were lost during that period.  I am not even going into all the people in China who were persecuted during this time.  Horrific part of China's history.  

 

Rubbing Buddha's Belly for Good Luck

Rubbing his belly is supposed to bring wealth, good luck and prosperity.  I just love the big smile on his face.  You can't tell from the picture by his belly was shiny with all the rubbing and hand oils where the rest of him was a bit more chalky and weathered.  

Hot Pot Time!

Kind of like Chinese fondue, hot pot was one of my favorite meals in China.  Very famous in the Sichuan province and eaten largely in the summer (with the idea that all the heat makes you sweat and that is good for getting rid of toxins.)  

A large metal bowl of hot oil and chilies is part of the center of the table.  It is filled with different kinds of meats, mushrooms, dumplings and various veggies.  You have your own personal bowl of sesame oil, vinegar, garlic, cilantro and salt.  When the veggies or meat are cooked, you grab it with your chopsticks and dunk it into you bowl and then straight into your mouth.  I am not saying this is low fat.  But it is good.  And trying to grab turkey meatballs covered in hot oil with chopsticks is NOT easy!

Posing for a Photo

One morning, I caught this guy resting on my garage right about the house's nameplate.