I’ve been blaming the rain on my pal Omar, who has just arrived here from Toronto to work at Animal Logic. Ever since hes gotten here, its been nothing but rain. I took him out in the rain for breakfast the day he landed, then showed him around the city for a bit until he was ready to pass out. Went back to the market, showed him where the shops were and how to get around. I doubt he remembered any of it, he was hardly speaking english most of the time. It happens when he gets tired. The next day I took him to the “rocks” and the opera house. Again, it was a rainy day. We walked the streets, had some beer, pretzels and corn. Quite exciting.

The weeks have been fairly quiet. We usually spend the nights on the roof of our hotel, watching bats and drinking drinks that should have parasols in them.

Just last week, Omar, Lars and I went to the fish market. It was full of fish. Yes, fish. Many Oysters, scallops, crabs, lobster, prawns… Exactly what you would expect at a fish market. Omar was having a very unlucky day. At the market, he was attacked by a lobster he was holding to his face and a crab took his train ticket and wouldn’t give it back. And that was only the start of the day. We each ended up buying ourselves a seafood platter each. I completely forgot to take a picture of it, I was just too excited to eat. The mountain of food consisted of Oyster moray (?) another cooked oyster with bacon, a scallop on a shell (I had no idea that these were just clams!), fried fish, shrimp and poor grilled baby octopus with fries. This clearly was way too much food, so we thought it would be a good idea to feed the fish back to… the fish. We sat for about 10 minutes watching fish and seagulls fight for our leftovers. Cheap thrills indeed.

After the fish market we headed back to chinatown to walk around Paddy’s market and area. The shops were all the same as the three times I’ve been there before, but Lars had never been there before. Thats when I finally broke down and bought a cheap $28 RC helicopter, as did Omar. This turned out to be a great investment indeed, more about that later. I’m not quite sure what we did later, but I do remember finding a japanese pachinko game and having a ball with it. I’m still not completely sure how to play that game, but it was still strangely satisfying.

We head to the train to go back home and get to the platform just as the doors begin to close.

“nuts” we thought, having to wait another 10 minutes for the next train. Then, the doors pop back open! We jump in, two and a half out of three of us made it into the train. Omar was the unlucky half. What a bummer, he was a pretty nice guy. I kid. He’s a jerk and the doors opened back up for him and got on. Fueled by his new-found lust for life brought on by his near-near death experience, he decides to go home for a nap. We all agree. It was a long day.

I get home and immedietly plug in my chopper for it’s first charge. I would spend the next half hour watching it charge. I don’t think I did anything else, but sit there staring blankly at it propeller blades staring blankly back at me. I pick up the remote and to my shock discover that it takes 6xAA. These things must have been made in the late 80’s or something. Using six AA batteries on a remote control is like filling your mazda with rocket fuel when you can’t even go over 150km/h and you’re in a school zone on top of that. Anyway, I ready the chopper for liftoff.

“contact” I yell to myself.

The blades spin, the chopper stays on the ground. I realize that the blades were inverted for upside down flying. Completely useless. I unscrew the screws holding the blades and lose a screw somewhere in the engine. I lose another screw in the engine while putting the blades back on, but that one was recovered. Again, I try for a take off. It works! I’m flying! I’m crashing. Over and over I crash. I eventually learn how to crash pretty well. Maybe I can somehow make a career out of it. A little while later, Omar comes over with his whirlybird. I queue up Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries and spend the next 15 minutes (thats how long the battery lasts) playing battle copters. We never managed to crash into each other, but we hit everything else in my tiny room.

Can you believe I just wrote all that about a silly little RC chopper? Neither can I. I guess that really was the most exciting thing that has happened here since my last post. That same weekend it was all rain. I woke up early in hopes of going for a swim, despite the overcast. When I make it outside, it starts to pour. Back inside we go. We spent the rainy days watching movies. First was Rubber. A nice story of a murderous car tire. Rolling through the desert, killing anything at all that lay in its path using it’s telekinetic powers. It was thoroughly enjoyed by us all. We also watched Jackass 3d. Also enjoyable, but on a completely different level.

Of course, now that the weekend is over, its been sunny all day. I’m expecting next weekend to be all rain, but I won’t let that stop me…. not this time.

Beaches and Cream.

avi