Pictures

After a relative drought (and now that Blogger has made it easier to upload several pictures at once), here are some random pictures from our life here. Enjoy!


Not every brand name here is run by an English speaker before going into national production.


Written on a mug in a department store. Look closely and read the writing.



Strawberries during strawberry season. A box (usually around 2 kilograms, or about 4.5 pounds) was between $3 and $15, depending on the size and when you bought them. We've probably bought 8 or 10 boxes of them. We'll eat half (usually the same day) and freeze the other half to use in smoothies. Good stuff.



Strawberries again. The season is ending now (probably only a week or two left) so we bought a box and froze the whole thing. Incredibly delicious, I must add.


At one of our three local grocery stores, there is a pet store. For the size of the store, the pet section has a remarkable selection. Including chipmunks, which I didn't realize fell into the category of "pet." We were there again tonight, and they had a cage of probably 10 chipmunks in it. My, but they're hyper little creatures.



Among the various toys available for children in nearly every toy section in every toy store are air soft guns that shoot little white plastic pellets. They are realistic looking, perfect scale weapons. This one is a Smith and Wesson handgun, with nothing on it to distinguish that it is a toy. You can get M-16's, shotguns, a ton of handguns and a couple of rifles. Nothing will cost you more than $20. Every once in a while, you'll see a little gang of boys running around and shooting trees, buildings and whatnot. They actually do have decent shooting power (to hurt, not kill) so they are relatively careful.


Brooke, Ryan and Emily at this little temple we went to for Brooke's birthday. You can see the temple in the background there. I believe (I'm not sure) it's at least 500 years old. Really neat, really small.


This picture was taken about a month ago (early April?). The flowers here in the spring are beautiful and everywhere. This is a little park downtown that was built last year.

We took this picture today. The big plants are trees in our parking lot. The little ones in the foreground are Emily's little herb garden. We've got basil, dill, something, something else and rosemary. All the rain has really greened everything up here.
Every once in a while you will get a pet vendor on the side of the road. We've seen puppies on a pushcart, kittens in a cage, birds on a bike. This time, it was rabbits.