Chinese Medicine

Eating Healthy

                                                                        Banana Leaf

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•                            Buddhist feast

Two times recently I have eaten vegetarian and also had my camera handy to snap a pic.  Actually I eat vegetarian food often but I don't always have a camera.  There is no dearth of interesting places to eat here in Penang, the city in Malaysia that is somewhat like New Orleans in that it is associated with all kinds of good food.

The top picture is known as banana leaf and is served in  specialized Indian restaurants.  Upon entering banana leaf restaurants the first thing to do is wash your hands.  Traditionally this food is eaten with fingers.  I don't particularly like eating this way so I can request spoon and fork.  After washing up, customers sit at a table and a large banana leaf is plopped down in front.  Servers pass thru the restaurant with pots of rice and vegetables and serve directly from the pot to the leaf.  Everything I have eaten in this type of restaurant has been delicious, a bit spicy, filling and cheap.  

The second photo is a picture of a vegan lunch I had at a Buddhist temple.  This month is the feast of the 9 gods and strict Buddhists eat only vegetables during these 9 days.  Most temples set up dining tents and serve food all day long, however this is a bit upscale and I was invited by Chinese friends to a sit down dinner.  There must have been over 10 dishes served  as our party sat around a big table with a lazy Susan in the middle.  Not surprisingly I left stuffed.

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A Day in the Life

This is Tesco where I do a lot of my shopping.  The ground floor is mostly a food court with McDonalds, KFC and several local vendors selling bee hoon, mee hoon, laksa, Chinese, Italian and Indian food.  The next level is mostly electronics and cell phone vendors and the top floor is a Walmart inspired mega store where I have bought a microwave, a DVD player, pillows, snorkel, beer, groceries, jeans, plant food and wine.  This one stop shopping destination is about 15 minutes from my home by mountainous seaside highway.  

Ready to go shopping

Where I swim everyday is a very large clean pool just outside my door

This is the first time I have published a pic of my motor scooter and this is how I drove from Tesco to my condo today.  If I had not lived in Vietnam and seen people moving refrigerators on the back of motorbikes, I would not have dreamed of buying  plastic stools and bringing them home on my back seat.  It was actually very easy, using a few bungie ropes.on my bike.  

This morning I woke up early, about the time of the first Muslim prayer call at 0545, and dozed until getting out of bed about 7ish.  I drank 2 cups of coffee while surfing internet and watching the only English programming I could find which was a Sponge Bob spinoff.  I then went to the gym to ride the stationary bike for 15 minutes and the pool to swim for 45 minutes.
Since I had not eaten all day and I had been grocery shopping yesterday I started throwing things together which eventually turned into chicken and rice.  I am unhappy with the food I buy here.  Some of the Indian and Chinese foods are good but Malay food is not to my taste, so I  really enjoy some simple dishes I prepare.   As always I am thankful for peanut butter and jelly.
I had a short nap before waking up to the mid afternoon prayer call, so I rode my bike in to Tesco to buy some sheets and a new pillow.  I came home and changed the new sheets and like the look, although here when you buy sheets you get a fitted bottom sheet, pillow cases, a bolster cover but no top sheet.  Go figure.
A friend stopped by after work at about 9 so we ate some of my chicken and rice I prepared earlier and chatted for an hour.  Now it is almost midnight and I will be going to bed soon.  So there you have it- a day in the life