Cantonese Speaking Giraffe. Purgatory.

"Honey!" I said to Jenny, "Did you remember the McDonald's toy?". McDonald's are giving away these figurine toys promoting the movie Madagascar II with their kid's meals. I buy the meals to get a toy for Tony often. You flick a switch at the bottom of the toy and it will say something when shaken.

"Oh no!" she exclaimed, "I left it in Connie's office!".

"I'm sure Connie will get the toy to us later", I replied.

"Tony don't like the Giraffe toy."

"Why?", I asked.

"We can't understand it. It is speaking in Cantonese!"

"Oh!" I said, quickly realizing that I had something to talk about in my blog.



Shopping at Carrefour the week before the start of the Spring Festival is hell. Crowds and crowds of people and you have to wait fifteen minutes to get through a checkout. I did it today. We had no choice since Wednesday was the last possible day we could go shopping before Sunday, the first day of the year of the cow or ox.



We then took a taxi home from Carrefour. At one point during the ride, the taxi passed a van on its right. The van was in a position where you couldn't be sure if it was going to veer right or leftwards (lane changes are often done without turn signals). But just as the taxi was in the blind spot of the van, it veered right. The taxi driver honked his horn which is often done in China to warm drivers ahead someone is behind them. The van however kept on creeping rightwards and so the taxi accelerated to pass the van. As we passed, I noticed that a passenger sitting beside the driver was sticking her nose in the windshield and thus blocking the driver's view of the mirror. Yet, the driver continued to go rightward anyway. Bizarre. Only in China.