First mangosteen experience

One day my hubby came back from work with a bag of strange looking fruits. Apparently someone at the store gave him a taste of it, and he loved it and wanted me to taste it as well (thanks hon!!). From its exterior, it looked like some kind of genetically programmed vegetable. It looked half between baby eggplant and persimmon.

The inside also looked strange (kind of looked like a whole bunch of lychees). I had a bite, and to my surprise it was just so yummy!

At that time, we didn't know what it was, so I took a picture and posted on FB asking my Indian friends what it was. Immediately I got an answer saying it was "the" mangosteen!! I knew the fruit by name, but I never spent time to do a search to actually check what it looks like. I would certainly never have imagined that "the" mangosteen looked like that. Also I would never have imagined that I could actually eat it, as in Japan mangosteens are so expensive and rare. One mangosteen can cost up to 500 yen a piece (a little over $6). Here in India, my hubby doesn't remember, but I am sure they are much cheaper.

Although I was a bit afraid of trying different kinds of fruit after the incident with lovely custard apples, I think I have become a big fan of mangosteen! Mangosteen is also called "the queen of fruit", and it indeed looks like a pretty queen protected carefully in a thick rind, which is very very bitter btw (yep, I tried).

Englindian

I noticed more about the difference in English words here in India. The other day, when I asked our maid lady to go shopping for us to buy some green peppers (among other stuff of course), she asked me whether I wanted the one in a container or in a bag. Hmmm, I never knew that the green peppers came in a container, so I told her that I don't need a bagful of green peppers but probably two or three individual ones. Then she asked me the same question saying "no maaaam, it comes in a bag or container. Which one do you want?"  So I said, "well, if you cannot find the individual peppers, you can get a bag full. But last time I went to the vegetable section of the store, they were selling the individual peppers."  I could tell that she was puzzled. She asked me "vegetable section?"  I had a left of green peppers in our frig, so I showed it to her finally. And, she said "Oh, you meant capsicums."  HA??? Yep, they call the green peppers capsicums here. Apparently she thought I was asking for some ground pepper. Ah, yeah, they do come in a bag or container. :)

At work, too, I noticed some strange expressions like "I will mark you." HA? You gonna mark me??  It meant "I will cc you". Goooood.... :-)  And when I asked where to meet in the office, the person told me "let's meet near the cabin."  Wow, I didn't know you had a cabin for the meetings in the office. But apparently it just meant an individual office room. Boy... It does get really confusing.

My hubby who started to call Indian English Englindian found this great site for other Indian-specific English words. I should go one by one and learn how to speak like an Indian! 

Why things happen all at once?

I have been updating my Japanese blog more often than this one, and it is true that I started to wonder if I needed to maintain two blogs. IF ONLY Google Translate were a little tiny bit functional for J to E translation, I would immediately close this one and focus on the Japanese one, but I will keep this one going for my English-speaking friends for the time being.

So... it has been a while. Why? Well, I started to get really busy. First, right after coming back from Japan, I started to get sick. Sicker in the stomach than I have ever experienced in my life. It got really worse this past weekend (couldn't even eat for a while), but all along I had a bad headache and a very tired feeling. Hence, my productivity went down significantly. Later after talking to some local people, we suspected it was due to the cracked custard fruit that only I ate (not my hubby who was just fine).

Secondly, I started to get engaged in a mini project. I have been working 3-5 hrs a day for the last 10 days or so. I get up in the morning, do the laundry, feed my hubby and myself some breakfast, hang our laundry outside, get ready,  go to work, go shopping for dinner, come back, do more admin stuff in between my work, cook dinner, clean up, and go to bed..... :(

Third, there have been so many things that I need to take care of still around the house like installing the water purifier, blinds and curtains, etc. Not sure what it is, but the business here is never to "push" and rather to "stall". So, for instance, about 2 months ago, we started to ask a couple of stores/vendors to come and measure our windows so that we can install the blinds and curtains. They came and measured finally after waiting for about a week, but guess what? That was nothing compared to what I would be experiencing after that.  One company gave me the estimate right away, but that was it. No follow-up calls or anything. The other company didn't even bother sending us an estimate.  Strange... right? If you actually spent some time to measure the windows, normally you would want to send the estimate and get the business. So... this project of installing the blinds are still ongoing after 2 months, believe it or not. We have not had a single blind installed yet after me going to the store several times, getting the measurements done several times, and calling them to come and install several times. :(

Anyway, lots of admin work for sure. I also had to figure out how to pay the utility bills. Unlike US or Japan, you have to physically go to a specific place to pay the bills in person. Thanks to our landlord to kindly sharing the detailed information of how we pay. A new place opened up inside BDA near our house, so I asked our driver today to take me there to pay the bills (actually one of them is about a month old, but fortunately they didn't stop the service!).

But the good news is that we finally found a great person to take care things around the house. Since I sometimes work at home in the morning, I asked her to come in the afternoon only for 3-4 hours a day. I still do the laundry, cooking, and cleaning after dinner, but the rest has been pretty much taken care by her. I suspect she is new to this "maid" business, so at the beginning I had to instruct her quite a bit, but she is a quick learner, and I am very happy with her. And it was good to find her during this hectic days.

Now we heard that our sea shipped stuff will be delivered this coming Saturday! Exciting, but it is true that everything happens all at once :-(