Too Much Rain / A Dinner of String Hoppers

 

Day 027 of Our Winter:  Today has been a completely wet.  That is unsual here.  It can rain like hell for twenty minutes but often the sun returns soon afterwards.  The cyclones in the Indian Ocean have set rainfall records on the island of Sri Lanka. This is supposed to the most rain received in Sri Lanka since record-keeping started. This is because the entire island is receiving rain rather than during traditional years where two separate monsoon seasons, months apart, provide rainfall to the the east and west coasts. 

This area near the capital is probably the least affected. The news programs surely had lots of large-scale flooding videos. Dozens of people have lost their lives.

Our only inconvenience was we pretty much stayed put.

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I'll add a few photos of yesterday's dinner.  If you follow this journal regularly, you'll remember Sri Lankan hoppers in a recent entry.  Today, we had red-rice string hoppers.  Many people make traditional white ones too.  They are composed of the dough extruded into thin noodles on special 'trays'.  They're then steamed to make the thin, hand-held patties.  

Different foods can be eaten with them and they soak up liquids easily.  My plate is always spotless after eating string hoppers.  Tonight we had with a mackerel fish curry and cooked coconut with added dried shrimp, 

Getting Ready for Steaming  

Getting Ready for Eating

Go, Team, Go!

Day 026 of Our Winter: The television news was on last week and the Sri Lankan National Cricket Team lost against some team or another, perhaps Pakistan.  I watched the replay segments and noticed the uniforms worn by the team.  As well as some known endorsements, on their jerseys, I noticed a moose.

"That's odd," I thought, obviously aloud.  I wondered what company with that logo might have sponsored the team.  So I started doing a little searching.  No, it wasn't a Canadian company or business in northern Europe.  Moose, as it turns out, is a local company and the official clothing partner of Sri Lankan cricket.  This required a little more research.  

I had my AI provide a little background on the things I learned for you.  Click the link here:

Moose Clothing Company: A Homegrown Sri Lankan Essential

I found their online website and noticed the items were a good value.  They were sort of basic, everyday clothes but in a rainbow of colors.  So when we were in Colombo, we stopped at the Galle Face One mall at a flagship store location.  I found a jersey to my liking.  I also saw that the clothes were indeed export quality and pretty cheap. I bought a short-sleeved seersucker dress shirt and several tank tops too.

I never really owned a sports jersey before.  Now, what is cricket, again?

Walking the Colombo Fort, and the Galle Face

Day 025 of Our Winter:

 

Jay said, "Let's go to Colombo." And we did.  We always like to look around.  I've been visiting Sri Lanka since my first trip in 1986.  So, we go to see changes.  Colombo, a colonial city is well laid out with large boulevards and parks.  The center of things are near the port. It's crowded there. We chose the Fort Railway Station as a drop off in my PickMe ride share app.  It's the terminus station right in the center of things.

 

We had the driver drop us off exactly in front of the Fort Railway Station.  We peeked inside at the Victorian era ironwork and did notice many foreigners scurrying to trains to their vacation cities.  We walked across the pedestrian walkway and moved slowly into the thick of things.

   

We walked old, familiar roads.  The bustle of the Fort area is always a bit amazing and occasionally overwhelming.

 

Next, we walked past the aging Cargills Building that had once been THE department store in the country.  Today, it is sort of a sad shell of a place.  One remaining vestige of long-ago times is the modern Cargill Supermarkets found everywhere on the island.  One sort of convenience location was still inside.  A statue of Queen Victoria still looks down upon the former glories  I fear it may not last there a whole lot longer.  As is our custom now that the Pagoda is no longer around, we stopped inside for cool drinks.  One Elephant House brand Ginger Beer and a Cream Soda, please.

 

Then we headed towards the Galle Face Road and the ocean.  I could have added a whole lot of interesting photos here as the Colombo light house tower and former presidential residence hasn't moved an inch during the near forty years of my visits.

 

We walked past the Ceylinco building, once the tallest in the whole country.  We went to the Gall Face One Mall.  We passed the Hilton, Shangri-La, the Kingsbury, formerly an InterContinental.  We went past the twin towers of the World Trade Centre opened in 1997.  We passed the old Parliament Building from the 1930's.

 

Galle Face One:  This is a premier mall with all sorts of high-end shops that I don't know who really shops in.  I headed for the Moose Clothing Store.  But, I'll save that for discussion in a later journal entry.  We returned to the Galle Face green and the capital city's interface with the Indian Ocean.

 

We walked the Galle Face towards the iconic Galle Face Hotel.  We didn't get down to that end but sort of cut off our walking 'city tour' at nearly 6 km near the national flag.  

A new PickMe driver dropped us back off in Nugegoda in around a half hour.  We paid about US $3.50 with a substantial tip to the driver automatically through the app.  We had come back to the house in the air conditioned comfort of a Suzuki Wagon-R along the always-crowded boulevards of the part of Columbo once considered the suburbs.

A Cat in the Curry Leaf Tree and Other Things

 

Day 024 of Our Winter:  The events of the day sort of lent themselves to be presented as a list: 

1) Jay went to the Smile Dental Hospital at 9:15 am exactly one week after having his root canal. Today, one of his teeth was permanently filled, filed, and the area measured for his dental crown. The Zirconia crown is being created but may not be ready to be affixed until Friday or even next Monday.

2) Jay's sisters received their UAE visas. For the mid-December trip they needed rather special multiple entry ones. This is because we only stay one night in town before boarding the MS Euribia for a seven-night cruise. When boarding the ship we will be technically leaving Dubai. So when it docks upon our return, they will be entering the country again for an additional week.  Canadians automatically get free visas on arrival, so Jay and I don't require anything special.

3) We bought three nights in a hotel in Pattaya. Our second trip of this winter from Sri Lanka will be to Thailand.  We'll be spending a little time in Pattaya and Chiang Mai as well as a majority of the days in Bangkok. 

4) Jay and I completed our online applications for Sri Lankan visa extension. Our first month will end next week!  We have already been pre-approved and will receive back some information and a  request for payment in a few days. 

5) I used AI to create a nostalgic, upcountry image of Sri Lanka even though we're still down here in the heat by the coast.  Lipton has a special place in Sri Lanka's history.  You can look it up if you're thusly inspired.

 

Locating Images from 21 Years Ago

Day 023 of Our Winter:  As a general rule, I use photos or images taken the day that each journal entry is written. 

Today, I toyed with the idea of uploading the lab report PDF showing yesterday's normal blood A1c test. I had elevated glucose levels reported by this type of test since the late 2010s. Levels hovered around 6.0 to 6.2 more recently, with one 6.3 a few years back. The standard diagnosis for diabetes is a 6.5. Those days seem like history as I was a 5.8 when tested in April and it now sits at 5.5. That is a normal test result and due to my use of Ozempic. 

Yet, I decided instead to wait on that as we had plans to visit some relatives late this afternoon. Jay's sister here has some in-laws that live quite close. She's widowed but we planned a visit to some of her late husband's family. Indeed, we did. We talked and talked.  But no one thought take photos although there were at least a half dozen phones in the room at the time. 

After we got home I checked Flickr. I remembered that twenty years ago, I joined the photo sharing site and had uploaded some pictures taken in 2004 on a trip to Sri Lanka.  Indeed some of these folks were the ones we visited today. I am so lucky to have put so much of our photographic lives online. I fear that most people's jpg memories are stored on an inaccessible disc or storage device never to see the light of day. 

I downloaded a few and forwarded them to the folks via our devices.  These were included:

 

September 8, 2004 - Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage

September 12, 2004 - Galle Face Kite Festival

September 14, 2004 - Dehiwala Zoo

Nugegoda Municipal Market

Day 022 of Our Winter:  This morning, three of us squeezed into a tuk-tuk and headed to the area near the Nugegoda Station.  The main area of the city is a few kilometers away from this Mirihana-area house.

The area near the bus station has an old municipal market.  Although people often stop in supermarkets nowadays, it was still quite busy at these stalls.  It's possible to buy less common types of fruits and vegetables.  It's the type of place that is colorful and unique.  I prefer this to the uniform sameness of a Keel's or Cargills.

I did my best to follow Jay and his sister at a distance so as to not affect price negotiations.  Actually as Jay's sister often stops, she knows specific sellers and so my presence wouldn't have made any difference.

We also walked to a pharmacy and also to a large Keel's Supermarket too.   Along the way, we stopped at a place that sells soft-serve soya ice cream cones.  I can remember the same place from at least twenty years ago.  Today though, we had combo vanilla and banana flavored ones.

The traffic near the intersection was really crowded and it took a while to use the PickMe rideshare app to get a tuk-tuk to get us home.  It was fun being out.  It seemed like much more of an effort than it sounds.  

An Asian Koel (Female)

Day 021 of Our Winter:  The term sexual dimorphism is not some type of kinky behavior. It simply means when males and females of a species look different. Humans do seem to try hard to accentuate dimorphic tendencies. On the other hand, it is pretty difficult to tell if something like a hamster is male or female without a detailed inspection. I'm not sure if this topic was ever explored in the Star Trek canon. Did any series in the show's history ever show an alien species where the genders appeared different to an extreme?

The bird shown here is of a species where the males and the females look like a totally different type of bird. Only a female Asian Koel visited the bird feeder today. 

Whereas in much of the bird world, the male is often flashier or more colourful, in this species the females are most dramatic. The Koel, called Koha in Sri Lanka, male looks much like a large blackbird with very red eyes. The males make up for their generic appearance by having a particular call that is common throughout a lot Asia. It has a magnificent windup with a deep increasing frequency. In this country, the sound is often associated with the local New Year in April. However, one can hear it year round.

 

Hoppers (for Dinner This Time)

Day 020 of Our Winter:  I took a few photos in the garden today thinking that I'd probably use them in my journal. 

Then, when dinner time came around, I remembered that Jay's sister was making hoppers. These are a type of Sri Lankan crepe made with rice flour and coconut milk with a little yeast, sugar, and salt. They are created in a special pan that has a round bottom and, thusly, must be used on a gas burner. The edges are cripsy and brown. (Well, that is how I like them.) You can see that we also had several egg hoppers. So rather than the simply the dough, an egg is cooked in the bottom. They are not flipped and retain the shape of the special pan when removed. 

I love the caramelized onions with chilis and tiny dried fish. This is often served with these. Hoppers can be eaten at any meal, or in between, and they're great for breakfast with bananas and other fresh fruit.