It is raining right now for about the 10th to 15th time this wet season. By this time last year, it had probably only rained about twice and that was in November from memory.
The horrendous power cuts of November appeared to have been solved on about the 27/28 November. Those cuts which started about 20-25 October were due to a mechanical failure in the big new generator installed in early 2007.
The “Sanan Rai Foun” restaurant (or “New Sanan Rai” sanan=cooking pot, rai=ground) has opened about 100 metres east of the ANZ Bank on Rua Nicolau Lobato. Also 50 metres east of the Roo Bar (Tropical Hotel). I presume this is an up-market version of the original Sanan Rai down the western end of the same street.
Like last year at this time, there appears to be a slight difficulty getting eggs. A tray is costing $7. I seem to recall paying around $4 about 6 months ago.
Beer at bars seems to have increased from the $2-50 mark to the $3 mark. I am mainly talking OZ beer here which has mainly risen due to the change in OZ/US exchange rates. Tiger and Bintang ought to be cheaper. I also notice an increase in Filipino San Miguel beers including the cheaper end “Red Horse” beer. This reflects the increasing influence of Filipinos in the commercial sector, particularly construction. $2 happy hours may become more popular.
I saw my 1st bookshop in Dili in the Audian shopping street towards the eastern end. There may be a small amount of books and magazines in other shops and the odd books sold on the pavement but this is a whole shop with a sign out the front saying “Loja Livru Galeria”. Will go in one day.
If you want Christmas trees, then the strip of shops across from the stadium is chock-a-block with trees of the tinsel and plastic variety.
Nativity scenes are cropping all over the place and seem to be significantly more numerous than last year. There are some quite flashy ones including some quite advanced ones with flashing lights which at first, could be mistaken for a police vehicle attending a security incident (when seen from a distance).
Up here in Beijing the police put red and blue flashing lights up at random points along the ring roads and expressways, so that drivers would think there’s a cop up ahead and behave themselves. Maybe that’s what the East Timor police are doing with nativity scenes? It kinda makes sense. People out looking for trouble see flashing lights up ahead and think, uh oh, gotta behave, the cops are on to us. Then they get closer and see a nativity scene. Eventually when they see flashing lights, the immediately think nativity and settle down into a holiday, festive mood. No more trouble. Or maybe not.
I was looking for eggs the other day, and was surprised that there were none at the markets. The one place that did have them quoted me 4 for $1 — I assumed I was getting the royal malae rip-off, until I checked at Lita and they didn’t even have any at all. Cheaper to buy a kampung chook and keep it in your backyard than pay $7 a tray…
Yes, the run on eggs is due to everybody baking cakes around the Christmas season . . . although I’m not sure what they use for ovens. I had the same problem last year as well.
So did I. See the great egg shortage