we have a car!

Yes we bought a car today! By Singaporean standards, the car looks like a piece of scrap metal haha. There's a crack across the windshield, countless rusted spots, semi-flat tires, falling mud flaps (is that what you call them?), flimsy bits flapping about, scarily noisy engine and funny sounds issue from various parts of the car. The coat of dust both on the inside and out doesn't do much to improve its appearance either. And the battery went flat too and we had to get someone to jump-start it for us. The car is 15 years old.

But it cost us only usd1200!

And we have since fixed the tires at the gas station on the way back. Now I know how to work the petrol pump and air pump! I can be a gas station attendant on top of cleaning tables! Yay!

The air pump and gauge were super primitive. We knew not to expect digital pressure meters out here in ulu-country and so we scrutinized the pump up and down, looking for an analogue meter face, to no avail. Then smart me suddenly realized that the guage is actually just a scale on a stick that collapses completely inside the handle until you plug it into the tire and release some catch. I am so brilliant I tell you. I bet you wouldn't have figured out how to use the thing. Okay just kidding; I am sure you are brilliant too. But there are still so many things we have yet to find out about the car; we don't know what all the buttons do yet, and of course I'm sure there'll be more idiosyncracies we will learn about in time. On the 1.5hr drive back the car felt rather sturdy though. Doesn't this sound exciting to you too? I feel like I learn so many things here, because if I meet the same problems in Singapore I'll just dial some hotline for help. Isolation and desperation drives us to be more resourceful here.

Oh and we have affectionately nicknamed our car Xiao3 Cui4 (小脆） because it looks very cui3 (meaning crumbling in hokkien). Linghan just came in to tell me they can't figure out how to turn XiaoCui's tail-lights off. Hah. Later battery flat again tomorrow...

Don't have a picture of XiaoCui yet but here's a picture of the Teton range, which was on the way between Yellowstone and Jackson Hole, the small touristy cowboy-ish town where we bought our car.

And here's a picture of Anling blowing on a dandelion.

Supposedly you have to pick a full head of dandelions, make a wish, and then blow hard on it; if all the seeds scatter within in breath, your wish will come true =)