Around town in Dili

Dili is a crazy place (have I mentioned that before? Haa!) There are so many gorgeous places but you would never know it because all of the nice homes are behind HUGE walls with guards and gates. You can have a gorgeous home right across from a smashed up, or even scrap metal home. There is no devision of the neighborhoods, everyone is mish mashed together. For example this gorgeous gate belongs to a lovely home

directly across from this gate was this:

Thats how it is in most neighborhoods. We live on what is known as Beach Road (not by any street signs or anything mind you). Beach Road consists almost entirely of Embassy's, Embassy home compounds and restaurants.

In front of the restaurant district there are always tons of locals selling Fish. They let them dangle from sticks they carry on their shoulders or in this case from a tree:

They are usually these amazing crazy colors. These were taken as we drove past, some afternoon I REALLY want to walk along and get some good shots of the turquoise blue fish that are often for sale. Farther along beach road by the port and EU building there are more fisherman and people selling huge coconuts

What is so ironic about living in Timor Leste is that if you are a health nut it is super cheap to eat here. It is the processed junk food that gets you. To make a huge delicious salad only cost me 3 dollars last weekend. All you have to do is go to one of the open air markets like this one:

This is directly across from one of the 3 grocery stores in town. This is the view from inside Lita:

And this is one of the flavors of baby food Chris and I just died over

And wow look how it says ALL babies above 6 months! Mmmm I bet Abby would LOVE it... yuck.
Shopping here takes some getting used to, because many of the vegetables look nothing like they do in the states. The cucumbers for example are HUGE and sooooo yummy. Certain varieties of bananas are supposed to be eaten green... it is always a little tricky buying fruit. Luckily today there was a super nice guy who spoke portuguese and works for UNICEF who helped us pick the best Bananas from this little place

I love how they take such pains to display their fruit and veggies in such a aesthetically pleasing manner.

This little guy was shopping with his mom and kept sneaking little looks at me from around his mom leg... so I had to sneak a picture of him.

If fresh fruit, veggies and fish aren't your thing you can always track down this guy for some baby pig:

I was freaking out while trying to get a picture of him as we were driving... then I wanted to cry for the baby pigs.
For none consumable shopping you will generally be walking on streets that look like this:

Except for buying Sam and Liam local bikes I have yet to be in any stores like these... usually if I need something I order it on Amazon and then just wait. I think as I become more comfortable with Dili I will hopefully venture out a little more. I did buy my first dress here the other day and LOVE it. I am thinking about doing a little giveaway thing related to it... we'll see. The next installment of around town in Dili will consist of some of the hundreds of places I want to do photo shoots. Poor Chris, taking me around to take pictures of random cool walls, doors and buildings. He totally gets me though, and when I gasp now upon seeing something will just say "Yeah that would be cool in a picture." What a great hubby I have! On the way home we had the lucky coincidence of getting behind the Rickshaw guy.

I have been wanting to get a picture of him forever. How sweet is his ride!