We all need good neighbours!

Me and my boyfriend have been living in this apartment/flat, Its basically a converted house with 3 apartments since last June. We have one (a couple) neighbour downstairs and one neighbour beside us.  However we basically never ever see them. Its so weird, but we always hear them banging the front door so we know they are alive.

I suppose we have the most interaction with the neighbour beside us. When he is too noisy we knock on the wall and when we are talking to loudly late at night he knocks on the wall. Its our code system. When he opens his skylight window coverer in the morning we know he's woken up. We know he likes to listen to horrible noisy music really loud at all hours of the morning.

When I put on my music he puts on his music to respond. The first thing he told my boyfriend when we moved in was the walls are paper thin. He was serious. That was our flat warning gift.

Despite hearing him a lot I have only ever met him 3 times on the stairs since we moved in, the first time was when we first moved in, second time yesterday and today. Me and my boyfriend had this perception of him

He must be divorced with kids (we sometimes hear a woman and kids coming to visit him)

He's a lazy bugger with no job.

He's addicted to gambling.

Then we have the male neighbour downstairs who we have seen a bit more regularly but not that much, Practically every time we have met him he has showed me how to lock the door. which is not very challenging you just pull up the handle.

We also had the perception that the male neighbour downstairs,

has no job, stays at home everyday, gambling. (the few times my boyfriend met him he said he was off to play poker)

Then yesterday I found out that all our perceptions were probably incorrect. Basically I was in our apartment doing my assignments and there was a knock on the door.It was the guy beside us "The census man is downstairs" so I put on my slippers grabbed the census rushed downstairs. The census man was still talking to the female neighbour downstairs and I couldn't help but overhear that the neighbour has a child, and a job.

Then I heard a bang upstairs our apartment door had closed and self locked itself. I was now officially locked out with no keys, no phone and wearing slippers all thanks to the Damn Census!!! I have been locked out of my own house countless times but never like this, It was usually because I forgot my key when I went to college. I used to have to sit in the porch or garden waiting for someone to come home. Anyway I had no choice but to ask the female neighbour could I borrow her phone to call the landlord. Luckily she said OK,

Unluckily neither of us knew his number.... Then out of nowhere our neighbour from beside of us appeared and the female neighbour downstairs explained what happened and he said I will ring the landlord. and within 5 minutes the landlord arrived and the day was saved!

So that will teach us not to make presumptions about our neighbours, total disaster and then they appear.

The luck of the irish and the mad Hatters

My last post was fairly negative about Ireland so I wanted to post something positive and you can't get much more positive than St Patricks day! Coming soon on the 17th of MARCH!!!

If there is one thing that Irish people are truly proud of and patriotic about, its the colour green, and March is the month with the most important day (asides from Christmas) on the Irish Calender, St Patrick's day.

You will never meet an Irish person who doesn't love St Patrick's day, Obviously I am no different. I love the parades the atmosphere and the freedom to wear your favourite green white and orange attire and not look strange. 

Whether you go to Dublin City Centre or stay in one of the local towns you are bound to have a day full of fun. For me most years I spend it in my home town Bray and it is the only day where you see the streets completely packed and everyone standing on the side of the street watching the parade go by. Also every year we always have a carnival at the sea front, which is always an essential part of St Patrick's day. I am not much of a drinker so I rarely join in any of the drinking festivitiies at night but of course it's there.... 

But one thing I have never thought twice about was wearing the colour green it seems harmless right. Sure some shades of green are less attractive than others... but other than that why not? But today I was alarmed when one of my Chinese friends Jia Qi said to me "Oh my god I can't believe you guys wear green hats!!!!" 

Naturally I was really curious when I heard this, what is wrong with green hats? They are funny and cute and tradition.... 

Then he told me, In China nobody ever wears a green hat it's extremely unlucky... How?? If a chinese man wears a green hat it means his wife has had sex with another man! Wow talk about shooting St Patrick! 

Then tonight I wanted to test my boyfriends reaction as I thought perhaps it's only northern Chinese people who think this way.... NO!!! My boyfriend said "Why do you always learn something bad about Chinese??? Don't ever let me wear a green hat" and then he stormed off.

So I did a bit of research to find out what is the meaning of this strange unluckiness and here it is "There is an old story in China, about a businessman, a tailor, and the businessman's wife. (You can guess where this is going...) Whenever the businessman left his village to go on a business trip, his wife would cheat on him with the village tailor. To make it easier for the tailor to know when the businessman was going away, the businessman's wife asked the tailor to make a green hat for the businessman. Whenever the wife put the green hat on her husband's head, this served as a signal to the tailor that the businessman was leaving the village. Over time, the other villagers figured out what was going on, and they would say to one another...Tade laopo gei ta dai lv maozi le..."His wife has put the green hat on him."

To this day, this phrase is what Chinese people use to talk about wives having affairs. This phrase is the reason why Chinese men never wear green hats"

Looks like I put my foot in it. I know I am considerably early with this post but definitely stay tuned to see some of my St Patrick's day festivities on the 17th of March!