Went back home in the morning to pick up a straw hat, and decided to drop by Cannonball Cafe in Barbican for early lunch. The Cannonball seems to be doing well and now has three locations in Kingston: New Kingston, Barbican and Manor Park. I frequent the shop in New Kingston as it is closer to my workplace, but I prefer the one in Barbican. It feels less stressful for some reason. Perhaps it's the absence of a TV. Perhaps it's the clientele, who are more like bored housewives, though they actually look rather more stressed than the Digicel (a cell phone company) guys who hang out in the New Kingston shop.
The manager told me that they had grilled local chicken breast, so I asked for a Club Sandwich with that (450JMD), plus coffee (270JMD) of course. I go there for coffee.
Being the country that produces the internationally branded Blue Mountain Coffee, Jamaica never disappoints me when it comes to coffee, as long as it does not come from powder. The paradox is that, although Jamaica is world famous for coffee, there aren't many places in Kingston that casually serve coffee, like cafes or coffee stands. Besides, Jamaican people don't seem to drink much coffee, and the horror is that many seem to prefer Nestle Milo. Milo is by far much cheaper than Jamaican coffee - as I noted earlier, imported food is often cheaper than local food in Jamaica - thus one can understand that Milo is more affordabe for daily consumption. Still, as a coffee drinker, I wish people appreciated coffee more so that there would be more cafes in town...
News in paradise:
Roving with Lalah: Slices of Everyday Jamaican Life, which is my favorite series on the Jamaica Gleaner, will be published as a book.
Robert Lalah, a young reporter of the Gleaner, has been going around paradise, giving spotlights to various residents of paradise, taking their pictures and telling their stories.
Eg. See a recent article: Miss Alice and Jermain in the Chapelton square, from 25 September 2008, http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080925/news/news1.html. If you are interested in knowing Jamaica, this book is worth buying and reading.
Glitches in paradise:
Later in the afternoon, I went to a "cafe" in the New Kingston Shopping Mall that does not serve coffee, to get a sandwich to go for an evening snack in the office. I ordered a whole wheat bread sandwich, and waited, waited, waited... and after 20 minutes of waiting, I was told that there was no whole wheat bread. There is a lot of waiting in this part of paradise. One of my colleagues who is from another country in the Caribbean Sea calls it "suffering," as in "I suffered today" to mean "I waited."
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