和平紀念日

Today was a national holiday, which means no school, which means, in essence, that I spent the majority of the day celebrating from the couch. (With, however, a lengthy and intensive hiatus at the gym which may leave me incapacitated for much of tomorrow and Thursday.)

So why the holiday, you ask? Well, it's a memorial to the 228 Incident, a horribly violent uprising by the Taiwanese people against the then-new KMT government which resulted in somewhere between 10 and 30,000 deaths. For years, apparently, you couldn't really talk about it, but now it's Peace Memorial Day (和平紀念日), with fitting reverence for those killed.


Well, I don't really know how to add onto that. It seems like quite a somber holiday to me, and I did not much of note to add to it, just sat and worked out. So, for further reading, please go ahead and read the Wikipedia entry I linked up above, and be educated!

Hurry up and sit

We had precisely one thing on the agenda today: get back to Kaohsiung. We had had enough of the wind, the rain, the cold, and, to be honest, Kinmen itself, and we were eager to drop off our scooters and board our 12:15 flight back home.

But things were not to be that simple.

Our home-stay owner gave us directions back to the Nissan dealership before we left, and all went smoothly as we stopped at a 7-11 familiar from our first night's drive for a supplementary breakfast (the home-stay offered just plain noodle soup with cabbage, hardly filling). From there, we set off back down the known road to a known roundabout, and turned right. Then came back to the roundabout and went straight. Then came back and turned left. We then gave up and called the scooter place, who said they would send someone to come guide us back, so we spent a good 15 minutes just sitting on the side of the road on our scooters, me thinking all the while about whether it would be worth it to take off my mask and drink my 7-11 coffee while it was still hot, or if doing so would just end up cooling it down more and end in spilled coffee on the rest of our trip. (I refrained.)

We did finally make it back to the dealership, and they offered to drive us back to the airport, though they were perplexed by our desire to get there so early. But, beside our cumulative training in getting to airports earlier than needed for flights, my basic thought process was that it had to be warmer there than in the dealership. (It was.)

Still, we arrived at the tiny airport a good hour and a half before our flight, so we sat at a little cafe overlooking the runway and had some coffee/tea/cheesecake/pasta (depending on the person) while we waited, finally strolling through security 10 minutes before our boarding time.

Except that our boarding time turned out not to be our boarding time. About a half hour late, we boarded the plane amidst a cloud of fumes, sat down, got comfortable, and were then herded back off the plane, with the promise that we would board again in a half hour. By the time we boarded what I took to be a different plane altogether and took off, we were at least an hour and a half behind schedule, which meant we had been at the airport waiting in the cold for roughly 3 hours.

Needless to say, we were thrilled to see Kaohsiung appear through our windows, and to step off the plane into a climate where we could strip off our outer layers and enjoy a bit of sunshine.

加油 Brittany!

I awoke this morning before the alarm went off to the sound of Brittany shuffling around in the dark, then pushing through the heavy wooden doors of our room. I curled up tighter beneath the cover. A few minutes later she returned, and decided 5:30am was late enough.

By 6am, we were all suited up in multiple layers: a tank top, two t-shirts, a long-sleeve shirt, a scarf, a sweatshirt and a raincoat for me, plus jeans and two layers of socks, all beside my requisite knit gloves and Taiwanese face mask. The necessary blue plastic 7-11 poncho and a helmet completed the outfit, and we set out through the rain and the wind towards the race.

After dropping Brittany off at the entrance, getting gas, dropping Karina off with Brittany's stuff, finding a parking spot, walking to the university, finding Karina again, and walking up to the entrance to the school, on a hill overlooking the starting line, we discovered something: there was absolutely no way we could see Brittany in the mix of professional African racers (many of whom got an artificial head start, thanks to a misunderstanding), the pro Chinese and Taiwanese racers, the amateurs of every race who still cared, and the hundreds upon hundreds of racers sporting umbrellas. Oh, Taiwan.

When we were assured that everyone (and, therefore, Brittany) had passed the finish line, we went inside the university--out of the rain and wind, though not the cold, thanks to the joys of outdoor-indoor architecture here--to wait for Brittany to finish, snack on Doritos and nuts, and play "would you rather."

About an hour later, we wandered back into the conditions and to the finish line, where we stood beside a group of clearly co-opted high school cheerleaders performing half-hearted dance routines to classics like "We're All in This Together" as nobody watched, and we cheered for everyone crossing the finish line.

"加油!"

When Brittany finished, we strolled back to our scooters, cheering everyone along the way, to the bemusement of the Taiwanese walking alongside us and, as our home-stay lay back along the race route, took a roundabout way back which still managed to loop alongside the runners, whom we continued to cheer on until we got back.

Without any discussion, we then locked ourselves in our room and beneath our covers, and proceeded to take an hours-long siesta-and-James Bond-movie-marathon session. We were finally roused from our cold-induced stupor by a call from Nick inviting us to join him in visiting the small island offshore. We didn't join him, but we did re-suit up--added a layer of pants to my ensemble--and head back out on our scooters, this time checking out the scenic drive, the Triangle Fort, and then looping back to the shopping area we visited yesterday to buy a few last-minute souvenirs.

While there, we ran into Evan, Miles, John and Jason, and hung out with them as they had some 豆花  (douhua) and squid balls before they headed back to 厦门(Xiamen). We said goodbye and crossed the street to Jessica's, where we ate yesterday, for dinner.

We made a final stop at 馬山(Mashan), where we had just enough daylight left to find the old escape tunnel and walk down to the end, where Karina and I got a glimpse of patrolling Taiwanese boats and the near shore of China.

Still cold but finally coping, we scootered back to our lovely home-stay, where we now sit again, huddled under the covers and watching TV. It's been a good day, and I'm glad we got to be here to cheer on Brittany--and the rest of the un-cheered racers. But you can take me back to warm Kaohsiung now, please!

Cold and Wet

(Another Sunday retrospective.)

It was like Kenting all over again. Windy and wet, and, as an added bonus this time, cold--oh so cold, especially on a scooter. We layered up--t-shirts and sweatshirts and rain coats, that is--but still, our first drive out was miserable: hands numb in the wind, face and eyes stung by the rain, turned to stinging pellets by the velocity at which we were traveling. To make things better, we got lost.

Eventually we flipped around and headed for an emergency 7-11 run, where I slapped down about $10USD for appropriate Kinmen driving gear: knit gloves, the ever-present plastic poncho, and, in the first time I can remember actually wanting to use one, a heavy-duty face mask. With Karina's borrowed sunglasses to top it off, I was set to drive.

Which was a good thing, since it's primarily what we did. We first tracked down National Quemoy University, where Brittany was going to run, and picked up her registration materials. There, Rachel saw fit to lose her ATM card to the BOT machine, inspiring a series of phone calls to the company and Fonda which ended in us leaving to come pick it up later.

From there, we followed a local into town to the cultural shopping district, where we wandered around looking at their emblematic knives made of old artillery shells--as the closest outreaching of Taiwan to China, this place has seen a lot of shelling--and stone lions and peanut candy and beef jerky, the latter two purchased from a very nice lady we spent a while chatting with, we met up with Nick and wandered into a nearby restaurant called Jessica, which was oddly decorated in a combination of Chinese and Taiwanese national emblems--uncomfortable to say the least, given the political history here.

We decided to see more of the island then, and set out to see Kinmen's other famous product, Kaohliang Liquor. We went to the factory, where we learned that they do not have a factory tour, so we just looked around at the showroom and then took off again, first to meet Nick's friends, Evan, Miles, John, and Jason, and leave our souvenirs with them, then off to see a beautiful and beautifully-lit cave system near the sea. It was absolutely gorgeous.

Next it was back towards town, where we found Nick's friends eating an early dinner at another 7-11. We joined them in sitting around, chatting and eating for a while, then we headed back towards our home-stay, though first grabbing a 7-11 dinner (for me, yogurt, nuts, juice, and a Snickers).

Then, as Brittany, Rachel and Karina insisted on watching a horror movies regarding living killer ventriloquist dummies, I re-watched a few episodes of The Office and How I Met Your Mother on my computer, and we had another early night, trying to conserve heat and preparing for a very early morning, one which promised to be, if possible, colder and wetter than this one.

Nissan and Fried Chicken

I'm writing this on Sunday, so I'm just going to go ahead and give the highlights and necessary details.

We flew out of Kaohsiung Friday afternoon around 4pm, and I realized that it was my first time back in the Kaohsiung airport since I arrived here in August, and the first time ever that I've seen Kaohsiung from the air when I actually knew what I was looking at. I had fun catching glimpse of Qingshan as we took off, and look down at Cijin; Karina even caught a glimpse of her apartment from the plane window. Great fun.

When we arrived at Kinmen, we randomly ran into Nick, a friend from Taipei, and learned that he had a whole group of friends coming from the mainland for the race. We agreed to meet up later, then hopped in a car with our arranged ride whom we assumed would take us to our home-stay, but who instead took us to...a Nissan dealership. We piled out with our bags, and learned that we were renting scooters here, now, luggage and check-in aside.

We hopped on our scooters to discover that Kinmen is cold this time of year, and we still had halfway across the island to drive before we could go inside, and had to eat before we got there, since there was nothing near where we were staying. We found a wannabe KFC joint (you know, typical Kinmen food and such) and ordered some chicken while we tried, unsuccessfully, to give Nick directions to where we were. We gave up when we realized he was a good 10km away from us.

After the chicken saleslady led us to our home-stay--a GORGEOUS traditional house inside the cultural village here--we settled in and met our co-inhabitants, some Kaohsiung-dwelling Americans who work at Morrison Academy and who were also going to run the race. Also, our home-stay has no inside heating, and is, indeed, half outside itself.

After that, it was trying to keep warm and an early bedtime for us.

Weather

And, just like that, Kaohsiung's back to feeling like Kaohsiung: sticky and warm. Not to worry, though, I'm not complaining--it feels nice at this point (like a more humid version of September in the Northwest), and maybe I'm imagining things but I'd swear my kids were better behaved today than they've been in months. Maybe there's a connection?

But, in our typical fashion, now that it's nice in Kaohsiung, my apartment plus Karina and Ashley (an ETA from last year who's still living here) are jetting off to Kinmen (金门,pronounced Jinmen but spelled with a K; I have no idea why) for the weekend. And, according to the forecast, it'll be rainy and cool--like it always is when we travel. My personal raincloud strikes again.

Typing that it'll be "rainy and cool" in Jinmen makes me smile; my 6th graders at Qingshan today honed their weather-describing skills; I pulled up a world weather map and had them pick countries to learn the names of and to use to ask about the weather. Fun choices included Greenland, Iceland, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, and Russia, in addition to the more standard picks like Canada, Korea, Australia, and Japan. (I told them they couldn't pick Taiwan.)

So our class consisted of this:

"How's the weather in Russia?"
"It's cold, rainy and snowy in Russia."
"How's the weather in Sri Lanka?"
"It's hot and stormy in Sri Lanka."

And how's the weather in Kaohsiung? It's warm and sticky, with a perfectly blue sky dappled with clouds and air new-cleared by the rain. And I'm loving it--for now.

Celebrity

I see it as soon as Alison and I rounded the corner towards our office: a line of kids spilling out into the hallway, squirming its way through the doorway, past the other teachers and ending at my desk.I can't help but laugh--and then squeeze past them and to my desk as quickly as possible, swiveling my chair to face the first eager face.

"Hey, Teacher Bekah, what's up?"
"Not much, how about you?"
"Not much."

Yes, this is what's prompted the sudden flood of students: the chance to practice their English.

"Good job," I say, and hold out a bag of candy.

Okay, so that might have something to do with it, too. The first boy scampers off, and into his place steps the next in line: "Hey, Teacher Bekah, what's up?"

My ten minute break consists entirely in this dialogue, lifted from our Morning English lesson and repeated by this particular class, as I soon learn, on command, since their home room teacher had been less than pleased with their behavior that morning. She sits at the desk across from me as they file by, watching. The other subject teachers hover around the periphery, laughing at the spectacle, and out of the corner of my eye a catch a few cameras aimed my way as I talk with each kid and sometimes, on request, sign an autograph.

It had started as a simple idea, one which reminded me of my mom's teaching style and which therefore, I well knew, would very likely jump the tracks of orderliness and expectations. My thought process went like this: I want the kids here to be able to say "What's up?" "Not much"  instead of "How-are-you-I'm-fine-thanks-and-you?" Just saying it in a dialogue won't plant it in their heads. I have a bag of leftover candy in my office that needs to be eaten soon. *ding!*

"Today only, if you come to my office on break and say 'What's up?' you can have a piece of candy!"

And, well, it worked; even on those breaks which didn't include a press-ganged class of misbehaving 6th graders, I had at least 10 kids coming to try out their new phrase; as of now, my candy is about half gone, a fact that I love despite the fact that I have 3 more sessions at this grade level alone, without even factoring in the younger kids. But it worked: the kids are using this vital American phrase. And, as a bonus, I got a day of feeling like a superstar.

So, I'm going to need to be investing in some candy here pretty soon...

Driving in the rain

Let me just preface this by saying that I love the rain. My roommates here think I'm crazy; for her college experience, Rachel chose sunny Florida. But not me. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and I voluntarily went to college in the city known worldwide for two things: coffee and rain. One of my favorite things in the world is the sound of the rain tickling the window or massaging the roof. So just bear that in mind when I say...

I hate the rain in Taiwan.

Okay, so maybe that's a little harsh. I still love the sounds of the rain, its fresh scent, the damp, clean-washed look of the bricks in my apartment courtyard after it's rained. And perhaps, if those were the only, or even the primary, ways in which I encountered rain here, I'd still love the rain. After all, as friends can attest, it's always raining in Taipei, and I'm always smiling out from under my umbrella.

But, instead, I typically encounter the rain here in what is perhaps the worst way possible apart from being strapped to a waterboard under a drainpipe during a typhoon: driving a scooter.

Now, most of you do not drive a scooter. Most of you, as Google Analytics and my own keen understanding of where most of my friends live tell me, live in the Pacific Northwest, and many of you drive cars. Which means you drive in the rain, and often.

"Come on, Bekah," you say. "It's just rain! You've been driving in it since you were 15, what's the big deal?"

To you, I say this: think back to the last time you were driving in the rain--probably yesterday--and picture this. You're on the freeway, your windshield wipers straining to keep up with the currents streaming down your windshield, which, despite the best efforts of your defrosting unit, is completely fogged over. You clutch the steering wheel and hunch forward to try and see. Ever wary of inevitable hydroplaning, you slow down, and a semi passes you, sending barrels of brown water airborne and painting the side of your car in filth. A van creeps up beside you, attempting to pass at a rate 1mph faster than the speed you're going, and finally settles just in front of you, creating an eternal fountain of brown sludge which coats your windshield and renders your windshield wipers completely useless.

Now picture that you're on a scooter. Your helmet is your windshield, and there are no windshield wipers or defrosting unit; the semis and vans are still semis and vans, but you have no windows or doors or roof and now their spray is heading directly for you, and you alone. Hydroplaning may not be much of a problem, but now you have two wheels, not a stable four, and every surface, including your tires, the road, and, especially, every parking garage's floor, is like ice, so good luck going around corners or down slopes or, as is the case with the parking garage, both at once.

Welcome to my morning commute when it rains. It's me, my helmet, and my 7-11 poncho against the whole wet world, and if I make it to school without my pants soaked to the knee in mud, I count it a good day. So, yes, I hate the rain in Taiwan. You would too. But perhaps it's a necessary prelude, giving me a reason to curse this Taiwanese "winter" and pray again for the harsh and unrelenting sun.

沒有

9:05--how is it 9:05? I'm five minutes behind already...but that's okay, I guess, I can make up that time on my commute if I need to--wait, why isn't my scooter starting? Come on, come on! I do not want to waste money on a cab, and there's no way the MRT would get me there on time. Come on...finally! 9:10? Ah! Now--wait, why is my gas gauge not moving? SHOOT I'm completely empty. Going to have to stop on the way, and...wait, is it raining? And why are all these lights red?

It was Monday at its worst. By the time I speed-walked past my cheery students and colleagues' questions into the subject teachers' office, just 3 minutes ahead of the bell, my mind was everywhere and nowhere, and certainly not centered on the class of 5th graders I would be teaching in a few short minutes.

Maggie and I walked into class 5-10 and I flipped open my notebook (discovering along the way that one of the pictures I applied to the cover yesterday had already fallen off) to refresh my memory on what we were supposed to be teaching--ah, phonics. I love teaching phonics. "a_e," "ai," and "ay." Nice and simple.

I launched straight into the read-and-repeat phonics words, forgetting momentarily the importance of rehearsing sounds repeatedly first. "Kate"--"Kate"; "cake"--"cake"; "lake"--"lake"; "Gail"--"Gail"; "mail"--"沒有".

Wait, what?

That's right,  "沒有," pronounced "mei-yo," which means, roughly translated, "no" or "don't have." And my entire class of 5th graders said it, without missing a beat, in perfect unison. And just like that, my day was made.

Monday mornings suck: this fact is universal. But, with a class like 5-10 first thing to keep me on my toes, I can't help but think that I'll be able to face them pretty easily, 沒有問題--no problem.

French toast

This "morning" (I'll refrain from saying what time it was, specifically...), I decided I wanted French toast. As it is an easy enough craving to accommodate, I set about making some, mixing eggs and milk and vanilla and cinnamon, adding some coconut and walnuts to the batter as an afterthought, and then soaking and frying the bread.

It turned out magnificently, and Analicia and I feasted on my creation.

Partway through the meal, though, our conversation turned towards home, and friends. I brought up the scrumptious hazelnut-encrusted French toast I miss from the Glenwood, where my mom and I go when we want something special for breakfast. We talked about our best friends, and the concept of best friends. I glanced through my Taste of Oregon cookbook, Analicia suggested we cook our way through it, and I had to point out that many if not most of the recipes are un-makeable with our equipment here. I developed an incurable craving for Dutch Babies, and realized that it has been nearly a year since I've tasted my mom's famous rolls.

In all, a nostalgic conversation, hungry for not just food from home, but the people who make it with us.

Tonight, my dear friend Annika posted on my Facebook wall that she thinks I have been off on my adventures long enough, and I should come home now. And, while I'm not quite ready to agree with her--I still love my life here in Taiwan, and I'm certainly not ready to leave--I think that when the time comes for me to go, I will be.

Several people, my mom and my brother Alex included, have asked me recently if I'm still enjoying my time here, or if I'm missing home. My answer, like the answer to the question of Schrodinger's cat (nerdy reference, I know), is "yes." Yes, I am still having the time of my life here, and yes, I do miss home. After all, why should it be an easy dichotomy? When I go home, my answer will be true in reverse: yes, I'll enjoy being home, and yes, I'll be missing Taiwan.

There is no either/or here any more; life is not that simple. Now I miss French toast and rolls; at home, I'll miss Chialing's noodles and milk tea. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy where I am now.

Good Exhaustion

I'm exhausted, and I don't think it has as much to do with the fact that it's 1:30am as it does with our itinerary today. Which is, of course, the best source of exhaustion in existence: the satisfied kind.

Today found us, after a sumptuous Western-and-Taiwanese style breakfast and a stop to buy the legendary sun cakes of Taichung, on the outskirts at the Tong Feng bikeway, renting bikes and riding around to see Shih Gang Reservoir, some very pretty scenery, and scores of tourists who were inappropriately dressed for riding bikes but persevering anyway. (My favorite was a lady wearing high-heeled knee-high boots, personally...though not when she was driving in front of me up a hill.) It made my jeans and tennis shoes look like training gear for the Tour de France.

After biking for a good 8 miles or so (I think? The map was a bit confusing and all in kilometers...), we took our bikes back and enjoyed some sweet green bean soup, which was surprisingly good, and a little peanut candy, which was understandably scrumptious.

Then it was off to the amusement park! At Yamay, we ate lunch as a group of apparently Russian dancers performed dressed as pieces of candy and cowboys on the windy platform outside. I couldn't help but feel for them: I doubt that this is what they had in mind when they said they had been offered a job in Taiwan. But I also couldn't help remembering Brittany, Rachel and Karina's assessment of the Russians they met in mainland China--let's just say snobby--and think there's a nice touch of irony in this group's job.

We then meandered through the park, eventually settling on a white water rafting ride, the slightly cold and quite windy weather notwithstanding, and came out fine, thanks to the wonder that is the poncho. Then it was The Pirate for Emily and I (aka the Viking Ship, for US friends' reference), and then I talked Emily into edging her way towards the big ride--the one highlighted here--by trying out the Energy Storm (aka Octopus/Scrambler/whatever).

That turned out not to be a good idea. See, next we headed for the Gravity Max, which she was hesitant about. When we reached the top of the very, very long waiting area, she told me she would be right back and vanished, leaving me attempting to communicate to the three non-English-speaking employees that I was waiting for my friend but that they should go ahead with the ride (nonexistent line=you wait for people, apparently). About 15 minutes later, she came back to say the Energy Storm ride had done her in--and then we left, undoubtedly leaving the employees scratching their heads about the odd foreign girl who stood at the entrance for 15 minutes and then didn't go on the ride. Oh well.

Then it was time to head back, but not before a stop along the way at Dong Shan service area for a delicious dinner of turkey rice and wonton soup.

When they dropped me off at my front door, this exhaustion settled on me, reminding me of all the wonders of the day.

Oh hey there, Taichung!

Absolutely wonderful. As I type this, I'm laying on my bed at the gorgeous Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Taichung, as my host sister Emily checks her Facebook on her phone on the other bed. What a glorious day!

As is usually the case when I had a great day of sightseeing, I don't particularly want to describe it in full detail, but, unlike most of those days, I have my memory chip already in my computer and ready to pull pictures at will, so even with minimal description, this post should give you a good idea of my day.

To begin with, of course, I had school, where Patty and I taught food-related words to the 5th graders, repeating "Coca-Cola" enough times to brainwash myself into buying one after class (true story), and engaging each class in a debate as to whether soup is a drink or a food (Taiwanese say drink, Americans say food!).

Then I came home, and had the treat of being able to talk to both my cousin, Julia, and my Mom and Dad, before throwing some clothes in an overnight bag and running downstairs to meet James, Margaret, and Emily.

And then it was off for Taichung! But not, of course, without a stop at the whimsical Ceramics Art Village in Chiayi. It was charming with everything made of ceramics and with benches of every ilk:

A cow...

A basketball...

Yes, that's a full-sized ceramic TREE!

Different sort of ceramic cow--way more fun to sit on :)

It's a ceramic phoenix!

...and a real, live rooster that came out of nowhere.

 A quick car ride away, we stopped at a Taiwanese antique attraction, which also featured...a turkey. With territorial issues.

James had some fun with it :)

There, we snacked on roasted (smoked? Not quite sure, actually) yams/sweet potatoes (also not sure on that one...) before moving on towards Taichung. A quick service area stop and a delicious IRISH CREAM (first time I've ever seen that flavor here) latte for me later, we hit our destination, and I took in my first impressions of the heart of Taichung, which oddly reminded me more of its larger neighbor Taipei than of  closer-sized Kaohsiung.

On arriving at our hotel, I discovered that it is GORGEOUS! I mean really, truly, absolutely gorgeous, and one of the nicest hotel's I've ever stayed at. I am so grateful to be here now.

Emily's and my room tonight--yeah, that's a full-on sitting area at the end, and this isn't the whole room :)

 Perhaps as a result of that gorgeousness, we found that our fellow residents are largely foreign, of the Western-and-Japanese variety. Looking around the hotel lobby, I was met by face after white face. It was eery. You don't notice it while it's happening, but living in a country where you stick out like a sore thumb brings you to the point where something seems wrong if you don't. Seeing foreigner after foreigner after foreigner is just too weird to me now! I don't know what I'll do when I make it back to America.

Pictured: pizza in a cone, going into a cone-shaped hole in an oven

Anyway. We settled in and headed to Feng Chia night market, the largest in Taiwan with 1,600 stands, for dinner. We had pizza--in a cone. Quite good. And then, after Emily and Margaret ate a local delicacy consisting of a hot dog inside a sausage, and Emily got a delicious-smelling chicken-and-cheese concoction--I was too full to partake, this time anyway--I grabbed a five-fruit juice and then Margaret and I each got hot sweet soup with sticky rice. Lovely!



So that was my wonderful day. On the agenda for tomorrow: more amazing times with my host family.

Bad habits die hard

Habits like putting off writing until 1am when you have to teach at 8:30am the next morning.

Good habits can be cultivated, though, and here I'm not just talking about writing. Minor victory that it is, I went to the gym today in spite of my still-aching muscles. Having a trainer is already paying off: he was on Facebook this morning when I was and he gave me an assignment for the day. And, if you know me at all, you know that I can't not do something that's been assigned to me. I'd like to think I would have gone either way, but the truth is there's no telling.

After all, as this short-and-sloppy late-night post illustrates, just knowing you shouldn't do something doesn't necessarily change a thing without outside stimulus.

Lavender tea and 五月天

I don't know why I always put off posting until the last hour or so of my day, when my energy is zapped and my creativity is suffering from its daily rigor mortis. Perhaps it's for the same reason that I stay up until 1am playing Words with Friends on Facebook.

Or, perhaps it's because the highlights of my day today include such riveting entries as "getting my bank book fixed," "going to the doctor" (nothing serious, don't worry), "being sore," "calling friend after friend trying to find out how to say lavender milk tea and then asking tea store after tea store if they had it," and, well, "playing Words with Friends."

See, if I were more awake I'd go ahead and tell you the tea story, about how Karina and I combed Zuoying, Karina trying to figure out "lavender milk tea" by describing it to the vendors before we resorted to calling Fonda, Tom, Samia (none of whom picked up) and then Lucy, Karina's LET, who was finally able to tell us the name. About how the tea vendor we had just been talking to was able to write the words on a scrap of paper for us, which we then carried from place to place, covering a good ten blocks worth of tea shops and finding not a single place that sold it. About how their typical answer was "try 7-11," yet even when we got desperate enough to check there, they didn't have any. About how I still have yet to try this supposed ambrosia.

But I'm tired, and I have 五月天 (Mayday) stuck in my head, and I just realized I don't think I've ever shared my favorite of their songs on here before. So here it is. Also, it has the lyrics, translated, for those who don't speak Chinese.

Bits and Pieces

Valentine's Day brought nothing especially exciting for me, just another day of asked questions which included the usual "Do you have a boyfriend?" (always fun to be asked repeatedly on V-day), and also included a first, as one 5th grade boy asked for my phone number.

Annnnd I now have the first student question that I refused to answer.

I began personal training today at the gym, and so have spent the past few hours doing my best not to move my oh-so-achy muscles and dreading the sensations of tomorrow, yet beyond thrilled to have finally started an exercise regime that consists of more than just cardio. To call on a cliche and a bad pun (wow, I'm on a creative roll!), at least my heart isn't the achy muscle on this Valentine's Day.

So, yeah. With that poor writing out of the way, I'm off to finish up watching Mission Impossible on TV, then head to bed.

CAN I HELP YOU?

"CAN I HELP YOU?"
"YES, I THINK WE'RE LOST. IS THERE A SUPERMARKET NEARBY?"

I watch as the two 11-year-old boys whose names I have yet to learn propel each other backward with their screams, escalating their simple textbook dialog to something out of The Fast and the Furious. (From what I can tell, that is, never having seen that movie.) Their faces inches apart, each line takes them halfway across the classroom, as their momentarily line-less fellow actor and the rest of their giggling class look on.

I guess this is what it looks like when you make learning fun?

The assignment was simple: two teams of three volunteers each, act out the dialog for your classmates, who will then vote for the "best" performance. I envisioned, and encouraged, grand theatrical motions and exaggerated voices, and I did see some of those. But even so, no two performances were the same: some took the straight route, while others went for funny; some groups had boys and girls playing boys and girls, while others had boys fighting against (and then loving) pulling falsettos and girls barking out their lines; some involved long, not-quite-whispered conferences on how to perform, while others went completely by the seat of their pants, assigning roles and immediately diving in.

Though it was a system I set in place, and without which no doubt the creativity and drive my kids showed me would not have existed, I came to regret, somewhat, the final vote which elevated one performance over the other. In some classes, the tally was grossly lopsided, like 4-16, when in actual fact both teams had performed extraordinarily well; even when the scores were close, I found myself wondering how much the vote had to do with what the students saw and how much had to do with who they hung out with outside of class. So far, though, I can't think of a way to eliminate that particular pitfall, and even those not chosen today seemed unfazed by the judgment.

The experiment in creativity continues tomorrow, with 6th graders--today was 5th--and it will be interesting to see how they react to the task; whether they'll participate willingly, or whether they'll consider themselves "too cool."

But I'll be honest: I'm hoping for another friendly screaming match.

Still sandwiches

I already spent a good portion of time today wrestling with Blogger to get yesterday's post up, and it's fairly late now and I work tomorrow morning, so I'll let this serve as a sort of addendum to my previous post.

Yes, I know what you're thinking: yesterday's post was about sandwiches. What's there to add? Well, this:

This is Taiwan's direct response to my commentary on its sandwiches. Still in a sandwich-craving mood--I was fighting with my post this morning, after all, which involved re-Googling all the images--I decided to try out Handwich, the cafe Samia recommended to me. And, as the picture indicates, I was not disappointed. This sandwich was like "You think there's no good sandwiches in Taiwan? You think Muddy Waters holds the monopoly around here on big ol' heaps of stuff between slices of hearty bread? Then take a look at ME!"

Glorious, two-hands-and-several-napkins-required rosemary chicken on focaccia goodness, together with fries (you can see them peeking through in the middle) and a hot coffee for a mere 159NT (~$5US). Okay, so it was still a little steep. Totally worth it, though.

I love it when Taiwan proves me wrong.
---

Also, this is my 200th consecutive daily post. Woohoo! Hard to believe it's been that long, but you can expect at least another 138 to come.

I need a sandwich.

Those who know me on Facebook will know that last night, I got a craving for a sandwich. A real sandwich.

I'm guessing this distinction will make no sense for those who haven't lived in Taiwan, so let me explain. Here, when I tell people that I eat a sandwich for lunch most days--just a sandwich, with maybe a piece of fruit on the side--they look at me like I'm crazy. "Aren't you hungry?" they ask, their face showing utter horror at the prospect.

See, in Taiwan, sandwiches look like this:

Take a close look: four pieces of very white, very soft, very nutrition-free bread, with wafer thin slices of egg, ham, and egg stuck between them with mayonnaise. Also, it's only a half. And I chose these pictures with care: if you look at the label, you can see that this sandwich is from a place called 85*, which is a major, and pretty nice/spendy, Taiwanese bakery/cafe chain. This is what their sandwiches look like; in the Taiwanese mind, this is what a sandwich looks like: lots of bread, cut in a triangle, with tiny toppings hiding between layers of mayo.

By contrast, when I say sandwich, I mean like this:

 Or like this:

Or even like this:

You better use 2 hands for those puppies, and you better not have any dessert plans. The bread is tougher and grainier (this is literally the only instance I can think of where that is a good thing), more complex, and even so it takes a back seat to the gloriously thick pile of sliced meat and veggies. Just Googling these images made me hungry.

So today, I satisfied my cravings at one of the very very few places in Kaohsiung where that is possible: Muddy Waters. It's not near my apartment; it was about a 20 minute scooter ride to get there, but it was 100% worth it. They speak English as a matter of course there, easily directing me through their fully English menu and explaining that it would cost 10% more if I wanted to change my order to "for here." They weren't exactly friendly and it wasn't exactly cheap, but I didn't care: I walked out of there with a fat ham and turkey sandwich with Pepper jack cheese on walnut rye bread, with "everything."

I couldn't wait to get home with my treasure; I crossed the street and found one of the most beautiful parks I've ever seen, where I sat on a bench enjoying my sandwich with two hands as a parade of people out walking their dogs or playing in the sun with their kids strolled by. A little boy glared at me as his dad tried to get him to say "hello," and numerous dogs got called away just as they got within hungry sniffing distance of my sandwich. It wouldn't have mattered, though: I wasn't sharing.

Samia mentioned another sandwich shop in town, not far from my route to church. Methinks tomorrow will hold another sandwich for this hungry American. A real one.

What's that, Fido? You have to go out? Go right ahead!

At just past 8am this morning, never a good time for me but even worse today considering that I'd been up till past 1am, I pressed the button for the elevator. A few seconds later it dinged open, and my still-half-asleep self took a step forward before my animal instincts kicked in and told me, and this is just a rough paraphrase, "HOLY CRAP THERE'S SOMETHING IN THERE AND IT'S GOING TO EAT YOUR FACE OFF."

My animal instincts are not known for their eloquence.

Right about then, the more rational side of my brain elbowed its way to the front and said, "Oh, it's just a dog. Wait, a dog??"

I looked around the elevator, as if I might have somehow missed seeing the dog's owner in my first scan and expected to see him standing there, nonchalantly waiting me to get on the elevator so we could get a move on. Or, you know, waiting, for me, poised on the ceiling.

But no: there was no one. Just a medium sized white dog with pointy ears, standing in the middle of the elevator with his tongue hanging out and no apparent intention to get off at my floor.

So I joined him.

At the bottom floor, I stepped out and turned towards the parking garage before looking back at the dog who, like me, apparently had places to be and people to see, as he was trotting out into the courtyard.

I already knew that dogs know how and when to cross the streets around here--you can see them waiting at the crosswalk just like everyone else--and many are scooter-trained to stand or sit on the foot rest portion of scooters while they're moving (this is not, in any way, an intuitive dog trait--just ask my dog Zoe, who I once tried to get to ride a go-kart with me...), and I blogged only last week about my first elevator ride with a dog. And now I know that, somewhere on the floors above me, lives a dog that can use the elevator on his own, right down to differentiating which floor he should get off on--and an owner who knows this and apparently thinks it's no big deal. Meanwhile, I still can't remember which light switches go to which lights in my apartment.

No sooner do you think you've seen it all, than you see an independent elevator-using dog. And that's certainly one way to ensure you're fully awake before you make it to the parking garage!

Small accomplishments

Often, it's the smallest things that determine how I feel about today. The same is true today--I feel like the day went great: I made dinner.

I also taught, of course, giving my past-tense-and-Thailand Powerpoint to the 6th graders at Qingshan, and continued work on my class-by-class seating chart I'm making for myself for all of my classes. And I got/am getting more organized, which always makes me feel accomplished; I made a calendar for cleaning duties in our apartment and am in the process of making a daily schedule for myself which will (or so the theory goes) make me actually go the gym when I plan to go the gym--I hate not doing things that are set in stone, or, you know, written on paper with ink.

But those are not today's triumphs, in my rather illogical mind; no, the triumph was making dinner.

Part of that is because today's dinner was the first I've cooked since the beginning of CNY break a month ago, but the bigger parts come from the fact that, in making this meal, I felt like a local.

No, not in flavor. But in ingredients, and how I got them. The drive back from school found me starving and ambitious, so I took a detour and found a big outdoor vegetable market I'd been to once before a few months ago--yeah, that's right, once--and was able to, not only find parking in the rush hour madness, but communicate with the vegetable vendors in Chinese, seek out the best produce and prices, and buy them without a hitch. (Getting home my creativity was not quite so productive, and involved a somewhat less planned detour, but that's beside the point.)

I ended up with a pair of onions for 30NT (~$1), a  red pepper and a good-sized yellow pepper for 45NT (~$1.50, and the more exciting for having seen my roommates' supermarket-bought peppers priced at 45NT for one), a couple of green onions the guy threw in for free, and a spectacularly massive carrot for 14NT (~$.50).

At home, I already had a chicken breast thawing, but no marinade, so I popped over to the local Taiwanese grocery store, explored their mostly-Chinese-written-and-flavored sauce section, and picked one labeled as BBQ satay which, once I got it home, smelled slightly fishy. I mixed a few teaspoons of that with oil and soy sauce and voila! Marinade. After throwing some rice and bullion in the rice maker, it was time to chop up the veggies, and boy were there a lot of them:

Then it was just a stir frying away from deliciousness and the knowledge that, for ~$2.25US plus the chicken and rice, I'd made at least three or four meals worth of wonderful, healthy food.

It's a small accomplishment, to say the least. But to make this meal, I had to navigate the city successfully to place I didn't know well--in rush hour, nonetheless, use my Chinese to get the vegetables I was after, and experiment in completely unknown sauces to make it all come together nicely. And it did! So yeah, it's small, but it also happens to have made my day.

Kids and Questions, Questions and Kids

"How old are you?"
"Are you married?"
"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"Are there any boys who like you?"
"What 'type' of guy do you like?"
"What's your blood type?"

No, this is not a somewhat creepy dating survey I found while surfing the Internet. Rather, these are questions I was asked today--most, repeatedly--by my sixth graders.

Hooray for all new classes at Hanmin!

For the first day, apart from a book-check, that's basically what we did: introduce me, by way of a massive question session which turned often towards my personal life. I was expecting it, of course--this is not my first time being introduced to a classroom of Taiwanese 6th graders, after all--but it never ceases to amuse me the questions they'll ask. This time at least a few tended towards the inappropriate, evidenced by Alison's pursed lips and refusal to translate as the class burst into laughter and I caught the words "ta ting bu dong" (she doesn't understand) floating around as we moved on, but overall it's just fun to see where my kids' curiosity leads them.

And today it led them in some fun directions, as I found myself explaining, not just about my dating life (or lack thereof), but about my family, my hometown, my pets (number, type, size, and, which I found most interesting, age), my favorite sports and teams (Mariners and Seahawk love! The kids all knew Ichiro, which was fun), whether I liked ice hockey (I said not really, then discovered the questioner was a hockey player--whoops!--and changed my tune), whether I'd ever seen a ghost (no) or an elf (no, and here I took the opportunity to tell this particular boy that I hadn't seen a vampire or a zombie, either), whether I had a chameleon (no), whether I liked turtles (yes), whether I had ever been to San Francisco, whether I had ever been to Japan...the list goes on and on.

I liked being back in the classroom, meeting new kids and, this time, putting together what I hope will be a workable system of actually learning their names in a timely manner: I'm taking notes on the location and unique attributes of each class as I go, including a seating chart for each on individually dedicated pages of my teaching notebook. I had three classes today, 6-1 (first class of the day on the first floor, yay mnemonics!), 6-10 (second class, second floor) and 6-9 (last class, highest floor), and so far I can tell you a few kids' names and where they sit, thanks to things like the cluster of Wendys in 6-1 and the Steven table in 6-10, plus fun things like a Quinton in 6-1 who resembles my friend Quinton back home, and a very bright-eyed and attentive front-row sitter named Kevin in 6-10.

The questions were just one aspect of the joys of being back in my wonderful schools; the best part is the students behind them. Having new kids breaks the sting of not seeing the ones from last semester in class anymore; so, too, does the fact that I saw several classes worth of them in the halls, or by my desk as some of my favorite girls from last semester, Lily and Sammi, brought me my lunch.

Really, any of these kids could ask me just about any questions, personal or not, and I'd answer. They're just too amazing to mind it.
---
And now, because I have decided I like recurring themes, I give you another unsolved mystery of Taiwan! This one stems from a seemingly innocuous item: Nutella.

Or, rather, the abcense of Nutella. See, I was craving it the other day at the grocery store, but of course they didn't have it, so I picked up a jar of  off-brand "chocolate hazelnut spread":

 

Except, oh yeah...

...it also had caramel mixed in. Not a huge deal, caramel's a good flavor too, and look at those pictures up there--looks like roughly a 50-50 split, right? Should be fine.

So today, I decide nothing sounds better than a Nutella(ish)-spread piece of bread for an afternoon snack (no judging, you know you want one too). So I go to the cupboard, grab a piece of bread and my jar of handy-dandy Nutella(ish) spread. I open the lid. I peel off the interior seal. And I see....

This.

I'm sorry, but what? Scroll up and look at the label again. It says: "chocolate hazelnut spread." Then a gap. And then, as if it were a bonus, "+caramel." It most definitely did not say "caramel sauce! with a thin streak of chocolate hazelnut mixed in for color!" Nor did the outside stripe pattern give any indication whatsoever as to what was inside.

False advertising: gr. Don't get between me and my chocolate fix! Why do they do this? Probably because caramel's cheaper or something. I don't know. It's a mystery, after all!

In the end, it still tasted okay. But not nearly enough chocolate.

Past Tense

Today marks my last day of Chinese New Year break, a day which I mark with an odd mixture of joy and remorse. It's been a very strange experience, flitting about with nothing to occupy my days but what I choose, a ragtag diet of books and movies and TV shows (and, yes, a trip to Thailand) supplanting my steady routine of classes and work. I haven't had this sort of a complete and total break since Christmas breaks in high school, and even then I was living at home, which meant my free time was snapped up to get the house ready for the deluge of people which always marks the holiday season for us. This break was different: it was a break.

And now it's over. I spent several hours today sitting in my favorite coffee shop nearby and hammering out a Powerpoint presentation for my lesson plan at Qingshan this week, featuring my trip to Thailand and a new lesson on the past tense: read, watched, played, went, rode, and saw. Patty thought the kids would like to see what I did over break, and I tried to make the slideshow a nice blend of my trip and the grammar, teaching the concepts and then heading each slide of my pictures with a sentence: "I went to the beach." "I went snorkeling." "I saw lots of fish." "I rode an elephant."

I like how the presentation turned out, and it felt good to sit down with a decided purpose in mind and work until it was finished. I've missed teaching, missed having a task set before me that I needed to finish. Especially since it took place in a coffee shop, it reminded me of being in college, which is (for me) a pleasant memory.

But now, these weeks of relaxation and exploration are a memory, too. They are all now set in the past tense, and I can't imagine I'll encounter a similar break again. Going forward, I'm no longer a student, and after this year I'll no longer be a teacher, either, leaving me in a standard job working standard hours, which notably exclude weeks-long breaks for holidays, Western or Taiwanese.

So am I excited to go back to school tomorrow, excited to meet my new students at Hanmin, see my co-teachers and students at Qingshan again and step back into my routines? Yes, absolutely yes. But even so, I can't help but feel a twinge of sadness as this break, and breaks in general, slips irrevocably into the past tense.

Food, Lanterns, Books and Indians

Today was full, in every sense of the word. Big meals, and a full 10 hour stretch of fabulous activities in the lovely Kaohsiung.

First off was a gorgeous and sumptuous eight course meal with my wonderful host sister, Emily.

And this was just the salad!

Next up was a movie, which we picked based on the criteria that it a) was in English, b) was playing soon, and c) had seats available, by which complicated logistics we arrived at Contraband, which I give a very sincere rating of "meh, glad I saw it considering our other options, but it's not going to win any Oscars."

Then we went outside and saw that it looked like this.

LOVE.

Then we met up with Margaret and James and headed for the Love River to watch the final day fireworks of the Lantern Festival. They were PHENOMENAL, and went on for a solid six minutes before ending, gloriously, like this:

Yeah those are lanterns. That came out of the fireworks. I really don't even know how that's possible, but it's what happened. There are simply no words for how amazing it was.

Then we looked around at the lantern-designing competition, and, though Hanmin eluded us, we eventually located the one designed my the kids at Qingshan!

Also, it's the year of the dragon now.

Next up was a long walk through the balmy evening and then another delicious meal, this time at a Western-style cafe near Margaret's school. It was great, not just because of the food (yummy tomato risotto and fried fish!) but because of the atmosphere: absolutely perfect for the Lantern Festival.

Still surrounded by lanterns as we ate!

It was 10pm by the time I got home, foot-weary but oh so happy and oh so full.
---
So far as one new things go, I'm going to go ahead and pass on all the obvious things, like first lantern festival etc, because I saw two of the most absurdly wonderful things today that I have ever seen. And captured photo evidence that they exist. And they are both, surprise surprise, new! So, here goes.

Thing 13:
This is one part new thing, one part thing I just don't understand about Taiwan: book covers. Walk into any bookstore in Taiwan, and you'll find, amongst the other offerings, table upon table of New York Times Best Seller list titles. "Great," you'll think to yourself, "They have English books here!"

So you walk over, pick up the nearest book and go to flip it open, only to discover that it opens on the wrong side. This should be your first clue. "O...k...." you say, "That's weird..." Then you look down. And discover that, English cover notwithstanding, it's written entirely in Chinese. And you don't speak Chinese.

"But Bekah," you say, "That makes sense! The books are in Taiwan, and they are originally famous in English, so it's logical to advertise them in English but actually sell them in Chinese. Right?"

And maybe you have a point. But I just can't say the same about the book I saw today, perched among at least three other similar covers to the same book:

One Hundred Years of Solitude. Wait, isn't that a Spanish book? Yep, good ol' Gabriel Garcia Marquez was 100% Colombian, amigo, meaning that this book was originally written and published--in Spanish--as Cien Años de Soledad. So why exactly is it titled here only in Chinese and English, with no glimpse whatsoever of the original title or language?


No one knows for sure. It's one of the unsolved mysteries of Taiwan.


Thing 14/Unsolved Mystery of Taiwan 2:
Tonight, as I mentioned previously, I went to the last night of the Lantern Festival at the Love River here in Kaohsiung. There, I saw a strange sight. A very strange sight.

This strange sight.

There I was, strolling along the Taiwanese riverside, which was all decked out for the last bit of celebration of the Lantern Festival, itself the end of the celebration of Chinese New Year, when I hear the oddly familiar sound of traditional Native American music. I look up, and see three people dressed in stereotypical Sioux Indian full dress--which is odd in itself, as I can't determine if they're actually Native American, just your run-of-your-mill Caucasians, or Taiwanese. In full Sioux get-up.

Another track came on over their little boom box, and I realized that wasn't the only thing that was off: their "traditional" music was in Spanish. Say what? Compensating for the Garcia Marquez title above, I guess. But really, I would have been slightly disappointed if the non-Native American Native Americans hawking their wares at a Chinese festival in Taiwan hadn't been singing in Spanish. You know, for continuity's sake.

Rain-scented room

My room smells like rain. I opened the window after I went out for dinner at 7, way over-dressed in a sweatshirt and jacket (it was in the 70s today, but my brain still thinks it should be colder) and discovered that the outside was actually warmer than my bedroom. Now, just past midnight and hours past when I meant to leave the window open, my room is still warm despite my oversight--and it smells like rain. Simply lovely.

Growing up, I never knew what rain smelled like--which is odd, given that it rained continually where I grew up. Maybe that was part of the problem. At any rate, I would constantly hear the grown-ups around me talking about how much they loved the smell of rain and I would just sniff a bit and think, "Really? I don't smell anything..."

I can't remember when I first became aware of the smell of rain, but once I did, there was no going back: I love it. Sweet and earthy, crisp, vivacious...it makes me think of home. So having a room filled with that smell, running through the fresh and just-warm-enough air from outside, just about makes my night.

Thing 12:
I tried out a new restaurant for dinner tonight--one that, unlike many of my one new things on here, I've actually been meaning to try for a long time. I pass it whenever I go to the gym or to the gas station, its little green "O2" sign a constant glowing memory that, oh yeah, I should eat there sometime.

And tonight I did! I was on an accidental walking tour of the neighborhood (mishaps with my ATM card led me back to the bank proper), and it was open, and I was starving, so I decided to give it a go. Great idea! Grapefruit juice and pesto bacon spaghetti (I ordered the chicken, but I won't squabble too much) with fresh bell peppers and broccoli mixed in for 130NT--wonderful.

Blessings and pain...and a party

I've been looking back through my photos from this year, and realizing just how much I've been blessed lately.

I know that probably looks bizarre and/or egotistical in print, but please don't take it that way. That's not my intention at all. It's just that,  going along my merry business here in Taiwan, exploring the countryside, getting to know my host family and co-teachers, celebrating the holidays (all of them, Western and Taiwanese) here, and puddle-jumping over to Thailand for a bit, I caught myself losing sight of what an enormous privilege it is for me to be here in the stress and little details--and that is completely unacceptable. Day-to-day life can sometimes obscure the fact by its sheer inanity, but the truth is that I am enormously blessed to be here, and I don't want to forget that. It's humbling.

So, rather than yammer on about the minutiae of my daily life, I thought I'd offer up this blog as a thank-you. Because, ultimately, the navel-gazing that this blog sometimes (unfortunately) becomes has no place in the midst of all these blessings. They have nothing to do with me, and I am not in the slightest bit worthy of them. All I can do is look back at them and be grateful for the opportunities I have been given.

If you've made it this far in the blog, you've realized that I'm in a contemplative mood; that means that, even when looking at my blessings here, I can't help but look at the things (or, more accurately, people) missing. Like my brothers. And my parents. And my friends in Corvallis and Seattle and Eugene--and Chicago and DC and everywhere else they've scattered to that I don't even know about, thanks to my own round-the-globe move. I miss them acutely tonight, for no apparent reason other than that I do.

So there it is: the two-edged sword of my existence here. Humblingly great experiences coupled with the neverending knowledge of something missing. I wish they could be separated, but they can't.

...

Lest you think I'm getting too emo on you, though, here it is, today's one new thing!

Thing 12:
I went to a party at Professor Spring's house! This was new on several levels, really:

• I am on a party-attending, first-name-using, almost-peer basis with a professor;
• I attended a party hosted by a Taiwanese person who is not a member of my host family;
• I rode in an elevator with a dog (Spring has 3; 2 were there, and we wanted to see the roof!);
• I saw fireworks over the Love River (from a distance, of course);
• There are probably several more reasons but I'm too tired to think of them right now.

The party was great! Spring cooked for us, a massive Taiwanese meal rich with crispy veggies (a rarity here; I feasted on a fresh stir-fryed carrot, green bean and snap pea mix!), sumptuous duck, Zuoying specialty dumplings, a delicious cabbage-and-pork dish, and far too many other things to describe in any detail. The point was, it was lovely. After we ate, as I described earlier, we went up to the roof and watched the nightly fireworks they shoot over the Love River for the Lantern Festival, then came down and chatted with Spring about her life, her dogs, and various controversial things supplied by Brittany and Steven. (Actual recreated exchange: Brittany: "Let's talk about something controversial!" Steven: "I'm ready. Say something controversial!")

So yeah. Pretty great evening.

Little Things

When Karina and her mom asked me, this evening, what I did today, I couldn't easily give them an answer. In truth, what I did today is almost identical to what I did yesterday; here, for those interested, is the link to the third and final installment of my pictures from Thailand:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2658116619440.2114778.1451610020&type=1&l=a33c460429

Apart from that, the highlight of my day came at dinner, which gave way to a series of small one new things, so here it is:

Thing 11:
Very, very small new things. I ate at Chialing's, where I've eaten many times because her cooking is just so fabulously good, but even so, I sought out new things where I could. I took a different route, and discovered along the way any number of little shops that I still need to try sometime.

Once there, Chialing was beyond busy, but she was still able to recommend for me something new to eat, a simply scrumptious noodle dish with meat and some sort of pickled cabbage on top, together with an egg, which I cooked for myself, as the Taiwanese patrons looked on. Quite shocked them, I believe. In any case, the resulting meal was easily the best I've had since being back in Taiwan, and I think it has permanently supplanted my previous standbys at Chialing's. And it's a new thing!

The other very small new things of the evening were a oh-so-creamy honeydew melon ice cream/yogurt that I had for dessert, and nonfat milk, of all things--I've rarely seen it here in Taiwan, and never purchased it, until tonight. Quite tasty, these two things, and quite small, but new!

Mundane Living

I hate days like these when I sit down to blog. I don't, however, hate them while I'm living them; they're necessary on many levels.

Today was mundane. I mostly sat around the apartment doing various things, and running various errands as necessary.

I finished re-reading Persuasion (LOVE that book, by the way; go read it if you haven't! That link's to a free digital version, too, so you really have no excuse not to read it.). I watched Vanilla Sky for the first time (Weird movie...still debating how I feel about it.). I chatted with Rachel and her parents.

I chatted with Fonda about our respective vacations and my apartment's bills. I vacuumed my rug; washed my sheets; flipped my mattress (SUCH a difference! I don't think anyone has used this side, ever...it's like new!).

I grabbed a coffee from Donutes, accidentally mispronouncing the word for hazelnut in the process. The green onion pancake place I was craving was closed, so I had dumplings for dinner, to the usual effect (delicious at the time, tasting it less pleasantly for hours afterward).

I drove to Karina's to drop off her camera and umbrella--and somehow left both her camera and her umbrella at home. I chatted with Karina and her mom. I drove home and commenced a huge (and ultimately successful) search for my missing watch.

But mostly, what I did was edit and upload photos, 165 so far today, and I'm currently debating adding ferry pictures to my current album or leaving them for my Koh Phi Phi album. Anyway, here's my link to our explorations of Krabi: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2649873373364.2114663.1451610020&type=3&l=21c1bc4493

So, really, not a lot going on today. But sometimes these days are absolutely necessary, and absolutely wonderful to live through. I'm feeling both relaxed and somewhat accomplished (clean bed, pictures posted, etc), even though I didn't manage to fit in a one new thing today. Sometimes, it's best to stick to the ordinary, tried-and-true, mundane old things for a day.

Pictures, videos, and more pictures

That's been my day: uploading, editing, and sharing. Honestly, it's somewhat exhausting sorting through vacation pictures, if you also want to edit them, upload them to Facebook, comment on them, tag people, and mark where they were taken. This is especially true if, as today, Facebook tells you with some regularity that you don't have permission to edit your own albums, for some bizarre reason.

Anyway, here's the fruits of my labor, in the form of my first Thailand album and the link to my Youtube page, where you can find my videos chronicling dancing elephants and elephant ridie in Chiang Mai, and hundreds of thousands of terrified crabs and a gorgeous sunset with the sound of a muezzin call at Krabi.

Pictures: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2644331434819.2114580.1451610020&type=1&l=04c4bfe453

and video:
http://www.youtube.com/user/grahamcrackersarecoo?blend=1&ob=0

More pictures are forthcoming.

But also, today's one new thing!

Thing 10:
I ventured outside my restaurant comfort zone today and began my exploration of the streets behind my apartment. Today, that meant a nice stroll along the backside of the street reading menus until I got to the oven-baked pizza place which throws its garlic-and-cheese smell out into the street for all to covet. Once there, I was able to ask in Chinese whether or not they could do take-out (they could) and then used my standard point-and-say method to order myself a Margherita pizza, one of my all-time favorites, before sitting down to await it. I was the only person in the shop when I went in, but I seem to have brought the customers with me, as two or three people trickled in as I sat there. Interesting phenomenon...going to have to keep an eye on it.

Armed with my pizza, I walked back by way of a busy little restaurant I've been eying for a while now, for its juice stand section. (My favorite juice stand went out of business a few months ago.) So I stopped in and ordered a watermelon juice, only to discover that the staff is all but surly, and there is absolutely nowhere to stand in that restaurant without being in someone's way, especially while holding a pizza box. Maybe I'll try again--it is the only juice stand I know of nearby--but it was supremely awkward. At least the juice was tasty.

When I got home, I discovered that my pizza was not, in fact, Margherita, but something else altogether, with shredded cheese, sliced cherry tomatoes, and not a basil leaf in sight. Very sad, and odd since I heard the waitress repeat my order twice, both to me and to the pizza maker, yet he somehow still made it wrong. Oh well, it was still decent, just not terribly awe- or trust-inspiring for this particular shop.

Anyway, here's what I got for my adventures in dinnertime. You win some, you lose some.

Shifting

As I noted earlier, I slept until 10am today.

But that was the end of my non-productivity. After that, I was on a roll, still in Thailand adventure mode, but now in Kaohsiung, and so putting that energy towards productive things like unpacking, doing laundry, running errands, backing up my hard drive, uploading photos (but not editing yet--sorry, they'll be up soon!), etc etc. This, of course, contributed to several one new things. And, as it's late now, I'll just throw out a few before I hit the sack.

Thing 7:
I tried a "Mexican cake" at Brunch, across the street. I've been assuming it was a quesadilla for a few months now, but had never gotten around to trying it. Today, when I told the cashier I wanted the cheese one, she said it was "甜的," or sweet, which confused me like crazy (partly because I had gone over a week without using my Chinese; partly because why would a quesadilla be sweet?) and she suggested I do the chicken one instead. The chicken one, as it turned out, was like a quesadilla--chicken, peppers and onions in a folded grilled tortilla--but without the queso. I mean seriously, no cheese in a quesadilla? What is this! Good, actually--just not as good as I'd expected from this fabled Mexican cake.

Thing 8:
I went to the post office! Funny thing, it's literally three blocks from my apartment, jammed in between several places I frequent often (grocery store, favorite Taiwanese restaurant; a block from the fruit stand), but I had never noticed it before. I asked Fonda where the nearest post office was a few weeks back, and even with the street name I looked for it across the street at first and was (obviously) disappointed.

But today I went! And discovered that mail here is so-so on pricing, and that simply saying "美國" (America) and shoving a pile of letters at the postal worker works perfectly well to communicate that you want to send them to America. Also of note is that the post office is actually 2/3 bank, 1/3 post office, and that none of the stamps (or envelopes) here have their own adhesive, so my trip today involved standing at the counter with a glue stick affixing each stamp individually to my already-taped envelopes, as dozens of people sat behind me waiting to deposit money in their savings accounts.

Thing 9:
I went to TGIFridays! I don't think I've actually even been to one in the States before; I noticed it here my first week in Kaohsiung, and earmarked it as somewhere to go when I needed Western food, but had never followed through on the idea. Until today, when Rachel's mom Barbara invited me to join them! We had a delicious meal of shared appetizers (real quesadillas, potato skins, and chicken fingers), salads (chicken Caesar for Rachel; steak for Rachel's mom and I), drinks, and to-go molten chocolate cake for Rachel and I. Delicious, and fantastic when coupled with a great conversation! I'll have to go back sometime.

Well, that's it for tonight. Lots of photos to edit tomorrow, and another retrospective blogpost to write--look for pictures, videos and more blogs on here then, as I keep shifting from Thai adventures to Taiwanese daily life.