Friday night we had been planning on going to the night marker near our apartment. Although by the time we both got home we were tired, we decided to go anyways. I was in the mood to try some new food and we hadn't gone to the night market together for a while. We got there and had a bit to eat and were walking around. I was still in search of noodle soup of some sort, when "Oh no, is it raining?" Of course it is. Did we bring an umbrella? Of course not. Why would we bring an umbrella when we leave the house after living in Taiwan for 8 months and are very aware of the fact that it rains all the time? Well we kept meandering down the market as the vendors hauled ass clearing their things up and bundling them with tarp. I was really quite impressed with how quickly they got everything put away, I'm sure they have years of experience. So there we were, walking around in the now pouring rain, the 7-11 across the street was packed with people, so we walked a few blocks to the next one and purchased yet another umbrella. By this time we were already soaking, but it only continued to rain harder and harder on the rest of the walk home. Lesson re-instated, but we'll probably never really learn, for the love of God bring your umbrella when you go outside! Well, I'll only have myself to blame when all my hair falls out from the acid rain.
Saturday morning I actually didn't have to work! A new teacher came last week, and took over my class. However,I still "get" to do Open Houses in YangMei all the time, now on Saturday mornings as opposed to Saturday afternoon's after my class. This week there wasn't an OH on Saturday, it was Sunday morning, so don't be too jealous. Sunday OH's are done at the local libraries instead of the usual McDonald's and tend to yield more kids as well, strangely enough. Back to Saturday though. Anthony still had to work, until 330. I met him for lunch break, and when he went back to work I walked around and shopped for a few hours, sadly with no luck, but still had a nice afternoon ending with a treat of Starbucks!
Later in the day, after Anthony had returned from work, we went to get my birthday present, yes only a month late. He knew what I wanted, but was waiting until we could go together. I got an awesome mint green Swatch! It's beautiful and I love it.
Then, we decided it would be nice to go somewhere for Happy Hour. Yeah, right. If only such a concept existed here in Jhongli. If you want a happy hour your options are going to the 7-11, selecting 1 of 4 different styles of beer (that all taste the same) and sitting there by the window to "enjoy." Or you could just purchase and return to sit in your apartment. by the window, or not. We walked around to see all the closed bars and realized it was time for supper. We tried a place we'd never been, and had shabu shabu (hot pot). It was yummy. When we were done, the weather was so nice out (not raining!) we decided to go on for a walk, and be classy foreigners and drink beer while walking around. Yes, I know all the other foreigners are judging us ( and perhaps you are too), but sometimes you just have to take advantage of the non-laws here. Our walk took us another market area, where I finally convinced Anthony to buy some new shirts! I also founds some things this time, including an awesome Mustard Yellow Sparkle Hat!! Clearly it needed to be worn right then and there, so I spent the rest of the evening in my new hat.
You can see the agony in Anthony's face because he doesn't have a mustard yellow sparkle hat.
On the way back home we chilled in the park for a while, where our dog friend naturally found us and came to hang out.
About our dog friend. There are loads and loads of stray dogs over here, just roaming, shitting, sleeping on streets at all times. There's this one that I believe belongs to this guy who maybe lives on the streets as well, I'm not sure. We see him alllll the time (the dog, not the man), and over the course of the past... 4 months or so, he's been following us everywhere and pops up whenever we're hanging outside (again, the dog,). One time he followed Anthony and I all over downtown and would follow us into stores and people looked at us like "why is your big smelly dog in here? Only small poodles are allowed in stores don't you know!" (which really is true, or at least people bring their small dogs in stores all the time). What could we do? It's not really our dog, he's just following us, and if we spoke the same language, I would tell them that. Eventually we lost him when some store workers shooed him away. A lot of times if we're at the park or outside places, he always shows up, and it's like "hey, I know that dog." I think he has a thing for foreigners, cause many of our friends have the same experiences with him. Last night he was laying near Anthony and I and there were a number of people in the park, many runners and people just enjoying the weather. He was chillin, then he jumped up and started barking at this one man who then gave us the look of "control your dog!" so we yelled "booshe" at the dog which means "no" in Chinese, because really, the dog probably doesn't speak English. Then we decided that would be his name. Booshe the dog is our friend, and eventually he left us for some other interesting people, but he'll be back, he always is.
He sniffed us out, and stayed for a while.
Sunday I worked in the morning for a bit (read above if you've forgotten why) and then Anthony and I decided we were actually going to do something with our day together and headed in search of the Shimen Reservoir. This is a Dam area in LongTan (where I teach kindy), that I've heard is really pretty and has some good hiking trails. I tried searching for how to get there, but couldn't find much, so we just drove to Longtan and hoped there would be signs, and in English. Well there were, and we miraculously found what we were looking for! This alone was rather exciting. It was again really great weather and the reservoir was neat with pretty mountains around and not too many people. Originally we had planned on hiking, but weren't sure of finding the trails, and found that when we entered the park it was ideal for scootering around. We stopped at the dam area and walked around for a while, took some pictures, and then scootered through the mountainous area for an hour or two.
Funny thing about when Anthony and I scooter together. Since it's MY scooter, and I drive all the time, it only makes sense that I drive. So Anthony must ride sitting behind me. I bought a heavy duty helmet to protect my head every day, obviously Anthony has no use for such an item. The girl I bought the scooter from also gave me her old helmet, which is perfect to use as a spare helmet, and it's bright pink. Today when leaving the dam area, Anthony was reluctant to put his helmet back on and says to me "Those guys over there are laughing at my pink helmet, and because my girlfriend's driving me around." :)
No comments:
Post a Comment