Just another manic monday:
Worked in the breakfast store again this morning, it is hard work but satisfying. After working there we eat breakfast and as it is nice and cool Eve and I decide to go for a walk to this temple I saw the other day. Tanzi is cool in the morning, it is busy but the roads are relatively quiet in comparrison to night time, so it is easy for walking around (I forgot to mention previously the distinct lack of pavement area in Taiwan, everyone is fearless though). It is nice to walk around after work and just cool down, rather than going straight to bed. The morning is always peppered with the walking elderly. It is kind of cool to see them out being healthy, also in the park you can see them practicing exercises similar to Tai chi or Chi gong. Apparently, I am polite as I always say Ni hao and wave when I pass by them, this is normal for me back home, and they seem to appreciate the sentiment.
Below is a picture of the temple, it is really beautiful and ornate, the picture won't do it justice as it was difficult to photograph. There is a superstition or a belief I should say that to photograph directly across where the deity is would be bad so I refrain from shooting it straight on. I am 8,000 miles away from home and the last thing I need is to piss off a deity.
After the walk we head home to sleep, although this time we set the alarm for 1pm so we can go back to try and get a bike helmet.
After lunch we jump on the scooter and enter the world of Mad Max that is the main roads around here and go to the first Bike helmet shop. Guess what? It is closed. I am beginning to feel like I am not meant to get a helmet. We head to the other store which while it is more expensive at least it is open. We look around and a lot of the stuff is really professional, more racing spec than normal use. After looking around a bit an assistant comes to help us he indicates which helmets are around 2,000 dollars. I saw one I liked but it turnd out to be 3,000 and a bit too expensive even though it is £60 in our money. So I settle on the SQL one that will be pictured below. I liked the colours and the design the most out of the range on offer. The assistant then went about fitting it up with protective covering inside so that it would fit snuggly. He tells me that he will probably have to fit it with small size inside as my face is a different shape from asians but it fits and we buy it. Apparently Jheng shins helmet was a bit dangerous for me as if something happened it wouldn't hold much in the way of protection.
We then head back home and I help Lee Yuan in the kitchen making the black tea for tomorrow. He shows me the soya bean milk procedure but to be honest it is quite hard and a lot to take in so we decide I will learn everything but that until the end. People often visit Eve's parents to see the Foreigner, Taiwanese people are curious to say the least. I guess it will all die down soon enough and people will become tired of seeing the "White Prince of Tanzi District" lol
I was sorting through the laptop that I swapped my ps3 for back home and came across a cool surprise hidden away in the guest profile was 250GB of movies and 80GB of music. A Brucie Bonus!!!
Tuesday:
This morning I work again in the store, I am feeling quite positive that today I will repeat what I did yesterday, the way my brain works is this: See it, do it, repeat it, remember it. However, it appears that I am being shown new stuff all the time, it is becoming confusing jumping from one thing to the next and I need Eve to translate which is a wee bit frustrating. The work is not that difficult to do and it is interesting to learn the skills which are amazingly simple yet technical at the same time if that makes sense. This demotivates me a little, I feel a bit pressured as Eve will have Connor soon and she wont be able to help with the translation. At the end of the shift with Eves help I say in Mandarin the words "Anything more to do?" A few of the women that work there get a bit excited at the pronunciation and congratulate me on it.
In the evening, I go through the work again with Lee Yuan, this time I am doing more of it than just watching. Then at dinner time I go to see what is there to eat and I am shocked to see chicken with the feet in the pot. I see something a little different shaped poking out the sauce and the curiousity in me makes me take a look. I wish I hadn't as I move it up and to my dismay it is the head of the chicken. Appetite just went right on the bullet train out of here. Eve's parents as if I have eaten dinner and Eve explains to them the situation. They both laugh and tell Eve to buy me some fried chicken thing from near our home.
We decide to go and buy some stuff. I need a cooling stand for my laptop the heat here really pushes the internal fans to the limit and I am worried about thermal issues with the core so I go for a three fan booster to keep it cool. We go downstairs in the computer store and this guy just stares at me, I walk past him and he totally looks me up and down. I turn around and he is still staring at me, not in the nice curious way I have experienced before but there is a contempt in his eyes. He says something to his girlfriend and I feel a bit pissed off at him, so I turn and stare him down. Mostly, Taiwanese people are really friendly and cool but you get some who are idiots. I guess maybe he is a bit of a racist, but whatever the reason he is a bawbag. This is the first person I have met here that I have wanted to slap.
We leave and head to a cheap clothing store, to buy clothes that I can wear in the store instead of damaging my own. Taiwan is really beautiful at night time with all the neon exotic signs displaying Chinese. We buy some shorts and T-shirts and then go on to get some fried chicken.
We get the chicken and I turn round and notice that there is a truck there and guess what it is full off? Dead chickens. I am hungry now so I will eat it anyway. It is delicious.
Wednesday:
This morning in the breakfast store, my role has been changed again. I have to learn what Lee Yuan does as soon he will go to the army to do national service for a year. It is a lot to take in but I do my best. At the end I do a job I love doing, putting the ingredients on top of the rice pudding things and then bagging them up. I like this job because I slip into a kind of relaxing meditation while doing it.
We eat after work and as we will go for a scan again today we decide to pass on the walk. I eat fried noodles (similar to chow mein) and drink rice milk which I am starting to really like it is nice and hot. My Chinese is minimal at the moment but through learning some vocabulary about morning and breakfast I am able to piece together a sentence that says "I work in the breakfast store". I say it to her mum when she comes in and her face lights up, apparently my pronunciation was spot on. Her mum thinks I can pick up pronunciation really quickly. I know I said it well due to one of the employees who was in the fridge turning around with wide eyes indicating surprise. After that I hear excited chatter spread through the employees and I know it is about me. It is cool in Taiwan, they really appreciate when you can speak anything in their language.
The scan goes well. They reckon that Connor could come anytime next week now. The Doctor indicates that he has long legs. I have really loved this last week, I have been able to feel him kicking etc and it is a magical feeling. I also seem to be able to calm him down by just putting my hand there to comfort him. Due to the scan I don't need to help Lee Yuan tonight so we go to the department store to buy somethings for me and Eve. I have really resisted the urge to buy a typical dragon T-shirt but I did succumb to a cool Army Robot American Style T-shirt.
After dinner I am washing the rice for tomorrow, including the difficult mixing of white and black rice for rice balls when Eve calls me. I go through to meet her Auntie and Uncle and spend sometime with them. They came to see the Foreigner lol. Previously at dinner a neighbour turned up who came to see how handsome I really was. He is a guy who actually wanted to date Evelyn. In Taiwan it seems there are many beautiful girls but the guys are not the same standard, so you will often see a stunner of a girl with an uglier guy.
It is time for this minor celebrity in Taiwan to go chill for a bit.
Worked in the breakfast store again this morning, it is hard work but satisfying. After working there we eat breakfast and as it is nice and cool Eve and I decide to go for a walk to this temple I saw the other day. Tanzi is cool in the morning, it is busy but the roads are relatively quiet in comparrison to night time, so it is easy for walking around (I forgot to mention previously the distinct lack of pavement area in Taiwan, everyone is fearless though). It is nice to walk around after work and just cool down, rather than going straight to bed. The morning is always peppered with the walking elderly. It is kind of cool to see them out being healthy, also in the park you can see them practicing exercises similar to Tai chi or Chi gong. Apparently, I am polite as I always say Ni hao and wave when I pass by them, this is normal for me back home, and they seem to appreciate the sentiment.
Below is a picture of the temple, it is really beautiful and ornate, the picture won't do it justice as it was difficult to photograph. There is a superstition or a belief I should say that to photograph directly across where the deity is would be bad so I refrain from shooting it straight on. I am 8,000 miles away from home and the last thing I need is to piss off a deity.
After lunch we jump on the scooter and enter the world of Mad Max that is the main roads around here and go to the first Bike helmet shop. Guess what? It is closed. I am beginning to feel like I am not meant to get a helmet. We head to the other store which while it is more expensive at least it is open. We look around and a lot of the stuff is really professional, more racing spec than normal use. After looking around a bit an assistant comes to help us he indicates which helmets are around 2,000 dollars. I saw one I liked but it turnd out to be 3,000 and a bit too expensive even though it is £60 in our money. So I settle on the SQL one that will be pictured below. I liked the colours and the design the most out of the range on offer. The assistant then went about fitting it up with protective covering inside so that it would fit snuggly. He tells me that he will probably have to fit it with small size inside as my face is a different shape from asians but it fits and we buy it. Apparently Jheng shins helmet was a bit dangerous for me as if something happened it wouldn't hold much in the way of protection.
We then head back home and I help Lee Yuan in the kitchen making the black tea for tomorrow. He shows me the soya bean milk procedure but to be honest it is quite hard and a lot to take in so we decide I will learn everything but that until the end. People often visit Eve's parents to see the Foreigner, Taiwanese people are curious to say the least. I guess it will all die down soon enough and people will become tired of seeing the "White Prince of Tanzi District" lol
I was sorting through the laptop that I swapped my ps3 for back home and came across a cool surprise hidden away in the guest profile was 250GB of movies and 80GB of music. A Brucie Bonus!!!
Tuesday:
This morning I work again in the store, I am feeling quite positive that today I will repeat what I did yesterday, the way my brain works is this: See it, do it, repeat it, remember it. However, it appears that I am being shown new stuff all the time, it is becoming confusing jumping from one thing to the next and I need Eve to translate which is a wee bit frustrating. The work is not that difficult to do and it is interesting to learn the skills which are amazingly simple yet technical at the same time if that makes sense. This demotivates me a little, I feel a bit pressured as Eve will have Connor soon and she wont be able to help with the translation. At the end of the shift with Eves help I say in Mandarin the words "Anything more to do?" A few of the women that work there get a bit excited at the pronunciation and congratulate me on it.
In the evening, I go through the work again with Lee Yuan, this time I am doing more of it than just watching. Then at dinner time I go to see what is there to eat and I am shocked to see chicken with the feet in the pot. I see something a little different shaped poking out the sauce and the curiousity in me makes me take a look. I wish I hadn't as I move it up and to my dismay it is the head of the chicken. Appetite just went right on the bullet train out of here. Eve's parents as if I have eaten dinner and Eve explains to them the situation. They both laugh and tell Eve to buy me some fried chicken thing from near our home.
We decide to go and buy some stuff. I need a cooling stand for my laptop the heat here really pushes the internal fans to the limit and I am worried about thermal issues with the core so I go for a three fan booster to keep it cool. We go downstairs in the computer store and this guy just stares at me, I walk past him and he totally looks me up and down. I turn around and he is still staring at me, not in the nice curious way I have experienced before but there is a contempt in his eyes. He says something to his girlfriend and I feel a bit pissed off at him, so I turn and stare him down. Mostly, Taiwanese people are really friendly and cool but you get some who are idiots. I guess maybe he is a bit of a racist, but whatever the reason he is a bawbag. This is the first person I have met here that I have wanted to slap.
We leave and head to a cheap clothing store, to buy clothes that I can wear in the store instead of damaging my own. Taiwan is really beautiful at night time with all the neon exotic signs displaying Chinese. We buy some shorts and T-shirts and then go on to get some fried chicken.
We get the chicken and I turn round and notice that there is a truck there and guess what it is full off? Dead chickens. I am hungry now so I will eat it anyway. It is delicious.
Wednesday:
This morning in the breakfast store, my role has been changed again. I have to learn what Lee Yuan does as soon he will go to the army to do national service for a year. It is a lot to take in but I do my best. At the end I do a job I love doing, putting the ingredients on top of the rice pudding things and then bagging them up. I like this job because I slip into a kind of relaxing meditation while doing it.
We eat after work and as we will go for a scan again today we decide to pass on the walk. I eat fried noodles (similar to chow mein) and drink rice milk which I am starting to really like it is nice and hot. My Chinese is minimal at the moment but through learning some vocabulary about morning and breakfast I am able to piece together a sentence that says "I work in the breakfast store". I say it to her mum when she comes in and her face lights up, apparently my pronunciation was spot on. Her mum thinks I can pick up pronunciation really quickly. I know I said it well due to one of the employees who was in the fridge turning around with wide eyes indicating surprise. After that I hear excited chatter spread through the employees and I know it is about me. It is cool in Taiwan, they really appreciate when you can speak anything in their language.
The scan goes well. They reckon that Connor could come anytime next week now. The Doctor indicates that he has long legs. I have really loved this last week, I have been able to feel him kicking etc and it is a magical feeling. I also seem to be able to calm him down by just putting my hand there to comfort him. Due to the scan I don't need to help Lee Yuan tonight so we go to the department store to buy somethings for me and Eve. I have really resisted the urge to buy a typical dragon T-shirt but I did succumb to a cool Army Robot American Style T-shirt.
After dinner I am washing the rice for tomorrow, including the difficult mixing of white and black rice for rice balls when Eve calls me. I go through to meet her Auntie and Uncle and spend sometime with them. They came to see the Foreigner lol. Previously at dinner a neighbour turned up who came to see how handsome I really was. He is a guy who actually wanted to date Evelyn. In Taiwan it seems there are many beautiful girls but the guys are not the same standard, so you will often see a stunner of a girl with an uglier guy.
It is time for this minor celebrity in Taiwan to go chill for a bit.
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