Taiwanese people walk so..... SLOW! It is ridiculous. I guess I forgot this detail last time I was here. But it's stupidly hard to get anywhere, especially the sidewalks, when everyone in front of you and to the side of you is doing the "Taiwanese Twaddle". Plus the sidewalks are awful anyhow. But it's either walk really slow with the crowd or walk in the road and get run over by a speeding scooter, which always seems to have the right of way.
If you've lived in Boston for any period of time, you know that pedestrians own. We walk where and when we please. But in Taiwan, you wait for the walk sign. You jump out of the way of scooters that come out of nowhere. You decide if you REALLY need to cross the street, or if it is merely a want in which case you have to prioritize your need to be across the street or be dead. Kind of like a choose your own ending book, or something.
I may be exaggerating a little bit, but you get the idea.
This past weekend I was busy hanging out with Alan's family in Taoyuan, which was really nice. They were so kind. I spent the night Saturday, it was his cousin Ted's birthday, so we went to "White Wood House Bakery" which is a pretty famous dessert brand in Taiwan. Because Alan's cousin Daisy knows someone there, me and three of the kids in the family got a private cake decorating class along with a free cookie baking class. I'm so proud of how my cake came out. :o) Crystal, you'd be proud! They gave us a heart shaped cake with the overall frosting on it already, but then we got to hand make the roses and leaves and also throw on some 'berries' and frost around the bottom. The sugar cookies were a little less intense, we just used cookie cutters and iced them how we liked.
This is my cake! Notice the flowers, and the purple icing on the bottom, oh yeah, I'm good (with a little.. a lot.. of help from the baker..).
We walked out of that place with bags and bags of discounted cookies and sweets, and also on the way out, the manager friend gave Ted a big birthday cake for free to take home. Awesome!
We ate hot pot for dinner that night! This is most of the family: Tommy, Jenny, Ted's Sister, Ted, and Alice.
The next day we went to Daisy's business's "Family Day". We left the house at 6:30am, got on a bus at the plant, and drove for an hour and a half down the windiest road .. ever. I just feel lucky that I didn't get car sick. But the hardest part was that Daisy (who is the only one who speaks English) wasn't with us. She met us there. So I had no idea what was going on, where we were going, or how long before we would be off of this forsaken twisting dirt road leading us deeper into the jungle (I use the term "jungle" loosely.. it was more like a big forest but it felt like a hot, humid, gigantuan buggy jungle). I later found out that the place was in Hsinchu County, in a town called "Guan Xi". We spent the day barbecuing and hanging out outside. There was quite an interesting 'water park' if you will, for the kids to swim in too. I would also like to note that they were blasting American music from the mid 90's all day too, including one of the Jock Jams CDs and Ricky Martin. Props for the Bon Jovi songs though. Thumbs down for "walking in a winter wonderland". Seriously? Someone should tell them.
Ted and Alice barbecuing!
This week I'm working on my classroom, trying to get the walls all decorated and get my lesson plans figured out. Apparently most of my kids actually don't speak English, so it should be interesting. I have 8 of them, and they are four years old. Yikes. Wish me luck...
I'll try to blog more often, so that they won't be this epically long. I'm starting to finally get settled so I really have no excuse!
-Tiff
Me, David, Kay, Lorenzo, and Macaroni during my first weekend in Taipei, at the "Friend's Hotel".
Awesome sign at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Ladies, leave your hot pants in America.
lol hot pants
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