At 9AM
Juling called and sure enough, she was coming at 10 and I had to shower, dress,
and pack since I was moving out of the hotel.
She thought I was moving out tomorrow and wanted to bring me to a spa to
go swimming. Sounded good, but I
wondered about moving and I told her tomorrow would be a pretty busy day for
me. I frantically showered, dressed and
packed, literally cramming things into the suitcase. Then she came up and told me to get my bathing suit since I might
need it for the spa. I had to re-open
and rummage through the luggage but couldn’t find it. Her husband came up and said forget it, we were running late and
she had “extra.” I was a little dubious
since she’s considerably wider than me, but I went along, all struggling with
the bags, leaving the two big ones in the lobby to get later. Outside was surprisingly cool and cloudy
with a light wind blowing. She said it
was a typhoon, that this is typhoon season.
A typhoon is the same as a hurricane, a tropical storm, but in the
Pacific it’s called a typhoon, “Tai Feng.”
Their
church and also their apartment turned out to be right next to TaiDa, on the
other side of where I walked yesterday.
We walked along the street side of the tennis courts and some event was
going on, sponsored by Coca Cola.
People were running inside big inflated bubbles like hamsters on a
wheel, it looked like a lot of fun. The
church was packed and all in Chinese.
The format was basically the same, but LONGER. It’s hard enough to concentrate in church when it’s in English,
but now it was 1 hour 45 minutes of pure daydreaming for me. It felt like the longest service ever (no,
actually church it felt longer in Jamaica, because at least here we were in air
conditioning). I tried to look around
to recognize some ABCs, but it’s too hard nowadays, they and locals all look
the same. Juling had mentioned before
she would introduce me to a few, but right after service we got into the RX300
and they spent a long confusing time arranging rides and carpools. I had no idea what was going on but was fine
as long as we were going to lunch, which I assumed we were, since I was
starving. They had to coax HauHau
(little Henry) to move over next to me so they could fit more people, he
refused multiple times before moving, so I guess he either doesn’t like me or
is scared of me.
We stopped somewhere for someone else to get their
bathing suit and I hoped we weren’t going swimming before lunch because I was
ready to faint of hypoglycemia, and we went on a pretty long (25 minute) drive
into the mountains and arrived a the “spa”, what looked like a hotel but is a
community center in an area surrounded by tall apartment buildings, that has
athletic facilities, swimming, ball courts, rec room and games for kids,
restaurant, art gallery, and beauty salon.
We went to the restaurant first for lunch (whew). About ten people sat around the table, all
from their fellowship small group. They
brought out dish after dish, like a wedding banquet feast. It was the first time I’d had such a huge
meal here. Incredulous, I asked Juling
if they did this every week, she said no, they’d missed their last two meetings
so the host invited everyone to this lunch, his treat. Wah!
There was fish, shrimp, shaumai (shrimp dumpings), spareribs, broccoli,
some kind of egg white custard on top of noodles that looked sketchy but tasted
quite good, fried rice, tofu, lots of other things I’m forgetting, and fruit
platter at the end including yellow watermelon. It was just like watermelon, but bright yellow. Someone who owns some candy company also
passed around some almond candies.
HauHau was given handfuls which he continued to eat in the car.
I
tried to stay invisible throughout the meal.
They told me that Taiwanese men are the best to their wives, and all
laughed. Juling said something rapidly
I didn’t quite catch but I think it was telling them to lay off the marriage
talk since I already have a boyfriend at home.
After the
usual bantering after lunch, we toured the facilities. The swimming area was nice. An indoor pool with lanes, and above ground
jacuzzi tubs at one end. Outside was a
kiddie pool, really a wide U-shaped area that very gradually got deeper in the
middle, shallow to the edges right up to the walkway as if it was a shore. Scattered throughout the walkways were more
hot tubs. It was still kind of cloudy
and no one felt like swimming, so we went back and I hoped we were going
home.
We got
into the cars and just as I was thinking of napping, we suddenly stopped at the
side of a narrow road in a woodsy area and got out, in front of a public
garden/fishpond. We walked through the
trees and shrubbery and saw a lot of wildflowers, ponds with slimy green
stagnant water, lots and lots of butterflies, and once in awhile a salamander
or lizard. They all seemed quite
interested--maybe they don’t get to see nature much in Taipei. But all I could think of was mosquitoes, and
how Dammit I again hadn’t sprayed myself not knowing we’d be coming to a place
like this. It was getting hot, the sun
was coming in and out, I kept putting up and down my useless sun-umbrella, and
was in general incredibly irritated but putting forth great effort to maintain
a pleasantly interested expression on my face.
We came to
the fishpond area where there were thousands of fish, separated in different
ponds by their size. The biggest were
in a pond walled in by a 1-foot wide stone wall that you could walk on top of
and look down, though you had to be careful not to fall in. Out of boredom I went up and followed JieFu
onto the wall, then realized my mistake as others followed on and I was now
stuck in the middle, unable to pass people on either side, and trapped standing
there, getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes, waiting as they all pointed and
Oohed. When they noticed me itching and
slapping, they just laughed and said Foreign (Wai Guo) blood tastes very good,
and handed me some soothing menthol ointment, which does me a lot of good. I wanted to PREVENT bites, I didn’t care
once I already got them.
Once as we
walked through the paths one woman asked me if I was “Wu liau”. I’ve heard my mom use the phrase a lot
before and always thought it meant “uncomfortable.” I figured she meant because of the heat and mosquitoes, so I
nodded and said [“A little.”]
Later I
found out Wu Liau means “bored”.
By now it was 4:30, I was truly miserable and wishing I could’ve gone home and hung out with Gary and co. and suspected Juling hadn’t known what else to do with me and couldn’t help me move until she went on this outing with them, so had shuttled me along. Finally we headed back and JieFu encouraged me to nap during the ride which I did, deeply, and we moved my luggage into the apartment.
Right
downstairs from the apartment is a café called The Coffee Bean, next to that an
Esprit, next to that a 24-hour Internet Café.
An entrance on the sidewalk leads to an underground mall leading to
7-11, the MRT and SOGO. Across the
street is a Blockbuster, McD’s, and 24-hour supermarket Wellcome. It truly is the most convenient place I’ve
ever lived in, much more so than my NYC place last summer.
The
apartment looked decent. It certainly
is no Yu Yuan hotel or NYC Pfizer apartment or even New Haven Crown Court. The building is somewhat old, but I have a
hardwood floor, sliding back doors to a small balcony, new kitchen sink unit
with lower cabinets, and bathroom with small tub and handheld shower head. On the kitchen unit there was an electric
water boiler that you fill with water and it can dispense hot or cold water after
it’s been boiled (i.e. disinfected). In
the corner is a wood wardrobe. A
frosted glass panel is between the door and bed, which was made beautifully
with flowery bedspread, skirt, and 3 matching pillows. It’s on a wooden boxspring and is nice and
firm. Mattresses are thin here, they
like to sleep on firm beds. There’s
also a 3’ square wooden table on somewhat shaky legs covered with a depressing
puke green tablecloth. Air conditioner
in the wall, very important.
I was fine
with it, it just needs some decorating and furnishings. The most important thing they decided I
needed was a small fridge, for keeping water, so they took me back toward
Costco, this time to the RT-Mart next to it, and picked out a small fridge. I
tried to pay for it but they insisted, “It’s the landlord’s responsibility.” We looked around but I didn’t want to hassle
them by buying a lot of stuff and expecting them to schlep it all now, I
figured I could wait until M&D got here (and Juling kept saying that too). I did get some bottled water and a big pack
of toilet tissue (they sell most in sheets here, not rolls). Back in the car I remembered I forgot to get
an alarm clock, the one thing I didn’t bring from the US, and I had to get up
at 7AM the next day.
They
dropped me off, and ShinHui stayed to take me to dinner. This is the 2nd time they’ve made
him take me somewhere (first time was showing me how to take the MRT), and I
kind of wondered. He is the last
one not married yet. But then, it’s
illegal to marry your first cousin here, and anyway the thought is just
gross. He took me to a small restaurant
inside SOGO that looked American and had English in the menu. Excited for some pasta, I picked out a
chicken with spinach and spaghetti in tomato cream sauce and a strawberry milk
drink. He drew me a map and detailed
directions on how to get to Butyl Corp. tomorrow from ShiDa. The food was bad, a total
disappointment. Instead of white
chicken breast on the pasta, they just used the same dark meat chicken I’d been
having in the lunch boxes, and it still had that oriental taste to it. There is a reason only white chicken
meat is used with Italian pasta and at that meal I discovered why.
Then we
went up to find an alarm clock. There
was only a pitiful small selection, the cheapest one was still over $30US! But by now it was after 9pm and I was
desperate for one, so I bought the cheapest one, PO’d about spending this much
on an alarm clock.
I got
ready for bed in my new place and as I entered the bathroom, saw a HUGE
cockroach inside the toilet. I screamed
bloody murder. The body was about 3”
long plus antennae and legs. After the
initial shock I could do nothing but stand helplessly and watch—it was too big
to just grab with a tissue; I had no cups, no bug spray. Stepping would splatter its guts and would
make a huge mess, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was either that or try to sleep knowing
it was here--which was worse? I stalled
too long and lost it. Great, just what
I needed was to be afraid of sitting on the toilet and having a cockroach crawl
up my ass.
I didn’t
sleep very well.