Went to bed around 9 p.m. last night and woke up, as per usual, at 1:30 a.m. and 4 a.m. Finally got up at 5 for my pre-breakfast (chocolate mint power bar dipped in Jif -- thanks amy!). Early bedtime was due to slightly nightmarish day yesterday due to a little motion sickness. See, the thing with travelling in mountains is those pesky long and winding roads. I am wearing my accupressure wristbands and i took motion sickness pills, but still got a little queasy. and the 98 percent humidity didn't help either. I didn't puke, but i really wanted to. Whenever i felt the urge i popped a mento and it pretty much worked!
anyway, the sights were amazing and i just tried to stay focused on the geographical wonders. we saw spectacular mountain gorges -- sort of a taiwanese Grand Canyon. We visited a local marble company -- did you know Taiwan is second only to Italy in the export of granite and marble?
I skipped breakfast and just had pre-breakfast in my room (another powerbar and peanut butter). The food honestly hasn't been as bad as I thought .... but at lunch it was the biggest relief ever to see a glorious platter of orange chicken placed on the table! yay! i was so excited to dig in. a little taste of home! there was also an interesting dish that was all dressed up to look like a sunday -- complete with cherry on top! it looked like tofu or slices of chicken the size of a 50-cent piece topped with whipped cream. it turned out to be fish eggs topped with mayonaise. i had one, and it wasn't bad initially .... but the fish egg, which tasted like tofu .... turns into sort of a sand consistency after awhile and just sort of stays there in your mouth ... i couldn't wash it down with water, so i tried to dissolve it with the hot tea. it sorta worked ..... but at least now that i've tried that dish i really don't have to again. but the mayo is sweetened here -- very cool and a nice surprise.
Today marked several challenges ..... as this was my first experience with the seatless toilet (a.k.a. "hole in the floor"). We were at a gas station where everything was outside -- the sinks, urinals, etc. ... at least the hole in the floor had a door ... but there's no TP so i had to borrow from a more prepared traveller. i then vowed not to drink any more water until we reached our next hotel.
We had a pretty good dinner -- i think they knew there were some americans in the group because our token american dish was steaming beef fajitas! which, true to form, came to our table in a trail of sizzle and steam. there weren't any tortillas so we ate over rice.
johnny again asked our waitress for ice water and after what looked like an interesting discussion he returned to the table empty-handed. he said the waitress said it would be too awkward to serve a cold drink with warm meal, so she would not be bringing the water. we should just have the tea. (i'm so glad i have learned to travel with a discreet water bottle).
