Day ??

i have no idea what day it is. anyway, today i started skipping the breakfast buffet. i am just getting sick of the same meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. so i went to 7-11 and bought a cake. yay! (got the 1974 hello kitty magnet). we visited a wine distillery called puli, which actually makes award-winning wine out of rice. we tried samples .... and i had some sort of alcohol that was 50 percent, which resulted in simultaneous esophagus fire, hair melting and eyeball explosion.

we then visited another temple and Sun Moon Lake. it's still raining and very misty, so it's hard to get a good view, but the water color is a spectacular blue-ish green ..... sort of the color of jade! the place is beautiful and i can't wait to share pictures. the bus ride isn't too bad since we're starting to get on more of a "freeway" type road, but i wake up from one nap with big pains in my ear .... the whole thing! inside, outside, up top, below, eardrum, etc ..... i took me most of the day to figure out it must have been that mr. miyagi number pulled on me yesterday by the palm reader. oh, and i still woke up at 1:30 a.m. and 4 a.m. as per usual. drat.

that evening we went to the night market, our favorite group activity, and it started pouring down rain hard. we are never ones to waste shopping time, so we bought little rain ponchos and tries to continue to shop. we looked totally crazy since the streets were now starting to flood .... and now i'm getting drenched. see, the size i got was a woman's size and i forgot that that meant *chinese* woman, who is roughly the size of your average american sixth-grader. so while my shoulders were dry, everything below my hips and elbows were soaked through. it felt like i was walking on two sponges. i went back to the hotel to dry out and find chinese plus-size poncho.

i think we're back in taipei tomorrow and i could not be happier! it will be nice to just have a place to stay for awhile.

Red Light Quick Marts

so along the roads there are these little glass booths with scantily clad ladies ...... they serve as sort of a drive-in convenience store with eye candy. you just roll up in your car, roll down the window, tell her what you want and she brings it over. they are very entertaining for all! the busdriver knows the best ones to stop at .... we've stopped at a couple now ... one time the glass house hottie was only wearing her bra and panties (and stilettos)! she delivered a mean bottle of water to the bus. i have pictures! but so far, they are one of my favorite things about taiwan. scantily clad ladies really are a universal language.

McDonalds in Taiwan

sorry, i couldnt' help myself .......... we had to check it out! they actually have the regular menu you see everywhere, then they serve 2 sandwiches -- one chicken, one beef -- on rice patties instead of hamburger buns! sides are fries, of course, and salad, corn soup or bread balls. drinks include "plum drink" and green tea. i didn't have a rice burger, but probably will before the trip is over ......

land of no cheese

the chinese cheese doodle continues to elude me. i have previously mentioned that taiwan is the land of all snack foods. i think the reason there are so many 7-11s is to have a place to hold all of these crunchy, salty snack varieties. all except the best snack of all .... cheesy poofs. i really thought i found a bag yesterday ..... the picture on the front was a yellow bowl of golden ooze being poured out onto a pile of perfectly curled corn puffs -- there were even cartoon pictures of cows! bingo! i cracked them open only to find a sweet, cunchy flavor .... something along the lines of caramel pirate's booty. i later learned the flavor was condensed milk, which explains the cows .... and my disappointment.

rain, rain

it's still raining, but they promise us it's clear in taipei. i mean, i'm not complaining too much, having survived four years in seattle and four more on the East Coast where it rains way more ... in fact, the weather makes you want to enjoy some hot tea, and there's a lot of that. tea and rainy days go together like chocolate and peanut butter .... peaches and cream ... michael jackson and kiddie sleepovers .... but anyway, i mostly just want my shoes to dry out. you can actually smell them *outside* my suitcase.

the rain has been causing flooding and mudslides everywhere, and the road to the mountain we were going to visit was washed out, so we detoured and headed to a tea shop where they taught us all kinds of things about tea. while that was interesting, the real attraction was the palm reader at the next table! he read us all while johnny translated and it was insightful and spooky all at the same time!

let's just say he sorta nailed some things with me ... stuff no one else could know, so i got a little freaked out. but he knew i was having sleeping troubles and so i asked him what i could do to help myself with that. he turned me around and started to rub my temples with his hands and told me to do that for 15 minutes every morning. he said i was too tense and needed to quit "thinking so much." he asked if i could feel it and i said yes, so he did it harder. yes, i feel it. yes i must be stressed. he rubbed even harder and switched to using his knuckles! he was saying something and i asked johnny what was going on and he said i was still too stressed. well, like duh, it's not that i'm that stressed, it's just that he's driving his knuckle into my temple! i was starting to smell smoke! i could practically feel it coming out the other side! it totally hurt and he finally stopped. my ear was on fire. but i guess it would be worth it if i could sleep .........

Mexican Influence

so at the southern tip of taiwan (the huntington beach like area) there's this big bar/club right on the main drag with a big sign that says "MEXICAN FOOD." But it turns out it's just a decoration and not an advertisement. Eric was bummed as he was jonesing for some tacos. Johnny explained the owners went to Mexico for spring break and tried to recreate a senor frogs type place over here. oh well. it's amazing how the only type of food that's really available is Taiwanese/Chinese. I mean, going out to eat can sometimes be such an ordeal. Where do you want to go? What do you feel like having? here, there's really nothing to contemplate, since you pretty much get the same thing everywhere you go. i'm not complaining ... i guess ... maybe what i'm trying to say is that maybe i was jonesing for a taco too ..... (well, i guess i can settle for American Taco Doritos!)