Danshui, Tianmu and Baseball

Fri. Aug. 10th
T.G.I.F. I desperately needed this week to be over. The kids were little terrors today. And they’re so cute while they’re being awful that it’s really hard to be mad at them. I do feel like I’m at the end of my rope, though. The weekend will be a welcome respite.
Last night, after my ice cream bar, Thaddaeus invited me to a picnic with him and Michelle. So I went and we ended up in Michelle’s living room eating all sorts of junk food, including these incredible soft-baked chocolate chocolate chip cookies. We also watched the end of some Jackie Chan movie that I had never heard of before. It was possibly called The Medallion (n.b. imdb informs me that it is indeed called that). We also watched the end of The Bourne Identity. I love Matt Damon.
This evening after work I went up to Danshui with 2 of the Chinese teachers from school, Emily and Candy(Sightseeing). It was fun. There’s a typhoon coming (it didn’t hit earlier in the week) so there was a huge wind, and the waves were coming up on the boardwalk. Sometimes they were right up to the entrances of stores. It was amazing. We just wandered up the boardwalk and looked around in all of the cute little stores. I bought some souvenir-type things for mom and dad.
I also tried some new foods. First it was sweet potato in candied honey. Delicious. Then we had giant ice cream. It was literally a foot high, and I just got the small. It was delicious, though. Then I twirled my own cotton candy, which is harder than it looks. But passion fruit candy floss is something worth trying. Then we left the sweets behind and Emily made me try a black egg. They hard boil them in some sort of sauce. They’re not very tasty, and the texture is like rubber. I didn’t like that one, much. Last, Candy made me try a fried mushroom, even though I told them I don’t like mushrooms. They assured me that they taste just like chicken. They don’t. They taste like greasy, fried mushrooms. But at least I tried it.

Sat. Aug 11th
Mom called this morning, though it was actually Friday night there. So I got the 411 on all the haps at home. Got a chance to talk Harry Potter with mum and the Blue Jays with daddy. I even got to speak to Grandma and Jamie (he had just gotten home for the weekend). It was nice.
Went on a hike with Katherine this morning, as well. We went up Tianmu trail (Sightseeing). It was literally a kilometer of steps (going up, of course) followed by about 800m of flat, dirt path. I am so out of shape, but I’m blaming my difficulties on the heat and being up so high. Because of my frequent breaks, we did get to see some interesting flora and fauna. There were skinks and giant ants and millipedes and some cool birds. Then at the end of the trail there’s a really cute little tea shop where we had lunch. The menu was translated literally from the Chinese, so we ordered things like "submarine fort meat cooked Japanesely" (which was a sub cooked in what looked like teriyaki sauce) and my drink was "banana with cocoa frost is drunk" (which was a chocolate banana smoothie).
The other point of interest on the hike was a Catholic Church(Sightseeing). It was cool. They had the holy water at the entrance and the little kneeling pads. There were also wood carvings of the stations of the cross and statues of Mary and Joseph on either side of the altar. Pretty typical Catholic stuff, but the most interesting things were the murals on the ceiling. One side was the Creation and the other side was the Last Supper. But the characters were all Chinese. In the Creation, God looked like most portrayals of Confucius. There were even chopsticks on the table of the last supper.
After the hike, I came home and had a nice long nap. When I woke up, I stayed up just long enough to go to NY Bagel with Diana, Katherine and Robert for dinner and get home. Then I wrote a quick letter to Mum and Dad, drank some tea and went right to bed.

Sun. Aug 12th
I think I might be coming down with the virus that everyone else has had. I’m actually skipping today’s sight seeing adventure because I feel all ughy. Of course it may just be from the pressure changes that are coming with the typhoon. So my plan for the day is to sit inside, drinking various kinds of tea and possibly reading, or playing on the internet. All in all, I think it’s not such a bad way to spend a rainy Sunday.
Katherine also dropped off a bag of books this morning. She told me before that she had a bunch to get rid of (she’s planning on going home soonish, and doesn’t want to take them all with her), but I wasn’t expecting this many. There are 17 books, none of which I have read. Mostly they’re sci-fi, but there are some of a more literary bent. There are also about 5 Terry Pratchett books. Those promise to be funny. And some of the sci-fi isn’t really tech heavy, so they may be ok.
Aside from dinner with Thaddaeus, I did nothing all day with people. I played internet games, went through the books from Katherine, read a little and watched Buffy. It was a good day.

Mon Aug 13th
Today is a good day to be me. Woke up feeling good and the day just got better. With the exception of some isolated events at school. But even there good things were happening. My crier participated and even lined up on his own. He’s starting to get it! One of my girls got sick right after lunch. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to clean it up. The kids were full of energy today, but still all of my activities worked out.
Between school and dinner I finished off season 3 of Buffy. Prom and Graduation. Loves it!! I’m such a girl, though. No matter how many times I see that stupid prom episode, it still makes me cry every time. It really just doesn’t get any better than season 3.
Dinner was at the vegetarian buffet with Katherine. Diana was supposed to be there too, but she was assigned another class at the time we were going. The restaurant works like the salad bar at Commons. You pick out your food then take it to the guy, he weighs it, and you pay based on weight. And there was not a meat product in sight. It was fantastic. We also went to the grocery store where I was able to procure not only bread, but peanut butter as well. I bought Skippy, because apparently the locally made peanut butter occasionally contains rocks. Seriously. But tomorrow for breakfast I can have peanut butter and honey on toast with a cup of tea. I’m very excited.
When I went to meet Katherine and Diana at the school, I was introduced to another teacher named Blair, who happens to be a baseball fan. He’s a Rockies supporter, which I can respect. (It helps that they’re in a different league). But he’s interested in seeing a Taiwanese game, while he’s here and I’m totally in. The poor guy had been trying to talk Diana and Katherine into going, and they called it a Baseball Match. I mean, seriously! Diana, at least, has an excuse. She’s from England, they play matches of things. But Katherine’s from Toronto and should know better. So now I have tentative plans to go see a game sometime, which is better than nothing.
And, the cherry on top of my sundae of a day involves books. Every single series for which I’m waiting on books (all 4 of them!!), has the new book coming out within a year. One is even an e-book, so I can get it here immediately!! Another is already out in hardcover, I just need the paperback, and one is the very last book in the trilogy!!! I swear, I don’t know what I did to please the gods, but whatever it was please let me keep doing it.

Tues Aug 14th
The problem with a day that starts as well as today did, is that there’s really nowhere to go but down. I woke up this morning just in time to make breakfast and find CJCS online. What this means is that I got to eat peanut butter on toast, with tea, while listening to the Jays game. Of course, once breakfast was over, I did the rest of my getting ready, while still listening to the Jays game. It was heaven. Especially because when I left the Jays were winning.
I came crashing back to earth when I came home at lunch (after a donut with Katherine. Triple chocolate, need I say more?) to check the scores. In the inning after I left for work the Jays made 2 errors which cost them 2 runs. They lost 6-2. Although, if that is the worst of my day, it’s still pretty good.
All of my kids were there today (Random Fun). Most of them on time. The golden prince showed up at his usual time of about 10:30. His family is seriously gonna mess that kid up. He’s sweet enough right now, but I think that’s more his nature than anything to do with conditioning. But my (ex)crier continued to participate, and the girls were fantastic. Maybe it all just seemed good because of my mood. Whatever the cause, school was good today.
It did rain a little on my (2 min) walk home. I’m still counting myself lucky, though because not 10 minutes after I walked through the door the sky opened up. The deluge lasted a solid 20 mins and it’s still coming down. Needless to say, after the tragedy with Abhorsen I am no longer going adventuring in the rain. So it looks like a quiet night in for me. Maybe I’ll reacquaint myself with Empire Records or Dogma.