Days of Tainan (Week Three)

Tainan, even compared to the rest of Taiwan, is really food central. The joke here seems to be that if you close your eyes while walking, every 5 seconds you can look up and still see a food place right there. The other joke is that dating prospects here are pretty much the exact opposite.

Commence Week the Third:

Day 29: Wed., 7/23
- Learned to draw rocks in Chinese painting. Just remember: for rock texture, draw your ridges from the rock's outside edge inward and upwards at a 45+ degree slant, then shade the sides of your ridges in correspondence to the side of the rock its on. Shade the bottom of the rock darker, and lightly brush in the rest. If doing multiple rocks, be bold with your shadowing.
- Angle it a bit, pencil in some distant birds, and it becomes a mountain.
- Because who really cares about a rock?
- Played some frisbee, just to get in a real college campus feel.
- Had some really good green pea soup from a famed Tainan green pea soup place. It had jellyish things (think bubbletea bubbles, but clear) that looked exactly like ice cubes, and every time I scooped one I felt like I was getting some kind of bonus, because it was like having an edible gummy ice cube.

Day 30: Thurs., 7/24
- Half the class was out this morning, whether interviewing or gone or sleeping in.
- Decided to go my own way for lunch, since I was craving the kong pao chicken fried rice from last time. Also got a coke there, except that it was in a glass bottle and quickly became an insurmountable challenge. The nice lady who was really busy nevertheless saw me struggling and taught me how to use a bottle cap opener. Yeepers.
- Learned some Chinese idioms, slang, vernacular whatnot. Here's some vaguely English ones:
520 = "I love you."
K = "to read", or "to hit."
LKK = "old-timer"
LBT= person who wears brand-name clothes
- Second half of class was spent learning Chinese chess. One hour is not enough for one game, but at that point we were reduced to me moving my knight and him moving his king away, me moving my knight, him moving his king away, wash, rinse, repeat.
- Went to tai chi. Here's the latest translation snippet:
Teacher: "Ni bu yao zen de zho se ge dong zhua [does elbow-heart-stabbing thing on someone's shoulder]...in we hwe zang zen tu shue."
Me: "Don't try this actual move on someone's heart...because they'll probably start coughing up blood."
Classmate: "Can you show us that thing with the elbow again?"
Me [to the teacher]: "Ni ke yi zai ge wo men can ne ge...elbow...dong zhua ma?"
Teacher: "Uh..."
Me: "Elbow. [pointing at elbow]. Zai yi tsi."
Teacher: "Oh! Hoa! [proceeds to demonstrate scary elbow move on Classmate]"
Classmate: [frowns and backs away]
- Sigh.
- Went to check out that huge other department store thing (it's this huge cylindrical blue building you can see from just about everywhere), and found out that it only goes to, oh, 6 floors, and the other 10 or 20 or whatever are completely useless because of some money conflict from some time back. It looks like some giant landmark building and is a complete waste.
- All of the reconstruction around here is seeming a bit redundant. They tore up a whole stretch of university sidewalk the other day. The only thing I can see happening is it being replaced by a slightly redder, brickier sidewalk.

Day 31: Fri., 7/25
- Biked to school, learned a few Chinese-netspeak additions (5201314 = I love you forever; OTR = head-meet-floor, or OTH. I feel like I should know this. I love making little people out of letters).
- Had an egg-covered curry rice for lunch. A lot of dishes here involve throwing an egg over everything. Then again, the eggs are the freshest of eggs. Most are sitting out in boxes; they don't need to be refrigerated because they never even went through that step. Straight from the market. The 'early market', as opposed to the 'night market', is where you get all your fresh produce; veggies, fruits, maybe even a great deal on a shirt or two.
- Improved my calligraphy a bit.
- Had dinner at the in-hospital restaurant. Excellent meal.
- Biked home. I'm getting better at dodging cars and not being freaked out by motorcycles squeezing past impossible spaces, and managed to get home surprisingly fast.
- That doesn't actually help me, since it was recently pointed out to me that eating one thing of bread (best breakfast food ever, still) takes 20 mins. of biking to burn off.

Day 32: Sat., 7/26
- Had a relaxing day, went to an afternoon market (these are on weekends, in the same place as the night markets, except you can get flowers and other foodstuffs), swim-cap buying (the hair-covering thingers are required before entering public pools), swimming (apparently the pool/area has been renovated a lot recently, it was really nice), going out to a Japanese restaurant, bit of rain, typhoon warning again...

Day 33: Sun., 7/27
- Visited a cemetery of sorts, weaving through huge stone monument-like dedications to the deceased, along with rows of smaller polished stone tombs to get to my grandparents' tomb.
- Found my name etched on the back, along with the rest of the family's.
- Got a first-time look at my mom's parents in the photos on the stone.
- I'm seeing a definite parallel with the stone used in these cemeteries and the reflective stone of that Vietnam veterans memorial.
- Went to Evergarden for dinner, a restaurant in a hotel building, then wandered around to some performance building near it. Saw a poster; Paul Potts will be here!
- ...In October.
- While my aunt and uncle hurried back to watch Fantastic Four ("It's 9:00! buy some popcorn, let's get back!"), I filmed my cousins doing reenactments of Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog.
- It's plain to see...the evil inside of me....is on the rise. Sorry, can't help myself. It won't get out of my head.
- Ended the day finding out tomorrow has been announced as a national 'typhoon day', kind of like a snow day, with all schools and offices and whatnot closing until further notice.

Day 34: Mon., 7/28
- Typhoon Day; outside of gusty rainy wind, Tainan wasn't hit too badly, so we mini-roadtripped to Kaohsiung, a big tourist hit for their national park land and beaches and markets and closeness to Taiwan's southernmost point.
- We went to the Dream Mall, which has a big TV screen installed in the side of the building and a ferris wheel on the roof (the woes of visiting on a rainy day means we only got to stare up at it from beneath the glass ceiling.
- Went to IKEA, which wasn't too different from my IKEA visits in Taoyuan, except that there was a huge sale going on.
- Went to Costco. Filled to the rafters with shoppers and not-so-filled with samples. The few samples there were required lining up; and the lines were long.
- So we lined up.
- And got our little dried seaweed wrapped bit of rice, and bought a box of Costco muffins (only difference being that one of the main flavors here is almond-mango).
- Other differences: the Costco here is two stories and the little eating area doesn't sell churros and pizza.

Day 35: Tues., 7/29
- Back to class, in which I learned that we'd be having final exams, a transcript, and a mini going-away party.
- Other things I learned include the following:
> KTV (karaoke) hangouts are the main party place. Most have adhered-to guidelines that make it non-negatively-connoted, especially to parents. [The thought of rephrasing that brings loopy ropes to mind, so use your powers of selective reading.]
> Bars/pubs are hangouts for tired old people.
> College girls who smoked were considered progressive.
> College guys who smoked were considered people to stay away from.
> Public smoking is less of an issue now, what with the $2000NT per smoke fine if you're reported smoking by anyone.

We're also away from the social pressure of saying "Bless you" here. A sneeze is just a sneeze.
Things are good.

Last three days of class coming up.