Typhoon Take Two: Still Not That Awesome

Allison holding Passion Fruit and being really exciting about it

Sharon's picture of the world

Jimbo's picture of the world

Allison on her scooter

Ok, so today school was cancelled on account of Typhoon. This one is a lil’ bit more intense, at least in theory – it’s a cat. 3, last one was a cat. 1. However, it is proving to be only marginally more exciting. Sure, the laundry room is pretty much flooded, there’s water dripping down the stairwell and the coastline is sort of destroyed, but I kind of expect there to be like, things flying everywhere. Maybe see Dorothy’s house land on the wicked old witch or something. When everything ‘cept paper is stationary, I don’t know if I count it as a terribly exciting storm’s all.

This week I’ve been covering mostly old material, so spent a lot of time playing ‘educational’ games. I’ve bought a bunch of wurthers and cute pencils and stuff, and find that occasionally offering a prize really seems to bring out the volunteers. Koala class is really the one where I find a healthy spirit of competition seems to be a positive force. Each day we start a Teacher vs. Student vs. Student competition – if they answer a question correctly, they get a point. If they answer it incorrectly, nobody gets a point. If they can’t answer it, I get a point! Whichever individual has the most points at the end of the day wins a prize. It’s awesome, because it’s totally subjective at times too – “whoever reads this passage the best gets 5 points and you get 3 points for trying!” It gets them to participate, which is pretty sweet.

Bear class (the 3 and 4 year olds) is finally sort of listening to me when I speak, so that’s nice. Before it was kind of like herding cats, in that they don’t listen, don’t speak the same language, and don’t do what you want them to do if you aren’t actually grabbing and moving their limbs for them.

I’ve picked up a bit more Chinese from said kindergarten students: Mei yuo apparently means no, or all finished (and given the attitude with which it is usually used, I’m guessing more often they mean the former)… Wei is a greeting they use whenever they play with their telephone. Pretty cute, actually, cuz they’ll get the telephone and say “wei? Wei?” until you ‘answer.’

You know how every time you masturbate a baby kitten dies painfully and slowly (truth, I heard about it on youtube)? Well, every time I walk down the stairs, a baby gecko leaps to its death. Seriously. They’ve all just hatched or something, and my presence on the stairs startles them so much they run and try to jump to the other side of the stairs… and fall down about 11 flights.

On the upside, this has given me a great excuse for being lazy and taking the elevator.

Went to the Belgium bar with Marvis and Allison. Really tasty, rather expensive imported beers, and Allison’s make-believe boyfriend Steven. I told her she’s lucked out because he has all of his teeth. That is apparently not all that common ‘round these parts – or if they’re there, they look sort of like they’re rotting out of their mouths. Current theories proposed by myself, Allison, and several other terribly in-the-know sources include: poor dental hygiene in general, lack of fluoride in the water, the starch in rice, high quantities of kimchi, and the formaldehyde in Taiwanese Beer.

I forgot to mention that the Calgary, the other bar I have visited in Taiwan, had non-Western toilets. I sort of wish someone had mentioned that before I got drunk and went to use the facilities – popping a squat for the first time would have been a lot simpler sober.

Things that May Be of Interest:

-         - My debit card works here! I thought it didn’t but turns out I’m an idiot, and had forgotten my pin.

-          - Saw a gecko in the house! Very cute, purplish green sort of guy.

-          - Finally went up to the roof! I’ve been doing yoga on top of it, but then I saw two gigantic cockroaches and my chi got totally f-ed 

-          - I think I’ve turned into a total lightweight. Maybe it’s because beers here are usually served by the 22…

-          - I’m recognizing a few more words in Chinese, and learned a character the other day – Rou. It stands for meat!

-          - I have a stamp with my own name on it, spelled correctly, given to me by the school. It makes me feel powerful, and like a real teacher. Or something.

-          - Ate ‘cat cake.’ That’s what Marvis called it. It was pretty good, and she swore up and down it didn’t have cat in it. Since it was in twinkie-esque packaging, I think she may have been wrong.

-          - To punish students in Kindergarten, there’s star next to their name on the whiteboard. Good behavior earns new stars, and if they’re bad, you say “Bye-Bye 1 star!” in a really ominous voice. And if they’re REALLY bad and have no more stars? They get a TRIANGLE (dum dum DUM).

Soon You Will Meet Typhoon!!!111!1one!

Winnie, Cindy and Katrina in the Office

Wow. Teaching kids is… exhausting. I’ve been teaching all week and it is fun, frustrating, impossible and exhausting. Last week was hard because for most of the week I was also doing tutoring sessions with Vicki, so I went to work at 8:30, worked until 12:00, went back at 2:00, worked until 6:05, went back at 6:40 and worked until 8:40. Fortunately, Vicki has since cancelled our two hour sessions at night, so I am back to working hours that are a bit less… all-encompassing.

Office 2, or the "Library"

In the mornings I teach games and activities for half an hour, then take a break, then teach kindergarteners until 12:00. We do some reading, writing, craft activities, science experiments, and sometimes ‘cook’ (without using ovens). They are very cute but they are very demanding (all class it’s TEACHER MEAGHAN, LOOK!) and by 12:00 I’ve grown to loath the sound of my own name. Then I take a 2 hour nap and lunch break and voila! All better. My ESL kids (ages 6 and up) are, for the most part, easier to deal with. They can speak a little bit better than the kindy kids, and can focus on reading (I’d say better, but the Kindy kids can’t focus at all, so that’s a given). Then at 5:00, I teach a class of older kids, who are very good at speaking English and a lot of fun to work with.

Kids playing Red Light Green Light at Chiayi University

I’ve ordered some of my first food in Chinese! Zhin Zu Nai Cha is Bubble Milk Tea (Milk tea with tapioca pearls in it) and it is delicious! I can also order Jin Jao, which is some sort of dumpling, and green tea (Lu Cha). I was pretty pleased with myself.  Now I say hi, thank you, yes, no, and Bubble Milk Tea. The kids also get really excited when I say colors in Chinese, though I always feel guilty… I’m supposed to teach them English, after all.

We went on a field trip to Chiayi National University last Tuesday, and fed the fish and played red light green light on a gigantic field with the kindergartners. The university is apparently well known for its agricultural school, and also its ice cream factory. That’s right, the university has its own freakin’ ice cream factory, and I feel totally ripped off for not having that at home. Of course, it makes milk-flavored ice cream (who knew that would be a flavor, eh?) so maybe not so awesome. There was also a big Taiwanese man there who walked up with a tupperware container full of old bread and gigantic (several inch long and wide) rhinoceros beetles. Very cool!

Milk Ice Cream at Chiayi University

We also went out on Thursday and Sunday night to the Calgary, a western-style bar with an English menu, and had pizza and beer. The Sunday night special is you get one small pizza and two gigantic beer bottles for 420 NT (about 13 or so bucks). When I say gigantic, I mean at least 22s. Catch is, the beer is Taiwan Beer, which, while tasty, apparently has formaldehyde in it. So I guess it makes you drunk, and is like a botox injection for your whole body – yay! Apparently they sometimes have live music and sing songs like Achy Breaky Heart. While I was there, it was just old Rihanna songs played from a CD, so I cannot verify this statement.

While we were out, I was interrogating Marvis about Taiwan, commenting on how the guide books were all, like, totally wrong about Taiwanese culture. And then I asked her about the propaganda truck. This truck goes around at random times with a woman shouting on a megaphone, driving super slowly. Turns out, that’s actually a singing, advertising, dancing, stripper mobile! You can hire them to come to weddings, funerals, and all sorts of occasions, and they’ll take their cloths off in front of old men and children alike! Weird, eh? Marvis has promised to take me next time she gets invited to a possible stripper mobile event.

Renee in her styling poncho

On Tuesday, Harris took Renee, Allison and I out to lunch. We talked of many things, and then during a particularly long lull in the conversation, Harris said omminously, “soon you will meet Typhoon!” And he was right! We had a typhoon from Wednesday to Friday, though Thursday was definitely the peak in Chiayi. We are sheltered by the mountains though, so it was basically just a very wet, windy day. We were all hoping for school to be cancelled, but no such luck. Even though I couldn’t hear the students as they spoke because the rain pounding on the roof drowned them out.

Conversations I have had this week:

Me: “So, what’s up with the big clock? It chimes at a different time every day.”

Allison: “I don’t know, maybe it’s a Buddhist thing?

Child: “It’s broken.”

Me: “…oh.”

 

Me (to child): “I am a Giant!”

Child (grins, holds two hands in front of her chest and makes squeezing motions): “Yes!”

 

Child (holding Victoria secret-esque advertisement): “Teacher Meaghan, do you like hot girls?”

  

Things that May Be of Interest:

-         -  Got a new water bottle. It has  a fat bug on it, with the words: Bubee Fat Ants. Bubee Ants Likes Many Sports.

-          - They sell fruit-flavored milk here. I’m not sure if it’s gross or delicious yet. They also sell Icy Pancakes (pancakes with icecream in between them), milk with the brand name “love milk” and many other strange and exotic foods. For example, Bao Bing, which is shredded ice with some sort of syrup on it, stick rice balls, tapioca balls, pieces of fruit… and beans. Like, kidney beans and red beans. Very strange. Not bad, but weird.

-          - The fireworks factory here in Chiayi (which is, apparently, illegal – they didn’t have the right permits) exploded! It injured a bunch of people, destroyed tons of property, and was generally very naughty. Nobody was killed, and I’m sure that everyone who saw it thought it was pretty sweet.

-          - Had an earthquake here last week. Apparently, it was big enough to feel, but I didn’t feel it. I did feel a clap of thunder actually shake my apartment though… that wasn’t very cool.

-          - The typhoon ate my umbrella. It also forced me to wear a really long rain poncho which caused my dismount from the back of Allison’s scooter to lack its usual grace, which led to this delightful bruise, which I will edit into this post as soon as it has reached its true peak of purpleness.

In Which I Learn I Need to be Less Friendly

Chiayi Park

UPDATE, July 12^th!

I have met the cockroaches. I am fairly certain there are two different species since one was enormous and dark and the other was small and pale, but the bigger one may have been obscured by being outside and in the night time. Todd kicked it – that’s how big it was, he didn’t smash it, he kicked it. Todd also crushed the other one with a pen. Apparently he’s the resident bug destroyer.

View Up My Apartment Complex

This week has largely been made up of me staring blankly into space and pretending to watch other people teach classes. Not that they are bad teachers – very much the opposite – but it’s hard to watch a lesson on how to spell apple. I also have led a conversation class with a 19-year-old girl named Vikki Wu every day for 2 hours, which means we really had to scrounge for things to talk about at the end of the week. I learned about typhoons (we haven’t had one yet) and fruit. Actually, we spent a lot of time talking about fruit. Oddly versatile as a conversational topic. We also discussed global warming, and whether Pluto should be considered a planet.

Move to Taiwan, Get some Groupies... 

They ran up to me in the park and asked to take a picture with me.

I’ve now met Y-C at the Freen, a nice man who speaks English and likes to combine words together to make new flavors for his juice bar… like pineberry, kiwapple, and several others. Just this afternoon, I walked all the way from my house to his shop, which is a 45 minute journey each way. He was impressed, and horrified, and offered to drive me home. I think he was just trying to get my sweaty self out of his shop that much more quickly… I was sort of dripping. Still haven’t gotten around to getting that handkerchief.

I also met the security guard, and his mother. She only has 3 teeth, and speaks excellent English – no trace of an accent, though that might have been the complete absence of dentition…

And of course, as some of you may know, I met a lovely old man at the park. It was about 8:30 at night, I was returning from a nice long walk, and made the fatal mistake of saying hello to him in Chinese. He started babbling in something I believe was Taiwanese and not Chinese, pointing over the side of the bridge. I said “Frog?” and he got very very excited, nodded, and grabbed me by the arm. Since he was at least 60, sort of decrepit, and very very small (as I have mentioned, I’m a giant to these people!) I figured that was ok, and so we walked up to a gazebo for what I thought was going to be some sort of bird watching, Taiwanese-babbling good times.

And then he hugged me. And didn’t let go. And sort of patted my shoulder while whispering sweet nothings into my ear. I was a bit frozen out of weirdness for a few moments, and then pushed back and said “Ok, Bye!” and waved at him. He stood up, and followed me out of the park, babbling the same thing over and over, alternating between pointing at his hand or trying to hold mine. Finally, I stopped him, and he pointed at his watch. I said, “Ok, I’ll see you this time tomorrow,” tapped my wrist, waved, and booked it the long way home.

So basically I need to stop talking to old people, especially ones who don’t speak my language. I think I may have accidentally gotten engaged.

City Janitor, with AWESOME hat that doesn't show up very well here.

Things that May Be of Interest:

-  Really? You think something’s going to beat that?

Giant Snail!

And Finally, We're Caught Up!

First day of school!

I showed up in the morning, not sure exactly what I was supposed to do, somehow thinking there was an exercise video we were supposed to all follow and move along with. Turned out I was the exercise videos, and it’s amazing how little you can think of when that happens. We ended up playing an aborted form of Simon says, stretching and counting to ten, playing follow the leader, and doing a little jumpstick. Since they were between the ages of 2 and 6, I had to moderate the spinning – I didn’t really want to make kids puke on my first day.

Harris has asked Renee to come with me tomorrow morning and show me the ropes, which I think means that my sweaty (it was hot, and I became like a shower of grossness) screaming (they were excited about jumping and being silly) fiasco was perhaps not exactly what he had intended.

I then spent the rest of the day stalking Renee. It was awesome. I feel a lot more confident about teaching these classes now; they seem complicated on paper, but in actuality should be just fine once I get into the swing of things.

The kids are super cute. I work with ages 3 – 9, with a few older kids to come, and they are all pretty funny and sweet. I think my favorite class is the 6 year olds – just old enough to talk fairly well, but young enough to be pretty silly still.

The lizard that lived on Harris’s window sill is still there. I’m thinking it’s territorial?

Alison took me to get rid of the garbage today, and apparently garbage time is social time for those of us in these wonderful brick buildings. We met a nice man named Mr. Who, who apparently was taught English by a girl who works with us but is not currently in town, Tiffany. You separate out recycling, trash, and food waste; the former goes out on Wednesday and Saturday, and the latter two are every day except Sunday with the food going to feed pigs.

Other Things of Possible Interest:

-          I randomly pointed and bought tea today. Apparently, it had butter and milk in it. Tasted fine, though!

-          I went for my first scooter ride today, hanging on to poor Alison for dear life. Since I’d met her like 12 hours earlier, this was relatively awkward. The scooter ride itself was fun, and not too terrifying until we came to the scary merging traffic circle, where I just barely resisted the urge to close my eyes and bang my helmet into her shoulder until it was all over.

-          Found out it hasn’t been as hot as I thought. My AC tells me the temperature inside the room in Celsius, and I had been rounding up… a lot. I keep telling myself it’s the humidity – I am NOT a sissy! Really!

-          We have cockroaches here. I have not yet met any. Apparently, they get up to 2 inches in length… and fly. I hate bugs that fly – all of a sudden they have a whole 3D space to work with, and I think that really gives them the advantage in any dispute.

-          The toilets at the school are TINY so the Kindergarten kids can use them… and they’re almost impossible to sit on. I felt like Alice in wonderland, and nearly brained myself cuz I didn’t realize how far down they were. The mirror at the sink doesn’t show anything higher than my navel.

…omg. I am a GIANT to these people!

 

Random Photos!

 

New Taiwanese Dollars

My living Room

View down from my apartment. That's not sidewalk, thats my ledge

Laundrey room
Chiayi post-storm
Chiayi city in the morning!

My living room, again

My Kitchen

 

My room!

 

And finally, a link to a video, since I don’t know how to imbed. This is the garbage truck song, and it is imprinted on my psyche.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=544962553708

July 6th

Taiwanese Bird

 I went to the park today! It’s only a few blocks away from my house, is pretty big, and has quite a lot of stuff to offer. There are gigantic palm trees, some sort of temple thing, several play areas, koi ponds, wildlife, and really funny people. Not to mention, a 7-11 on the cornor, if you’re into that sort of thing.

 So here I am, wandering through the park in the drizzling downpour, and I see this bird. Now, normally I see a bird and fail to be excited, but I am not in North America anymore so any form of wildlife here is pretty exciting. I spent like 20 minutes following this stupid bird around, watching it dig for worms, scratch its face, and do other not-too-interesting bird like things, because it was exotic and the size of a hawk. I figured that must, somehow, mean it was unique and awesome to everyone who saw it.

 Then I walked another five feet and saw two more, and realized I’d been staring in awe at the Taiwanese equivalent of ducks.

 The pond was pretty cool, though it started pouring and I had to take shelter beneath a convenient gazebo. There were a couple of birds there too, hunting the fish in the water. I spent a while watching them as well, and then got the rich experience of watching a man fish in the pond as well. Keep in mind this is a pretty small pond with pet koi that people feed… and that he was tossing food into the water then scooping them up with a net. It got even funnier when the authorities noticed him and started yelling. Especially since he actually caught fewer fish than either of the birds.

 Interesting fountains in the park, I think they were supposed to represent the spray of water when a whale slaps its tail into the ground, but one of them was broken and was just sort of drooling on the whale’s tail. Kind of pathetic, not terribly majestic, especially as the whale itself looked like a misplaced slug.

 Renee and Alison showed up at about 9:00 tonight. They seem really cool, and both of them are, I believe, just the slightest bit shorter than me… which is awesome. Alison is from Ontario, Renee is from Tennessee. Renee will actually be leaving after this week; it’s her classes that I’m taking over.

The internet was restored tonight... apparently they had simply unplugged it while they were gone.

The less impressive whale

Stealing  Fish

July 3^rd – 5^th

Ahh, the beauty of electricity. I have watched more Doctor Who and crappy Sci Fi in the past few days than one person should watch in a year, and I have enjoyed it to a potentially absurd extent. This is not to say that I have not ventured forth from my apartment, though tearing myself away from the now-functioning laptop was, to say the least, quite difficult. I can’t even imagine what it will be like with internet.

I have now visited: the store (the Buying Buying, and no that's not a typo) not once but THREE times, the thai food restaurant, the school, and wandered within a two block radius of home. My building is 12 stories high, you wouldn’t think I’d be afraid of losing it… but I am, I very, very much am. I am also paranoid of losing my key, but have recently been informed that in the case of emergencies, it turns out Harris lives in the apartment below mine (information that would have been useful, had he previously chosen to depart it… but since the man forgot to give me his name when we were introduced, I guess that’s not that important!).

I have also figured out how to use the washing machine (which also sings when you push each button – this is a very musical country, Taiwan), figured out (with assistance) when the garbage truck arrives, cleaned the floors (though my feet STILL turn black jut form walking around… WHERE is that coming from?) and read many, many first-grade level books. I actually found myself thinking yesterday “what will Little Duck do next!” so I’ve taken a bit of a break from catching up on my textbooks.

I also went and had lunch with Meagan and Todd, who are from Idaho and Washington respectively but both went to U of P. Meagan is very tall and missing an ‘H’ so people will suffer less confusion. They seem to be very nice people; took me to the thai place, then took me on a guided wander through the grocery store and gave me some recipe advice.

So as you can see, I am keeping incredibly busy. And yes, that is code for “if it were any hotter, my ass would already have molded with the couch on a molecular level.” They would be like the tin soldier and the ballerina, and I can’t decide which toy figure I would wish to represent my rear more.

Things that May be of Interest:

-It thundered, very cool. I saw big bolts of lighting, walked around in the rain thinking “well if I’m near the 12 story building that the lightning chooses to strike, will it still go through the ground and electrocute me? Or am I cool? I’m probably cool, right? Hm. Maybe I should get inside.”

- The milk ladies were there on Saturday (they apparently had the week off). These wonderful ladies are hired by the milk companies to sell you milk, so they stand around in the grocery store and convince you in chinese that their milk is superior. Theoretically; I suppose they could be chanting lullabies or something, but that doesn’t make much sense.

-The city here sometimes smells like sulfur, Chinese food, or chicken shit depending on where you are. I thought I had a gas leak the first time I smelled the former, then I thought maybe the water was heavy in sulfur, and now I just must accept that it is just a randomly passing cloud of noxious origin, and not to worry about it. The Chinese food and chicken shit are slightly less alarming.

 -I start teaching next week, doing morning activities at 8:30 AM with the wee ones. I plan on playing some bat/moth, and will try to remember not to give them the hankerchief I’ve been wiping my sweat off with (this is pre-emptive; I haven’t actually purchased said hankerchief yet but I think it’s a solid idea and will pursue it further soon).

-The expiration dates here start with the Chinese year (97) and then go month and day. I thought they were random numbers until Todd and Meagan explained…

-The garbage truck arrives at 7:10 every night. Weds and Saturdays are recycling days, and you separate out your food waste for the pigs.

-You can hear the garbage truck from abut 6 to 8:30 every night.

- I am getting rather tired of the garbage truck song. 

First Few Days in Chiayi

June 30^th – July 2nd

Flight was lovely, long and relatively uneventful. Malaysia airlines was quite nice – decent food, interesting outfits, comfortable seats, decent movie selection and unbeatable price! Of course it’s been so long since I’ve travelled more than 3 hours on a plane that I may just have forgotten what 12 hour plane trips are like.

Probably the most interesting section of my journey thus far was the Hallway of Despair in LAX. Now, if I were to compare LAX to any other airport I’ve ever been in, I would have to say it wins for being the most unique and the most confusing, not necessarily a terrible combination provided you’re not in a hurry. There are 8 terminals, each their own gigantic branch of the airport with gigantic jets leading up to them (the planes are much bigger in LAX). These terminals are connected by a series of honeycomb tunnels, walkways, and generally chaotic pathways that are poorly marked, seemingly random, and entirely gorgeous. Each terminal is decorated differently and supports a different airline, and some were very  pretty – my favorite was terminal 5, and I only wish I could remember what airline travelled in that section so I could support them soley on the basis of design and schematic.

Anyway. Hallway of Despair. Here I am, in Terminal 6, headed towards the International section via Terminal 5. Unlike most of the other sections, this passageway was fairly obvious and well designated, and so I headed down an escalator, not knowing what lay ahead of me.

These photos (provided I figure out how to get them to show) should show evidence of exactly how nervewracking, seemingly endless, and COMPLETELY empty this hallway was. Entirely white and illuminated by crappy florescent lights which only highlighted the cracks and water lines in the walls, this hallway caused me to immediately lose all cell reception, clutch my purse, and get goosebumps. Without a doubt, Underground Passageway 5-6 is the ghetto of LAX. Not helping the matter were the stangely sinister signs: “Warning, chain curtain descent area.” “Do not Exit.” “Do not Enter.” “Pull in case of Fire.” “Bathroom Out of Order.”

 I mean, what is a chain curtain anyway? And why would it descend? In case there was some sort of anthrax release in terminal 5 that had to be prevented from spreading to terminal 6?

At the end, with my footsteps echoing and my spidey senses all out seizing, I came upon the only person I’d seen in the entire 5 minute tunnel extravaganza. A jolly looking man, looking dapper in his Technicolor green vest and perched jauntily (I’m sorry, but I’ve really been reading too much of the Princess Bride) upon his airport go-cart/taxi hybrid. I felt like it was the Matrix, and he was the architect. Or something.

I arrived in Taiwan equipped with the knowledge of numbers 1 – 8 (nine doesn’t seem to be sticking, and zero may never come to me), “thank you” (though I mispronounced it for several days afterwards), and about 6 hours of sleep in about 36 hours time. I made my way through customs with only a 15 second stink eye, and was greeted by a darling gap toothed man who had my name on a sign and spoke less English than I did Chinese. He took me on his tour bus, which was decorated with bobble head Koalas, bright gold buddas, and lace-covered Kleenex boxes. It also kept beeping ominously. During this time, I realized my phone could send text messages, and that I didn’t know how to tell whether a bathroom was occupied or not (obviously this last bit happened at a rest stop, not in the van itself). I also saw not-so-miniature bright gold buddhas on the side of the road in a shop, though I regret to say they were so shiny and overwhelming that I did not have the presence of self to snap a photo for you.

 On the road, I noticed that: 99% of the car were American-recognizable brands like Nissan, Toyota, Hyundai, etc; and that the other 1% were far, far cooler, and much much brighter in color. I heard the Numa Numa song in a female voice with a far quieter tempo, and also Paris Hilton singing “stars are Blind.”

I arrived in Chiayi at about 9:00 in the morning. I was sticky and pretty pooped, and we met Harris at my apartment building. I didn’t actually learn his name until much, much later, coincidentally; he didn’t introduce himself and I was too tired to notice until later when it was MUCH too late. I took some time to settle into the apartment, noticed I had the wrong plugs, watched some doctor who, and then went out for an afternoon on the town!

Chiayi and Taiwan in general are beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful; bright signs, funny people, interesting houses, and huge patches of green in the middle of brick and plaster. We drove around and got some leche fruit, which are delicious, and had lunch which was some sort of bony fish which had, according to Harris, big goggly eyes and a gigantic forehead. It was tasty despite the mental image. The café was pretty funny; the lady owned three huskies who looked about ready to keel over, and when I wasn’t cutting my fish correctly she came over and did it for me, smiling and chattering at me in Chinese as she put the portions on the rice like I was supposed to.

I bought some essentials, and headed home, where, assured by Harris that the plugs were American style, tested this idea with my hairdryer.

Which blew up in my face.

I am now a sad, scarred woman, much like the previously gorgeous guy in Spiderman 3. Well, alright, I’m using ‘blew up’ in a very general sense… there was a nasty smell and a high pitched whirring noise. You probably can’t count it as an explosion if there aren’t any sparks, right?

Whatever. It’s my blog, and I can damn well exaggerate if I want to. And none of you lot are going to see me for a good long time, so if I say my face is a melted monstrosity, you have no way of disproving that information. HA!

I’m getting distracted by thoughts of buying canes to go with my new scarred visage and villainous personality. I was talking about exploding hairdryers, voltage difficulties, and my sudden lack of confidence in A) the compatability of any of my electronics, B) Harris’s outlet know-how, and C) my mother’s googling skills (as I had her look the issue up).

For two days, I wandered in a state of sorrow, alone in my apartment (my roommates are in Japan), confident I would never be able to plug in my electronics again. Then I went with Harris to the electronics store, where the shopkeeper also reassured me that I would be fine. I returned home, and tested out my next item of least value: my hair straighter. Never have flickering green and red lights seemed more precious to me (except for at Christmas but, well, DUH.)

Moral of that separate story? My electronics work, the problem was my hairdryer is broken.

Other things of possible interest:

- The garbage truck shows up at about 6:00 every night, and sings a little song to tell you to come on down, throw your trash away! It’s like the ice cream truck, only opposite!

- The hot water tap has a sign on it that says ‘don’t touch.’ It’s not FREAKING KIDDING.

- All the water tanks are on the roofs of the houses here.

- In the department stores, there are escalators without steps (they are just slopes). If you put you grocery cart on these slopes, they STICK because they are MAGNATIZED and NOBODY ELSE THINKS THIS IS AWESOME.

- when I went to go get my work visa photo, I had to put on a child’s vest to not blend into the background (I was wearing white). I ripped this when I took it off, but I don’t think anyone noticed. Then I got to pick one of the several photos taken – which seemed odd, having been to the DMV before for photos and not getting to retake them regardless how many boogers or chocolate smears you have. Harris was shocked when I picked one that wasn’t showing my teeth.  “You aren’t smiling!” “Yes I am, just… subtly.” Then, my boss and the photographer spent about 5 minutes arguing in Chinese… which I’ve never heard conveyed with sarcasm before (the photographer). Today, I went to get the medical examination done for the rest of the checkup… and the photo I’d picked had been very, very definitely retouched. Even on my best days, I do not look so even and… matte.  This strikes me as very, very funny… it’s a work visa, what the hell do I care what it looks like?

- traffic here terrifies me. Being a pedestrian makes me want to become an alcoholic, if only for the courage the booze would bring.

-  on the few controlled crosswalks there are here, the walk sign is a frantically twitching little green man whos fitful footsteps are accompanied by a 20 second timer. The stop sign is a very demure little red man, standing still and prim.