jen’s blog

My head’s spinning, really, it’s almost weightless, dizzy. I knew it was a bad idea to pull one of these marathons, but I can’t help it. I’m an addict. Once I start, I have to finish. 10pm Thursday night, I started the Korean drama I got from Taiwan, telling myself to go to bed by 2am so as not to get jet lagged. 3am. 4am. 5am. 6am, I can barely keep myself together. Alright, bedtime. 11am, I’m ready to start again. Oh, power outage at noon. Hit the pillows again. 30 minutes later, I can hear the click of the receiver as things power back on. Oh, time to start again. With three more episodes to go, I can feel my head spinning around. No no, hang in there - three more episodes. 10pm – I’m done!!! What a lazy, unproductive start to the new year.

What timing. LL and F are in town and setting up a dinner for tonight. I haven’t seen them in a long while, not since my last trip to NY, 2 or 3 years ago. Wasn’t sure if F was joining us, AJ said not to be silly, of course LL hasn’t told his parents yet. But F was indeed there. They’re “friends / roommates.” We were at his mom’s restaurant for dinner and had to be careful of what was being said. I forgot once and asked F how long they’ve been back in town while LL’s mom was there and he clammed up, oops. LL supposedly just go back. It was good to see them. I meant to write them a X-mas card, but got lazy.

This has got to be the worst timing. I gave my 30 day notice 12/21 for 1/21/08 being the last day, which was plenty of time. However, because I wasn’t able to do the walk though by today, they’ve pushed it out to close on 1/25 instead. Now I have to either ask my landlord to let me stay for the rest of the months, hopefully, he hasn’t rented it out yet, or ask the sales person to help accelerate the close. What a pain.

8:20am flight out of Taiwan. I’d like to get there at least 2 hours early. That’s not the way it works here, people don’t start piling in until about 30 minutes before the flight. I am person number two waiting at the gate. It’s good to be early. I need to make a better habit of it.

3 segments, 2 layovers to get home. I’m beat. I gave myself plenty of time to make the transfer in LAX, 4 hours worth of time. With the inbound flight 45 minutes early, lots of time to kill at the airport. I tried to take the earlier flight back to San Jose, but the ticket I purchased doesn’t even allow me to go standby. Sucks.

Guess I’ll just have to wait it out. Ah, looking forward to the massage I booked for this afternoon. =)

Hiking Yuan mountain again, this time all the way up to the end indicated by the original map. However, I soon learned the original map didn’t show the entire route. After another hour of climbing, I finally asked someone coming down how long it is to the top - 1 more hour. Sheesh, I’m out of time, out of water, have to use the restroom, I need to start heading down.

Taking the turnoff that pointed downwards, a single track dirt terrain along steep mountains and of all times, I had to roll my ankle here. Although it was painful, it wasn’t bad enough to cause any swelling. I’m high up a mountain, in the middle of nowhere, by myself with an ankle I can barely walk on. This is just lovely. Luckily, the long trail of paved staircases downwards wasn’t terribly far away and I hobbled down the mountain - tired, hungry, and in need of a restroom. Many a time I considered going to the side of the mountain, but I wasn’t that desperate yet.

After reaching the base of the mountain, I’m still 1 hr from the base where I started from (coming up the west side of the mountain and down the east side) and 1.5hrs from home. This is good exercise, I guess. After 30 minutes of walking, I finally find a tourist place that has public restrooms. No toilet paper. Great. Oh, there’s a dispenser outside, 1 pack of tissue for 10NT coin. Unfortunately, I did not have any change and had to beg some tourists to exchange with a 100NT bill, but no one carried that much in coins. Luckily, a lady took pity on me and offered one to me, which the machine then ate without providing the tissue. Ugh. Fine, I can wait.

Why would anyone schedule the funeral on New Year’s day? I have no idea. What an ordeal, an entire day of bowing, mourning, and folding paper monies. Thank goodness my mom told me not to wear my formal shoes (I brought stilettos, eek). Everything went pretty smoothly. Auntie did a great job of coordinating everything.

My brother and I got a neat little present from our little cousin, well, not that little, but our youngest cousin. She spent 3 hours making us a card with her and her sister’s picture on it and lots of good wishes. Caused a little struggle between MS and me, who gets to keep it, and since he can’t read much Chinese, well, it’s justified I get to keep it. ^_^ We all exchanged email addresses and hopefully will keep in touch.

This is the first day we really went out and did stuff. We took the bus to the theater. When was the last time I was on a bus? I can’t remember, but definitely haven’t been on one this packed in a long time, with barely any room to turn around. Watch the purse people say, and if your a** gets grabbed, that’s too bad; it’s too crowded to determine who it was. Luckily, it was just a long, crowded bus ride. The movie we wanted to see was sold out for the next 5 hours, with the next available one at 10:30, which means we’ll miss the fireworks. Oh well, so be it.

During this period of time, we visited one of those night markets lined with food carts by street vendors. Mmmm, yum. And there were lots of small shops along the way as well. One was a DVD shop, filled with Chinese, Korean, and Japanese dramas. They were selling the Korean drama I just saw the first episode of a few days ago that looked really good. 699NT ~ $24. I can’t purchase anything at asking price here. I’m a sucker if I do. We still had to eat, so I decided to come back later.

But then, they know me and if I visit again, they’ll realize I want it and won’t be willing to drop the price. I should have bargained when I was there the first time, but oh well, I sent in my brother. 600NT max. He went in, asked about the price, the sales person said 699NT, he said 600NT, and the sales person said OK!

The drama was at the front of the store and the counter was at the rear. As they approached the counter, the sales person raised the box over his head, yelling excitedly, “I sold one, I sold one.” Everyone in the store was clapping. Apparently, we were the first to buy this. LoL, suckers, oh well.

We headed back at about 8:30 and the streets were already blocked off. The theater is very close to the Taipei 101 building, where the fireworks were going to take place. Streets were filled with blankets and newspapers on which everyone was sitting, picnicking, playing cards, resting, preparing for the show and countdown to come.

Our movie ended at almost 1am and outside, people are just starting to disband. Ah suck, crowded, streets are still blocked off, no bus, no taxi. After an hour of walking, we’re finally in the clear to hail a taxi home. I’m beat and we have an early day tomorrow.

I feel for my brother. This has got to be difficult, but the difference in culture, I guess I can see where my parents are coming from. American culture, of course the wedding is all about the bride and groom, often the location being that of the city the bride’s family is in.

However, in Chinese culture, that’s as if the groom is marrying into the bride’s family (ie equivalent to the groom taking on the bride’s last name instead). Mom and dad have refused to attend the wedding if it’s in AF’s home town. That’s rough. There’s a fight or a lot of consoling for him when he gets home.

I’ve gone on at least 2 hour hikes each of the past 4 days. Wow, this is great. I better keep it up.

My brother arrived today. Poor guy. He’s in agony over everything - How he needs to be here, but at the same time, he was supposed to work through this coming weekend and into new year’s day with the close of their fiscal year. Lots of work he had to drop and he’s been there only half a year. But what has to be done, has to be done.