Friday, July 11, 2008

i can only think in spanish

i'm tired and i just watched like an hour of emil's travel videos so this will be the short version.
this morning.. went to carrefour, got a carrefour card which gives you back a certain amount every time you spend a certain amount. i obviously don't know what the deal is, but it was free and it makes me happy to whip out my card and let them know that i'm a semi-permanent resident. i also feel that way when i use my bus card. a lot of the local people pay with change so when i use my bus card i feel like i'm showing them that i'm not just some random foreigner who doesn't know what's happening.

then i went to a coffee shop to do my lesson plans. the guy didn't speak much english but 'caramel latte' is the easy enough. and i had pumpkin cheesecake that wasn't very sweet. they have an odd relationship with sugar here. bread is generally sweet but desserts are generally not as sweet as you would like. i got a doughnut the other day that was like.. air. i'm not sure how to describe it other than 'a complete lack of flavor of any kind'. anyway i loved the coffee shop in spite of the sub par dessert. they were playing relaxing jazzy music, there was a shaved golden retriever with red hair that i made friends with, and the guy went out of his way to explain things to me. i think i'm going to go there a few times a week. but it opens at 1.

i successfully made it to school tonight andd i ordered pork with snap peas and carrots and rice from this little tiny restaurant down the street from school and it was delicious. tonight i had one fantastic red book class and one horrific WOW class. they spoke chinese with the co-teacher the whole time and i just didn't know what to do. i can't make friends with them, they didn't like anything i tried to do, and they're just mean-spirited kids. we'll see.
after class, josh gave me a ride home and we stopped at a thai place to pick up dinner to go. he lived in thailand for a year so he could speak to them sort of and it was pretty good. i had pork pad thai that was as good as i've had anywhere.
chatted with keith, dena, josh, beth and emil tonight at various points throughout the night and now i'm headed to bed finally at 220am.

random things:
-i bought tide laundry soap. it smells like home and i think it's making me itchy. our washer doesn't rinse very well because everything smells reallly strong even after it's done cycling.
-got my stamp from the stamp guy. it just says Megan (sometimes you can get them to add a weird little picture of an animal or something) but it makes my life 1,000x better.

1 comment:

Majjy said...

Matt has taken up cooking......can you believe it? Apparently, he's just made the connection that if you like to eat tasty food you can prepare it yourself, resulting in something that's DEEEEEEEEELICIOUS- Johnny Benderism.
Matt, Johnny and Fi steamed artichokes in the pressure cooker and for dessert made tapioca pudding with real vanilla bean and small pearls. It was delectable. Dad and I provided the grilled pork tenderloin and corn on the cob.

Sounds like you've been ferreting out food in Taoyuan. Enjoying your blog. It's a good mix of diary, food and culture. Let's see a photo of your new nameplate.