and the sun shines on the bay

i'm forcing myself to listen to journey's greatest hits because i've been overplaying all of my other songs lately. although i do like 'lights'. when the lights go down in the cityyy.

i checked the exchange rate this morning and it was 33NT to 1US so i literally got dressed and drove straight to the bank. we've been hovering around 35 for a while so i just wanted to deposit my money while it was relatively low. i changed $60,000NT into $1700something US. so i'm excited that it'll hit my bank account in the next few days. i'll finally have more than i came here with!
it was kind of rough buying 2 plane round trip tickets and my camera and my MRI from right before i left. i had a herniated disc in my back and my insurance didn't cover the MRI ($700). so there was 4.5k to make up from the beginning.
anyway i'm back to normal and i couldn't be happier.
on my way back from the bank i stopped to get a 'passionfruit cocktail' which is passionfruit seeds, syrup and coconut jelly and pearls. there's a lot of slimy stuff coming up your straw. i think i've come to terms with pearls though. i don't get them if i can help it, but i actually kind of enjoyed them this morning.

i asked the guy if they had passionfruit smoothies and he answered me with some long explanation which i think had something to do with how it's still winter so they don't have any smoothies.. and i was kind of annoyed that he came at me with so much chinese when i was clearly a beginner, but jerry pointed out that i should be flattered that he thought i could handle all of it after hearing me only say a few words.
mrs. chan gave me this passionfruit yesterday. that's a stupid picture but you get the idea.
i asked if she had any burnt rice in the bottom of the rice cooker today and she said no (it tastes exactly like toasted marshmallows), but she got some rice out and put it in the wok and burnt the edges for me. it was pretty yummy that way too.

we had the best time tonight. i sang 'da xiang' for them, but i don't know a lot of the words since i've just learned it secondhand from jerry, who also doesn't know the words. so they both sang it for me. i still don't have a firm grasp..
i think it's daaaaa xiang, daaaaa xiang, ni de bi zi zen me na me chang?
ma ma shuo bi zi chang cai shi piao liang
which is..
eeeeelephant, eeeeelephant.. how long is your nose/why is your nose so long?
mama says long noses are beautiful

i looove the tune of it. it's a lot more singsongy than that video. i literally sang it the entire drive home from da chu tonight and then continued to sing in the shower.
aunt margi sent me a bunch of pages from the travel section of her paper and some cool travel calendar pages. thanks, aunt margi! i added the pages to my collage strings and the article about indian food had me wondering if i could eat indian twice in a week. i think i might go tomorrow.