tale as old as time

i accidentally left my camera cord at home, so i haven't been able to transfer pictures all week. but today i scooted over to the camera shop downtown to have a look. the guy was waiting in the doorway for some reason when i got there, and he recognized me and asked how i liked my camera. they did have the USB cord i needed.. for $1000 NT (around $30) but he suggested a memory card reader instead. it was only $100 NT and did the same thing. sold!

this is all the stuff i fit into a duffel bag and my suit case on my way back to taiwan. it was mostly groceries, 4 tops, and books.
here's the seoul airport lounge i was waiting in. the floor is so pretty.
quick product review: i bought this shampoo in taiwan when i found myself with 2 conditioners and no shampoo, and it worked so well in conjunction with dove conditioner. so when i was home, i bought the conditioner to match (for 1/4 of the price it was in taiwan) and body wash.
i suppose, like everyone on this natural foods and products binge, i'm happy to support companies that make things that don't contain too many unnatural ingredients.. but the truth is that they don't work the same. my hair feels really brittle afterward and it's a mess to try to brush when wet.
the body wash is pretty good though. the exfoliating claim is a lie though.
books to last until july. i'm 1/4 of the way through Three Cups of Tea (which isn't pictured since it's on my nightstand) and it's really really good.
finally, my favorite, the bottles i comandeered in kaoshiung. aren't they so pretty? now i'll be encouraged to drink more water and have a pretty reminder of taiwan every time i open my fridge or have a dinner party when i'm in austin. (andd they were each $5!)
this morning alex guppy and i went to check out a yoga studio on da you rd, but we decided it's a little expensive and the hours aren't super convenient. if i don't find a better option soon, i'm just going to go there anyway.

later this afternoon, danielle and i were drying our hair at the same time and we blew a fuse, so martyn showed me how to reset the fuse box. it's weird how things like that are gendered. i've never known how to do it because whatever guy was around always did it for me. here's to being an independent lady.

took the midnight train

somehow i went to bed at 11:30 last night. maybe my first day back at 4 hours of class tired me out, i dunno. but i was chatting online and my eyes just kept closing, so i went to bed.

a couple of things. it's still dreary out which has fueled my inner soup maker. the other day it was lentils, yesterday it was chicken noodle soup. it's my favorite soup to make, other than marilyn's white bean chili, because it's so easy and it's so tasty. and there's lots of chopping involved. i love chopping.
2 carrots, 2 celery stalks, half an onion, chicken stock and chicken, whatever kind of noodles you have laying around. could it be easier?

both of my tuesday classes rejoiced when i walked in the door, which felt good. when i asked if they liked their subs, they said 'so/so'. the first class has a demo in 2 weeks and theyre nowhere near ready, although my coteacher seems to think they're just fine. so i'm kind of worrried about that, but there's not much i can do about it.
class #2 is one of my favorites. lisa is my favorite of the favorites and she just kept saying my name over and over in class. i think she was happy i was back. after class, as i was getting paid, 2 of the girls came up to me and asked where i was from. i said 'texas' and they said 'sexy?' and then broke up into giggles and went to tell everyone they could find that i was from sexy. silly!

i'm going to be late for chinese.

that's why i hang my hat in tennessee

oooh man it is chilly. i like to get bundled up and wear flannel jammies and socks, but i think i'll be ready for the spring when it comes. the silly thing about the dorm is that it always traps in whatever weather is outside and magnifies it. maybe it's the tile floor, but it feels a lot cooler inside than out.

this morning i gave bobo the swiffer vac, filters, pad thingies, underwear and hairbows for the girls, and a shirt that says 'i [TX shape] TX'. she was really counting on jerry to bring her back a swiffer when he went, and she was pretty disappointed when he blew her off, so i think she was extra happy to receive the stuff i brought. i was happy to repay her a little bit for all of the things she's done for me while i've been here. having helpful friends like her really makes a difference when you're so far from home.

tonight i had one of my favorite classes and i think we were all happy to be back together. i was kind of nervous because i know when i sub classes, i always play my most fun games with them and kind of goof off, so i didn't know how it would be to come back as the regular teacher, but we picked up right where we left off.
i brought little red riding hood, which is one of the books i bought at half price books when i was home, and at first they rolled their eyes and gave me that, 'oh, please megan. we're in 6th grade, why are we reading a story book?' but they really got into it once we got going. i think it's exciting when you're learning another language to try to read something and test what you actually know. they followed along really well.

back in texas, mom joined facebook and now she's glued to the computer moreso than she was before, which is kind of frightening. hopefully it'll get old and she'll get back to her mom life :P we'll see.
i can barely keep my eyes open. i guess it's time for bed.

nickels and dimes

today has felt like a lifetime. being inside all day on a rainy, gray day felt a lot different than the last couple of days where we were so busy all the time.

this morning, i was woken up because traditional music was being blasted from a few blocks away. i'm not sure if the music was live, but there were two singers who were horribly off key. it was soo loud and it lasted for the whole entire day. i still hear it right now but i'm not sure if it's just been permanently imprinted on my eardrums or if it's actually still going on. here's a rough approximation.

this afternoon i caught up on blogs, friends and the news and cleaned my room a little bit. i guess i've always been a pack rat, but even i'm amazed by how much stuff has accumulated in here. there's no way it's all going to fit in 2 suit cases on the way home. but everyone who comes in comments on how it feels like a "real room," which was the goal.

martyn and i went to a thai place in carrefour for lunch. i always order the same thing, green curry and coconut chicken. it's always delicious. but today i thought i'd try something new, so martyn and i both ordered thai chicken something-or-other, and i had been talking up the restaurant the whole time, but when we got our food, it was disgusting. it was like they just cut up a whole chicken and threw it in the soup. it wasn't hot, spicy or temperature-wise. it just tasted like oily coconut soup.

katherine sent me a link to a new food blog and i found this recipe for curried lentil stew so i made it tonight with the lentils i brought back with me. it was pretty good but i couldn't find tomato sauce, so i bought a can of prepared pasta sauce and dumped half of it in. it was alright, but it had green and black olives in it so it added kind of a weird surprise to a few bites of stew.

i posted some pictures from the trip in the post before this if you want to go check them out.

some pictures from the trip

us at the shrimp roll place in tainan. that's kenny and his mom yaya with us
jaime and i at a temple in tainan
yaya, kenny, alex and i at the temple
we went for snacks and tiny cups of wine at bobo's mom's apartment the first night. that's her and her boyfriend on the right.
delicious japanese food on the first night.
the view in one of the little streets in tainan. it's unusual to have lanterns hung up in big lines like that, at least in taoyuan.
inside one of the hallways in a temple
all of the temples are super intricate inside
this is the second night when we had hotpot at jack's family's house
night market in kaoshiung
us at the love river
a lake in kaoshiung. i don't think i know what the name of it is..
giant dragon! inside there was a woman who handed you a little folded paper envelope and you caught some water that was coming out of a tiny fountain and drank it for good luck i think.
the best bus in the world on our way home.

yesterday i added some links to alex's pictures, and here's a link to bobo's pictures

for the price of a cup of tea

i'm going to try to list everything we've done in the last 3 days, but i'm not going to remember everything. it was a whirlwind. it felt like 2 weeks.

thursday-
set off at 10am for the bus to the HSR (high speed rail) station
got a ticket for noon on the HSR to tainan
bobo picked us up and we went straight to lunch at a busy noodle place
we met her sister, yaya, and her son, kenny. he was super cute. he had a wall-e doll that folded up into a box and he kept making me help him stuff it in there. he was pretty shy.
checked out a few temples downtown right after that.
bobo showed us how to pray and then throw these moon shaped wooden blocks. if one lands up and one down, you pick a wooden stick out of a bin and then take a piece of paper with the corresponding number out of this big chest of drawers. thenn you take it to this man in the temple who deciphers it with a special book. he told me i'd meet the right person and have babies and not to worry about it.
anyway later we walked around and had delicious green tea at a fancy tea house
then we headed to a japanese restaurant where they ordered a million things and we just sampled a little bit of everything, including octopus balls and eel (which, as it turns out, i've been eating for quite a while, but i thought it was fish)
then we went to her mom's house to have a sip of wine and mingle
then we went to a night market and wandered around in a haze of exhaustion.
click here to see alex's album of photos for thursday (you can click on the picture itself to scroll to the next one)

friday-
4 course breakfast at 9am.. i was admiring the water pitchers in the restaurant and bobo asked where they bought them, they said a store down the street. so 20 minutes later, one of the servers tells bobo that they called the place and it wasn't open, so they would sell me two of theirs for $150 each even though they were originally $350 in the store. that is classically taiwanese. they go so far out of their way for you. the bottles themselves really pretty. i'll take a picture when i get a new camera cord somewhere.

anyway then they dropped us off and we walked all over the city
alex must have taken us to see 10 temples all over the place
and we saw some art galleries and the literary museum
in the afternoon, we took the train to kaoshiung to meet bobo's inlaws
we had hot pot at their house in the evening and then went on a boat ride on the love river
thenn we went to the night market
both nights, as soon as i hit the pillow, i was asleep. we were so exhausted.
click here for pictures from friday

saturday-
they let us sleep until 10 which was nice/badly needed.
went to get breakfast and coffee in the morning before we went to a lake.
the lake was really big and cool. there were a couple of temples around it and these giant sculptures of a lion and a dragon and you walked inside their mouths and through them. it was interesting.
we ran into alex guppy and his friend jasmine at the lake. what are the odds? same time, same place. they didn't even know we were in kaoshiung, because our plan was to stay in tainan.
after that, we went to a pretty good mexican restaurant to appease jerry, who was bummed that we didn't go to monkey mountain.
thenn we took a magical bus home. you could recline almost all the way, had your own TV, the chair had a built in massage thing, and they gave you a quilt to keep warm. it was amazing. best 6 hours i've spent in taiwan. ;)

so it was a busy 3 days. bobo's family was so accomodating and nice to us. and we got to spend some quality time with jaime and joyce. when they picked us up at the train station, they ran up to me screaming megan!!!! and almost knocked me over with their hugs. i hadn't seen them since before i went home. they're a lot of fun. crazy and full of energy, but sweet and cuddly and fun.
there are 2 josh's and 2 megan's, so one is fat fat josh, one is fat leg josh. they call meghan frisch 'other megan' and i'm 'princess megan'. hilarious.

time for bed! i am so tired.

tainan

alex, dawn, jerry and i are headed to tainan, in the south of taiwan, to spend a few days with bobo and her mom. we have a 4 day break, so when i heard alex and dawn were going somewhere, i hopped on board. better to be jetlagged with friends than jetlagged alone?
it should be warmer in the south and they're supposed to have nice weather all week, so we're excited.

new years was fun. the city-wide party was right outside our door pretty much, in the big park across the street. it was super muddy because it had rained most of the day, but they covered the mud with giant tarps so you walked on what felt like pudding beneath you, but nothing got dirty.
a bunch of taiwanese people had their pictures taken with us. it's unusual for foreigners to travel in packs like we were. i think there were probably 10 or 12 of us.

talk to you on saturday night. happy new year! (xin nian kuai le)