I Love Tiawan...But I Hate Boredom

This morning I didn't set an alarm and so I slept in. It's funny because the absolute latest I could sleep was 9am. When other people talk about sleeping in, it's until noon or later, when I talk about sleeping in, it's 9am. I love it. I was really glad when I looked at the clock and I found out that I hadn't slept the day away.

I didn't feel like going for a run, but I knew I needed to get out and exercise and so I decided that I would go for a long bike ride. First thing I love about Taiwan... the people are so nice. I was on my bike, and a scooter pulls up next to me and the guy of the scooter offers me a beetle nut. "Bu yao, xie xie!" Beetle nut is a stimulant. You get a small high from chewing it, but it stains your teeth and gums red. It's obvious who the chewers are around here and it's disgusting. So that was interesting, I've been offered food by strangers before, but never beetle nut (heroine yes, beetle nut no). I had planned to head north and take the long way to the flat running trail that I run on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I wanted to know what was beyond that trail. Second thing I love about Taiwan.... everything connects. I've decided that it's impossible to be lost for too long. I headed down the road that is parallel to the running trail, and with in 15 minutes I had popped out onto the main road that takes me to the train station. I started laughing because every road really does connect. Third thing I love about Taiwan.... the Taoist temples are amazing and everywhere. There is a huge temple at the end of the running path. I took my bike into the parking lot and made a quick circle (I didn't think it was too appropriate to linger around the temple when I'm sweaty and in workout clothes). This one is huge and even more intricate then the others that are nearby the house. Because I had come out by the train station, I decided that I would keep heading east and go to the beach. I've never been all the way down that path and so I wanted to see where it led. Fourth thing I love about Taiwan.... the people here love Americans. I passed by this guy who had a hiking backpack on. He said hi and so naturally I said hi back. I kept biking, but then I hear, "excuse me" I turn around and the guy waves me back. He told me he was taking a trip (to Hualien) and he wanted a picture with me. I took a quick picture and then was off along my trail again. Unfortunately the trail I was on did not take me all along the beach, it ended. Fifth thing I love about Taiwan... the beach. I had already been biking for an hour and so I decided it was okay to sit and watch/listen to the water for a while. Although it's really sad that we can't swim there, I loved that there were no people crowding the beach. It's so peaceful and clean (on the surface it looks clean, but apparently it's way polluted). I headed back after the beach, but I took the long way home.

That's where my day stopped being exciting. I was hoping to go on some grand adventure, but it didn't end up happening. I did a few crossword puzzles and I don't know what else the whole afternoon. Natalie took off for a ride about an hour after I got back and she was gone for two or three hours. When she got back we decided to go and pick up the food we needed for Sunday dinner. First we went to Fashion Market (it's just a store) to see if a bike lock wasn't too expensive (remember, I lost mine). Natalie had been to the store before, but when I pulled up to park, she kept riding. I called out to her, but she didn't respond. I got back on my bike to chase her, but by time I crossed the street she had gone. She had turned somewhere. I went up and down looking for her. I had about given up and was just going to shop on my own when she biked passed. This time she saw me and we were able to get a bike lock. We went to the grocery store next and got almost everything we needed. But, we still needed a fruit and a few more potatoes. We went home to drop off the chicken and biked down to the market we had been to last Saturday. We bought some potatoes and then biked all the way down to get a quick look at what else they had there. I saw a lady with a bean stand. To my amazement, she was selling pinto beans. One time Nancy and I had the urge to make a seven layer dip, but then discovered that they don't have canned refried beans and that they don't sell pinto beans so we couldn't make our own. Ahha! I've got the pinto beans now, I just have to figure out how to make refried beans. And then there's the other thing that I forgot about until we were already home... they don't have tortilla chips or tortillas so I don't know what I'm going to eat my beans with once I've made them. Sad day.

Natalie said that she wanted to pick up dinner while we were already out and so we went to the dumpling place and had dinner. It's funny that she wanted to go get dumplings because that's what I had planned in my head, but I was planning on going later then 5:30pm. Oh well, they were really busy so by the time we got our food it was almost 6:00pm which is close enough to dinner time.

On our way home from dinner we picked up some watermelon for our fruit for tomorrow's dinner. We bought a fourth of a watermelon (they cut it into wedges and wrap it so you can buy a fourth, a half, of a whole) and it was too big to put into the fridge and so I set to cutting it. I had to do some rearranging, but I got the bowl in.

I haven't paid my tithing since I've been here. It was always easy for Nancy because she had lots of cash laying around. I don't have lots of cash because the majority of my tutoring is the class tutoring and so Yuling deposits that into the bank account. I kept on forgetting to go to the bank on Saturdays to draw out some money, and so I haven't paid yet. I remembered tonight and made a trip to the bank to pull out some money. On the way back I decided to get some juice. Not because I wanted juice, but because I hadn't seen Ronald in a while. Unfortunately he was really busy (it's Saturday night, duh, what was I expecting) and so we couldn't talk. I went home sad :o(

But it worked out okay because I forgot that I had wanted to prepare the garlic chicken for tomorrow tonight so that we didn't have to wait forever for lunch to be ready (because Amy from National Hualien University joins us for dinner we've actually decided to make it lunch). We'll still have to wait for it to cook, but at least now we don't have to wait for it to be prepped and cooked. That took me a while and kept me entertained (I love to cook) and now I'm blogging. That was my day. If it sounds like it wasn't really all that boring, it's because I only wrote about the exciting stuff, remember how most of the afternoon I just did cross words? That was the boring part.