I'm a Week Away from Another Big Event Too

I have been focusing so hard on the fact that I have to leave Taiwan on Monday that I keep on forgetting that I turn 21 on Tuesday. Crazy. I'm not old enough to be 21, what is that?

I had a pretty busy day today, so that is very good. I woke up and did my workout. When I came home I ate breakfast, showered, and then ran off to do some errands. I went to the store to buy some treats to send home, I went to the fruit stand to pick up some fruit. I bought a large yellow (local) mango and one of the custard apples that I had in Thailand and really liked (Wednesday as I was wandering around the airport, I discovered that it has another name, "Buddha Fruit"). I came back and dropped off my wears and then headed to the post office to get a box so that I can ship some of my souvenirs home.

It was difficult to get the box back on my bike because it was just a large flat piece of card board that didn't fit in my basket or on the back luggage rack. I had to put it on top of the basket and hold it down with one hand. Only once did it get away from me. It didn't fly away, it just smacked me in the face. How embarrassing, it happened right as a car pulled around the corner, so it totally saw me get nailed by my own box :o( I loaded up all the stuff I wanted to send home, and cushioned it as best as I could because there are a few breakable things in there. I glued it shut and I need to address it, tape it, and send it. Well.... that WAS all that I had to do. I bought some more souvenirs tonight so I have to open the box and reorganize to fit the new things in. Thinking about it right now, this is NOT going to be the cheapest thing to ship, it's got some heavy things in it. Perhaps I won't put in the things I bought today, one of them is a stone something something, so that would not help the weight/price situation.

But after I packed up the box, it was time to meet up with Amy. Today Amy and I spent our time shopping. First we went out to lunch. We were going to go to a pasta place, but that was closed. Then we were going to go to a really good curry place, but that was closed. So we had some famous fried rice. I had sweet and sour and spicy chicken fried rice and it was pretty enjoyable. After lunch Amy needed to go to a store to pick up some things so we walked around Poya (the name of the store) for a while. After that it was time to go and get me some glasses. We went to one store and tried on a lot of glasses. We left and went to another store, and another, and another. Shoot, there was probably one more, but I can't remember for certain. I found a lot of ones that were pretty cute, but Amy really liked a pair from the first store we were at and so we went back. We picked out the frames again and then I had my eye exam. It was similar to an eye exam in America, and the lady even spoke English. The difference was that instead of having a machine with all the different lenses in it, they are old school and have the giant glasses with changeable lenses that they use to test which lens is best for your eye. When they found the right lenses, they had me walk around the front of the store to make sure that they felt good on my eye and didn't give me a headache. When I walked out of the back room, Amy laughed at me because of the silly glasses I was wearing. The glasses prescription and the contacts prescription are different and the lady helping me wanted to order contacts for me in the new prescription. Back home, the doctor told me that a glasses prescription would be stronger because the contacts are right again your eye, while their is space between your eyes and the glasses. I didn't want to switch my contact prescription. When I buy contacts I usually buy two boxes for each eye (my eyes have way different prescriptions) but this time I only bought one. Two boxes of contacts cost $1000 NT, which is around $33 U.S. Because the brand I have isn't the most expensive brand, I think that the prices are very similar and so it doesn't save me a whole lot to buy them here. And I don't actually know how much cheaper the glasses were either. I chose the cheapest lenses because I will stick with wearing contacts most of the time and just wear my glasses on occasion to give my eyes a breather (and there was a BIG difference in price for the next best lens). And even with the cheapest lens, and with the frames being 50% off, I am still spending $2280NT which is $70-something U.S.- okay, I guess they are cheaper here, I had done the math wrong in my head while we were shopping.

I could have had my glasses ready for me today, but they did not have my contacts in stock and so they had to order them. I will just pick up my glasses at the same time I pick up my contacts. They said it would take 2-3 days. It better not take any longer then that, because I will be gone if they take too long.

Funny story about classes shopping really quick. At one place, I was trying on glasses and the sales lady comes up and starts saying something. Amy laughs and turns to me. "She says that she really likes your eye lip." I asked if she meant eye lid and pointed to my eye lid. Amy said yeah, she meant eye lid. It was one of the weirder compliments I've gotten, but it didn't seem too strange because many Asian's don't have eye lids. Then Amy said that the girl wanted to know if they were real. Again, not a typical question, but in China, women have eye lid surgery all the time. Amy saw that I was confused my that question so she added, "yeah, because some girls buy fake eye lids to put over their real ones." Ahha! She did not mean eye lid. She meant eye lashes. The girl was complimenting my eye lashes and wanted to know if they were real. Okay, that compliment is a more normal one to get. And yes, they are real.

After getting my glasses we walked around some stores downtown looking for something for me to send home (notice I'm not saying what it is, I like presents to be a surprise), and Amy was looking for a new skirt. I had tutoring at 5pm, so I had to get back before Amy found a skirt, but on our way back to her scooter we stopped into a department store to see if I could get the batteries changed in the two watches I have that both died on me. The sports watch I had was rusted on the inside and so they could not fix that. And the cute one that I bought in Thailand is also unfixable. The lady said that when a watch dies, you need to get it fixed immediately or else it can not work again. I never knew that. But sad story... I wasn't too bumed about not getting my sports watch back, but my Thailand one was really cute and was a great piece of jewelry on top of being a useful time telling machine.

My tutoring class went well today. I only have the two kids, but they were well behaved and we had fun with class today. At the end, I let them take a Mardi Gras necklace and one of the wooden crafts that Grandma sent me in her package. They liked them, and it was good to end class on a positive note.

After tutoring I took Beth down town to try the famous dumplings. We were in a hurry because Teacher Steffanie was taking us to the stone market at 7pm, and we didn't leave the house until like 6:20pm. It's hit and miss with the dumpling place. If you get there right after a large batch has been made, then you are in and out of there in no time at all. But if they are out and need to make a new batch, you can be waiting for a while. Unfortunately we made it on the second option. We had to wait a while, and so since Beth bikes slower then I do, I sent her home a different way on her own. I sent her the other way because it was a straight shot and so she wouldn't get scared or lost along the way. I finally got the dumplings and headed down the road. I hit almost every red light, and I was restricted by how fast I could go because my bike is broken. I didn't actually overtake Beth, but I had a spot that I told her to stop at in case I didn't make it in time. She had stopped where I asked, but at first I didn't see her and I was really worried that I had lost the new teacher. I had a brief moment of panic, but then I saw her standing on the side. Oh good, we did not have to send out a search party, she is one that listens and can follow directions. Go Beth.

We did not make it back by 7:00pm, but Steffanie was late anyway, so it worked out. She did have to wait for us to grab our stuff, but she didn't seem to mind. We went to the stone market and watched aborigines perform some of their native dances. It was a really good show. At one point in time, they called for volunteers to come up and dance- yep, I most definitely volunteered. Teacher Steffanie came up with Natalie and I so that she could translate what they were telling us to do. It was fun, and I'm glad that they taught us a simple dance :o) After the show we walked around the market and looked at the stones (jade, marble, quartz, geodes, etc.) that they had, different carvings, and everything else that they had. We spent quite some time looking around that place. And we bought a good deal of things there.

Once we finally left the stone market, we went to a night market near the beach. As we drove there and when we first started walking around, I had NO idea where we were. But, as we walked around a little more, I realized that I had explored this part of the beach in the day time, but there were no booths and I had no idea that that was there. Then, I remembered that I'd even been to that part of the beach at night and I'd heard the music and stuff, but I had chosen not to go down that far and see what was going on. I thought that a group of friends had gotten together and were having a party and I didn't want to go and watch their party. It turns out, it wasn't one party, it was a crowd of people at the night market. That's pretty much funny to me. This night market was cool because it had lots of carnival games. I asked Teacher Steffanie if it was only a summer thing and she said no, it's all the time. That means that people in Hualien can go to the carnival whenever they want to. That's pretty awesome, we mostly get them in the summers. Steffanie pointed out a snack thing that we all tried. It was a thin wrap that they put shaved sugar peanut candy and ice cream in and then wrapped it up. It was worth trying once, but it's definitely not a favorite of mine. After walking around the market for a little while we went to the beach.

The moon was reflecting on the water and the waves were coming in and going out and so the water was sparkling really bright in one area. It reminded me of the Little Mermaid where King Triton turns Ariel into a human. He touches the water with his triton and the water starts to sparkle, then the rock sparkles, then Ariel sparkles... Oh yeah, the part of the water that was sparkling led up to a big rock in the water, so that added to why that image popped into my head. It was so pretty. We walked on the rocks down to the water, stood for a minute or two, and then went back up. Steffanie bought some sparklers and we played with those for a little while. Some kids that were running along the sidewalk came over when they saw us with the sparklers. I think they were laughing at us for taking pictures and so I started taking pictures of them. They pretended not to want to be in the pictures, but they of course came running back every time I had my camera out. It was a fun little game we had going on.

After the fireworks it was time to head back. Everyone else is pretty much pooped out, but I've still got energy. It's a good thing I have energy too, because I had to stay up and write this post. Next thing I need to do is load the pictures for this post and for yesterday's, and then I think that the bed is starting to call my name.