Finally!

Another chance to write. I'd say blog, but I've never liked that word.

Let's see...I'm only a week behind in things I want to talk about.

Last week was my week off. Several schools cancelled on World Pasport, so there wasn't enough work for everyone. I taught the week before at a school, and then, though the program wasn't finished, I had to leave. Two other teachers, and me, had to trade places with three new teachers. And one of those teachers got my homestay family! But, that's alright. I like the teacher who took my place, and it was nice to be able to do my own thing a little. I definitely missed having my own room, though, and a nice family to talk to.

The last night I was with my last homestay family they took me and Diana, my replacement, to a nice restaurant. It was apparently supposed to be an American-style steak and seafood place. And they did have steak! So I got one. I think it was a t-bone...it had some sauce on it, and I probably could've cooked it a little better myself than the restaurant did, but it was still good. I hadn't thought I'd ever get a steak in Taiwan. This place also had salad, which is somewhat unusual.
What made me smile, though, is the bread section. Those of you who've known me a while know that I must have my tortured wheat (among other things, it is cut down, beaten, crushed, rolled, toasted, and baked...though not all for the same sorts of food). So I was happy to find a basket full of rolls and ordinary, almost sugarless, bread. There was a big toaster oven thing next to it (it looks like a popcorn popper), and pieces of warm wheatloaf in that (it's like meatloaf, only made with wheat...and yes, I did steal that one from the Internet). So, since I like toasted bread, and it was just sitting there, I took some. And it was good. So I went up for more: after I'd set it on my plate, a man approached me, and, with visible agitation and incomprehension, tried to tell me something in Chinese. My Chinese is terrible, as I've mentioned, so I quickly came to share his incomprehension. After a while, he lost interest in talking to me, since it was pretty obvious I had no idea what he was saying. It was only as he was leaving that I realized - like everything else in this country, you're expected to do this thing for yourself. You are supposed to pick your own spread for your rolls or bread, and then toast it yourself. So, I accidentally ate someone else's food. I wish they'd had something in English for that (the menu was in English, so it's not an unreasonable expectation). On the bright side, the bread was good. Thank you, mysterious butterer whose food I accidentally stole. Oh, and like I was going to say to start with - this is supposed to be a fairly nice restaurant. So I had to laugh to myself a little when I saw the choices of spreads for the bread: there was butter, which is totally expected; there was mustard, which was a little weird, but okay; and there was peanut butter. Now, unless things have changed drastically in the month I've been away, you just don't get peanut butter sandwiches at nice restaurants in America. heh. But you can here.

Anyway, the next day, I found myself back at the World Passport office...with only two other guys. Almost everyone else had left to explore the country. Well, there were two girls as well, but they were taking my place teaching, so they were gone most of the time. Oh - well, not everyone had left. There were still five or so people there besides those I mentioned.
Anyway, me, the two other guys, and one or two other people decided to go see a movie to relieve our boredom. We decided to see Superman at 4:00 PM, but things came up, and we didn't make it. Later on, me and the two other guys (Doug and Jordan, to make it easy...though I don't really like saying names) decided to go anyway. We got in the cab and asked the driver to take us to a theater. He didn't know where it was, or he didn't quite understand us, or something. So Doug and I both said, in unison, "Women yao kan dianying"...which is "We want to see a movie" (and no, it's not pronounced women - it's more like, "woah, man"). The cabie understood then, and took us to a different theater from what we wanted. But I didn't mind - the theater we ended up at was in a mall. I'd been wondering what those looked like here. And honestly, I still don't know, because this was no ordinary mall - it was a palace of commerce. It was shockingly white, and glossy, with huge pillars and tall ceilings - and it went up 9 floors. The movie theater takes up the top two or three.

So we bought tickets to Superman. The girls at the counter gave us what I've been calling the "Westerner's Discount." Now, in other countries, I might say that ironically, but you have to understand - there is no irony in Taiwan. At least, not very much. In other countries the locals would jack up the price for foreigners - but here, you will often get a small discount.
It probably also helped that we are all (ego warning) fairly attractive guys. Well, there was also no one at the theater, either, so that might've had something to do with it.

For those of you who haven't seen Superman, I should warn you, here is a spoiler: it sucks. A lot.
Oh - and in case you're wondering how I understood the movie - movies here are released in English, with Chinese subtitles. So that's nice.
Anyway, though the movie was really stupid, it was still something to do. And Jordan, though he agreed that it sucked, decided it was still pretty exciting because it was, after all, Superman. So he ran around the mall with his arms up, making "whooosh!" noises, and occasionally attempting to pick Doug or I up...and fly away with us. Fortunately, I am fairly heavy, and if I don't want to go somewhere, there's not a lot most people can do to make me. Doug was not so fortunate.
On our way out, Doug wanted to make a phone call to a girl he met, so he asked at the information desk for the nearest payphone. I should mention, Doug speaks Chinese fairly well (his parents are Chinese), but can't read. Anway, this precipitated a crisis of some sort, as the girl who was supposed to help us went running for assistance. Then followed a conference of three people for about fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, Jordan helped us by continuuing to run around making whoosh noises, still pretending to be Superman, and still attempting to pick Doug up. As you might imagine, it is hard for people to take you seriously if you're with someone who appears to be insane, or at best drunk.
Eventually the situation was sorted out - the girls at the counter decided that we could make a phone call across the street at a payphone. So we headed out, but then decided we didn't need the phone after all - it was almost 10:00, and the girl Doug wanted to meet was getting off work about then, so we decided we'd just meet her there.

I should mention now that Doug is an amorous, and, by the attention he gets, apparently very charming fellow.

We arrived at a little indoor shopping area after a brief cab ride. We went to the clothing store where this girl works (her English name is Gray - yes, like the color. It seems her Chinese name sounds exactly like the word for gray, so that's what everyone calls her in English), and, as we approached the counter, we thought there was another girl there. That illusion was dispelled, though, when Doug said 'he' would be coming along with us. We looked again, and sure enough, it was a guy.
We let them close the store, and then we had to wait a while for another cab to show up (taxis are very cheap here, by the way - at least, compared to America). We took one to a hot pot restaurant (in case you don't know, they bring you a bowl of soupy stuff with something like a camping stove under it, and you toss uncooked food into the boiling soup to cook it - it's fairly good), and ordered dinner. For whatever reason, this place also offered waffles. I hadn't seen any in Taiwan up to this point, and most people I asked about them hadn't heard of them. So, there were waffles.
We had a good dinner, and, as conversation revealed, Gray's companion didn't have an English name. We tried coming up with one, but most were bizarre, or a little insulting. We almost decided on Terrance, but then someone (maybe it was Doug?) said, "how about Merlin?" We all agreed this was a perfect name, and so we named him Merlin. If ever you meet a Chinese person with a really strange name, you now have insight into how that might happen.
Merlin really is a good name, though.

Anyway. As you might expect, Merlin was gay, but very nice. Dinner was going well. The meals at these hot pot places will often come with a raw egg, and so Jordan had to mention that if you put an egg in your hand and squeeze as hard as you can, it won't break. Jordan hadn't totally recovered from being Superman, though, so he decided to demonstrate. It turns out, as he demonstrated for us all, that it is in fact quite easy to smash an egg in your bare hand...you just have to flex your fingers a little. I already knew this, but it may have been a surprise to poor Gray - the egg's messy explosion surprised her, but the yolk's sloppy and discourteous landing on her shirt was probably a little more shocking. In fact, everyone had egg on them (yes, we all had egg on our face, I know you want to say it, but actually none of us did) except Jordan - well, with the exception of his hand, which the crushed egg was leaking out of - and you'd kind of expect egg to be there. So we all went to clean ourselves up, Jordan offered profuse and plentiful apologies, and Gray returned without her shirt.
Titillating!
heh. Or not. She was wearing another shirt under her shirt. Somehow, girls are able to get cold in this country. I envy them.
So she came back - and, though you might not believe it, she was willing to stay out with us a little longer. Good sign for Doug, right?

We paid for our meal (and our guests - we had to pay the outrageous sum of $400 NT apiece - which comes to about $12.50 per person. I know, that's an awesome deal by American standards, but by Taiwanese ones, it was pricey) walked to a bar, had a few drinks, and really didn't do much else that night. Fortunately, I said I would not pay for anything at the bar. Jordan and Doug insisted on buying me drinks, though, and they bought several for Gray and Merlin as well. The total bar tab? $2000 NT - a huge sum of money - but only a little over $60 USD. Not bad for a night of drinking for five people, right?

After that we all went home for the night.
I'd end this blog here, but I wanted to mention that Jordan never really recovered from his Superman stint. He wanted to get a "Superman haircut" the next day.

Oh - I was going to end it, but I guess our day didn't quite end there. When we three guys got back to the World Passport office at around 2 AM, we were informed that the remaining people (who weren't working) were leaving for Taipei - in two hours. We didn't feel like packing, and we don't make much money at this job - it's more of a volunteer thing, after all - so we didn't feel like we could really afford a week in Taipei after that night of spending. And you know how it is with packing - there's a psychological barrier there - you see the suitcase, and you know what should go in it, but you really don't want to put things in there. Especially not after a long day capped off by drinking. So, we went to sleep.

And that about wraps up one day. Last Monday. heh. Lucky thing I'm not going to write out all of the next days, right?