Uncle Leo's Visit

We just had a four day weekend for the "tomb sweeping holiday". Tomb sweeping day was on Thursday and Friday wasn't technically a holiday but we still got the day off. However, we have to make up one day of class this coming Saturday, which is unfortunate.

Andy, the guy who owns the apartment I'm staying in, came back and we drove around Nankan and got some food at a couple restaurants. Uncle Leo also came back to Taiwan for a couple days along with my aunt, Michelle, and my four year old cousin, Celine. Celine is four years old now and Michelle has another baby in the oven and it's (don't know if it's a boy or girl yet) due in September. On Thursday night we got some traditional Taiwanese food, including frog, which I probably couldn't order by myself if I had to and afterwards went to talk and drink some tea.

On Saturday we met up again for dinner at a Thai restaurant with one of Uncle Leo's co-workers, Michael. The food there was great and I may go back someday but I feel a bit strange going to a Thai restaurant while I'm in Taiwan, haha. After dinner Michael left and Uncle Leo and I went to go get matching shoulder and foot massages while Michelle went to wash her hair with Selene. The massages were great but took a little...getting used to. Uncle Leo lucked out and get the female masseuse while I got the guy, but it wasn't that bad. The guy was telling us about all the bad things that I shouldn't be doing, all of which I do. It was pretty strange that he could tell so much about me just by touching my feet.

After that, I got dropped off at the bus stop and took the bus home. While waiting for the bus, I was talking to Uncle Leo on the phone because I forgot to get a copy of Michelle's resident certificate that I need for extending my visa. After a hung up the phone some girl came up to me and asked me if I was in line. Her name is Carol. She's around my age, Taiwanese, speaks a little English, and lives about a five minute walk from my apartment but goes to Taipei a lot. We exchanged numbers and we might meet up again and maybe I can pick up more Mandarin from her. When I got back I slept like a baby. Hopefully Uncle Leo and his family will be back before I leave because we definitely have to see each other again.

Toucheng

Today was 80 degrees and sunny so I went to the beach in Toucheng with a few other people which is about a 2 hour train ride from where I live. Waking up to go to the beach wasn't easy by I managed. I took a taxi to the train station to meet up with the other people and we all hopped on the train at 9:30am.

There are different "levels" of trains in Taiwan: local, slow, and fast (I think). The local train stops at every single station, the stow train stops at a few less stations, and the fast train doesn't stop at that many stations. However, I'm not sure which train we got. If you don't pre-order your train ticket, you may have to stand depending on how many other people buy tickets before you. The tickets all cost the same but if you pre-order, you are assigned a seat, making traveling much more comfortable. Since we bought our tickets 5 minutes before the train left, we had to stand.

When we got to Toucheng, we got some food and took a taxi to a little part of Toucheng that had a nice stretch of beach and a few good waves because one of the guys is a surfer. There is a nice little surf shop right by the beach that is owned by a few Taiwanese guys who also live there. They are incredibly nice and let my friend keep his surfboard and wet suit there and even let him shower there after he's done surfing. While he surfed, the rest of us just did beach-y things and got some sun. We eventually went back to the surf shop, cleaned up, went back to the train station, and took the train to Taipei.

In Taipei, we met up with a couple other people and got some food at Xi Men Ding. By this point it was getting late so I hopped on the MRT and took a bus home. The bus usually drops me off right in front on my apartment but today, for some reason, it took a different route and dropped me off about 10 minutes away from my apartment. No big deal...until it started POURING rain. I was going to take a shower anyway but mother nature beat me to it.