A...raccoon?

Today was a day of awesome. Today us kids planned on going to the zoo! All by ourselves! So proud. We packed lunches with sammiches and chips and juice and fruit and all sorts of goodies! We decided to walk to the train station because we were worried about not saying the name of the train station right for a cab driver. Even though dad said it every time we got in a cab, he was always corrected by the driver so we didn’t have a whole lot of faith in his…pronunciation. I think next time we will definitely brave the cab, cause it was like 95 degrees out…so it was like a doubily long walk.

Once we got to the train station (YAY!) we got our tokens and off we went! It takes 3 trains to get to the zoo, but luckily the zoo has its own train station at the end of its line. Crazy huh? The zoo here is like the woodland park zoo, except like 2x bigger. We were there for like 2.5 hours and only made it about half way through! Plus it wasn’t crowded at all. The animals though, are real spread out so you have some walkin to do. But it’s a beautiful zoo with the plants and whatnot. Very tropical. I also saw the smallest bird in the world! I thought it was a huge bee. It was a Bee Hummingbird, and it totally looked like a bee, but bees don’t do the things this thing was doing. But it was soooooo cute! I got pictures, but most of them are all blurs. It wouldn’t hold still for more than 2 seconds. But still. Pictures, I has. We also went through the night time exhibit. It was full of owls and rodents and even…a raccoon? We fricken hit like 400 of these a week in Washington state! And they are going to have it in a habitat and feed it and take care of it? No! Don’t! Theyre giant rats! UGH! People…we also saw their Elephants, and they were doing a very strange behavior. There were two of them, they were standing in a line, and they were swaying back and forth. I read online later that it was a thought to be part of a stress disorder in captive elephants. It was so sad. =( I wanted to play with them so they weren’t bored! Or stressed! I think our elephants are happier. Right next to the elephants, there were Leighanne’s favorite! Tigers! Two of them even! And one of them was walkin around and eventually came right up to the glass and paced for a few minutes. It was huge! But that was also sad cause pacing animals make me sad.

We also walked around the Australian exhibits which were like…3…and that was sad. Then the African exhibits. We saw giraffes real close and lots of zebras. Even some baby ones! Sooo cute. The cutest thing there was the pigmy hippo! It was adorable! It was hard to tell how big it was from afar, but maybe it was twice the size of my dog? It was cute!

After seeing that, we hit a small gift shop and then took the loooong walk back to the exit. We took the train all the way back home and took a cab. We got home and dad was already there. No one really wanted to go out tonight and do a whole lot, so we just went downstairs to a restaurant and got some food. It was like a steak house, but we all got pasta. What was weird was Sarah got white rice and, we have gotten this reaction before, the waiter thought that was really strange. They also don’t understand the term “soy sauce.” Not a lot of restaurants have soy sauce out and about. But ya know, it was alright. We ate really well for about $30, it was amazing.

After that we went outside and dad and I told the other girls that we wanted to walk to the fish store. The girls didn’t want to walk all that way because of all the walking we did today, so they went back upstairs. Dad and I had a lovely walk down town till we got to the fish store by the train station. There is where dad bought a premade fish tank complete with rocks, plants, and all sorts of stuff. I also bought myself a tank! Except mine isn’t premade and is more awesome. Hehe, so when I get home I have to have the filter running for about a month before I stick any fish in there to get everything all filtered and whatnot. Anyway, horray! That’s pretty much it.

Dodedoo

I couldn’t really think of a title for this entry. So I’ll summarize what happened in the morning. Nothing, nothing, pokemon, nothing, nothing, blah. We went to Mister Donut again (oh god), and then afterwards we went to the mall to look around and get some real lunch. I had a hankering for McDonalds. I donno what these people are thinking, but their idea of seasoning is “lets put more salt on it.” Their burgers have salt, their fries have extra salt, and Im sure their receipts are made of salt. And you know what? Their employees are salty. Not the very bright bunch and not the very happy. Like a normal McDonalds employee! Anyway, while we were sitting and eating (hardly), an old woman sat across from us (sorta) eating her chicken stuffs. After she was done, she got my attention and showed her receipt and then pointed to mine. Assuming that she wanted it, I handed it over. Cause remember, they have a lottery with the receipts, so what was I going to do with it? We handed our receipts over gladly and then went along our marry way.

After we did our “shopping,” we headed back home. Pretty much as soon as we got home, dad got home and we planned what we wanted to do. We all decided that we had unfinished business with the Shilin Night Market. We went there through the back this time, and some of our little group got separated a few times cause the market was CARZY busy. No biggie. We ate at the same place we did last time and I didn’t have a very good appetite…I donno. It was just kind of a “this is what we did” night. Not too much to go into.

Although when we were coming home, I was minding my own business when a middle aged man in a suit standing across from me on the train started talking to me. He started asking me where I was from and such. The conversation when a little like this:

Man: Where are you from?
Me: USA
Man: WOW! Are you from east coast or west coast?
Me: West coast.
Man: You like Yankees?
Me: No.
Man: WHAAAATT??

And then he started falling around everywhere, losing his balance and whatnot. Falling like, forward and crashing into me. Then I figured it out, the man was smashed drunk. He kept muttering about something I didn’t understand and kept asking me if I liked the Yankees. Eventually his brother stood up out of his chair and stood next to him to hold him up when he would fall over. The guy just couldn’t understand why I didn’t like the Yankees. Dad eventually had to explain why no one in America really likes them. So, as soon as I could, I ran off the train and laughed. Good times.

Safety First

The second night at the hotel I slept real good again. Leighanne, on the other hand, did not. She doesn’t sleep very well when other people are snoring. My dad is a pretty animated snor…er…So its Monday. We look outside and its cloudy and a little sprinkles of rain, but no typhoon. Thank god! I mean, it was real fun walking through it n’ all, but everything is closed and you’re stuck inside and blah. Although if this happened in my home in Washington, I would have had plenty of things to do. Plus I would have cell phone reception…and TV in English…and an internet that didn’t suck ass. Ya, I would have had a lot better time indoors.

So we went down stairs and ate some breakfast. It was pretty much the same stuff as yesterday, so I wont go into detail much. The only thing that was different was that I had coffee this time. Mmm precious coffee. Afterwards we went back upstairs and packed up. It was a pretty fast pack up, I have to say…mostly because I just took all of my stuff and shoved it in the bag we took. Tada! Pretty simple. Now, Ive stayed in plenty of hotels and motels to know what is to be expected in a hotel. But Asia’s hotels are just a little different…for instance, there was a door bell for our room. I know other hotels have door bells, like I have heard the Hyatt in Seattle does, but this is the first time I saw it. Its too bad someone pointed it out to Sarah, because she kept spamming that button like it was going out of style. Also, they had this universal control box thingy for all of the lights, overhead music, and A/C. But what blew everything out of the water, is what I found in the drawer next to the bed. I had put the phone next to the bed in there because it was in my way, but I hadn’t looked inside at that time. This time I looked to get the phone out. And there I saw a complimentary condom just for me. I lawled. It was just something I didn’t expect to see. Maybe a Bible or phone book, but definitely not this. You see, the hotel we stayed at was Feeling Hotel, and by the contents of the drawer, I think people may have taken the name literally. This also brings us back to the amount of “noise” we heard the night before. Yikes.

After packing up, we walked home (its only a few blocks), and once we got there we all checked the damage once again for all the puddles on the floor and whatnot. Pretty much the same, maybe a few new ones here and there. Dad got ready and had to leave for work, since it was Monday, after all. Us kids cleaned up, showered what needed to be, and played a great deal of Pokemon on our DS’s. Eventually Sarah and I adventured outside. She wanted to go to Mister Donut to work towards a box of her own. God I hate that store. My love has grown into a hate. At first I was really exited about the donuts here, but you know what? The icing just isn’t gooey. Its all just hardened on and…Im wanting a challenge when I eat my donut. Especially if Im wearing white? Hell ya. But Sarah bought me a donut for walking her all the way there. Its only like 3 blocks, so whatever. But since I did a favor for her, she had to do a favor for me, and that was go get real food for lunch. We went back to that same ramen shop that is under my dad’s apartment, and this time I didn’t have noodles. I kinda wish I did though, noodles are divine. Instead I had some pork katsu and fried rice. Their fried rice is awesomeeee. Not so greasy and has lots of presents in it. It was a challenge trying to explain to our waitress that we wanted a to-go box for it though. We had to keep trying to describe “to-go” until some other guest in the restaurant leaned over and told the waitress what we wanted. But its all gooood. When we were leaving this van pulled up with its siren lights on and out came two cops. One with a gun in his hand and the other with a taser stick. I was a little worried, especially when they walked into the restaurant and started looking through menus. Odd…but whatever.

Afterwards we just went back home and chilled out until Dad came home. He brought us some Taiwanese pork burgers and they are awesome! The ones at the restaurant I had at home were even more awesome, but these were pretty good. Unfortunately I was too full from lunch to eat it. Dad, Leighanne, and I went on a walk to Blockbuster to return the movies we rented and had to leave Sarah home. She was being a brat and wouldn’t get up off her butt to come with us. She was sour because Dad had brought Leighanne and I home those burgers and we asked if she wanted one but she didn’t want one, so dad didn’t bring her home an alternative. He also wouldn’t make her a sandwich either. But don’t get my dad wrong, he stated that the burgers were dinner and she would have to make something else if she didn’t want it. Despite her attitude, while we were out dad got her a little coffee drink.

That night we watched The One with Jet Li (mmmm…), and I met dad’s landlord! He was sooo cuute. He welcomed me to Taiwan and wished me a safe journey home and all that goodness. He came by to check out the damage to the house. But again, he was real nice. Afterwards we all went to bed and I had some trouble falling asleep…thank goodness Wayne’s World 2 helped me fall asleep. I later had a dream about a train monopoly scandal. Very interesting.

Complimentary

I had the best sleep ever! It was super quiet in the hotel room. You could hardly hear the storm so I slept like a baby. Actually I don’t like that term, because in my experience and every experience a mother has had, babies sleep is kind of unpredictable. I slept like someone who got good sleep, how about that?

We got up and about and got some free breakfast from the hotel, and that was interesting. What they had was cocktail weenies, ham, steamed cabbage, fried (very fried) egg, unidentifiable dried and then moistened fruit, rice pudding soup of some sort, tofu, cereals, bread, and pre-injected buttered rolls. Yes…I ate. After this we had a discussion and talked about the possibility about staying another night. We took a look outside and it was completely calm outside. This was fantastic news to us, of course. Because that means it was over! The typhoon I mean. We asked someone at the front desk about what was going on with the storm and she told us it was calm because we were in the eye of the storm. The exact middle. Damn. This means there was more to come. But really, the weather was just like Seattle—all but the cold part. Which means we checked into the hotel room for another night.

So we went back to the apartment to check out the damage. The buckets were all mildly filled, but there were plenty more spots around the rooms that needed some attention. We grabbed a little more things to survive another night. As soon as we did that (and I mean as soon), we walked over to Mister Donut through the crazy crazy rain. This was going to be our last trip to Mister Donut. Because we were going to spend enough money to get the last tickets and get that stupid pointless box! And HORRAY we did! Our beautiful half plastic, half cardboard box was ours. Mmm…yummy. Afterwards we went to the mall, which is just across the street. After walking around the first floor of the mall and getting the sisters some ibuprofen, we decide we’re hungry again. After much debating and lots of refusing from dad to go to McDonalds (I didn’t want to go either), I put my foot down and said I’ve been wanting to go to the ramen shop that is under his apartment the whole trip and havnt been able to. So, we headed back over there. Let me tell you, it was delicious. I had some porkish noodleish ramen with gyoza on the side…mmmm…delish.

After this we did some wandering in some shops here and there, but I wasn’t having a very happy time doing this. With the combination of walking and walking and my feet being constantly wet because of the amount of water from the rain, my shoes were wearing away at my skin. Slowly causing the sides of my feet to turn raw. It was nasty. It hurt like crap. We headed back to the hotel room at around 4 and stayed there for the rest of the night. Dad and Leighanne went to go get pizza and bring it back. We also tried to watch some Asian movie dad found, but that was really boring, and then switched to National Treasure 2. I hate sequels, ya know? Like, why cant they come up with a completely new title other than National Treasure TWOOOOOooooooooooo OMGZZZZZZ. So, I hate Nicolas Cage. He can go choke on a butt for all I care. I didn’t watch the movie. I just rolled over and tried to sleep. All I could pick up was, “blablabla TREASURE blablablabla TREASURE bla TREASURE blabla TREASURE.” GAH! Its enough to drive one MAD. Haaaaaaaate…

Singing in the Rain

I had the worst night of sleep ever. You cant even argue with me. It sucked. It took me forever to fall asleep due to the fact that there was so much rain coming down on top of our metal roof combined with the horrible winds that hate me smashing into the side of the house and whatnot. After waking up too many times, I decide to put on my noise canceling headphones and turn them on. I was a little scared to turn them on, cause I donno how it gets to be all “noise canceling” so I figured that this would speed up the process to get a brain tumor. After I did this, it was still pretty loud, but not as bad. I got to sleep and it was glorious. Nevertheless, when I woke up, I felt like I had been sleeping on the side of the road.

After everyone was up and we went about discussing what we would do today, we had all realized something…there was water where water shouldn’t be. Dripping from the ceiling. “Oh no, we’ll be fine in this apartment.” Dad said. “its been here for 30 years!” he said. Before we knew it, there were 3, 4, 6, like 10 other dripping spots! And one was above my bed! It was horrible! We scrambled around looking for buckets and pots and pans and bowls to put under the drippage. I wasn’t in a very good mood. Drippage and no sleep and irritating floating around the room makes one likely to snap and kill someone. So, I took a shower…unfortunately it was a fricken COLD shower cause SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE turned off the gas to heat everything. So, to counter it being cold, I muttered to myself. Talking myself through the cold. Don’t ask me what I talk about, cause Im half way out of my mind when I do it. Whilst I was in the shower, I could hear dad talking to Sarah about something that concerned me. I jumped out and got dressed and asked what was going on. Since dad didn’t know what was really going to happen to the apartment during the typhoon, we were going to get a hotel room for the night. I was thrilled. This means I get to sleep! Very exiting. Dad told us to pack some cloths to last us one night. But since he didn’t know what was going to happen to his mighty apartment that had been standing there for 30 years, I didn’t want to take chances and started loading up all of the things that I didn’t want to have ruined by water…or stolen for that matter. I packed up my bible, new tablet, laptop, DS, chargers, phone, blablabla. The works. Dad thought I was crazy. But I didn’t care. Better safe than sorry!

After we were all packed and buckets were neatly placed around the house for catching drips, we were given cheapo ponchos for outside. I know what you’re thinking (probably not, but Im going to assume), “why not just use an umbrella?” Because the winds were harsh. Harsh enough to rip your umbrella right out of your hands and chew it up, spit it out, and then mock you for being an American. Sure, we looked quite ridiculous, but as soon as we stepped outside the door we would have been soaked. The wind and the water was so bad that we had to take a taxi even though it was only 5 blocks away. Dad didn’t have a poncho, so even though he only stepped out of the apartment to the taxi and then the taxi to the hotel, he was soaked. I laughed. It was great.

After checking into the hotel, which, by the way, wasn’t nice enough for the price we paid and also has a window view of down someone’s ally, we decided we were going to go to the mall. Apparently (according to dad), all of the malls and shops are open during a typhoon. We jumped in a cab (quite literally. There was even a man still in it trying to get out), and rushed over to the mall. Unfortunately, it was closed. Everything was fenced up and sand bagged up and craziness. We had the driver just dump us out and we decided to walk to the theater. With empty tummies we strode off into the distance against the wind and rain. No one was on the streets except for a few cars here and there, but there were broken umbrellas laying around everywhere and tipped over scooters. It was nuts! I couldn’t see, the rain was hitting me so hard it hurt…it rocked. I had lots of fun! We got to the theater and thank god it was open. We bought our tickets to see Hellboy 2 and went off to find something to eat. It took us 20 minutes to find somewhere to eat. Everyone was closed, it was retarded. Finally the only places we could find that had food was KFC (ew), Dunkin’ Donuts (wtf?), and this other weird Japanesey place. Naturally we went with the Japanesey. It was fantastic, by the way. Good choice. After that we went to DD (connect the dots, people) and I had a horrible tasting latte and 3 donuts. Ughhh so many sugarzzz…..later we watched the movie, which was awesome by the way. Because it had Chinese subtitles and us Americans laughed before anyone else did cause audio > subs. Also there were some jokes that involved having to know the English language (the “eef you” part for example) that we laughed at but no one else did cause they didn’t get it. It rocked. Afterwards we were hungry again (hehe) and tried to find food. Again, no one was open. We eventually found a bar that was open. It was called like…Jack’s …something or other. The subtitle made me laugh though. “All American breakfast, Mexican Cuisine, Home Made Pies, Cheesecake.” Do you see the issue here?

Anyway…we eat, yum yum, I got to order in English without confusion and it was AWESOME, we go back to the hotel room and I pretty much fall asleep. The sisters, however, watched Semi-pro on the laptop. I didn’t watch it, but I could hear it as I was slipping away into a slumber. OMG horrible movie. I wanted to die. Instead I went to sleep. See the logic?