Monday, October 23, 2006

Monday

I've been inspired by Michelle and Carole's recent cheerful posts. I may not have a fascinating group of young publishing friends or have the opportunity to learn to curl, but there's gotta be something good about life in Taipei, right?

First of all, I have become a local celebrity: all morning I heard "I saw you on Teeeeeeee-Veeeeeeeee" (this is how a grade one student talks). Even students I don't teach came up to me. I decided this is my best chance to find out how I looked. Grade one students are brutally honest and feel no responsibility to protect my feelings. Thankfully, when asked "Did I look stupid?", the kids usually took a second to think than gave a very reassuring "Noooooo."

Yesterday the roommies and I decided to visit the local Costco. It turned out to be one of the most stressful shopping experiences of all of my time in Taiwan. Sunday afternoon at Costco is a maze of insanity. Human bumper cars. AHHHHHH! It's hard to explain to people who haven't experienced crowds in Taipei, but it the most frustrating, crazy thing! People move really slowly and aren't aware of their carts (blocking the entire aisle). Each aisle has at least 50 people in it, and at some points, I looked around and all I could see was a sea of black heads (I'm taller than everyone, so I had perspective). To keep myself from panicking, I ended up parking the cart in the emptiest corner I could find and asking the girls to come to me. After trying to check out and keep our stuff separate, we had to try to hail a taxi and somehow fit our new yummys into the truck, and in every spare inch of the backseat. Finally home, it took us about 20 minutes to go through the receipt and figure out who owes who. At the end of a four hour trip to Costco, $450 CAD poorer, we decided we never, ever want to go again!

For those of you who don't know, I'm planning my next trip! I'm looking into a trip to Cape Town, South Africa. The more I look into it, the more excited I get!!!!! Of course, I am very aware of the dangers involved, but we are going to be super, super careful. My roommates is interested in coming, and we'll go to museums, see penguins and relax on the beach. We'll even go on a safari (just one day, neither of us are the "camping-in-the-bush" type of girl). It's still up in the air, but I'm so excited about it. I'm tired of travel in Asia, and traveling to S. Africa from Taipei is cheaper than a flight from Toronto! More details to come.

Posted by Kathleen @ 11:26 AM