Saturday, October 01, 2005

Weekend Weekend!

Ah, another Saturday at home, kicking back. This afternoon the torrential rain from the approaching typhoon will hit, so I have no plans for going outside. Guoxi invited me to see a band at The Wall tonight (they're called Backquarter, never heard of them), but I don't think it's worth getting half drowned for. I mean, it's not as if it's Wu Bai & China Blue ;)

Yesterday after school Hiyoshi came over to my place. We went to grab some pizza for lunch at Napoli. Their pizza is pretty good, and on the weekend (which begins on Friday here) you can get a small pizza for only $100NT ($3US). We got the special that included two pieces of fried chicken and sodas. Man, their chicken is great! I don't know how the Taiwanese fry, but it's much better than anything I've ever eaten in the US.

After lunch we scooted over to Carrefour to buy stuff to make tacos. Had to wait around for a long time for ground beef because they were sold out. Apparently they needed to actually butcher another cow before making more, because it took for friggin' ever. Picked up onion, lettuce, tomato, cheese, some fruit, a nice big pot to use for future spaghetti cooking, other odds & ends. I was taking advantage of having a nice strong guy to help me carry the stuff home, ha. Got back to my place and watched one of my favorite Korean movies, My Sassy Girl. Not sure how much of it Hiyoshi understood, because it only had English subtitles, and he doesn't read English very quickly. He said he was getting most of it, but I think he missed some of the plot. I cried my eyes out, like I do every time I watch it.

Unfortunately, Hiyoshi is allergic to cats, so the whole time he was here he was blowing his nose, sneezing, and scratching his itching eyes. Poor baby! And the cat, who never comes and lies down right next to me, plastered herself against him on the couch. He loves cats, so he put up with it. After the first movie, we mixed up a pitcher of margaritas and drank a couple while watching the second flick, a Japanese movie called Bayside Shakedown 2. We never did have time to make and eat the tacos, because Hiyoshi had to leave by 9:30 in order to get back to Taipei Main station before the last bus to Wan Li at 10:30. It's a shame he lives so far away (about an hour by bus), because that means we can't really have fun on the weekend evenings. At least we discovered that tequila doesn't make his face turn beet red like half a glass of beer does. He handled it surprisingly well, considering this was the first time he'd tried it. The margaritas weren't as good as I would have liked, since I had to be content with using margarita mix and regular Cuervo Gold instead of making ones with Cuervo 1800 and Grand Marnier. Phooey.

This was a bit of a sad week, because our classmate Kieko went back home to Japan on Wednesday. Class isn't the same without her, either. We had loads of fun on her last day, though. Guoxi treated us (Kieko, Hiyoshi, me) to a fabulous lunch at his friend's BBQ restaurant. We had so much food - lamb chops, chicken, turkey, beef, pork, huge fresh oysters from Canada, giant scallops, small squid, fish, ribs - all expertly cooked at the table for us by the restaurant's owner, Max. In addition to the meat, there was also the hot pot with some veggies and more seafood stuff. And after lunch, three brands of ice cream: Movenpick, Hagen Daas, and a Japanese brand. Then Max brought out the special ice cream that is only for special guests, a French honey flavored kind that was scrumptious. Oh man, I could barely move, and we ended up walking all the way back to Taipei Main station, over an hour. No dinner for me that night!

The rest of my week was pretty run-of-the-mill. I taught my English class Thursday evening, this time to only three of the six students. We had fun, but it was almost 11:00 p.m. by the time they left, and I was tired.

We've now finished book two of our Chinese lessons, and next week we will join another class to begin book three. Our current teacher will be teaching a beginner's class of bo-po-mo-fo, the Taiwan way of learning how to pronounce Chinese. We're going to miss her very much. She was so sweet, gave us all little labels with our Chinese names to use on our books, pens, etc. I don't really want to join the new class, because I like the very small one we have. Now we'll be about 15 students - but I think I actually saw some cute guys in that class, so maybe it won't be so bad! I just hope the teacher is good. Book three is supposed to be more difficult, so I'm guessing I'll have to spend more time at the library, writing and studying.

Monday I'll be picking up my passport with my new residency visa and will head to Banqiao to get my alien resident certificate (if the typhoon has moved on and offices/schools are open). After I get the ARC I can open a bank account here, and I will also be able to apply for the National Health Insurance. Good thing, because I have to go to the dentist on Wednesday. Not sure what type of work I need, but I'm hoping it's just a cavity that needs to be filled. Hot or cold food on the left side of my mouth produces the kind of pain that makes me want to cry. It's weird, because it feels as if it's in the area between two teeth that already had root canals - and I thought that meant they were basically dead and capped! Guess I'll find out. And Guoxi told me the dentist is a handsome guy, so I'm certainly looking forward to this visit.

I can't think of anything else to chat about right now, so I reckon I'll head off and make some tacos for myself. And then have a piece of cheesecake for desert!

1 comment:

aetherwellen said...

Ooooh Napoli pizza! Those are so yummy! :D Do they still have the TV ads with the mobsters?

How's DZ doing?

Good luck at the dentist's, I hope you don't need much work done on your teeth.