Kung bao, baby!

It's 4:30 on Friday afternoon and the Friday-pm-drag is apparently VERY translatable into every culture. Especially when you've run out of things to do. I've been waiting on work the way a kid waits on summer in April. So this afternoon has been a cup of green tea, a couple of hours of Chinese language study, some prep work for this weekend's sightseeing adventures, and a whole lot of boredom. Oh. And trying to figure out how to post this second post. Not made any easier, by the way, by the fact that Google keeps assuming I speak Chinese. So for all the pains I've taken to post this I DO hope you appreciate it.

So many observations... Where to begin? At the beginning, I guess, was landing at TPE only days ago and being thrust into a whole new world. For starters, everybody is my height! That's kinda nice. And no blonde people. It's like there was a mass extermination and only us melanin-proficient were spared. But on the downside, I've become totally illiterate. That's right. I look at signs and I see gibberish. Quickly becoming familiar looking gibberish. But gibberish all the same. And my communication skills have taken a sharp turn south. I have to point and look confused a lot. But the isolation that you'd assume comes with such a situation hasn't been so foreign yet. Oddly, it's familiar. Maybe not comforting. But something... accustomed to. I think isolating myself for the better part of my life is finally coming in handy!

On to the apartment Vivi-the-most-awesomest-admin-ever found for me. Uh AWESOME. Rooftop two-bedroom (a bit of a misnomer, but more on that later) with a kitchen and pet fish. Um. Wait. Pet fish? So when thrust into a martian environment and presented with some little absurdity I tend to just shrug and convince myself that when on Mars spacewalk like the rest. But after talking to a few people about this particular absurdity, I get blank looks. Fish? You've inherited FISH?!? And so maybe the only thing that makes sense about the situation is that landladies around the globe tend towards nuttiness. But it's nice to get home at night and have fish to talk to and sing to and read to and... Oh dear. I hope I'm not just raising them to be food. Kung bao fish?? Well, so long as it's made well, I might be ok with it.

And speaking of pets-turned-tasty-meals, last night I took my first walk through a nighttime grocery market sort of thing. It was an alley that I just happened on that was lined with people hawking exotic looking fruits and veg and food and dead pigs hanging from hooks. I found the piggies particularly amusing as they'd been quartered of course with the choice bits sitting below. Dirty little piggy's feet and such. Oh. And ears. I remember reading something about pig ears being kind of a delicacy. Sort of the equiv of bringing flowers to your host, you'd bring a nice juicy pig's ear for the matriarch. I love etiquette. And hope that one day I have occasion to bring a pig's ear to somebody's old gran. At the end of the lane was the chicken guy. Freshest chicken available anywhere in the world. To prove it were the cages with pretty colorful fowl, or ji, ready to be turned into ji rou, or chicken meat. Guess my Friday language lessons are paying off. Did somebody say something about kung bao?

Alright. It is, in any language, the weekend now. At least here, fourteen hours before ever before for me. I'ma go find me some dumplings. And maybe some spicy ji rou with peanuts. Bet it'll be super fresh.