Sunday December 16th, 2012
It’s Sunday and there’s no Rotary activity. You know what
that means? ;D Church! This service was unique because time was reserved for
people who wanted to become official members of Friendship Presbyterian Church
as well as the baptism of three beautiful ladies. It was a very special time
for everyone. After the service during the coffee/tea interaction time we had
three individual birthday cakes for the three ladies who were in a sense reborn
in Christ. It was funny because a little boy was so captivated with the cake
that he thought it was his B-day and blow out the candles after we finished
singing the birthday song. XD Don’t worry we relighted them for the real B-day
girls. ;)
For Tina, one of the ladies that got baptized, a group of
people went to have a celebratory lunch at a fancy burger place called ‘kgb.’ I
say fancy because we needed a reservation and the prices weren’t cheap but it
was really small. This was the creation I ordered an ‘Aloha burger’ and a side
of apple and walnut salad. The fruity and nuttiness of the salad was superb but
the burger blew me away. Grilled chicken, pineapple and amazing sauce, that
stuff was good. I think it was basically the pineapple that did the trick. Man,
I love that stuff! Not everything on the menu was good though. Many people
ordered a peanut butter smoothie but most all on winched at the taste. It was
really sour from the yogurt inside and salty from the peanuts. It made me glad
I didn’t blow $5(US) on a drink like that!
Following up, I was supposed to meet my host family at Gandu
MRT station to drive the car together to Bali fro the weekend vacation room. So
I arrived and sent a text to my host father. While waiting outside I realized
something, Gandu is always flipping cold and flipping windy. ‘Gosh darn it,’
thought Andrea because she lacked a jacket and wanted to scream at the wind,
“WOULD YOU STOP THAT?!” Note that this morning was hot so that’s the kind of
clothing I wore.
As a way to cope with the cold and decreasing energy. I went
across the street to the only shop in sight that had coffee. Not too cheap
either but not that expensive. Suddenly I was encountered with new Chinese
coffee characters and I didn’t know how to say any of them! I just knew I
wanted a large, hot cup. One choice looked familiar and friendly so I pulled a
‘I want one of this’ stunt. *facepalm* No wonder it looked familiar! I’ve
ordered this before and it’s dead easy to pronounce. It’s just the characters
that I can’t read yet. The beverage was a cappuccino and you pronounce it in
Chinese the same way but with emphasis on each syllable. So it sounds more like
“ka-pu-chi-no.”
The coffee helped with the chill and the wait but after
thirty minutes of no reply to my text, I went ahead and just called. FYI, you
should never call on your cellphone in Taiwan. It’s so expensive compared to a
text message plus I don’t like paying money to work out language problems for a
call that can be avoided in a text. So basically, all exchange students text
and not call. Word from the wise. But he answered and told me to go ahead and
take the bus to Bali. Fair enough. Did that but a new problem fell upon me. I
don’t have a key nor keycard. Another call was made and my host father had a
‘guard’ come get me and escort me to our room.
He rang the doorbell. No answer. He rang it again. Still
nothing. After mashing the button several more times he asked me to call my
host father. Whatever the heck happened or was said, all the guy told me was my
host father would get here in an hour and he wanted me to wait in the
‘library.’ This ‘library’ really needs a proper title change to ‘lounge.’ A
library, kiddies, is where there’s books galore, you have to be quiet and you
can check books out. A lounge, children, is a place with couches, drinks and
magazines. And this particular lounge, as I dub it, had blaring KTV from the 2nd
floor. It was loud and the people using it weren’t exactly prodigies at singing
if you get my drift.
While at this lounge
I had nothing to do. I didn’t bring my entertainment because I didn’t think I
needed to. So apparently I had to wait an hour doing nothing in an open room
where I can be awkwardly stared at since I’m a foreigner. Being looked at is
fine but not for that long doing nothing. That’s when I was saved! I found a
chair designed and placed for such an escape, an egg/cone like chair facing the
window. Inside this cocoon were pillows that immediately created the idea to
sleep out the waiting time while being concealed by the chair. Fine but
problems still appeared. (1) It prevents you from finding a comfortable laying
position. The sitting position wasn’t so hot either. (2) Annoying loud KTV
noise = trouble sleeping. (3) The cappuccino caffeine did as intended, which
collided with wanting to sleep. (4) My host father and mother didn’t arrive an
hour later but 2.5 hours later. I lost a lot of work time and things are piling
up. It’s not their fault for arriving late but I was conscious of the building
workload and stressed me out of sleep.
Eventually my host parents did come and get me, heading to
the room. What happened was around me was supposed to let me in when I first
arrived but she was in the spa, hence why no answer at the door. Then my host
father told the escort on the phone to let me use the gym (like I wanted to) or
the ‘library.’ The guy just said to stay in the ‘library’ and wait. So
whatever, it doesn’t matter.
They brought dinner from McDonald’s, a new addition to the
menu. Burger and fries with an Italian take on it. Does American McDonald’s
have that now? I don’t know but I’ll try and describe what it’s like in Taiwan.
The burger has Italian spices and pasta sauce while the fries are loaded with
some sort of powder. Seriously it was loaded. Loaded I tell you! When I opened
the bag, a cloud of the powder puffed out and gave me a small coughing fit. XD
As a whole, the meal wasn’t bad, rather interesting actually. The iced tea and
hot chocolate was a nice top-off.
Right after was a beloved trip to the gym. Yeah it’s not the
best to exercise right after eating but that’s the entire reason I came to Bali
for the day and I wasn’t going to miss it. With 90 minutes of a workout,
mission ‘get shirt completely drenched in sweat’ complete! It’s always
satisfying to see a light gray shirt turn dark gray by the end of the gym
visit. If not for a red face and sweaty body, no one would suspect my shirt
went through so much precipitation. XD
Getting squeaky clean with a shower (both me from you know
what and parents from the pool spa) we soon left afterwards. WE got home at
11:00. Oh dear. I’m trying to set 10:00 to be the time I HAVE to go to bed
because I’m so behind on sleep but that’s really hard in Taiwan. Heck, when we
got home late today I still had work needed to be done postponing sleep past
12:30. *sigh* I’m working on it. There’s just so much to do, little time, less
energy and Christmas is just around the corner. I want time to do Christmas
things but that’s a challenge right now. As always, we’ll see what happens.
Here's some reference pictures to what the weekend room at Bali looks like. It's one combined room with kitchen, couches, TV and bathroom.
The TV area/dining tables. The bathroom is in the back through the glass doors.
Panning to the left from the previous picture is the kitchen.
We cool? Bye now.
