Ahola To You-a!

Sunday December 16^th, 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 2^nd 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.