It's not raining?!!! And it's hot???!!!!

Monday April 15^th, 2013

Emerging from the house complex, sunshine beamed down upon my skin giving it a warm tap. The morning held a brightness that was virtually absent for a score of time. Dude, we actually have clear weather? No rain at all? Sunshine?! WHAT IS THIS MAGIC?! AND WHERE CAN I GET SOME MORE? ;D Wow! The change of weather was so surprisingly for everyone. It actually called to open a window and remove clothing layers. This is my first time in about 6+ months I haven’t worn my school uniform jacket at Tatung because the weather was finally warm enough. Sure I am a bigger fan of cold weather but a break from rain was really nice. Whoo-hoo! :D

As usual I headed for University for Chinese class. Nearing the campus, the realization hit me…I left my Nature Valley Bar at home. Oh snap, I forgot half of my lunch. The other half, a nummy apple, was easily bought at the close fruit stand, which is now becoming my normal lunch at University. But I thought I could remedy the lack of the second half by visiting a Family Mart convenient store since I’ve seen them selling Nature Valley Bars (with Chinese of course). All the past Family Marts (only a handful) have sold Nature Valley Bars. After checking the two nearby Family Marts to the University, I was still empty-handed. Seriously? Two Family Marts and neither have the bars? Does this remind you of my past comment with Kumquat Tea of how convenient stores aren’t necessarily convenient when you want them to be? Yeah…

Therefore I substituted with a small bag of honey cashews and salted almonds. It’s been some time since I’ve eaten straight up nuts, tastefully fixed today. The almonds far out numbered the cashews but both were quite good. New yummy, healthy lunch option found! Score!

A German exchange student named Clara in my Chinese class gave out little sweet snack bags. Not sure why but it was nice of her to do so. There were several flavors/colors and I chose the purple one thinking it was taro. Indeed it was taro.

The outlook of the taro bag

This little treat was like a mini taro cake. Perhaps it could be best described as a teacake. It had two layers, a thin outside covering and an inside lump of filling. The outside was crumbly as heck to the point where I couldn’t pick it up with it falling apart. For the filling, it wasn’t creamy but rather a tender dough chunk. The flavor was all right. Even though the nutritional label shocked me because of my newly acquired knowledge, I still took the chance to try something new and special to Taiwan. It was a pretty good experience.

A look at the inside

Host grandmother went to pray at a temple today. A food taken and brought back (as you’re supposed to do) was a sweet sticky rice pile of some sort with some ‘dragon’s eye’ (which I think is labeled as a fruit) on top. In the spirit of trying yet another new thing, I took a little bit of about seven rice grains. Yeah it’s not much but I still had a good enough taste of it. Really it just was sticky rice with a small addition of sugar. Not very flavorful or savory.

Still pretty tired with a work overload that the night was spent attacking. I now bid y’all ado. Night-night!