Sunday April 7th, 2013
For the morning meal, it differed from what I originally
thought yesterday. Based on our purchase of ten bullhorn pastries, I assumed
that’s what we would have. Instead host grandmother made me the Asian crispy
sesame seed egg sandwich thing. Totally fine cuz I still like that food. But I
did get to try the “banana that’s not a banana” my father willed me to eat. I
have no idea why he says it’s not a banana because even though it’s only 4-5
inches in length, both the color and taste were exactly the same. Though it
smelled different, not like the usual fruity scent just dimmed down. But really, it was like any other banana.
Heading out to church there was beautiful weather. No rain,
fairly bright environment and coolness in the air. Though that coolness was
amplified into shivers when WHOOOOOOOOOOOSH! Hello wind! Where did you come
from all of a sudden? Are you trading spots with Mistress Rain for the day in
Taipei? The answer, yes. XD
I arrived at church a couple minutes after the service
started and worship already began. The reason being that I didn’t make the
needed subway because I was delayed by a monk. Within the last few seconds
before the doors to my transfer subway closed, a lady monk asked me whether or
not this train went to Guting station. By answering this question with “yes”,
even though it took only a second, the doors closed literally a foot from my
face. No problem though but this encounter made me happy. The monk was brave
enough to ask a question to a foreigner in Chinese to which I understood and
gladly answered accordingly. Such a small thing but I’m glad I could feel like
a local instead of the frequent segregation as a foreigner.
Church was great with a guest pastor giving the sermon. I
like his style, his message was good and I was 100% alert through the entire
thing. Score! :D
Afterwards, down on the lower floor for tea and coffee, a Chinese
wedding cake was brought as one of the snacks (by Akiko from her host family I
think). What it looks like is a large flat circular yellow pastry with red dyed
decoration on top like a Chinese symbol. At first Mrs. Becky (a jolly lady from
Georgia) was cutting the cake into smaller pieces for everyone to have. During
that whole time she was being asked “are you getting married” or “did you get
engaged?” I being right beside her was laughing away and we were joking about
it. At one point she stopped and I took over yet no one asked me the same
things. Strange or not strange? Mrs. Becky found it strange but I countered
with the fact that I’m already married in Taiwan. Telling her the story, we
concluded that this was the Chinese wedding cake I never had, as a joke. Its
contents are very difficult to describe but it is a SUPER flaky pastry with an
unknown baked in filling. Perhaps pineapple? Perhaps a type of sugar? Whatever
it was it was pretty good.
I grabbed lunch at the Subway nearest to the church, this
being my second visit at this particular Subway branch. Though last time was
quite tasty, today’s sandwich wasn’t very impressive. It only achieved an
average quality for two main reasons, (1) the honey mustard was watery and too
little of it; (2) the grilled chicken breast was really weird. I think the way
the grilled chicken breast is made in American and Taiwan differs. Regarding
the vegetables, I rescued that component of the sandwich by asking the guy to
put more of the requested vegetable on. If a person asks for pickles on a 6”
sandwich, two thin slices doesn’t make the cut. XD The same went for onions
when he only sprinkled several small bits on. It just wasn’t Subway’s day today
but I can’t blame them. You’ll get one bad apple now and then among the many
other delicious ones. The healthiness is what counted the most! ;)
Electing to skip out on the bus and just walk the entire way
back home, I was curious to see how long it would take by foot when the bus can
travel the distance in 20-30 minutes (varies based on the amount of time for
the bus to come). That and to insert some exercise into my day, of course. ;) Right
as I began my walk back to the house, the same strong wind from earlier this
morning was still a-blowing away. Holy ma-ca-ca it was persistent! Not only was
it strong but also it continued through my entire trip back. The wind just
didn’t give up! XD
It took roughly fifty minutes to go from Kunyang MRT station
to my house and the whole time was nice and gusty, effectively keeping me cool
and immune to sweat. Lovely! ^_^
No one was back at the house when I returned so the house
was all dark. Seeing the bullhorn pastry box, I went over to sniff each bread
type to try and distinguish each flavor. The original ten pastries had dwindled
down to 6.5, all when I was at church too! But among the ones left, each had a
nice aroma though faint and the half eaten bullhorn bread middle was exposed.
It was wholly just bread with no added filling or sauce to accompany it. I
nibbled off a small section and it tasted fine but nothing mind-blowing. One of
the bullhorns still there was a lovely coffee scented type but apart from that
I couldn’t differentiate the others in the slightest. XD
BZZZT! BZZZT! BZZZT! I was abruptly awoken from my nap by my
phone receiving a call. When I answered, a string of Chinese was shot at me.
Totally dazed, I understood as much of it as most of y’all would…none. XD It
was host father seemingly in a rush and translated a few of his words into
English, “Wait. Open the door.” This confused me but I guess he didn’t have his
keys and I needed to wait for him to come before I opened the door. Forty
minutes of waiting and I got yet another call, this time with a extensive
string of none-too-calm Taiwanese
from host grandmother to which I understood even less of. No English
translation and I wasn’t sure how much Chinese she knew, so I just flew out the
door looking for her. She wasn’t outside the door so I dashed down two floors.
While doing so I heard my Chinese name but couldn’t locate the source. She
wasn’t downstairs nor at the door but apparently was on the fifth floor for
some reason. I have NO IDEA what occurred in that confusion but at least it was
remedied in the end.
Dinner was crafting your own Asian burrito, a tasty meal. I
noticed that my burrito was half or even a third of the thickness of my family
member’s. They PACKED theirs full of ingredients when I delicately arranged and
proportioned mine with considerably fewer components. I find humor in that. XD
In the spirit of trying something new as well as preparing
for the long battle of work ahead, I cooked me up a cup of coffee from a powder
packet found in the snack cabinet. It was quite small, about half or less the
size of a Mr. Brown Coffee mix packet and not much description on it, not even
how much water one packet would require. I knew I had to be careful with my
water to mix proportions with Mr. Brown Coffee so I assumed the same concept
applied for this one so it wouldn’t be watered down. A half filled mug of water
for a half sized packet of coffee, pretty logical right? Well I see now why the
powder volume was less. This coffee was darker and a lot less sweet than Mr.
Brown’s. I went back for more water, filling it roughly ¾ full. It was a fairly
tasty but nothing I’ll crave and I only drank about ¾ to avoid any side effects
preventing me from sleeping later.
Work ensued from Taffy to Chinese homework to tidying room
to not getting around to a whole bunch of other stuff since I was too busy.
Mmm, fun stuff. ;P
Well goodnight y’all. Sleep well all you peeps! ^_^
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