Taiwan day....cuz all i'm all that, WORD
Well it’s called Double tenth day around here, because October is the 10th month and it’s celebrated on the 10th day but they call it double tenth because they aren’t officially separate from china yet so they can’t have a countries birthday if there not separated but either way it made for great fireworks.Lets start here, because it’s a holiday we have no school so my classmates invite me to go bowling them and too bring a bike because they want to play volley ball afterwards. So I ask my friend to give me some simple directions after the bridge to get to the bowling place. Well my completely reliable friend from America who wants to be a philosopher tells me to take a left at the bridge. Well I’m sure you can see what’s coming because I’m taking a decent amount of time to set the situation, HE MEANT RIGHT!!! So a wrong turn is usually correctable if it happens close to the destination but he sends me searching all over the wrong side of town but it give me time to grab an egg mcmuffin at a Mcdonalds. So I soon realize I’m lost and I’m like what evs I got a cellular telephonic device I can use that WRONG! The cellphone I got from my sister (oh ya when she arrived at my house in Taipei she gave me this sweet touch screen cellphone just before Willy completely broke mine on the train back) is broken as well and only works when it feels like it and I’m not moving, which is hard to do when your searching for place that you think is close to you. So I spend the better part of the hour cursing at my cell phone and doing some serious U turns as I ride around the wrong side of the city on my bike. Now being white here is enough to turn heads, you should see how many stares you get doing this. Luckily somewhere amidst the weird flashing signs, random street vendors and squinty stares I see one of my classmates about to board a bus SHIT YEAH! But theres a catch she doesn’t speak English somewhere between my arm flailing and broken Chinese she said she was going to phone Alex to phone me. OK so at least he knows I’m coming….so I ride around the town some more, cursing, sweating, and without a clue of wear I’m going. Then I happen upon the one girl from my old classroom who used to translate for me, I would have missed her if she didn’t wave at me but anyway we talk (even her mother speaks English) she points, her mother says something about the train station and long way, I say xie xie (ty) and head off in the opposite way I had been searching with a little more of a clue. So I make it all the way to the train station which definitely was a long way away. I know I’m close so I just do a very beautiful zig zag pattern back and forth up and down the roads, after a couple minutes I’m like “please don’t tell me I’m lost for a second time” but then god rains down a miracle in Brazilian form and Willy flags me down, we talk, I explain, and he says
Willy: “You know that movie theater right across from the bowling alley.”
Me: “ya.”
Willy: “Well it’s right behind me”
and points and I can see the corner of the showtime sign. Now usually I would feel like a huge idiot but fuck it I finally found it, I said thanks fast and pulled up to the bowling alley.
So I meet up with everyone, explain what happened. meet there girlfriends and play from 11:30 to 3:30 .
One thing I learned from this, Taiwanese love to play bowling and it shows in there scores, all high 100’s including the girls. I was either 2nd or 3rd . So we talk and giggle, and just as we’re going to play beach volley ball, something I was looking forward to, my phone starts working and I get a call from my mother, I guess I have to go back to my mom’s house because we’re going to a firework party at 6:00pm but it’s only 3:30pm but what ever so I say good bye and head home, I find my way home relatively easy and get home, it’s a long bike ride like 40 min’s as soon as get there the Brazilian girl arrives and I guess she’s staying the night and coming to the party. RAD I have someone to translate between me and my sister and she’s a good friend of mine anyway. So we meet up with Palm, and Hugo then take off to the Dinner at that winery me and my mother usually meet at which is right by the stadium where all the fire works take off. So we giggle and talk while eating “normal” Taiwanese food all the while I’m wondering why can’t they cook the skin, take out the bone and serve the chicken hot. So then my sister and the one girl Sunny who took me bowling and stuff at the start of the trip arrived and we caught up on stuff, what I’ve been doing and what she’s been doing (studying). Then we were lucky enough to see the fireworks which were un-fucking-believable. They lasted around half an hour, some would blow up in to shapes like hearts and smiley faces, others would blow up multiple times to make a bulls eye or would just blow up awhole bunch in general and probably my favorite was the one that blew up like a normal firework but each of it’s pieces fell from the sky swinging like lanterns. When it was finished I was left in jaw dropping amazement, the conclusion fireworks are definitely better in Asia hands down.
After this we piled in to the Mercedes and attempted to make our way through the sea of people outside the complex. Because these we’re the only ones in all of Taiwan for some reason there was almost the whole country in like a 3 block area it was nuts, making the traffic move slower than me playing basketball. So after finally we break through and are on our way, moving as fast as possible which in my mothers terms is 10 km below the speed limit….Mayra, my sister and I decide to make a stop at 7 11 and pick up close to a truck load of snacks and stuff because we don’t feel like sleeping tonight. Long story short we didn’t fall asleep until 7:30.
Ok this story was by far my favorite so far and I hope you guys like it.
I’ve been missing you all a lot and hope everything is going great
Word,
Ben
posted by Ben @ 12:22 AM
Comments: 1
