My week in review

 This old rusted pay phone on a university campus isn't getting much use in the age of the cell phone. I saw this when I was invited to a university campus earlier in the week. 

 I went out after dark one evening and saw the beautiful night lights. How I wished I'd had my good camera with me! I got home and discovered my good camera really was with me the whole time. Duh! Too bad I didn't know it at the time. I used my cell phone for these three pics. My phone camera is really only good on close-up shots.

I met up with some young people for coffee one evening. It's close to my place so I go there by e-bike when we meet every week (we used to meet on weekends but now we meet on a weeknight). It's my favorite coffee shop in the whole wide world because of the awesome decor and ambience. And, believe it or not, the pepto-bismol pink e-bike is not mine, the white one is!

Brace yourself. This post is full of random information. It's all over the place, just like my life as of late.

My life is extremely busy these days. I have, uh, let me count ... 7 extracurricular work-related activities during the week. That's nothing if you have a car, but I travel by foot, e-bike, subway, taxi and bus. And I, like the U.S. postal service, travel in rain, sleet, or snow. (I surpass them, really, because I work on weekends too). It is not so easy. 

And of course I have my "desk job" to accomplish too. I just finished a major work project -- a website! -- that has consumed most waking hours that I wasn't at a meeting in the past two months. Yeah, I was working on the work website, so I didn't have much time to work on this one. I tell ya, that thing was a nightmare. The enemy was working overtime. It's over now though, so I hope to resume normal postings on my blog now.

Since I finished the above mentioned work website, I have had abnormal waves of sleepiness every day. And by waves, I really mean I am sleepy all day long. Am I just worn out from overwork? Is there something in the air? Am I anemic? Is it the weather? I have no idea. I remember being sleepy in the spring before, but this year it is ridiculous. I can down two pots of tar-like coffee and still fall asleep.

Friday night, an American friend who lives across town had chest pains, and I was awoken from a deep sleep in the middle of the night by his wife to go translate for them at the Chinese hospital's emergency room. Of course I was glad to help despite the unfortunate timing; no one seems to have chest pain at lunch time. The hospital is half an hour away by taxi. It's not a place you'd want to go when you are having any kind of sickness, but it's the best we have in the middle of the night (we have better options by day). Tests indicated no heart attack, so we all went home. I was gone over two hours. When I got home, we had torrential rain and thunder, which means Mimi kept me up the rest of the night. A gal suffering from extreme sleepiness got a sleepless night. Not a good thing!

The spring flowers and greenery are just gorgeous right now, but I have had two weeks of sneezing fits and watery eyes from allergies. It's hard to see how pretty everything is when your eyes are watering (and you're about to fall over from lack of sleep). Is this the price you pay to live where it's pretty?

The weather is still kind of cold and damp here. I stopped wearing long johns this morning. Unfortunately, that lasted only until lunch time. I either had to put on long johns or re-start the heater. Long johns are cheaper to operate than the heater (electricity is expensive in these parts). So layers it is!

Mimi got a bath earlier today. She loves the whole spa treatment of a shampoo and blow dry. She LOVES it. Especially the blow dry part.

Hope this finds you all well. Enjoy your Palm Sunday and the remembrance of holy week.

Finally

I got a comment on my blog today (the blog post called "Hectic fall," a few posts down). I was really excited, and it probably wasn't a good time to have a cup of hot coffee in my hand! I haven't had a comment in ages. Yea Kim! (Thanks for leaving a comment at all, and double thanks for leaving a helpful one.)

I read blogs where people like me get 200 comments in the first two hours of their post going live, and I'm lucky to get one comment a year. (I realize I probably don't have 200 readers, and possibly some of my blogs are not comment worthy. But anyway, let's not let little details like that get in the way…)

Psychologically speaking:

(a) YES, to answer your question, I probably AM trying to measure my self-worth by the number of comments I have; I do hope for nice comments though, because I have not by any means sunken to the depths of Miley Cyrus in which I would think bad attention is better than no attention at all;

(b) YES, I probably AM trying to put a guilt trip on my readers, hoping my subtle (oh wait, this isn't subtle at all, never mind) pressure will convince them to engage me in conversation on my blog, and

(c) NO, I have not finished my morning cup of coffee, and may have to eventually delete this entire post when I have finally woken up properly.

I am in Taipei, sitting on a bunk bed in a guesthouse to type. The bunk bed (lower part) has a railing to keep children from falling out onto the floor. But for a person my age, trying to swing my legs over the 8-inch railing to get out of bed is pretty torturous. I may have bruises when this trip is over. This bed is about as soft as your dining table too (as in, "not very").

More soon!

Fruits as deadly weapons

Do you recognize this fruit? It is durian. If you have ever been near one, you'd probably remember it. It stinks horribly. When I walk into a grocery store and my gag reflexes activate, it is usually because they have durian for sale. Many hotels in this country have signs that ban guests from carrying durian into their hotel rooms. It is that bad. Slicing one open looks to be a dangerous pursuit. I avoid them. The above photo? That's the closest I've ever come to one in 18 years of living in Asia. And I did it just for you.

In related news,* I saw with my own eyes a small porcupine in my apartment complex last week. For context, there are no wild animals in this country, at least not in the superbly overpopulated eastern half of the country. You have to travel to the countryside to see pigs. I saw cows on a riverbank once (I was on a boat). There are not even cockroaches. And I live pretty much smack-dab in the middle of a city of about 8 million people. So how the heck did a porcupine get here? It's a mystery.

*What? Can't you see the resemblance between a durian and a porcupine? Makes sense to me. :-)

Buying produce

I think the main reason that veggies are so cheap in this country is because there is no overhead. Sellers just lay the veggies on a sheet on the ground on the side of the road. Some are retail sellers, but some are selling what they've grown themselves (49 percent of the people in this country live in rural areas). Veggie prices are extremely reasonable, even after the high inflation of the last decade, and we get some of the best looking produce I've seen anywhere.

Shopping like this can be hard on the knees though. Fortunately for me, some put their veggies on tables instead of on the ground.

Pure water

Photo taken near my place. The blooms are perfect!

First I went off Diet Coke. Then a week later I went off coffee. On the same day I dropped coffee, I went off of two prescription medications. I'm trying to be proactive and make my life better. 

With caffeine withdrawal headaches and no medication to make them go away, my life is not feeling better yet. I'm sure it will be worth it some day down the road, if I stay the course. If I miss a few days on the blog, it's because my body is recalibrating following my switch to pure drinking water, and it hurts. :-)

Today is fix-it day

These days, not much in China is cheap like it used to be. But veggies and tailoring are still cheap. I got four pairs of jeans hemmed today for less than $1 each. I also got three shirts altered; they cost quite a bit more. This tailor shop is next to the men's dress pants section of a department store.

And when I say pants, I mean pants as a word from American English, not from British or Australian English (then it means something else; they are fond of the word "trousers").

After I got my clothes altered, I took some of my watches to get new watch batteries. The batteries were $2.50 each. They don't tend to last very long, so I'll be back here before next year to get more.

As you can see, his little fix-it shop in a back alley isn't very big and has all kinds of time pieces. I can't imagine how this job makes enough money to feed a family, but I always admire someone who finds his niche and makes the best of it.

This post has no real purpose, I just thought you'd want to see some of the things I see.

Before Brit

Looooooooong before a teenaged Britney Spears started the fad of baring midriffs, Chinese men had trademarked this style as their own. She was late to the party.

Her abs were a bit more ripped than this guy's though, gotta give her that.

At rush hour this evening, almost every major intersection had watermelon trucks like this one, selling the popular melon. There were lots of customers, but I was not one of them -- watermelons are a bit too sticky and messy for my liking. Something about this scene reminds me of growing up in west Texas though. The sign in Chinese and high-rise buildings definitely are not reminders, but the heat index was 116°F today, and the easy-going atmosphere took me back to the scorching hot memory-filled summers of my youth.

Salon day

I was dull and lifeless. Or maybe it was just my hair that was. Agua fixed all that when he cut my hair last week. It's still a bit long in back, with layers.

I can't remember ever seeing a woman cut hair in China before. It seems to always be trendy young men in this line of work. This hairdresser's name sounds like the Spanish word for water, but it is really the Chinese name "A Guo." He has a nice salon ... check out those mirrors and chandeliers in back! Agua's adorable little two-year old son stuck his hand in my cup of cold coffee while I was getting my haircut. That's always special. 

Lakeview

A random scene of the city, taken while I was cruising around on my e-bike.

Disbelief of the disbelief

I keep up with American news the same way most Americans living in America do: the Internet and TV. And the reaction of some Americans to two things in the news this year has completely taken me by surprise.

#1 - Lance Armstrong's doping scandal

I was beyond surprised to find out that there were actually people on this planet who thought he was telling the truth the whole time. From the beginning, I never ever believed him. 

#2 - The story about the U.S. government snooping around in our emails and text messages

I have always assumed that this was going on, but apparently a bunch of Americans are totally caught off guard by the news. It never crossed my mind that it wouldn't be going on. Of course it is going on. Wait, it's not SUPPOSED to be going on? I'm so confused. Of course, we'll take into consideration that I live in a place where they sometimes openly admit to doing this. I mean, I used to talk to my wall sockets so the people listening in would have something interesting to listen to. I am totally not kidding. 

In other news, I'm having acupuncture this month. I can't tell any difference yet, except I might hurt more than usual. I'll let you know how it goes.

Wedding pigs

People getting married here have wedding processionals with cars decorated with flowers. This is the first one I've seen with pigs.

But, you know, whatever.

Summer is here, kinda

A man sells beach towels on the side of the road. He is having fun. How else can we explain those tired arms holding up that towel for passersby to see?

These Chinese people ... they certainly have a sense of humor.

Don't drop the kid

In China, it seems that even the statues are limited by the one-child policy. :-)

The Big C

Whoever said everything is bigger in Texas probably had never been to China. Because whether we like to admit it or not, everything is bigger in China. Even if it doesn't need to be, it is, just so they can say it is. Texans and Chinese have a lot in common in this way. Here in the Big C, big red sculpture-like thingamajigs are pretty popular. I like this one in the middle of the roundabout intersection. And below you can see that the overachieving landscapers planted pretty flowers there too.

Separated at birth

I'm seeing a similarity here. Is it just me?

One of the above photos is of one of my brothers. In fact, it is his Facebook photo, although I'm not sure that anyone who has never gone on a hunting trip with him before would recognize him in this photo. Perhaps he did that on purpose to maintain his incognito status. (Or maybe he's hoping to be an extra on Duck Dynasty. That would be fun. 'Cause that's a show you need to watch. I fear the beard is way too short for that show though. Thank goodness.) Anyway, the EARS on these two makes for such an uncanny resemblance that I couldn't pass commenting on it. 

If I spot a Chinese false deity that looks like YOU, dear reader, I'll be sure and let you know. So far this is the only resemblance I am aware of.

P.S. This photo was already public. I would not use a photo in this manner if it wasn't.

Pajama lady

Last October, I told you about people here wearing pajamas in public. I didn't have a photo to show you at the time, because I didn't want to embarrass people here by overtly taking photos of them in their pj's. But the other day I was at the park and finally got a non-invasive, non-blurry shot of a lady wearing hers. Hers are thick white flannel pajamas with pink whales on them. They don't look as much like pajamas as some I've seen, but yes, these are most definitely pajamas. The person behind her is wearing a sweat suit. 

I may or may not have worn my pajamas to walk my dog inside my apartment grounds early one morning last week, but with a heavy winter coat covering them up, who can know for sure?! :-)

A colorful kingdom

Neon "terracotta" soldiers strumming guitars, green wedding dresses at a wedding photo shop, mail boxes in a village and boats near moats...just some of the regular sights around town I thought you'd enjoy seeing.

Seen around town

Random sight around town ...  a man swings a hefty hammer to destroy brick and concrete buildings. Most (not all) of the dismantling of buildings is done by manual labor rather than heavy machinery.

Fru-fru

China doesn't have a macho culture. Obviously.

Cooking Lesson

My once-a-week house helper, above, taught me to make baozi (bow-zuh) yesterday. Baozi is steamed bread with meat and vegetable filling. She told me it would be easy. But when I found out it wasn't easy, I stopped paying attention. Not much chance of me ever making these from scratch. Mimi was kind of paying attention though.

When I realized that the dough is made with yeast and is basically the same dough recipe you'd make for, say, cinnamon rolls, I wanted to bring this cooking lesson to an abrupt halt and make breakfast instead. Because if you're going to go to that much trouble to make something, it ought to be something mouth-watering.

I can buy baozi on the street for about 30 cents each, so that's what I'll be doing next time I want to eat one.