Day 4: The First Nite in Taiwan....

~ 18th March 2014~

It was our first nite in this foreign land. Truth be told, I will never survive in a Chinese-speaking country. It was so scary. I couldn't read a single word at all. Can't even differentiate between the word entrance and exit. I was so clueless that I felt like I've never been to school and a total illiterate. I am a Chinese illiterate.

We had a wonderful experience on the first nite itself. It was a problem where us, the countryside people, encountered only in the first world country.

We were very tired after the whole day of walking and hiking, so we wanted to call it a day. By the time we were done, it was already past midnight. Mi mama opted to go for shower first. We two lazy bumps were too tired to take a shower, not that we didn't take. Just not so soon. Then, mi mama has a problem getting hot water out of the shower head. It was suppose to be something like the shower knob in Hong Kong where we were trained to use. Just pull the knob up and the cold water will turn into hot water. But it wouldn't even jump up. Mi mama was so frustrated that we ended up pushing Pinky into the bathroom to get this problem settled. She was trying to pull the small knob with all her might but it just wouldn't budge. Then, she started turning it to the right and also to the left but it wouldn't co-operate. Lastly, she had to contact Miss Chen, the minsu owner through WeChat. We were really a messy lot even in the middle of the night.

Miss Chen, who was staying upstairs on the 8th floor, came to our rescue. She might be cursing us up and down, high and low, for disturbing her, but we need to get warm water for shower. Then, we had a bigger problem. We didn't know how to get the door open for her. It was as simple as sliding the chain like what we previously did, if not how did you think we get out of the place? But it just wouldn't open. Then, Pinky did a clever thing. She took a photo of the chain bolt and sent it to Miss Chen to ask her how come we couldn't get the door open. Before Miss Chen could reply, mi mama got the door opened. Miss Chen walked in with a smile, I bet she must either be laughing so hard in her head or she must be thinking how stupid can these three people be! Miss Chen went straight to the bathroom and with some difficulties, she managed to turn the small knob until hot water came. We did just turn, didn't we? Great~! 

After Miss Chen left and we got the door safely locked, we were laughing so hard at ourselves. We were three marvelous people, really from the jungle. I was wide awake after having a good hearty laugh, then I had nothing to do, I set up the tripod and started taking the night view of whatever view that was offered through the big window.

The view from Xinsheng North road...

That was the flyover which we never use at all. Not even once. I wonder where the road leads to. There was no car at all at night. But when morning comes, the road is not jammed up but there would be smooth flow of traffic. I was also looking at the apartment building opposite from ours. There were many taxis moving in and out, so many. Hah... on our last day, we learnt that the place we're staying here was not a really good location. We were staying at the red light district.... sigh... No wonder the room rate was so cheap. Spending time looking at the buildings proved to be of good use later on when we were completely lost. At least I recognized the buildings.

The soap opera on TV...

After I have wrapped up my stuff, we were still not going to bed. The television was on. And then we were glued to the TV watching the Taiwanese series. Pinky has never watched a Taiwanese series before while I have watched before. So, I accompanied her to watch. She finds the local language quite hilarious. It was just like the Hokkien dialect to me. The script writers for Taiwanese series are really good. They can write the scripts that lasted for at times more than 500 plus episodes. Fuyoh~! Pinky was actually waiting to see what happened to the lady in the series. I can still remember. We were watching three episodes back-to-back but because we didn't start on the first episode, we were caught in between but roughly the story went like this:

This lady had an older daughter. A small accident occurred and the daughter was hospitalized. After taking the blood sample, dunno how the father learnt that she wasn't her daughter. So complicated. Then, the wife was pregnant at the moment. He wanted her to check and in the end he found out that the little one in her womb didn't belong to him either. Then, a miscarriage happened. The lady was hysterical and wanted to jump out of the hospital building. Pinky wanted to know what happen if she jumped down. Oh, come on. She wouldn't die. Someone would come to her rescue. And I was right, her husband came to her rescue the moment she was about to jump. This is Taiwanese series with hundreds of episodes. Nobody will die in the early episodes or else there wouldn't be any show left to be watched. Hiah hiah hiah.... we went to sleep soon after :D