Lost in Nanshijiao – October 7, 2005

This was the first night in days that wasn’t completely awful. Still, I once again awoke at 3:00AM, coughing and needing to blow my nose. The problem with that is that everytime I cough or blow my nose, James cries.

There’s not much I can do. Irene keeps putting him in bed with us so when I awake with an uncontrollable fit, he’s just inches away.

In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, I managed to sleep in till 9:00 again. Our plan for today: find a place to get another baby photo album taken.

I was quite pleased with the one we had done last time and want to start the search there. Irene has been getting other suggestions from babyhome.com.tw. So far all the suggestions sound too much like the baby photo places in the US that put wings and crap on the kids.

We stopped at TKK Fried Chicken for brunch. Although I’m not crazy about their chicken, Michelle had eaten well there the other day, so I was willing to give it another go.

While eating, I noticed the name of the place was Ting Kua Kua (hence TKK.) I had Irene pronounce the name of the place and this is another example of the problems with romanization in Taiwan. The name would probably be spelled “Ding Gua Gua” these days, so will they ever change their name to DGG? They’ve been around 30 years, so perhaps I’ll find out on some future trip.

Speaking of TKK, I failed to mention the other day that the TKK near Michelle’s classes is a two-story building. There’s nothing unusual in that around these parts, but what I thought was weird was that the kitchen is on the second floor, but you order and pick up your food on the street level.

All the while we sat on the second floor eating our meal, trays of food were being taken from a room near the toilets to a mysterious room in front and disappearing, with empty trays returning.

I finally got around to look, but couldn’t discover if there was a dumb waiter or a “food chute” leading to the first floor.

We went first to the photo place we’d used before and they’ve still got the neatest looking wedding albums out front, and had a nice package for James and Michelle, so we went ahead and scheduled photos with them next Saturday. Since we went with the place we used before, we didn’t have to spend the day dragging the kids around and we went back home.

Irene spent the rest of the day in our room playing with James, but I couldn’t stand to be in the house any longer and went for a walk on my own. it just isn’t fun if you have to haul the kids along.

I went to the Metro station, choose a semi-random destination station I’d never been to before and promptly hopped on the wrong train, ending up at a completely random destination I’ve never been to before.

I ended up at Nanshijiao (南勢角) Station, which I still haven’t located on anything except a subway map. Although it was a very crowded area, I really felt like I was out in the sticks. The mountains were close, the only “sights” listed on the local map in the train station were McDonald’s, KFC and a Texas Instruments plant.

I walked for 30 minutes or so towards the mountains, hoping I could reach them, As I approached, I saw a large temple on the side of the hill, but as I neared, the road turned away. I wasn’t carrying a GPS so I didn’t want to loose my bearing on the station, so I returned, still wondering where the heck I was.

That evening, grandma took Michelle to the park. After an hour, I was beginning to wonder where they were. Soon a call came in, grandma couldn’t get Michelle to leave the park, so Irene and I had to walk over and get her.

While we were gone, James, who was asleep and left with grandpa, woke up and cried inconsolably. At this point, I suspect we’ll never get them to babysit again.