Sunday, October 6, 2024
You might want to go back and read my Prelude to Day Two to understand my motivations for the day: Avoid spending time with my in-laws.
I'm writing this snippet on Day Six. I've been writing this account of Day Two since Day Two, and I wouldn't say I like it. I mean, I actively hate it. It doesn't flow. Nothing happens. It's boring. I feel like I've set it up to be epic, but it wasn't. I'm sorry. I'm going to finish writing it anyway. You can come back for Day Three if you like, maybe it will be better.
I cannot speak Chinese, but I understand more than they think I do. Yesterday, I heard them planning to feed me pizza, despite the fact that they don’t like pizza, and it would not be pizza I liked. My wife was urging them not to do it. They weren’t listening.
This gave me nearly 24 hours to plan an exit strategy.
Dammit, my in-laws prefer eating Chinese food. My wife has returned to Taiwan so she can eat real Chinese food that she cannot get in Arizona. Don’t fucking plan your meals around me!
Go eat what you want, be together, do all that talking in Chinese that I cannot understand (or at least participate in) and don’t worry about me. I’m a grown man, I can feed myself, and I can amuse myself without relying on the company of others.
You’re not offending me. You’re not hurting my feelings. You’re making me feel bad because you aren’t enjoying yourselves.
And we simply cannot get that through to them.
But that’s not how Day Two began. It began by waking up at 3:00 AM, starving. I used the opportunity to write up my Day One blog, and then, around 6:00 AM I realized I wasn’t going back to sleep, I decided to have another soaking bath.
…and I promptly fell asleep in the tub, again. This time for over an hour. At least it was finally time to go out and get some breakfast. There’s a 24-hour Yoshinoya in the area, I could get a gyudon bowl. There’s plenty of green onion pancake vendors. There’s a place nearby that makes a mean plate of spaghetti for breakfast. There’s omurice. There are loads of neat things to eat in the area.
Oh no. We couldn’t have that. Our room comes with free breakfast buffet, and that’s what my wife insisted on having. We’re not wasting that money!
The buffet was some very unappetizing looking buns, oddly pale fruits, gruel, and various forms of pork lint. My wife saw what was on offer and looked at me, “There’s a 7-Eleven nearby. We can go there afterward.”
…and so I had toast at the buffet before heading to FamilyMart for food. (Turn left out the door of the hotel, you hit 7-Eleven, turn right, you hit FamilyMart.)
Breakfast at FamilyMart was a hot dog. I’m guessing it was pig. I certainly wasn’t cow, chicken, or that unique, delectable blend of mystery meat so common in low-end dogs.
On my first trip to Taiwan in ’98, I got very ill, and I still needed to build up a repertoire of Taiwanese food I could eat. Recovering, I was still feeling like crap, and we were out somewhere a little less urban, and I was starving, and we came across a 7-Eleven, and they had a hot dog. It was like a light from heaven shining down on me as I bought that dog and hastily devoured what, to this day, I’ll still describe as the worst hot dog I’ve ever eaten. I have not had a convenience store hot dog in Taiwan since then, until today.
This was still weird but wasn’t inedible, and it came with what seemed like a damned clever half-mustard, half-ketchup packet for the dog. Now, to be clear, ketchup doesn’t belong on a hot dog, and that’s a hill I’ll die on, but I can acknowledge ingenuity when I see it.
That is until I realized that the packet is designed to open both halves and dispense both together, either depriving the dog of the essential mustard or ruining it with ketchup. It was a tough choice. I tried circumventing the pouch and ended up with mustard on the hot dog and ketchup on my hands.
While eating breakfast, Melz and I conspired to avoid being at the in-laws’ house all day.
Taipei has a couple of underground shopping malls, and just before leaving, I saw that a new one had recently opened at the newly completed Taipei Dome. We headed there but were very disappointed. It was very empty, and most of the shops and restaurants were closed.
We decided to go to one of the older ones near Zhongxiao Fuxing station. We spent some time there and didn’t find anything interesting, and still, several shops were closed. Yes, it was Sunday but I’ve never noticed that being an issue before.
We decided to go into Sogo (a Department store located at the same station), and even that was weird. Security guards were everywhere, and the store escalators were cordoned off, save for the underground food court. At one point, a security guard followed us to help us leave.
We took the hint and decided to go elsewhere.
Melz wanted to buy a belt but didn’t want to buy it at the big department stores because they tend to be expensive. We decided to try Uniqlo, which was pretty close, but that’s when we realized they opened at 11:00 AM, and it was only 10:55 AM.
Could it be that the other places didn’t open till 11:00 AM, too?
The nearest Uniqlo was in the Breeze Center, and we struck out looking for a belt – at least a belt that fits. We did find some gifts for folks back home, so the trip wasn’t wasted, and it was now lunchtime, and also my back was killing me. It hadn’t recovered from the flight, yet. I needed to sit down for a while.
Knowing that we were avoiding being at the house so that the in-laws wouldn’t order pizza, I decided we were going to go have pizza, but, and this was the important part, we could never tell them where we went!
We went to Pizza Rock, a small Taiwan-based chain set up by a foreigner. I heard about it just before we left Taiwan on the last trip but never got to try it.
Let’s start by saying I’m incredibly proud of my kid. Not long ago, Melz wouldn’t special order food in a restaurant that wasn’t explicitly printed on the menu, yet here they were, ordering pizza in Mandarin. I was really moved at how far they’ve come.
Bonus: Pizza Rock sells Dr Pepper, which is damned rare in Taiwan, and an extra treat for Melz and me.
The damage done to my back by the plane flight continued to bother me, and walking the streets wrecked me for the rest of the day. I returned to the hotel for a long nap.
Later that night Chuwan and I met up with Melz again, originally to go for a curry katsu, but somehow ended up having Bafang dumplings. 25 potstickers and a bowl of soup all for under $US 7. Taiwan can be very economical.
Train trip tomorrow.