Still Smiling

It amazes me how sometimes you feel that your smile is forever gone, only to have it reappear without warning, bringing with it a happy feeling that somehow, someday, somewhere, things will be ok.

I'll be leaving soon and the transition between countries is always hard, but for some reason I'm still happy,  and while I am not sure why, I am grateful.

As I write I am being serenaded by crackling fireworks in the distance, and as I type the jingle of my new bangles from India are mixing in with the slight sounds of the TV, adding some music to the atmosphere. Thanks to my friend who gave me the lovely green and gold bangles :D I really like them.

Last night I went bowling with some friends, but one thing I refuse to tell you is my score after my second game of bowling. Needless to say, it is a number that I can count to in about 4 languages, and most of you know that I only know 1.25 languages, so that may tell you something significant about this number.

After bowling we headed off to a restaurant where apparently you can "hookah" - only I thought that was the name of the restaurant since I was told it was a Vietnamese restaurant. I was unprepared for the fact that there was such a place as a this, where you not only eat, but you smoke from these long pipes connected to large glass containers filled with flavoured tobacco and water, the latter which filters out the nicotine.

Anyway, in turned out that I left early and never got to watch my friends "Hookah" which was too bad. But I had homework and some things to take care of, such as finding my way back home. As soon as I left my friends, I headed in the general direction I thought we had came from, and promptly got lost. I was supposed to be heading to the MRT station but instead I found myself wandering around the night market area in downtown Taipei, finally finding myself nose to nose with a Mexican restaurant I had never seen before, so being the adventurous spirit I am, I went inside and ordered a vegetarian burrito. About 25 minutes later a small burrito appeared, stuffed with what appeared to be a salad mixture of coleslaw, onions, salad dressing, nacho cheese, and wonder of wonders, these delicious fried veggie meat cubes. I decided then and there that in the event they were not vegetarian, I would make an exception to my vegetarian preference and finish eating what I called the "meatlettes." The taste was, in my opinion, exceptional.

Apparently my meal came with "potato salad" which I kept looking for until I realised that I had just eaten it - a teaspon-worth of creamy potatoes hidden under a tablespoon of nacho cheese.

After my meal I decided I needed to eventually find my way home, so I set off in search of some form of transportation to get me there. I wandered around trying not to look lost, until I emerged from the maze of streets and surfaced to a main street, where I suddenly discovered where I was - about 40 minutes away from home in another part of town and quite far from the original MRT exit I had originally been at with my friends.

Thankfully I have enough vocabulary to tell people I need to find the MRT station, and thankfully, between pointing and gestures and words, I am quite sure I would understand anyone's directions, although following them would be a different story. But this time I didn't even need to ask, which made me even happier because it meant I am getting to know at least some parts of this large city.

I remember at the end of last year when my class and I were still in book 2 - the low intermediate/high beginner book. The "Orange Book." We have since advanced to the Blue Book and I feel very much an upper class man just for the fact that my book has changed color. Anyway, when we were in book 2, we were still practicing basic vocabulary and sentence structure, and I remember one assignment our teacher gave us was to ask three different Taiwanese to give us directions to three different places near our University, and our assignment was two-fold, practicing using our Chinese vocabulary for that lesson (giving directions) and, understanding when people gave us directions, and seeing if we could follow those directions.

Our assignment was to ask for directions and then follow them........ Our teacher however had somehow forgotten to take into consideration that we were in the middle of Taipei, one of the most foreigner-friendly cities I have ever been to, and guess what happened when we asked for directions? Two of us were personally escorted to the places we had asked directions to, as our new-found friends didn't want to see us get lost in Taipei with our limited Chinese skills!

So much for practicing our language skills. Our friends happily spoke to us in English :|

But it taught me that I never have to be afraid here if I get lost, because more likely than not there will be someone who takes pity on me or who just wants to help me out and will quickly point me in the direction I need to go, and may even walk with me part-way to make sure I don't get lost :)

But speaking of getting lost, I really need to end here because tomorrow I have to give a presentation on the geography of my home country (it was quite a task picking one). So I need to do some research and then translate that into Chinese vocabulary that I have. That will take a while as I need to first dig around and find my limited vocabulary...I think I left it in sitting on the teaspoon in that Mexican restaurant...

So until next time :) take care!