Pretty trite idiom but my situation this Zhong Qiu Jie reminded me of it. I was pissed when I found out we were no longer going to Peng Hu for the long weekend (we were going to stay at this girl's beachfront house in Peng Hu and go scuba diving and have a blast...but then she had to get called away on work in Shanghai, China...). I was so bothered about not having any plans for the long weekend I had a crummy workout during gymnastics, which is usually so much fun.
I think yesterday made up for it though. Even though I barely got any sleep since I had to be up by 9 AM for the long drive to Danshui, Ba li to be specific.
I slept through most of the ride in the car (my cousin's ex-'Da Bi' or 'Big Nose' drove us). He has a striking resemblance to Wang Leehom. Later, we picked up 'Da Pai' ('Big Dick,' pai is penis in Taiwanese). I don't know any of their real names...only their nicknames.
I slept through most of the ride though, since I was up late the previous night. I went over to Mike's place and then Chris showed up and we drank Whiskey and coke and shot the shit. Then we all went to 9% (a nightclub), which is all you can drink with a 600 or 650 NTD-I don't remember-cover charge. I think it's been way too long since I've drank...since I got really wasted.
Anyways, when we got to the Formosa Water Park or Ba Xian Le Yuan in Ba li, we met up with Da Rei and his girlfriend and Lao Die ("Old Father" bc he's the first out of the group to have married and have kids...his family is in California and he's flying back today). All 4 guys knew each other from college and it's weird bc 3 of them are all the SAME height-my guess is 6 ft 2 and Lao Dei is around my height but much more portly. . Apparently, Lao Dei lost his front tooth bc "Big Penis" guy elbowed him in the fucking face during basketball! He has a fake tooth there now and apparently he's still going to the dentist about it ...and it's been 2 yrs since the incident.
[They seem like a great group of guys. Last night, after dinner they went to some INDOOR place to fish for SHRIMPS...which sounded odd to me. They were going to go around 1 AM and then stay until at least 3 AM. So apparently after you catch the shrimps there's a place to grill them right there so you can catch and eat fresh shrimp--sounds delicious and fun! They said they would take me some time].
I didn't know what to expect from the water park bc I went to one in Hong Kong called Ocean Park and it was lame. This one was SWEEET though! It was worth the hefty 520 NTD student admission ticket. The lunch there was complete SHITE though...and it was 200 NTD too.
Dinner made up for it though. We were going to have a BBQ but since everyone was too tired from playing at the water park (there was barely anybody there-since it was raining a little off and on-so there were NO LINES so we just kept running up 6, 7 flights of stairs to go on the rides we went on each ride at least 5 times and some rides as much as 10 times or more haha quite a workout, but so much fun!
So Da Bi drove us to Tian Mu, an area w/ lots of foreigners in Taipei Shi (Taipei City) and Lao Die knew the chef, Michael Wendel, the place is called Wendel's. It's the first time I've had German food and it was fucking amazing. I ate so much. I didn't take pictures of the food like I did before besides the one signature dish, the "German pork knuckles." It's the German take on zu jiao (Chinese style pigs' feet).
(The photos of Chef Wendel and everyone else, including me, are on my cousin's camera).
German pork knuckles with bread balls and mustard.
ceiling shots...I was bored waiting for my pint of beer & desserts
Lao Die is in the Ecko shirt, Da Rei is in the black Nike shirt...Da Rei shared a story about when he went to Cambodia how some masseuse girl unbuttoned his shirt and then proceeded to reach down his chest and massage his breasts...hahaha. After talking to many locals and tourists, he later found out that that is not the standard procedure for that massage...He also said they had told him to wear their traditional attire, which consisted of 2 armbands and a belt...He politely declined and kept his boxers on haha!
A shot I took after we finished the main courses....yes we were all ravenous after the water park and we devoured all those dishes in no time at all. We made a mess too.Chef Wendel also brought out a tray with about 20 different desserts. There was strawberry and creme cake, chocolate and cherry and creme cake, brownies, carrot cake, apple pie, a banana chocolate creme cake (w/ a real banana in the middle!), and more...
Oh and the guys got Warsteiner draft (the Erdinger was more expensive) while the girls got half beer and half Sprite drinks (I tried some of it...and it was disgustingly sweet).
Oh and the bill wasn't nearly as much as I expected...it came out to be 650 NTD per person (since Lao Die knew the chef he gave us a discount plus didn't count the girls' drinks and I don't know if charged for the desserts). I didn't bring enough money so Yun Han's ex covered us both w/ a credit card.
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In other news, my expected monthly cell phone bill was supposed to be around 300 NTD....I got the bill and it's 891 NTD! I don't know what the fuck happened and I can't read the charges...I called my other cousin, Hong Yi and told him I want to change my fucking plan. He said he would change my plan from 300 minutes to 500 minutes...I'm gonna call him later and see if i can get more minutes.
Tonight I think I'm supposed to have BBQ with my cousin's younger sister, Xiao Lu, but she hasn't called me so I'm not sure. (BBQ is one of the customary ways of celebrating Zhong Qiu Jie. The teacher said most Taiwanese, get together to eat mooncakes, wen dan or you zi, and have a BBQ).
I had to do a massive amount of laundry today! It's insane how fast soiled laundry builds up in Taiwan...in ATL I usually do laundry every 2 weeks or so and I'm fine since I can recycle t-shirts and stuff. That's completely out of the question here since I'm always SWEATING. Today, I completely ran out of boxers so I've been free-balling this entire day...well I've been inside most of the day but I did go out to Welcome (Ding Hao) grocery store and had some dumplings at the nearby restaurant. I'm actually out of hangers now....so I'm leaving whites for tomorrow. The problem is it's been raining all day...so my clothes are still damp.
Speaking of tomorrow, I'm going with my other cousin (Yun Han), and other relatives to Yi Lan. We are driving there and going to hot springs and...stuff (I don't know anything about the place but I think I've heard of it before). I'll post when I'm back. Apparently I'll be staying there for a night.
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