Wednesday - January 29, 2003
It seems to me that construction on the lantern is
going very slowly. The only thing standing are what might possibly be legs, but
if they are in their final position, the ram is really doing some
acrobatics
it's just 2 days from New Year and it doesn't seem possible
that they can get it done in time.
I checked with Chu-Wan and she told
me that it won't be done for new years. According to her, and you'd think she'd
know, there are no organized celebrations for Chinese New Year.
Everyone just spends the day with family, then some people go out on the
streets and light fireworks. The lantern at CKS is for the Lantern Festival
several days after new year.
This just doesn't seem possible. I
know I've seen pictures of the celebrations. Just yesterday I walked
into a bookstore and looked at a coffee table book of aerial pictures of Taipei
- one of which was a huge logjam of cars with caption like: "1999 Taipei City
Lunar New Year's celebration causes worst traffic jam in city
history."
It's been a few years since Chu-Wan was in Taipei for Lunar
New Years and apparently many more people stay in Taipei than in year's past. I
think they're instituted something and she just hasn't heard about it
yet.
More days of taking pictures of that same damn spot in the memorial
isn't all that appealing to me, but I'm committed now and I shall not falter
and I shall not fail.
Chu-Wan's friend Phoebe just came back from her
honeymoon and she took us out today.
For days now, I've been trying to
get over to the Quizno's Subs that's opened not too far from the house. It
doesn't look too much like a subshop, but more like a nice restaurant. I'm
curious as to how well Quizno's translated to Taiwan. I have high hopes as
Subway is virtually identical.
Phoebe showed up and she was really
lucky, there was an open spot along the street where she could park right in
front of the house. What surprised me was she got out of the car, left the door
open, said something to Chu-Wan and they left me to parallel park the
car.
I tried to explain I'd only parallel parked 3 or 4 times in my
life, but I don't think they believed me. (In fact, one of those times was my
driver's test when I was 21 years ago and I botched that badly.) I parked the
car, but I had to move all the seats, the mirrors and I managed to crush in the
front bumper a little bit, but it bounced back and since there isn't a car in
Taipei that doesn't have battle damage like that, I just ignored it. I figure
Phoebe's new husband will blame her or some passing taxi, so I'm in the
clear.
Not to pick on Phoebe, but she's the scariest driver I've ever
ridden with in Taipei. I believe her failing is simple lack of aggression.
Without it, you can never make a turn, merge lanes or get where you're going.
Since Phoebe was too cautious compared to the other drivers, they'd go around
her (on the left or the right) when she was trying to make left turns. To make
matters worse, she was catching up with Chu-Wan and not paying the due amount
of attention to the road.
There were a couple moments where I thought I
was just going to have to scream.
Quizno's, when we got there, was a
real disappointment. I think they use Taiwanese meat, which has an odd, perhaps
MSG flavor to it, and then they use thicker slices so you can taste it more. I
won't be going back.
We went to visit Phoebe's mother to show off
Michelle and spent a couple hours there with her mother fawning over the
baby.
After Phoebe dropped us off home, we headed back to the
photography studio to view the proofs.
There were 52 pictures in total
and we could only pick 32. The large (8X11) album (32 pictures, 8 full page), a
small album for Chu-Wan's parents and a poster done as a package deal at the
trade show the other day cost us about $US 175. Today, of course, the tried to
sell us the extra pictures for about $20 apiece.
To be fair to the
photographer, he got about 80% really nice pictures, and we're quite pleased
with the ones we chose. There were a few more that we didn't want to destroy,
but that's the kind of blackmail studios use to get you to buy more, and we
wouldn't budge. The album should be ready for us to pick up on the 14th of
February. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't keep the negatives until then
and try again.
On the way back, Chu-Wan was starving, so we stopped at
TKK Fried Chicken and had a bite to eat. TKK was the place with the sweet
potato french fries, so I carefully avoided those. The chicken is edible, but
just not right. I don't know how to describe it. Chu-Wan really likes it. |
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