Tuesday - February 4, 2003
During the night the rain came and stayed. It was still raining
when we got up.
This morning, our plan was to meet Chu-Wan's friend,
Sam.
I like Sam. He reminds me a lot of my friends back home. Smart and
more than a bit quirky. He speaks English pretty well, and is employed as a
Japanese-Chinese translator. That puts him well ahead of me in the same three
languages I've tried to master. I suppose I probably speak more Spanish than he
does, but I'm not going to push the issue by asking.
The first thing I
did, though, was to go to 7-11 to buy breakfast. Again, my goal here was to
practice my Chinese. They keep the microwave behind the counter at 7-11, so
when you buy something that needs to be heated, such as their yummy pepper beef
over noodles, you pay for it, then they heat it up for you if so
requested.
They didn't have any pepper beef over noodles today. It
didn't seem to bode well for the day.
To make things convenient, we
arranged to meet Sam at the CKS Memorial so I could kill two birds with one
stone. However, the rain which looked like it was going to abate changed its
mind and started just as we headed out. We ended up being 30 minutes late, but
Sam was still at the designated point, standing in the rain waiting.
It
was still fairly early and there isn't much around the memorial in the way of
eating establishments - at least those with roofs, so we ended up over at
Hsimenting looking for places to stay out of the rain and shop. But as the rain
continued, we finally just returned to the house for the rest of the day and
visit with Sam.
The sound of firecrackers
has continued unabated for days. After the flurry of New Year's eve, the
fireworks died down to about 1 or two every 10 minutes but at all hours of the
day and night.
The rain stopped later in the afternoon, and in the
evening Chu-Wan and I went out for a walk. We passed Din Tai Fung which
was closed - at least there was no line in front, but the lights were on and
the doors were open. As we walked by we could see 3 or 4 security people in
helmets and flat vests looking over the ground floor. Two more were wandering
around outside. It was very curious and we have no explanation for what was
happening. |
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