Wednesday - February 12, 2003
It was mostly a quiet day today.
I woke up a
bit earlier than usual and got out on my walk right away. Work is progressing
on the ancillary lanterns and two streets bordering the memorial are now lined
with tents, which will most certainly be vendors selling food. The musical band
of goats looks almost complete.
The weather was about the same as
yesterday, perhaps a bit warmed, so we headed to the zoo.
On my last
visit to the zoo, the entire city was crazy over the acquisition of koalas at
the zoo. Not too long ago the koalas produced a baby koala, setting off the
craze again. Sadly, the baby koala died and then the mother shortly thereafter.
With the death of the koalas, all the artwork around the zoo depicting mother
and baby was rather sad.
On the train ride to the zoo, the rain began.
It was mostly just a mist, but it continued the entire time we were there. The
people outside the zoo selling disposable cameras, film and stuffed animals had
adapted to the circumstances and were out with umbrellas in force.
Next
to the zoo a shopping mall call the "Zoomall" has popped up. After we gave up
on the zoo, we went over there to look around and find food. We stopped in the
Ponderosa Steakhouse, which is apparently a chain. It had a decent steak and a
salad bar with salad, soup, nachos and deserts. All-in-all it wasn't
bad.
At the Metro station something finally dawned on my that's been
nagging at my subconscious for some time. "Why is there always a
cleaning woman in the bathroom at the train stations?" I don't mean why does it
feel that way, I mean there really is a woman there all the time, usually
two.
I'm sure I haven't mentioned this so far, but I try to arrange my
bathroom trips with visits to the Metro. The plumbing in the house isn't up to
snuff right now, with two out of three bathrooms out of commission and I'm
paranoid about clogging up the third. I want it to be working in times of
crisis.
Each morning, I visit the restroom at the CKS Memorial Metro
station and each morning there is a cleaning woman or two either moping the
floor or cleaning the sinks, it doesn't matter what time of the morning.
Sometimes I use the one at Kuting station or Hsimenting station
of any of several others - and there's always a cleaning crew working over the
bathroom.
Today, I used the
restroom at the Taipei Zoo Metro station when we arrived and they were there. A
few hours later, I used it again on the way out and they were still cleaning
that restroom! Prior to this, I just thought it was bad timing, but now I
realize, each Metro station has its own cleaning crew on site from open to
close and they have nothing better to do than clean the bathrooms all
day.
I'm going to start checking all the restrooms at the Metro stations
and see if I can ever find a time when they aren't being cleaned.
When
we returned I learned that Chu-Wan's parents had planned to take us to a
steakhouse for dinner and now their plans were thrown into disarray because of
our lunch choice. I assured them that if I could just eat steak three meals a
day I'd be eating like a king and to go ahead and continue with their original
plan.
That fell through when it was learned the entire restaurant had
been reserved for a company party this evening. As an alternative, we ended up
going to Vino & Chianti Gelato. An Italian restaurant run by someone
I'd guess to be American. My lasagne was very good, but this was an upscale
restaurant, not the kind of place you take a baby to, nor go unshaven after
spending the whole day in the rain at the zoo. Nonetheless, they let us in and
I wasn't the scruffiest looking American in the place, but the rest of the
patrons where dressed well and obviously on dates. Oh well, it's something they
have to look forward to, and Michelle was well-behaved, although we did have to
keep feeding her "Hello Kitty Baby Biscuits" to keep her occupied. |
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