Wednesday - February 19, 2003
Our last full day
in Taipei started with a lot of packing of boxes. We boxed various books and
items not of immediate need when we return to the States and brought them to
the post office.
The woman working at the counter remembered us. Not
from when we'd bought boxes yesterday, but from when we'd last shipped boxes in
2001. Chu-Wan spent some time showing her Michelle's pictures that I carry in
my wallet. She recognized us, but she didn't recognize "Stinky Bunny" from
Michelle's photos.
Stinky Bunny is a large, pink stuffed bunny that had
been given to Chu-Wan some years ago. It had been owned by a young boy whose
mother got rid of it because it was too girlish. The poor bunny sat in
Chu-Wan's closet in her parent's house for years and had developed rather a
moldy odor, hence the name Stinky Bunny.
When we wanted to ship Stinky
Bunny back, this same postal employee tried to convince us it wasn't worth the
money to send the big bunny back.
After several months in Arizona's dry
air, Stinky Bunny has been renamed Smarty Bunny and holds an esteemed place in
Michelle's stuffed toy-collection. The bunny who got a second chance to be
loved by a child.
I won't hold her forgetfulness against her, I'm sure
she was concentrating on Michelle instead of the bunny.
Shipping came to
over $US 200 but there were no cheaper alternatives. Unfortunately, the
shipping was more money than we had. They told us to not worry about it and
bring in the extra money next time we shipped boxes - which could be
years.
Although they weren't expecting us to come back with the money
anytime soon, we immediately went home and scraped up the rest of the money and
returned to the post office - along with Michelle's new photo album. The postal
workers then took time out of their busy day to look at the album. From the
pictures, they also recognized Chu-Wan's father, since he regularly visits the
post office to check his mail box.
On Valentine's Day, we had originally
planned to go to Hsintien and take a paddle boat out on the water, then go see
a movie. We'd managed neither on Valentine's Day, but had since been to a
movie. Today we went to Hsintien for the paddle boats. We'd tried to do the
paddle boats on our 2001 trip, but it was too late at night when we got the
chance, so this had been an open item for some time.
It was very nice and there were very few other
people on the water, probably because it was a weekday and because it was
threatening rain. Sure enough, it began to rain while we were out on the lake,
forcing us to cut out outing short by 10 minutes.
We went home to check
on Michelle. Although Grandma doesn't have much problem looking after Michelle
anymore, she's come down with the cold Johnny brought home from the military.
(Chu-Wan's father has had it for several days.) She's trying to limit contact
with Michelle to protect her, which limits our options for
baby-sitting.
Michelle was being good so we managed enough time to go
out for a short food trip. Chu-Wan has been wanting to eat at TKK Fried Chicken
one more time before we go. In my book, TKK is OK but really the poorer of
Taiwan's fried chicken chains. TKK is the restaurant where I got (to my horror)
my first sweet potato "french fry" - nasty. This time, TKK has Golden
Curry Chicken Nuggets, which weren't bad. With a little experimentation, I
could make that a tasty snack. They really needed salt, though. You can't get
salt at a fast food restaurant, most places barely (if at all) salt their
fries. To my delight, Chu-Wan pulled a salt packet she'd stashed away for just
this eventuality. It was a packet of salt from Singapore Airlines, who we
haven't flown with since our 2001 trip.
This has really been the day for
running down that trip's memory lane - first the same postal worker, the fact
that I happen to have a picture of the bunny in my wallet, finally getting the
ride the paddle boats and then the salt packet. The coincidences were piling
up.
As with all "last evenings" in Taiwan, the trip isn't complete
without the big family dinner. (I proposed to Chu-Wan at one such dinner, then
got out of the country the next day.)
Chu-Wan's parent's try so hard to
include me in the family, but the language barrier is still too great for me to
participate. They also try so very hard to accommodate my taste in food. I
sincerely try to tell them not to go out of their way, but it doesn't work.
Sometimes, though, it really pays off. Tonight they took us (and the Huang 2s)
to a steak house. I managed to have a New York Strip steak, resisting the
temptation to try a Kobe beef steak, which was the most expensive item on the
menu at nearly $US30.
Luckily, Chu-Wan had the Kobe beef, so I finally
got to try some. It is unbelievably tender. During their lives, these cows
don't get to move, they listen to classical music and they get massages to
make sure they're tender beyond compare. It may sound a little crazy, but
whatever they do, it works.
This is not to say there was anything wrong
with my steak, there wasn't. It was a fine dinner and, with Michelle being
unable to hold meaningful conversations either, I could play with her, which
made the dinner a lot less of an ordeal.
All during the meal, the
waiters kept coming into our room, partially to check on us, partially to play
with Michelle. I'm going to miss that about Taiwan. A day doesn't go by without
at least a half dozen people stopping to look at Michelle and telling us how
cute she is. People sitting at other tables in restaurants cranes their necks
to look at her, you can read their lips as they tell the other people at the
table "How cote!" then point her out for them to look at. People walk out of
their way just to peak into her stroller and get a better look. The number of
people who have stopped and asked to hug her, hold her, kiss her or show her to
their friends is almost inconceivable. The Taiwanese have a genuine love of
babies and children, you can see it with their interactions with their own with
strangers' children. Michelle's hair color just makes her a magnet for all
their attention. It's completely different than the way people interact with
children and people with children in the States.
Our flight out is in
the early evening tomorrow, and we've got much of our stuff packed up. We've
got a few more errands to run tomorrow and I'd like to eat at the popular beef
noodle place, Din Tai Fung and Bunny Listens to the Music. It's going to be tough to work all that in.
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