Day One

Jerry had to be at work at 8:00 and had a long drive so he had to leave early. He got me up before he left, and we went and got some breakfast. I got a sort of an omlette. It is a thin piece of bread with an egg vegetable mix fried on top of and around it. The inside of the bread is filled with bean sprouts, which are quite crunchy. All together, it is quite a delicious item, though I have no idea what it is called. Jerry also got me a sweet rice soup mix. Also delicious. After I had my breakfast I wandered around a bit. I was about to go back to the house, when I heard someone yelling, and I turned around to see Jerry's mother chasing me waving one hand, while with the other she carried their dog. I forgot to mention the dog yesterday, but it is really a great dog. I was surprised in the first place that they had a dog at all, though I don't know why. It is a breed that we don't have in America, very small, with thin white white hair. You can see her little pink scalp underneath. It's hair is about one and half or two inches long except on its feet, where the hair is very short. Yuanyuan also has huge black eyes, and overall is a very cute little dog. Furthermore Yuanyuan has a great personality. She is not like other small dogs, constantly yapping and carrying on for no reason. She dose go sort of crazy when you first enter the room, but all you have to do is pick her up. She just wants to say hello. Then she will stare into your eyes, and after a little judgement she might decide to lick you. Even then she doesn't go crazy, and if she did, her tongue is too small to accomplish anything.

Anywhoo. Jerry's mom was chasing me, carrying Yuanyuan. She thought I got lost. On the way back home we got some fruit. One that I think is called dragon fruit. It has a red peel, with a few thin extrusions. Kind of thin triangles that come off of the fruit, all pointed towards one end. There might only be 8-10 on one fruit. The meat of the fruit is greyish white with many seeds. The seeds are similar to sesame seeds, though a little smaller, and they don't make the fruit anymore difficult to eat. Another kind of fruit is about the size and shape of grapes, but brown. You take of each one, then pinch the top, and the flesh comes out. It is chewy flesh, not too sweet, with a huge seed. I liked the dragon fruit, but the other seemed like a lot of work for not a lot of fruit.

After breakfast Jerry's mother helped me run errands. I had to get a bank account (for which I had to get an ID number in the R.O.C.), register and pay tuition at the school, get some small photos for a student id, and get a cell phone. It was mostly just me following and Jerry's mom doing all of the talking. I tried some, but it was mostly futile. For instance, at the bank the teller asked me if I could speak Chinese, and I told her I knew a little bit. As soon as she began speaking, I lost her, and she ended up speaking English. I don't really mind though. It is more important to understand these things, and get everything right than to only speak Chinese all the time. My cell phone number is 0968021008. I think the whole number you have to dial is 011-886-968021008 (I think you don't need the zero, but I'm not sure). The first two sets are the international code, and the country code respectively. Taiwan is twelve hours ahead of the east cost.

In the afternoon, after running errands, Jerry's mother drove me out to his job site. He builds climbing walls for a French company, Entreprises. Right now he is working in the northern part of the island, in a mountainous region. It was beautiful. I got to see bamboo forests, which was great because that was the original reason I started studying Chinese. Helping Jerry wasn't that interesting because it is really only a three man job, and I was the fourth man. He was also still in the beginning stages (bolting beams onto a concrete wall), so we weren't handling any of the textured panels that people would actually climb on. It was fun though, because Jerry and I were in a cherry picker (which offered quite a nice view), and I was able to learn some construction Chinese. While we were driving to dinner I saw a tree in the road. Not just a tree that had fallen into the road, or a tree that had started to grow into the road. This tree was in the roadbed when they built the road, and they just cemented around it. It takes up about a third of the road, but cars here are much narrower so it isn't too crazy. I was surprised the first morning when I woke up, I was watching traffic out the window, and one of the first cars I saw was a Lexus SUV. They are not uncommon, though the preferred method of transit is moped. After dinner, we worked a little bit more, and I went to bed early. Jerry hurt is toe right after I left, but I think he is ok.