Well ...

I've been living here for over two months now, and I hate to say this, but I still think a lot of Asian people look a lot alike. I even thought I saw Jerries mom working at the grocery store the other day. At first I was surprised, then worried because I owed her money, and I didn't have any on me to pay her back, then I realized it wasn't her.

And another thing. Up until this week I thought all the restaurants I ate in were very clean with no problems, just like the states. But earlier this week I was eating lunch and saw a rat running across the floor. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a pet rat either, though it did seem pretty accostomed to having the run of the place. And just yesterday I got served a piece of honey toast with ants on it. While I was debating whether or not to take I could get my money back for it, or whether or not I could eat it and get my money back for it, one of the people at my table took all the ants off. Now that there were no ants on my toast my options were a lot more limited. I couldn't very well take a peice of toast up there with no ants on it, and say that there had been ants on it, and I wanted my money back. So I just ate the toast.

This afternoon I got an opportunity to try the Taiwanese version of chewing tobacco (I don't think it has as many negative side affects, but it does turn your mouth red temporarily). There is a nut (very similar to an acorn) wrapped in a small leaf. You bite the end off the 'acorn', spit that out, then put the rest in your mouth and start chewing. It wasn't bad really. I thought it tasted a little like meat. I had swallowed a couple mouthfulls of spit before I asked my teacher if that was ok or not. Apparently you can but most people don't. So I spat out the rest of the 'mouth water' (chinese for saliva). Overall it wasn't terrible, but I don't think I'll be buying it for myself any time soon.