Frustration can eat away at one who waits. Waiting for the surf to get better, waiting to get all those end-of-year tasks done, basically waiting to get home. When the end of May comes round, we expect to jump on a plane and fly away home, but this year we still have 9 days to wait. The uninspiring surf and general weather conditions have added to our frustration; even Virg’n Mary have gone a little strange, no doubt reacting to the general malaise that is palpable right now.
Helen bid for a whizzo camera package for me on Ebay, Australia last week, but wasn’t successful. I had not allowed enough money for her to win the bid, so I was a little disappointed (and frustrated!). Cass and I went down to the camera hub of downtown Taipei last Friday evening to price a few new ones of the type I was after. We were mesmerized by the streets of camera shops, all butted up against each other, all vying for that precious sale. We walked from one to another to another in great long rows down the street, pitting them against each other for the best price. I discovered that for just $100 more than I bid, I could get the package I wanted, brand new. The irony is that the camera I’ve been looking at has been superseded and in the blink of an eye, all the shops have only the new model available, which does not come with a water-housing accessory. This is what I really wanted and of course the one shop, which still had the older model, offered it for a higher price than the new model!
The Taiwanese are much like the Japanese in this regard: only the latest, greatest, smallest, most powerful of electronics will do: I just wished I knew what they did with all their “old” stuff!
I hummed and hawed over spending the money and in the end, didn’t buy anything….just another toy after all. We again noted how familiar we are with our city here; turn me around 3 times in the middle of Sydney and I wouldn’t know where I was, but here, we can scoot through a labyrinth of interconnecting subway terminals and emerge within steps of our destination. We treated ourselves a KFC dinner on the 4th floor high above the street overlooking a surging Friday night mass of scooters, buses, cars and pedestrians, all of whom jockeyed for position in that unobtrusive and peculiarly Asian way. The MRT purred all the way home and after we alighted at Mingde, we wended our way through the back streets home. Halfway there, we heard some chanting and spied a class of young kiddies, still in school uniform, crammed into a small room, gaining instruction in some subject or other. These cram schools suck the life out of these poor little beggars: 9 o’clock on a Friday night, these kids should be home having their dinner and watching some mindless TV. This mentality could be part of the reason some Asian students perform in such a stellar fashion at our schools and universities: we just can’t comprehend their drive to succeed and their work ethic.
We made several abortive attempts to find a semblance of a wave this week and weekend. Did I mention frustration? Best to leave that one alone. If you want a good laugh and want to see what we are reduced to here, check the Pointies for more information. To add to our frustration (did I mention frustration before?) we looked longingly at surf reports, stills and live web cams from back home as the surf went off like a cracker over the weekend.
One minor victory of sorts was had: yesterday, I finally ate some spring rolls from the tiny Vietnamese shop/stall about 5 minutes ride from our house, and they were pretty delicious! So what, I hear you say….. well, we don’t have a Vietnamese restaurant here and this tiny little hole is the cause for much celebration. When we get home we plan to eat Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese (?!), lots of “Modern Australian” and of course some BBQ sausages and Ridge Street hamburgers!! Can’t wait….
Photos are of the last surviving gate from the original city wall, right next to “camera alley” and the very impressive Grand Hotel.