We experienced a classic Taiwanese service comedy on Sunday
as a clapperboard of "Wovie girls" tried to undo an error made by
one of their number as she tried to sell us some movie tickets. Something had
happened which caused the ticket printing machine to malfunction and that's
where the fun began. Instead of just moving to another register (of which there
were many), they had to try to rectify the error at this one, despite the fact
that the movie was about to start! After re-trying three times with another
girl, a third employee was called in to help. When she failed, the manager was
called over. After dismantling the ticket machine, re-assembling the roll of
tickets, dropping it and allowing it to unfurl, re-rolling it and starting up,
the machine still failed to deliver. Then, instead of simply walking us a few
metres to their colleague at the ticket collecting entrance, the manager hand
wrote our tickets in every tiny detail! Wow, only in Taiwan!
The "Wovie" movie we eventually saw was quite
confronting and disturbing, yet excellent. Spotlight is about the expose by
reporters from the Boston Globe of the systematic abuse and cover up of abuse
by priests in the greater Boston area. The scale of the cover-up/secret payments was
mind-blowing and started a world-wide recognition of this disgraceful practice. At the end
of the film was a sobering list of areas throughout the world where similar
cases came to light and were prosecuted….Newcastle, Australia was among them.
On Saturday, after brazenly deserting our longtime favourite and
going to Burger Ray instead last week, we again visited Eat Burger, tucked down a tiny
lane in the shadow of the Zhishan MRT station. We're spoiled for choice on the
gourmet burger joints at the moment…which is probably not such a great thing
for our waistlines! It was just as tasty and with an enjoyable ambiance as
usual. Afterwards, we wandered across to the big Carrefour store to get a few
extra food supplies after earlier doing the big weekly shop at Wellcome. In what is a very long
awaited change, the supermarket section downstairs has finally opened up a few
checkouts at that level. Previously, (and weirdly) you had to do your grocery
shopping downstairs, then take your laden trolleys or baskets up to the next
floor and wander through the aisles upstairs before getting to the checkouts!
It was obviously meant to sell more product, but after more than a decade of
inconveniencing the casual food shopper, commonsense has finally prevailed. It
was a revelation to be able to just cruise out the bottom floor and be on our
way…..small things, eh?!
We've
got a couple of very important events coming up in the next month. I'm
off to Nagasaki! The week before Spring Break at the end of March, I'm
heading off to Nagasaki to catch up with Gurecki. After a few false
starts, we've finally worked out a time that will suit all parties. The
added bonus for me will be my arrival at quite an auspicious time for
the annual cherry blossom viewing in the south of the country. While not
at their optimum, there should be some great photo fodder, so expect
to be awash in pink come the start of April. The following weekend we'll be
welcoming back Cassy's parents for a couple of weeks: it will be
interesting to see if they notice any changes since their last visit,
which was about 5 years ago. We're planning to do not much at all except
to have a good old-fashioned catch-up and a bit of a wander around and
drive to re-acquaint them with the sights: I'm pretty sure we'll manage
to eat, drink and be merry just a little as well!
Photos
are very scarce for some reason today: I think I'd holstered the phone
after Chinese New Year and forgot to draw it again! There are some
Youbikes, and a few grainy shots of our Eat Burger and Wovie adventures. I'm still reading Barry
Maitland while Cass is reading "Euphoria" by Lily King. I've put another video up top, this time of our private viewing of the Austrian imperial furniture collection!
