First Saturday

I know I said my next post would be about my apartment, but not yet.

So our school has two principals: Monica and Lucy. I think they're mother/daughter but I'm not quite sure. Lucy was a foreign exchange student in L.A. and has perfect english, so that helps a lot. Monica speaks well too but sometimes I need a translator. But anyway, two very nice people.

Today they took 5 of us foreign teachers out to brunch in Jhubei (about twenty minutes away...I live in Jhunan...not that that makes any difference to you...or me for that matter!). It was so much fun. I had no clue, obviously, where we were going but it ended up being somewhere very ritzy. They brought us fancy drinks and about every five minutes they came out with another plate, one after the other for a good hour, all full of different foods. From french fries to tree roots. All eaten with chop sticks.

I got the Honey Lemonade. It was phenomenal.

No clue what this was but it was delicious.

Above are the roots. They don't look like roots, but they are.

I did not eat it all, but it all was awesome.

So then someone I don't know gave us a ride back to our apartment. We have an electric metal door that goes up and down with a click from our remotes on our keychain. It's actually really cool. Anyway, we walk up to it and find this note:

It says:

"Kristi and Craig - No electricity in the house so the gate won't open. Should have someone coming to fix it around 6 pm. - Luis (a guy we live with)."

It was currently 2:45.

So we had nothing to do but wait in the cold. I guess we could have walked to a local store or something and sit there but we didn't. It's hard to explain the neighborhood we live in but it's not that transient, at least as far as I can tell so far. So we sat in the chilly weather and waited.

This picture is exaggerated but it was chilly.

Not happy.

Finally, around 5 I decided to just press my clicker to see if it would work and lo and behold, the gate went up! So we were able to get in.

It was an eventful (and delicious) first saturday, that's for sure. Still learning a lot about where I am and getting advice on things to go see while I'm here.

Meanwhile, they have this everywhere:

7/11 Heaven!