Day 35 -- June 28

My bug bites kit...

It’s Friday! And an excellent day, it was. Last night after typing up the blog i had a bit of scare. My feet were noticeably swollen, I think I am having and allergic reaction to all the bug bites  have received. I have over 50 bites all of which are below my knees. I never get bit anywhere else. It’s a pretty nasty looking thing but i have recently taken some benedryl and the swelling in my feet has been reduced by a significant amount meaning it is very likely just an allergic reaction I am considering pulling out money to go buy pants, but I am concerned about my budget. If I buy pants then I may have to tighten down my food money and start walking to school instead of taking the bus. Not an ideal solution but I gotta figure something out, owning pants is becoming necessity. We’ll see how all that pans out. I will keep you updated to the state of my legs.

    Class was much more fun, we are starting in on talking about the family. These sections are usually not very useful in everyday conversation but it works out, gotta know the words one way or another. It turns out that everyone in the class has a pretty significant family size. Laoshi was surprised, but it’s not uncommon for Taiwan families to be small. Having a kid is expensive. Class ended on a fairly high note, I feel much better about learning this chapter than I do the other chapters. Hopefully that will all work out. I headed home and took a short break. Tonight was Alex’s last night in Taiwan, so we went to a little Mexican food joint. I kinda laughed at the thought of doing it Taiwan but we wanted to see how it was.

    I met up with Mikey, Daniel, Johnny, James, Nick Jillian, Alex and a new person Steven. We all walked to the place, I had actually run into all ready and kinda laughed at it. We went in and ordered our food, I got a burrito and enchilada combo. I will say this, Taiwanese people don’t know their Mexican food. It was very bland, I have mostly definitely made more flavorful food. I think that in terms of palate Mexican doesn’t mesh so they adjusted it to fit the taste. All the Americans were disappointed but the Europeans thought it was excellent. They need to try the real thing before they can understand how good Mexican food is. Something I will enjoy back in the states. The company was good and that is all that matters.

    We wandered around for a little bit and actually looped our way back to Shida, we decided hat tomorrow we would go have brunch as a send off for Alex who will be leaving at noon. After that Johnny and I walked back to Gong Guan because he had things to do and the bendryl was making me incredibly sleepy. (it still is as I type this, there may be more Engrish than normal in this blog post) We chatted for a bit, I got talk to him about living abroad and things. It’s always good to talk to the people I have traveled with to this place, in many ways they are becoming a family of sorts. It’s all very good. I will be going to Wulai tomorrow to do the hike I have been threatening. It looks like only Nick will be coming with me, but that’s chill we should have a good time. Well I am going to go to bed, Good night!