1. Stickers on appliances advertising the appliance's features tend to be left on. Forever. This is how I know that that bathtub in the flat has a "Power Wow Pump" (don't you want one of those?!?). "Compact Design, Reliable Operation, Whisper Quiet Operation, Lower Amperage Draw, and Amazing Performance".
2. When babydaddy and wild brother-in-law went to buy coffee at Starbucks, the barista asked babydaddy for his surname to write on the cup, so that they could call it out when his order was ready. Babydaddy asked (Caucasian) brother-in-law, hey, how did they manage your surname? to which wild BIL replied, what? they didn't ask me for my surname. Babydaddy looked at BIL's cup, and the barista had written "white guy" in Chinese.
3. Baby's face is open season for anyone with a wiping cloth. (The waiter in the hotel restaurant came up to her twice to wipe her face while eating breakfast two days ago, although there are clearly some etiquette points here, as both times he waited until babydaddy had got up to go and get a coffee refill).
4. "Inside voice" is not really a thing here.
This morning we climbed, as promised, the mountain with mosquitoes and monkeys; I am pleased to report that there were WAY more of the latter than of the former. We hiked up a beautifully maintained trail through banyan trees up to the top of a steepish mountain (I burned off one and a half mochi red bean cakes carrying the baby) where, of course, there was a Taiwanese chiringuito where we had tepid tea. Macaques absolutely everywhere, completely unafraid of humans (presumably because many humans, despite all the posted warnings, were feeding them). They are quite sweet to look at, especially the baby ones, but there were a couple of less sweet moments, one when two monkeys decided to have a teeth-bared screeching fight within two feet of baby; I don't think I have ever moved to pick her up or jumped mentally to fear-of-baby-contracting-rabies so quickly before.
The second was when a boy monkey decided to make sweet tender love to a nearby (completely nonplussed/oblivious) girl monkey; the whole thing lasted about seven seconds, and then after girl monkey wandered off to go rub her bum on some grass, boy monkey decided to eat his own ejaculate eeeeeeuuuuuuwwwwwwww. Anyway. The view from the top of the mountain was great, and like I said, very few mosquitoes. :)
After lunch we left baby in charge of wild mama H. and went out to the shops on a book-buying spree; the plan had been to get some kids' books in Mandarin so that baby has got something to read once she can actually say more than "cat" and "pick me up" in Chinese . Bizarrely, the vast majority of the books in the children's section were actually in English, which either indicates a huge push towards English education, or a vast and invisible expat population with a surge in birth rates about 2-5 years ago. Either way, we found both a book about cats AND a book called "Pick Me Up", so our bases are covered.
Dinner out at a little Vietnamese joint around the corner, then for a Love Boat River tour which sounds a lot, lot sexier than it actually was; a little half hour pootle up the river in a covered tour boat to the harbor with a lumpish twenty-something equipped with a microphone pointing out the scenic attractions of riverside Kaohsiung (I think I liked best the twin apartment buildings with neon diamond rings on top of them, apparently to connote total luxury living)... then home, bath/bed for baby (who was so tired she gave up after only one and a half renditions of "Dos Gardenias Para Ti," and one of "Three Old Ladies Locked in the Lavatory"), a brief and pathetic stab at sketching a glass (doomed, especially when I am this tired), and now to bed. No idea what plan is for tomorrow beyond 'going to see ancestors for New Year and we bring food,' but I will report as faithfully as I can. Love to all....
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