This morning we went for a walk with yet another aunt (Sarko, as in Nicol, which in Chinese means either second aunt, third aunt, last aunt, or some other number of aunt; I've lost track) around the big park near the flat. It was like a dreamscape, a long-abandoned graveyard partially reclaimed by jungle: very misty, (and quite early), so not many people out walking, but every so often through the mist we would come across a group of people doing tai chi, for example, or an old guy playing Amazing Grace on his clarinet next to the lake, or another guy doing breathing exercises while listening to what sounded like sort of a menacing motivational speaker on mini speakers strapped to his belt. There were also collections of signs exhorting you to examine nature (and a few totally bizarre inexplicable ones, such as “Beware of Picasso,” with an unmistakably Cubist picture of a woman, just in case you were in any doubt), and then random clearings with large abstract sculptures of the sort that probably looked better when they were first commissioned by some well-meaning political committee for Public Artworks, and before forty years of exposure to a tropical climate gave them that slightly wilted look of painted metal and concrete so characteristic of Communist architecture.
We also stopped for coffee at a convenience store, where I was served by a clerk of indeterminate gender wearing glasses that were so exclusively for fashion statement purposes that they didn’t even have lenses in the frames. Apparently this is a common thing; I need to look out for more because it is frankly awesome. (In this case, the look was completed by a big swoosh of bangs carefully gelled into place to completely cover the left eye _underneath_ the glasses frame, so you didn‘t miss a moment of the no-lenses frames-only fashion statement). Baby and I opted for a rice & shrimp triangle wrapped in seaweed - yummo - instead of coffee. It is weirdly gratifying to see her taking so naturally and avidly to food that I distinctly remember being scared of well into my teens (I first had nori in New York age 13 and thought it was icky).
Back to the house for a nap (babies & babydaddy) and a review of Taiwanese history in my guidebook plus pathetic attempt at drawing sleeping family members (me); we’re going out for lunch with godmother soon.
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Later - wow, that was not lunch, that was an edible orgy. There is a mafioso quality to expeditions here: what happens is that we receive instructions (how, I am not sure, because I never see anyone actually talking on the phone) to be downstairs at exactly x o’clock, so we pile downstairs at the appointed hour, through the lobby still incongruously decked out with blue-fairy-lit Christmas tree, onto the street, into the borrowed silver minivan, except for babydaddy, who climbs into the back of a nearby mystery car with tinted windows (everyone has tinted windows here); whereupon all vehicles do a sixteen point U-turn to get back out onto the main road and we follow the mystery car (which turns out to contain a relative who has not been seen for many years, or in today‘s case, a godparent) to food destination, narrowly escaping death by psychotic moped-driver multiple times.
This afternoon’s food destination was inside a super posh shopping mall (we entered through the Bvlgari store…), up some elevators which I just have to take a moment to describe because the baby was totally dazzled and kept saying “Wow! Wow! Wow!” over and over again, and I have to say, I kind of agreed with her. The elevator was lit only by tiny little fairy lights stuck onto the mirrored walls and ceiling, so you had infinite reflections of little fairy lights and it felt like you were in outer space with zillions of stars all around you. Confirming the poshness of the shopping mall was the Hello Kitty themed wedding party that was going on when we got off the elevator… anyway, into the restaurant, sit down at big round table, and start to Eat with a capital E. I am starting to recognize some favourites: soup dumplings, pork sesame triangular pastries, more of the bean curds in syrup (ginger-infused this time…. mmmm…..) as well as some new things: lotus roots, egg tarts, some delicious shrimpy business.
The highlight of the meal, however, was when the baby decided to go for a sip of my nearly full glass of beer; I don’t actually know what percentage went in her mouth and what percentage went all over her, but I know that each was > 0% because when I turned to see what she was squawking about, she was sopping wet and making her “I just swallowed something horrible” face. I did not, of course, have a clean outfit to put her in, so wild mama H. and I hustled off to the loo to at least get her into a clean nappy, and I had what I thought was the rather nifty idea of putting my T-shirt on her (I was wearing a jersey as well, don’t worry), so she was at least semi-decent, but after a few minutes back at the table wild papa H suddenly disappears and it turns out he is off buying her an outfit somewhere in the shopping mall oh mortification. He comes back with a fetching little red shirt, which we put her in, and I’m hoping that is the end of it, but then five minutes later godmother goes haring off to buy some trousers as well, and wild mama H is honour-bound to chase after her and have a credit card battle, and eventually they come back with pants for both my beer-soaked baby & baby’s much better behaved non-beer-soaked little cousin, just to be fair. I don’t think baby & me will be allowed back in that particular restaurant, needless to say, so I’m glad we made the most of things, food-wise.
After that, the original plan had been to go climb a mountain where there are lots of monkeys and mosquitoes (this is the sum total of what I know about this mountain, but since people keep repeating these two facts, I feel like they’re pretty solidly in the data banks at this point), but frankly after that lunch, there was no fucking way, so instead we came home and slept for two hours while the grandparents (bless them. I mean it. They are wonderful) took care of the still manic little girls. Then up again to go to the night market and then to visit yet more aunties, but that is going to have to wait for another day because I am a tired little soybean and it is time for bed.
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