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Friday, Jan 01, 2010
During the morning, we walked to the "fresh" market. As you can imagine, lots of fresh items are sold there. We bought some fruits, which turned out to be very tasty.
Terry and I later went for a quick jog. My GPS took forever to find satellites, so I wasn't able to track all the miles. That was frustrating, but c'est la vie. We also stopped by an Apple store (yeah, they have those here) for Terry to get an iPhone cover. The service there was great as they even installed the plastic shield. Nice to have niceties like that.
In the evening, we took the train north to meet some friends for dinner. The guy was an American who married a Taiwanese woman and teaches over here. It was great to chat with him and teaching and cultural things. The food was okay. I just wanted a salad, but somehow ended up ordering a salad, soup, bread, orange juice, and ice cream. Luckily, the portions were small and the price was low. Oddly, however, the beer was quite large.
Lesly and the girls returned home, but since it was still early in the evening, Terry and I went over to the Snake Market. This market is a lot larger than the others and, yes, it does have snakes. Several restaurants serve snake and even have large, LARGE snakes in cages out front. From what I gathered, there were some 12-foot plus boas or pythons in cages. One thing they don't allow, however, is photos. Any place with snakes had a sign saying, "No photos." I guess they don't want extra fuel for PETA. Interestingly, those places were not the most hygienic of eating establishments. I wouldn't want to take any chances with food poisoning, especially with potentially poisonous snakes being consumed.
Along the market, many wild items were sold. The variety was boundless. In some areas, the kids were playing pinball-type games and old-time carnival games. Other places had a large variety of adult toys and paraphernalia. The proximity of both was somewhat unsettling. Some of it I can't even describe online.
For kicks, we also wandered through the "brothel" area. It's just barely alive, and a sad sight, more than anything else. I hear that with the economy here being pretty good, one has to be really in a tight squeeze to need to resort to that line of work. The alleys were very dark and shady. Old mama-sans would try and beckon you inside, but we kept walking. It was amusing, but again, kind of sad.
As always, we returned home exhausted. I wanted to write, but was far too tired. I did muster up some strength to do some reading. Afterwards, I was out until morning.
It's weird to call this a vacation since it's so much physical work. I mean, the walking, touring, and traveling are fun, but definitely exhausting. Not that I'd want it any other way. The only way to see a foreign country is to get out and actually see it. They're not going to bring it all into your living room. Trust me, I've tried. The lady was very rude when she hung up on me after my third request. It's simply not done.