Me, Bargain???

I sure know how to spend money.

I think I left this morning with a little under $4000NT in my wallet, and I've come home with only a few hundred. During the week, I'm the cheapest and most picky spender there is, and then on the weekends, poof! It all vanishes. I'm too easily seduced by the sight of milk tea, stand after stand of roasted chicken and sausages and fresh fruits and vegetables, golden trinkets, and shiny jade. Let's face it: I'm easy.

Due to the weather, I decided to postpone Danushi until tomorrow or next week. Instead, I decided to visit the National Taiwan Museum, which supposedly housed a bunch of aboriginal Taiwanese artifacts, and 228 Peace Park nearby. The Taiwan Museum was interesting, although everything was in Chinese, which kinda sucked. I still got the jist by looking at things, and there was this cool exhibit on the top floor about how the Taiwanese dye things and all the different plants and stuff those dyes come from. It was a smallish museum, nothing like National Palace, but no one can really compare to that. I think most of the museums I visit from here on out will be of the smaller nature. After that I walked around 228 Peace Park, with a fair number of people chilling on benches and a few elderly people doing Tai Chi in between the trees, even if it was hot and drizzling. I then saw a sign for the 2-28 Peace Museum, which I had not previously been aware of, so I meandered on over and headed in.

A view of the front of the Taiwan National Museum. All in all, a classy building.

A museum exhibit of the various plants used to make dyes. I took this picture super quickly and secretly.

I had never even heard of the 2-28 Incident until I entered the museum and read the brief English intro. Basically it was a massive uprising on February 28, 1947 between native Taiwanese citizens and the officials and police working under the ROC. The people rebelled after an old woman was assaulted by police looking to confiscate black-market cigarettes, and following the uprising marshal law was declared and tens of thousands were shot dead indiscriminately in the following days, especially if anyone was out after curfew. I walked around the museum for awhile (again, only looking at pictures, not being able to understand a word), and made my way out again to the park. On the way back to the MRT Station, I stopped by this place called "Mos Burger" or something like that, an Asian hamburger chain. I was intrigued because when I passed by I saw an ad reading, "New! Nan Taco!" A naan taco? I asked myself. Okay, why not?

Peace Park Lake.

No Drowning Allowed!!!

A stone denoting the 228 Memorial Museum. I thought it was a classy way to make a sign.

One of the bigger stuctures in 228 Peace Park.

Main sculpture in the middle of the park. I'm not sure of the significance, but I'll look into it.

My first naan taco. Not bad at all, but definitely interesting: Mexico meets India meets Taiwanese beef and American hamburger.

After finishing my naan taco, I headed back over to the MRT Station and made my way to Longshan Temple. Built in 1738, the Longshan Temple features a roof with multiple eaves and exquisitely carved pillars and beams. Listed as a Class 2 historical site, it is the best preserved temple of its time in Taiwan. The front hall is for the worship of the Goddess of Mercy, while the rear hall is dedicated to Mazu, Goddess of the Sea. It was quite the site. Flocks of people stood everywhere with incense and food, all taking their turn to bow to their respective gods. As I walked around smelling the various scents, it began to drizzle ever-so-slightly and the chants grew louder. It was a very surreal yet transquil environment.

View of the temple from the outside.

A waterfall upon entering the temple.

People lined up for individual worship.

A view inside the temple courtyard.

Not ready to call it a day yet, I decided to walk around the surrounding areas. And here's where the trouble began. There were shops. Lots of them. Food, clothing, trinkets, knick-knacks, you name it. I walked around trying to not buy anything, but then I found this one store consisting entirely of jade and stone jewelry. (Actually, there happened to be many many more after that, but it was the first one I saw, so I thought it was special. Oh well.) After perusing for quite a bit and having many things catch my eye, I noticed there were no price tags. D'oh, I'm thinking. I don't want to haggle, I can barely get by in basic situations. The lady comes over to me (which I'm noticing is a pattern, some more rapid than others) and pulls a bunch down for me to look at, and she tells me the price. Okay, I'm thinking, not so bad. I pick up a few things and continue on my way. I think it was only about $600 or $650, amounting to about $20 US, so I'm somewhat proud of myself.

I then walked around and around, eventually finding myself in the middle of clothing store row. And these were all really crappy clothes at the outside stands, trying to mock trendiness, but super cheap, and some just plain awful-looking. I've been on the lookout to get a real traditional Chinese shirt or dress, so I was keeping my eyes open and about ready to give up when I noticed hanging at the back of a hoe-in-the-wall store a gorgeous red and gold-leafed shirt. After many many minutes, I finished trying things on and decided to buy two, bringing the total to $1400NT. Not so bad, I'm thinking. It's only about $40. At the check-out I saw the lady also had red dresses, and I mistakenly asked her how much. She said $1900NT and after a brief pause (completely due to my own stupid fault of not getting the hell out of there post-haste), she throws them at me and tells me to try them on. "Ni chuan shenme ye? Hen piaoliang! Deng yi xia." (What size do you wear? Very pretty! Wait just a minute.) I tried it on, and yes it was very nice, but I thought $1900 was a bit steep and I had already spent $1400, and I actually thought at that point I only had $1000, although in reality I had more. Heh. I put the dress back on the hanger and start to leave, saying thank-you, but I don't have enough money, and that maybe I'll be back tomorrow. Well apparently unbenownst to me that is the code or something for, 'Let's talk bargains.'

She said, how much do you have? I replied, 'Yi qian kuai.' And then she offered it to me for $1000, and I said thank-you, but I have to eat dinner, too. And then she said, 'Ni gei wo jiu bai kuai, wo gei ni yi bai kuai.' She was basically offering it to me for $900, and she'd give me $100 for dinner. Well played, old lady, well played. Unintentionally I had just lowered a price for a dress from $1900 to $900--over 50%!. I don't know what I should feel more: proud for that or completely stupid for the first purchase. And I'm wondering if she would have gone lower. Or maybe she went low because I made a previous purchase. Or maybe that's just how they do things. I don't know! Anyway, all in all I purchased a dress, two shirts, and miscellaneous jewelry. After much perusing and little self-control, I decided I had better get my butt back on the subway and home before I spend my entire weekly stipend in one day.

One more, just for kicks.

Last night a few people from the lab went to see 'Pirates of the Caribbean 2' at a theatre in Ximen. I knew it didn't get good reviews (and rightly so, it was kind of ridiculous), but it wasn't about the movie, so I decided to tag along. As we arrived, the rain started absolutely pouring, and the shops with overhangs all had really slippery floors. Due to my lack of packing skills and know-how, I only ended up bringing 3 pairs of pants to Taiwan. Yesterday all my pants were in the laundry, so I decided to wear my skirt. We all know you can't wear tennis shoes with a skirt--that's in the leagues of black shoes and brown belts or white socks with black dress shoes--so I wore my sandals. Well my sandals had NO traction, and everywhere we walked with a slightly slick floor I had to tread at the speed of about 1 mph and eventually one of my fellow lab workers decided to come over and help me balance. It started out as a one-time thing, but she eventually became my crutch for pretty much the whole walk. It was quite hilarious, as she speaks pretty much no English at all, but she is a very animated character, and just making it to the movie theatre with me in once piece was an achievement. After dinner at a Japanese restaurant, we stopped by a small eatery that sold chicken and duck hearts and livers, which is apparently a delicacy here on which people snack during movies. My crutch-friend (I really need to learn and remember names) bought a skewer of duck hearts and asked if I wanted to try one, and trying to be cultured as well as polite, I said yes. To be honest, the flavor and seasoning was quite nice, but the texture wasn't the best. And with each progressive bite, I got more annoyed because I started thinking about mammalian physiology and the vascular system and which parts of the heart I must be biting at that particular moment. Oh, whoops, there go the atria! So between psyching myself out and not liking the rubberiness, I waited until all backs were turned and spit it in a trash can. I tried, I really did, but I'll take the SnoCaps or Junior Mints from here on out, thanks.

So that's part one of the weekend. Stay tuned for part two, whatever that may be.