|
|
Chinese Valentines Day In Taiwan, the Hallmark Corporation has achieved a true coup detat:
duplicate card-and-flower-giving holidays, forcing all poor love stricken
saps to blow their paychecks on gifts or face months of celibacy. In
the US, we have one Valentines Day, here, they have February 14 PLUS
the traditonal Chinese Lover's Day.
Sue and I made romantic plans: a weekend in Jiufen. I like Jiufen a
lot-- it's one of the mellowest places I know and home to the best architecture
on the Island. After 18 Months of pink tile rain-stained sky-rises,
seeing some actual bricks and wood was a welcome change.
The unforseen problems in our plans: We knew Sue had to work, but,
at the last minute, I also was given hours. Then, I was demanded at
a Kung Fu Fighting event in Taipei before we could head into the mountains.
On top of this, I was suffering from heat exhaustion throughout the
trip and was pretty sick. We somehow maintained a taste of the intended
romantic trip, though.
The pictures the the left: Sue at our teahouse. In Jiufen they don't
really have hotels, just teahouses and homestays. The phenominal view
from the village-- and this picture still doesn't do it justice. A man
making mowchi. Some fish.
Despite ourselves, a good time was had by all.
|
||||
| |||||
|
|
We spent Saturday enjoying Jiufen as much as possible. Because of my sorry physical condition, I couldn't walk around much, or eat, or sit outside and be hot. It hurt to stand. It hurt to sit down. Lying down rubbed the sunburn the wrong way and was unacceptable. On Sunday, we had lunch with Sue's Sister, Ada, and then I went to the hospital. The hospital couldn't much but say, "stop running yourself ragged, idiot." Oh well. | ||||
