Taichung Day 21 (return to NZ)

 Honestly, really just have breakfast, sort out the rest of the luggage, packed and ready to go. 

Go and post the last set of postcards, and then prepare the SIM card to be sent back to Dark H, and then watch some TV.

Have a really early lunch (dumplings), and then 二叔 bought the car around so we can load the luggage. Dropped by 四叔's shop and also saw 康康 (恩) there too. Waved goodbye, 四嬸 was out exercising so didn't see her. 二叔 drove me to Chaoma and unloaded the luggage. Waited for the bus together. Bus was late lol. Kuokuang allows 2x pieces of luggage per person and I had to take the carry on with me, but there was only like 5 ppl on board. Since I chose the single row window seat, it just fit in front of me. 

No internet makes it boring.... but GPS still works (slower though). I feel asleep on the bus... wanted to see more of the country as we drove... so only saw brief bits. Driver was really nice and helped unload the luggage once we were at Terminal 2.

Luggage was ok. One was 23.2kg (blue suitcase) and the cardboard box was 21.8kg. :/ My carry on was 9.8kg lol (but they don't check). Deffo bring a digital scale next time. 

Once check in was done and luggage dropped, I headed outside on level 2F, since cars can drop people off here directly. I had my peanut butter bun, and a quick drink, nasal sprayed, re-N95'd and went back in to head towards the gate.

Once through the gate I tried ages to find the Pili display that Ange sent me photos of. Thank goodness there was a clue, Gate D7, but since there was no floor map it took me a while to find it after going the wrong way, and googling a floor map. Then I spent like an hour at that gate taking photos and reading all the displays! All the themed gates are so fun, why can't NZ be like this lol.

I spotted an older European couple wearing headband respirators, one a white duckbill with blue straps (man) and the other a white one of another kind (lady).

5:30pm, time to go to gate, I kept getting distracted and took quick photos of themed gates. They were still boarding when I get there so I saw away from the crowd (looks a full flight and 2 tourist groups) until most of them were gone. I spotted an Asian lady wearing a white duckbill with blue straps again! Same as the man from earlier. 

Thank goodness online check in (always a problem for me) let me pick the last available $0 aisle seat. I hate being trapped. There's waaaay less maskers at the departures airports, and on this flight, too.

I couldn't sleep on the flight, just doze a little and rest my eyes. Watched Elemental. It was kinda nice, the Fire people were definitely implied to be Chinese or Asian immigrants in America. I didn't see D&D so couldn't finish that film lol.

Used the KF94 method for eating and just hope for the best.

We took off late but still landed early so the wind was in favour. There were heaps of people at the egates so took some time to get out. Baggage took a bit, too.

Declared to customs, the officer ended up looking through all my bags so I didn't have to go through the xray. White rice OK! Sweet.

Once out mum and dad picked me up and I got home and started unpacking very slowly. So tired. Feel so yuck. 

Ew work tomorrow. The tomatoes are growing well. Quite a few of the potatoes died, sadly.

I miss Taiwan already.

Taichung Day 20

 Not much today. Just luggage struggle, and packing up the blue suitcase. I'm overweight... *sigh* not having an accurate scale is really stressful. 

二叔 did his particular thing with the tying rope handles so I just left him to it. Luggage struggle took me all the way until 12pm...

And then I went to 四叔's for lunch as he said he would treat me. I had to decline his offer of KBBQ and hotpot at a restaurant because I am just uncomfortable dining indoors. On the way I went into the post shop and bought some stamps for my last lot of postcards. 四嬸 took me to a bentou place just a few doors down from his shop, and this shop had really good food?? I got like a gyuudon-style beef bentou. It had cabbage and pickled seaweed and some julienne bamboo shoots (I think it was), and a aji-tsuke egg with melty yolk. The flavour was really good? Like it's reminiscint of Japanese style flavouring, and the rice good too (this one was $150). I really enjoyed it and cleaned it up spotless.

Then we had tea and 四叔 has a visitor, a lecturer at some sort of techonology university and he talked about his woe about finding placements for his students. After he left 四嬸 talked to me about why I feel anxious about dining indoors? I tried to explain best as I could about airborne transmission and ventilation in Mando, but they think I am giving myself a bit too much pressure. And said that there's a lot of things I can't control - I rseponded then what I can control is choosing not to dine indoors and avoiding high risk situations. I didn't expect them to fully understand anyway. The lack of education is the same everywhere. 

They had someone come in for something else, and then I asked if they had some bubble wrap and stuff as I was musing on sending Bridget's xmas gift (ceramic plates) as it'll take enough weight out... and I got given lots of material. Sweet. I said goodbye and went home to sort this out.

I wrapped each plate in bubble wrap, and filled the edges with more wrap. Then double boxed it and put some packing foam in between the boxes. It ended up being 67g over 3kgs.... oof... meant I pay an extra $100. Total was $940 :') 

It's ok, it saves me stressing at the airport anyway. :') Lesson learnt, don't agree to take stuff for anyone else until you've prioritised what you want.

After that, I just went home and tidied up, and started writing my postcards. Then 二叔 said that we'll get dinner before we go to grandma's. He came back with dinner at 5:20pm... its too early and I had a big lunch. I wasn't that hungry but I ate some anyway.

Then off to grandma's. Grandma insisted on getting up and offering me her seat, I kept saying noooo but she did... I didn't sit in it though, and she eventually went back into her seat. I saw both cats briefly today, Huniuo was omre inquisitive but still no touchy. Maiya was in Grandma's room lol, so I saw briefly when Grandma started going on about the wheelchair in her room (there was none) and 二叔 went to check. Grandma isn't very stable when she walks now, and needs a support. 

We just sat and watched TV - I got to see the last part of 劇說台灣 on the current story they were on, but having missed the middle I dunno what happened there. It was a semi-sweet happy ending. The show before that on 7pm, 親家 was kinda amusing too. The 8pm one 天道 is a soap opera and everything is so dramatic and seems to be a new developement every episode lmao. This time it's a new secretary, who is here for revenge on someone since she saw them murder her dad as a kid. 

Shortly after 8pm we went home, after 小智 came back from throwing the rubbish when the rubbish truck came.

The wind is a lot chillier now so that's nice, but it's still moderately warm in the day time.

I didn't get to see 五叔 or 五嬸 either. 五叔 is at badmington again, and 五嬸 isn't back from work yet. 

I said bye to 小智, and 賢伯 was busying playing LoL, so I just knocked on his room and said goodbye to him. At least he had enough to pay attention and say bye to me, since he is very much grunty gamer who doesn't care much about anything else now. Hugged grandma goodbye, and 小智 too. 

We went home and I just finished off my postcards, and got the envelope for sending the SIM card back to Dark H ready. Then shower, blog and bed.

I am going to miss Taiwan. It has been very soul-soothing and enriching for me. It's good to connect with my home country, the land and my roots. I just wish it was a different world, so I didn't have to worry about the pandemic so much. 

Taichung Day 19

 三舅媽 wanted to take me to Dajia Mazu miao today. Off we go, I told her that it's not the 7-11 she needs to pick me up at inbetween two oter conbinis, but the one on the corner. Lol guess where she went. 🤣 Oh well at least she found the place. Dajia is about a 40 mins drive out. The miao's carvings were mostly black-incense smoke free. 三舅媽 took me around to pray and put incense into the big pots. It's a very pretty miao. After that we went to the basement where they have the Mazu statue made from pure gold. It took a year to sculpt and the artisan did a good job. it's very immaculate, and Mazu's expression is of calm, serious but kind. They had some carving works from precious stone, and those were very nciely done. The basement also has some jewellry cabinets selling various precious stones and pearls, etc. No photos of the actual statue allowed but no one said I can't take a photo of the sign with a photo of the statue on it lol. I almost never take photos of the deity statues themselves because I feel like it would be disrespectful. 

After that, lunch time. 三舅媽 suggested a teppanyaki restaurant but they had closed doors so it's a no from me. I suggested the roadside stalls with the local eats, and there was a good breeze today so that was great. I had a type of fish thick soup (yu gin tang), and Ru Zou Fan. Yummy. Veges and some fried tofu as side dishes. Then we went back to a nearby store that sells specialtly local pastries and cakes, and I got one that's a 奶油小酥餅 and a small version for 二叔 since he has diabetes. After that, we went back to the parked car, and headed to Wuqi fshing harbour. They have a lot of stalls inside, restaurants, eating, food products, drinks, and a fresh market for the fish and seafood. This place apparently gets so busy on the weekends, the carpark is full just after you enter. Today only the top 2 blocks were full. I think there are more than 10 blocks total. Sadly because we ate so much for lunch we couldn't fit anything else. Then we went to the harbourside and had a look at the fishing boats, and the tour boats. Chatted for a bit. And then headed home after going to the toilet.

The GPS kept wanting to take us on the really small roads to connect to Highway 10, but 三舅媽 wanted to go the big roads (like the way we came on Taiwan Bvld, ex Zhong Ghang Rd), so I ended up manually navigating her to the Bvld where she knows how to get back.

Thanked her for a good day and she droped me off on the roadside. 

Went home and started trying to figure out my luggage... pressure as I hit the limit for pretty much both suitacases... ended up swapping to a smaller box that was lighter. More tetris and repacking, removing unnecessary packagaing until it's under 23kg. Then had to frankenstein the top of the box as I couldn't fit the shitake mushrooms in, so it could fit. 

Taped the box and then gladwrapped it. 二叔 then spent ages being particular about tying a handle onto the box in a particular way, etc, and took ages.

It was already 6:30pm by the time we got to a certaim stage, and went out for dinner. 二叔 suggested a place that was unfortunately too indoor.... but we found some place else selling noodles around the corner that was completely open. At this angle there's a bit of a breeze too, so that's reall good. Their noodles were pretty delicious too. Called 葉家麵館. 

After that, we headed home to grandma's. Unfortunately we arrived just as the 劇說台灣 drama finished, just before 8pm, so I didn't get to see the continuation. We met 五叔 at the elevator on 5F as he was going down to throw the rubbish out. Grandma's Sampo fridge has broken down so after he got back, 五嬸 and 五叔 went out to Carrefour to check out new fridges. We ended up staying until they got back which was about 9:45pm. Pretty late. I had a good chat with 小智 just before that though. He told me about his experience on flying to Chengdu in China, and how the tried to take the bus after being advised by the taxi driver he was going to take, that he could take the bus... and ended up getting lost and missing his connecting flight from Sha'men (I think it was) at 6pm. Then the next flight was at 10pm, but kept being delyaed due to heavy rain at the destination. He didn't get to his destination until like 5 or 6am. Welp. Lesson learnt, experience gained. 

After we got home it's just shower, blog, and bed. I will have to sort out last lot of post cards tomorrow and also arrange posting back the sim card to Dark H.