Some Stuff I've Seen Recently

A man with no legs sleeping in his car.

A woman throwing a huge hissy fit, and beating the pavement with a tree branch. It was actually pretty funny, from a safe distance...

A guy in a minivan carefully backing into a line of scooters, knocking down all of them. What a dick!

At least 10 HIDEOUS pasty white men at the beach, complete with beer guts, monobrows and budgie smugglers, with tiny and pretty Asian girlfriends. WTF?

A sandwich cafe with no bread.

An old lady delicately picking her nose on the bus, who then carefully wiped her findings on the seat in front of her.

A t-shirt that said World Gym, and had a picture of Winnie the Pooh on it. 10NT to the person who can explain the connection between these two!

A teenage girl with a haircut so fashionable, that it was twice the size of her head on top due to all the crimping, and with a fringe that was so long and had such a narrow gap at the front that all you could see of her face was the tip of her nose and her mouth. She looked like the Dulux dog!

A girl wearing the shortest shorts EVER (and in Taiwan, that's saying something) on the MRT on a cold and rainy Sunday morning. I own at least 20 pairs of underwear that cover more of my butt than those shorts did hers.

Missiles and Morons

So, I'm standing on the corner with Bridget yesterday, off to get cake before class, when a bus comes around the corner, jumps the curb, hits a chunk of concrete JUST right, which flies up into the air and takes a 3cm chunk out of Bridget's foot.

Blood everywhere.

I run back to school, and ask the secretaries and the School Manager to call an ambulance and give me a first aid kit.

Blank stares.

Okay - maybe I'm speaking too fast? Or using big words? I try the following: "help", "call an ambulance", "blood", "119", "Teacher Bridget is hurt", "first aid". Then I do an admirable show of blood pouring from an open wound that would have made Shakespeare weep.

Nothing.

I yell upstairs for a teacher that I know speaks Chinese, and ask him to help me. He stares vaguely at me, disappears, and never resurfaces.

You know, I've had several bad dreams like this. What in the name of god is WRONG with these people?

The ONLY word I could get them to understand was "tissue". They promptly handed over 1 tissue, so I grabbed the packet and ran off, which made at least 1 brain hit a spinal cord and they followed me. When they finally saw what was happening, they managed to call an ambulance, and then of course MOST of Kojen's staff emptied out of the building to come and gawk.

Unbelievable.

After she got hauled off (Oh, she's fine by the way. She got 5 stitches.) I was questioned closely by a policeman about exactly which rock it was that hit her...

What do you think they were planning to do if the rock was found? Biff it in the rubbish as punishment?

I almost don't know what to say. The bloody MANAGER of the school, and as far as I can tell the woman doesn't speak a word of English. There was no first aid kit at the front desk (there's one on the 6th floor though. Handy.) but there was a drawer full of bandaids. This is in a school with 100s of children!

After the excitement was over, the real important business started - trying to track down security camera footage, to identify the bus, and taking pictures of the broken curb so that the city council can be coerced into paying the medical bill.

Nice one, Taiwan.

Happy Ending!

Pics of the kittens today, having been fully cleaned and spruced. They're going to be weaned next week, and then they'll be looking for a home.

Yay!




See the missing belly fluff?



Trust me, I'm barely managing to resist taking all of them.

So, Had a Crappy Day?

Quit your whining, and take a look at these poor little babies. I went to the vet with Sunny today to check up on an abandoned kitten that she rescued (who isn't doing great) and there was a group of people huddled out the back hard at work doing...

This.



They are completely covered in that sticky glue/tar stuff that is used in those large mouse traps. Goodness knows how, but since it's EVERYWHERE, I personally think somebody did this on purpose.

Sunny and I spent 5 hours at the vet's, picking it out of their fur. And since they're so tiny, and since it's really hard to get out, I really mean ripping out all their fur.

I have no idea if they're going to make it (we stopped after their temperatures started dropping and they had obviously come to the limit of what they could take) but I'll go back on Tuesday if they need some help.



The white stuff is flour, which is kind of helping because it's absorbing some of the moisture from the glue.



I feel sick that there are so many awful people out there.

No Really, You Shouldn't Have

Taiwanese people really like to give gifts. And not necessarily something that they bought just for you - they'll give you hilariously random stuff as well.

To wit, I now own a large souvenir bus ticket and a leaf. And also a bag of pineapple chunks.

In other news, I've been experimenting with the macro function on my camera. Here's a piccie of my cup of tea.



Those red things are 'wolfberries'. AWWWRROOOOOO!

And here is a blueberry that I enjoyed recently.

Summer cometh

Greetings! Due to a lack of anything better at the moment, here is a pic of a pretty typical Taipei street. Icky. I'm sure if you look closely, you'll see 500 illegal driving moves, 5 attempts at vehicular homicide, 4 old ladies carrying vegetables, at least 1 family of 4 on a scooter, and a pink bus.



In other news, it's getting hotttttttt. I'm remembering how horrid it was last year... God, I really hope my blood has thinned out a bit and I'll be more comfortable for Round II. Hoping, but not hopeful.

What else? I'm actually just really tired at the moment. Sleeping isn't easy when you have heat induced nightmares, and I work pretty long hours most of the week.

I'm also horribly homesick. Would love to wrangle a trip home, but I can't pay for it AND afford the weeks with no pay. I'm stuck. Ah boo.

Pondering...

So, I'm sitting there at work the other day eating dan ping, and for once I take a good look at the box, instead of just what's inside the box.

And I see this.


Does anybody else see a cartoon infant being mauled by a trout, while a sidekick does unspeakable acts upon him???

And then I went shopping. Among other things, we saw THIS hat.


The photo doesn't do it justice - it was shiny AND khaki, floppy AND low-brimmed, fluffy AND scratchy. I'm not quite sure how I managed to pass up such a bargain.