A fool in Taiwan...

A fool in Taiwan by any other name would be - some other fool, but this fool is me.

Colby is firmly rejecting me and I'm surprised none of you have heard what happens when I take him or Steve leaves the room. Seriously. I'm truly surprised that you can't hear it from there. It's been harder emotionally than I thought it would be and I feel a strange guilt about letting Steve do all the work. I decided this morning that I was giving it all to God and letting go. I'll be the pit crew and be cheerful about it. So far, it's working out pretty well although I did feel pretty guilty when Steve had to bring his entire dinner home to eat because he spent the entire thing feeding a very squirrely Colby.

Going back in the day, though.... We decided that I'd take Colby out for a walk this morning and get us all some breakfast (we've since learned tonight that what we need to do is ASK for our meal tickets. I'm not quite sure why that is. If you are going to ask for them, then why do they require them at all? Why not just have you show your room key or something? Or else just have housekeeping leave them in the room each day.). He protested down the stairwell to the lobby and then chilled out. It was raining lightly (shocker there) so we started out along with our trusty pink umbrella. I decided to give Steve some decent time off and since Colby was doing okay, I thought we'd head to the "far" 7-11 for drinks and then just choose a bakery along the way. There are several stretches of overhangs along our route and they provide welcome relief from the rain...but they also provide the perfect opportunity for me to be the local fool. I can't seem to remember to lower my umbrella when we're under the overhangs and I think I'm giving the locals a good laugh every day. I'm not sure why this logic eludes me.

There is at least one more fool in Taiwan, though, because Colby and I were nearly taken out by a man who apparently felt the need to back half way down the block and then around the corner! Okay, guy, time to just go all the way around the block if you need to back up that far!!

It was warm and very muggy this morning so Colby and I were both overdressed and very sweaty by the time we made it back to the room. We all enjoyed some fresh bakery and guava juice. Colby sucked down a good part of Steve's in a hurry! I guess I'll know to buy 3 next time!!

We packed up and headed out. It seems to be taking us a significantly long period of time to get out the door. I guess that comes with not knowing your own child and also a return to a child in diapers.

We asked at the front desk about our destinations for today and learned that the handicraft market and the fabric market are close to one another, but not as close to Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall as we thought. The clerk also gave us the number of the buses we could take to catch the MRT (a much more economical option than taking a taxi).

We arrived at CKS Memorial Hall and didn't have too much trouble finding it from the MRT station. It's enormous!! I wish we'd have had a clear day, but no such luck. It is a massive structure and there's a giant statue of CKS inside, but other than that, everything is pretty much in Chinese, so it didn't offer too much for us and Colby was getting anxious so we headed out. We were walking around the grounds and found a beautiful little natural area with a pond where we watched fish, turtles, and birds. We saw one I think was a bittern and another that looked like a cross between a chickadee and a wood pecker. We decided to call it a chickapecker. The chickapecker was convinced I was going to feed it and was sorely disappointed when I didn't.

Lunch was sorely needed, so we set out in search of someplace to sit down and some food that Colby could eat. Where we ended up was....Subway. Subway - can you believe that? That's neither inventive nor remarkable. We felt a little out of our element in Taipei and the safety of Subway was a good thing in this instance.

Alright - I'm going to have to finish this tomorrow. I'm beat and we have a very early wakeup to get to our AIT interview.

Oh, and I finally mastered the faucet in the bathroom!