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Monday, October 29, 2012

Mashed event potatoes and sliced story tomatoes



Let's throw chronology into the blender and create a smoothie of funny, weird, exciting and boring events. We go back in time, but at the same time predict the future and talk about the presence. There are no rules anymore. Everything that pops in the mind, will be written down. Welcome in the mind of a traveller and not just an ordinary one but an 'AB-' blood type one! There is no logic anymore, be prepared...

The purpose of going to the north side of  Taiwan with my family and their 'teacher' friends in the weekend was to go eat seafood. You cannot find fish that is more fresh than in that tiny harbour because everything was still crawling around in the water basins, screaming 'Help don't eat me! I'm so pretty!', trying to find their way back to the ocean. I must say, they were pretty; the snails, lobsters, crabs,.. but it made them look even more delicious. So I said a little prayer for crab n°7 and the blue-spotted lobster and there they were thrown...in the bag. 

So we had bags with alive and kicking seafood? What now? Well easy, we walked 15m and we entered a restaurant (a kind of centuries old metal barn with large round tables and stools) where we handed over the bags with screaming seafood to the sweaty chubby cook (the kind that doesn't realizes that he has sweat on his forehead, stinks and wears a T-shirt without sleeves, indeed, that kind!). He threw them all into the boiling water, no mercy, how does he sleep at night? And there was our food! Before I go further: it was prepared quickly, everything in a different manner and it was delicious. 

Occasionally, I make myself ridiculous in front of people (I know, you nodding friends behind your NBs!). In order to continue being the way I am, I took my first shrimp in my hands, broke the head off, and there it happened...the explosion of brown shrimp juice in my face, hair and on my clothes. 

Another explosion took place at home when I was trying to open a passion fruit. Oh by the way, passion fruit is so cheap here and so delicious, that I eat them often. So I was - well I thought I was - using the right technique to open it but unfortunately! John was on the telephone and saw the explosion happening from 1.45m distance. All the passion fruit seeds flew around in the living room, on my legs, on the white floor, on the leather seat and on my clothes. I just keep on attracting explosions...what is wrong with me?

After eating seafood, I learned that when Taiwanese are talking about ugly girls, they call them dinosaurs (I revealed them that we call them dragons of course!). I also learned that I am a spice girl? So I was thinking about the blond one but do I look like here? Not really! But then it came to light that they wanted to say that I am a spicy girl, HAHA those naughty friends of my family, a little bit embarrassiiiiing!!

I am learning some Chinese words and sentences like: shut up, I (want to) kill you, stupid, and some other useful words. Learning to say 'I want to kill you' began with the story of the large orange (a fruit you cannot find in Europe) that you need to kill before you can eat it (cutting of the top of the skin, they call it: killing it in Chinese). 

At school, John (my family) is always jealous when the students come into the office to talk to me or to give me gifts because he is a teacher too at the school and I am sitting right next to him at his desk, poor thing but so funny! The teaching keeps getting more and more funny. One time, a student wanted to sing a song for me. I thought ‘he wants to sing alone. He is really confident about himself so he must be a good singer?Mmm not really, hij zong zo vals als een kat! And I was trying to hold back my laughter but damn that was difficult. (To be clear, I am always amazed by students that spontaneously want to perform something, I think they are great and it makes me every time so happy to see them become more and more open). Other classes played the flute for me or sang their country's song, A-MA-ZING! 

Today I thought a class for the second time and there was a boy sitting in front always wanting to participate in the presentation: when I was talking about food in general: "Oh yes, I am so hungry!", about Belgian chocolate: "Oh it is so good, are you going to buy for me?", about French fries: "FRIEEEEEEEEEEESSSS I want to eat them now!", about Belgian beer: "It is so goood (while he never even tasted it:))!!". And during the presentation he asked my cell phone number for 5 times AGAIN (like in the first session). I decided to give it to the whole class! As they were all eagerly taking pen and paper to write it down, I took my BB and wrote down on the black board 09…000 00 000. Even the teacher fell for it! Haha, they were so disappointed! 

Stinky tofu, by the way, is a kind of tofu that really stinks (really?), the smell is so sharp! Do you know the product ‘Veet’, you lubricate it on your legs and then after a while your hair dyes? Well, I think stinky tofu has the same effect on the little hairs in my nose but then quicker. It is mostly sold at the night markets, so I guess that is the only negative point I can find about these markets. They fry the tofu and just eat it like that and it is so popular among the Taiwanese. Some say, It can be compared to the stinky Belgian cheese, but no way I could accept that statement! 

Also, at school I have my private normal toilet! So nice! Why? Well, apparently the Taiwanese at my school prefer the urinals in the ground and there is only one normal toilet...indeed. For me! One disadvantage? My knees hit the door! 

And like my knees hit the door of the toilet cabin, my whriting hits the warning wall for nonsense writing.. so I guess I will end here.. FOR NOW.

Byebye my followers in the deep sea of madness! XieXie.



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