I booked Saturday off work, so I headed through to ChungHua on Friday night. When there, whilst waiting to be picked up at the train station I made friends with a lovely Taiwanese man. He had little English...but it was still more than my terrible Chinese. We chatted about various things, it was really nice.
Then movie night at Anthony's...as part of the goodbye weekend for Chien and Ray :(
Saturday, Megan, Noel, Ju, Anthony, Zach and I went shopping for outfits for Tai ku/Tai Mei night greatness. In honour of Zach's birthday the previous Thursday he organised an evening of celebration with a theme...Taiwan Chav. It is a particular style associated with 'bling'(best way to put it). It was great. Admittedly, I wore a particularly short skirt...but I did wear thick dark tights, so it wasn't all that scandalous.
We all went back to various places and changed, then headed out to a restaurant for BBQ. Yum. Then on the way to find a particular bar we managed to get held up in traffic for the Mazu procession.
A big group shot. haha. The guy who worked at Waterfrog (the place we ate) was not happy having to take photo's. His face was a picture. lol.
Zach and Matt posing Tai Ku style.
Matt's temporary tattoo saying 'Tai Ku'. haha.
Yummy BBQ
So we pulled over, parked, and waited. It was amazing to witness. There were various boxes of fireworks lined up along the length of the street. Folks lit those so fireworks were going off as Mazu made her way along the road.
Unfortunately I couldn't get a close look at the statue itself. There were so many people. There were also folks tightly locking arms so people couldn't get too close, which is a shame because I was told that if you manage to pass underneath the idol being carried by many people, you receive good luck. Kind of like wiping the slate clean (I suppose I could liken it to an indulgence known in the Roman Catholic Church- maybe even a plenary indulgence).
It was amazing. I stood directly underneath the fireworks as Mazu made her way towards me. Then I was swept up in the crowd. I was so lucky to see that.
After that we headed to the local bar Jonny's because another we wanted to go to was rather full. There I tried Bin Lan, 檳榔 Bīnláng (betel nut: The Areca nut is the seed of the Areca palm). It is certainly something I won't try again. It is some kind of natural nut that you chew...gives you disgusting red spit. It is meant to give you a caffeine like buzz. The reason for trying was because of the Chav theme...it went with the style. There are a LOT of people in Taiwan who chew Bin Lan.
I remember, when I first arrived in Taiwan I saw lots of red splots all over the ground. I thought I had entered a seedy part of town where there was a huge fight or something. I thought it was dried blood, but it was Bin Lan spit. Nice.
These two pictures are from the internet. The nut is wrapped up in a leaf...you shew the whole lot.
'Betel Nut Babe' as they are called. There are so many booths and places that sell betel nut. I should take some photo's of my own so you can see the amount of neon lights and flashing lights that are used to advertise their presence.
Sunday was spent having a lie in...which was great. Not waking up to an alarm is a great pleasure. After getting ready, Zach and I ventured to Taichung to meet up with Renee and Geoff. We went to a park that had an expo on dinosaurs. It was so much fun. haha. I loved it so much!
The big red dino was great. You walked up the back of it to the top and go down into an area that had various bits of information about the extinction of the dinosaurs.
On top of the big red dinosaur.
Dino's being caught in flooding.
Genius. haha.
After that we had food then headed back to Chunghua to say a proper goodbye to Chien and Ray. I will miss them so much. Chien has already sent a message via facebook saying she is really enjoying being in South Africa. So that is certainly great news! :D
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