Friday, March 1, 2013

Fun, family and my life as a Mahjong widower.

The rattle and clack of the tiles.  The constant banter. The whoops of victory and the moans of defeat.  These sounds.  These sounds.  They will haunt me forever.  Pushed into a corner with only a cold beer and bad TV to give me solace as I lose my wife to the succubus that is Mahjong...woe is me.


I can't wait to learn how to play!  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Actually, the whole mahjong thing is pretty cool.  Rebecca and her family are a very close knit group and this is one of the weekly things they do together. I really like Rebecca's family.  While the language barrier is certainly an issue at this point, they are a very friendly bunch of folks and treat me very well.  It is very much appreciated.

The first thing one needs to know about Keelong (pronounced JEE-long) and it's satellite, Ruifang, which is where Rebecca lives, is that it rains there.  A LOT!  In fact, it rained there the entire two weeks I was in Taiwan.  Didn't rain anywhere else, just in Keelong.  This, of course led to a quick re-write of the classic Bill Wither's tune to:

"Ain't no sunshine in Keelong.
It is raining everyday.
Ain't no sunshine in Keelong!
These clouds ain't goin' away."

The first few days of the vacation were spent with Rebecca's family at her mother's house eating tons of good food and playing dice games, cards, and, of course, mahjong. You have to watch it with this group because they love to gamble, and, if you're not careful, you will quickly lose your shirt.

To take a break, Rebecca and I went for a walk around her mom's house to take some photos and get some  air.


The photos went from scenic to silly and back again, but it was fun just to be out and about with my honey.


 I love this picture of Rebecca







Not sure what's going on here. lol

 Very famous bridge.  Really. It is. Well...not really.
  
 Look! It's not raining!



A few days later, Rebecca's sister San jee-ae (3rd older sister) and her husband, San jee-ae foo (3rd older sister's husband) took Rebecca and I to a small touristy town called San-Shia  for a little day trip.  It was a nice little town with historic colonial era buildings.  Since this was still during the New years holiday, the place was quite busy.


 Rebecca with one of her sisters and brother-in-laws.  Super friendly folks.

 Yours truly with the Queen of Taiwan. Shortly after this photo was taken some random Taiwanese dude came up and wanted his picture taken with me.

 Making candy on the streets of San-Shia.  Reminded me instantly of the taffy pulls my mom would do when I was a little kid so many moons ago.

 A variety of steamed tofu, which, much to my surprise, I found quite tasty.

Rebecca crawling under a ceremonial palanquin which is supposed to bring good luck for the coming year.

 My peow lien de tai tai at brunch in Carnegies, Taipei.

 Taipei 101 from the patio at Carnegies.


Rebecca helping her niece Vivian with her homework. It'll take some time, but I think Vivian is finally getting used to me being around.

On one of my last days of my trip, Rebecca and I took the train to Hualien on the east coast of Taiwan.  Once there we took a tour of the beaches and Toroko National Park.  I'm not sure why, but I was quite surprised at the color of the water there.  I know it's the Pacific Ocean, but for some reason I didn't expect it to be so blue.



 Random rocks


Lookin' good , babe!




After stopping at the beach for a while and a nice lunch, we headed for the Toroko Gorge.  Toroko Gorge is a beautiful, rugged marble canyon. The Cross-Central Highway cuts through the gorge connecting the east and west coasts of Taiwan.  The Eternal Springs Shrine (below) memorializes the 450 people who died building the highway.















 It's very hard from these photos to get a sense of how high these cliffs are.  They have to be a good 1000-1500 ft.


The "paparazzi photo." The guy who we asked to take the photo above this one kept taking pictures snap, snap, snap snap...


Yeah, yeah.  You always see signs like this...


It's the concrete patched road next to the sign that makes you look up and go, "Hmmm."





Thus ended the trip.  It was a great vacation, albeit wa-a-a-a-a-a-a-ay to short.  I miss my baby and can't wait to see her again.