i have officially abondoned LJ~ sorry sugi and jess~

go to window's live space now!

http://takuko.spaces.live.com

my clock reads 2am, thank goodness it's sunday tomorrow (sunday! weee~~~!!!)

so i guess my last entry was about a month ago huh... mm.. little update of my life for those that don't see me almost everyday (which is everyone except for sugi)

after i came back i did pretty much nothing... i recall two outings off the top of my head right now
#1. Freehouse restaurant (remind me never to go there for food again...unless they have a new cook or menu) met the friend of my good friends, who can supposedly be killed by mango
went to see fireworks at exhibition grounds for the first time (coz it was canada day), the night ended after about 30min at Divas
#2. (mm... i recalled #1.. now i can't remember #2....oh right!) BBQ at Frankee's for Jennie's Bye-I'm-moving-to-calgary
nothing much went on i believe (unless i was out of the loop) i mean, it is just a bbq
oh, i brought sparkling wine and brett was happy

mm.. what else.. i must have done other stuff... but i can't remember right now

anyway, i started class last wednesday, three weeks of chemistry is just delightful! (note the sarcasm)

i think i just summed up my last month in a few sentences... i believe that means that i don't have a life
or maybe i just have a secret life you don't know about!! muhahaha~~ (i should really get some sleep...)

OH!! i just remember another thing! I SAW PIRATES! which is the second climas of my summer!!
i have to see it again when it's at Rainbow cinema (yes i know i'm cheap)

mmm... i still kinda think i'm in taiwan... it may be the lack of sleep but for a moment the night before i wanted to take the bus to my sis's place
and the next morning i wanted to watch the two variety shows i watched almost daily when i was there
today's a bit better, but still on jet lag

anyway.. recap!

plane day:
my aunt took me to open up accounts at two different banks.. she just had to wait till last minute
we had to leave at 11am... i had to wake up bright and early... and we just barely got everything done at 10:30
four huge luggages to carry... all apporx 25kg which is ok
we had two carry-ons weighing at least 10kg (they're stuffed full of frozen foods... all that water...)
now... these were hell to carry there are no carts to push luggages once we get inside
also on and off plane all require quite a bit of walking
anyway... the plane was completely full (and my mom said it's off-season...yeah right...)
and mostly of people transferring from India
usually... the people at check-in will seperate the two groupd by cabins which also makes it easier for both groups and the cabin crew..one of the reason being we have different meals
but that day was not the case.. we were all spread out (i'm thinking it could be because of complaints... about possible racism maybe.. who knows...)
i don't know what the check-in people were doing.. but why would someone seperate a family by one row
in front of us was a dad and little 2-some-year-old kid (apparently they had the window and aisle seat leaving the middle seat open.. except the plane was full so that seat was taken by a stranger... at one point he got mad because they didn't have the three seats all to themselves and wanted to ask the other passenger to leave.. the flight attendent gave him hell for it)
behind us was the grandparents taking up two seat with the aisle seat with a stranger
now.. during the 10 hour flight-time.. they have to at least gotten up 50 times...talk about inconsiderate family of jerks...who didn't speak english by the way...
the two people sitting with them had to get up everytime they wanted to get something
the kid wanted to go the grandparents and cried everytime her dad tried to get her back
finally.. i think they got sick of getting up everytime so they just yelled across our row of seats
my mom and i were complaining all the way... in mandarin.. so they wouldn't understand
they were yelling across us in indian.. so they could be also complaining but we wouldn't know

so that was our 10-hour flight...next time i am going business class or not going at all....

(mm.. wow i wrote a lot.. i think i will just skip to when i got home...)

wee! finally got home! arriving on time 5pm:
my brother came and got us, all the luggage just fit which was a relief
my mom was completed beat so the unpacking was up to me
after digging everything out and kind of cleaned up so our living room wouldn't look like a dump i pretty much passed out on the sofa and slept for 3 hours
after that i didn't sleep at all... spent the night+morning building the taipei 101 model i bought at the observatory on the 89th floor (it is now beautifully placed in the living room)
before i knew it, it was 7am... my bro had to go to work
i ate breakfast with him... washed face and brushed teeth... went to bed...
then undisturbed i was... woke up at 8pm

last night i went to bed at 3am until this morning about 4 hours ago
i guess my jet lag is half gone.. i'll see if i can stay awake until tonight

tonight's the last night i'm staying at my sis's.... sunday i've gotta start packing
we have four huge luggages to pack, each should be less than 23kg (stupid air canada...)
so i'm hoping that i don't have have to leave anything behind
you might think 92kg of stuff is a lot.. it's not
i have a feeling we might go over limit and be forced to leave something behind for my dad to bring in july

tomor my sis's taking me to keelong to buy some baked goods and hopefully see the ocean
not the boring-ly calm vancouver type ocean, but huge huge waves that would really hurt (and possible killed) if it ever hit you directly

i guess this will be the time to recap some stuff....

here's what i miss about saskatoon...
1. clean air no smog
2. saskatoon brita water! (my sis drinks expensive mineral water.. it's got a taste i don't really like.. but its got lots of calcium + other mineral!)
3. being able to drive
4. about traffic... cars that acutally lets pedestrians go first
5. my computer.. more specifically... the fact that i can BT stuff and save it
6. (this is a weird one but it's true) Canadian News network, esp CTV news
Taiwan's news quality SUCKS! everyday it's the same thing... you turn to news channels and every channel is reporting the same thing as yesterday with scoops that aren't really scoops
and there is almost nothing about that big earthquake... talk about lack of international view

oops almost forgot..
7. friends! yes that means you! (unless i don't know you personally...)

things that i will miss about taiwan...
1. deliciousness and cheapness of food *with extra emphasis*
2. night markets and cheap stuff
3. air conditioned rooms
4. beautiful and huge department stores
5. variaty shows
6. availability and quality of taxi (and therefore transportation)
7. the sight of hundreds of people on motocycles and scooters
8. the experience of zooming between cars on a motocyle (minus the car emisions) as a passenger... no i can't ride one nor would i dare to
9. the subway+skytrain system

anyway i have more pics but i'm too lazy to post them.. i'll do that in saskatoon
so i guess it's time to ask about recent events in saskatoon... anything or plans i should know of?

i updated.. now i have stupid advertisement taking up half my page
i wonder if i can downgrade back to free
meh~ i can always move again.. currently.. i have 3 blogs (plus one inactive forum and an inactive blog), only one is active at any one time (so this is the active one right now...)

anyway.. so i'm breathing stinkin' nature right now
listening to my mom chat away with her friend and the bugs outside (mating maybe..?)
i'm in "da-jia" about two some hours of train ride from taipei
we're staying with a friend who owns a cow farm.. so it smells like.. well... you know.. cow shit
apparently, they make tons of money selling cow crap as fertilizers
but anywhere is more advanced than my auntie's house seeing that i can update this journal (they have wireless internet access here at the farm!!)

ok.. not a lot has happened... but two main things
1. my sis's friend took us up to "yon-ming" mountain
the night view is BEAUTIFUL!! i took pictures but i need a card reader to post them~ there were tons of couples from the university nearby
then we went to an outdoor resturant on the mountain, which overlooks the entire taipei
we sat on the balcony and with a bit too much exitment my camera case fell off the bacony.... for a second i thought my camera case was lost forever
thankfully it is still resturant property below~
we then had about 3 or 4 servers fish my camera case out from the trees below
it must happen pretty often coz they were pretty good at it

we stayed until 2 something

2. the next day my sis had to work so i was left at home watching tv
and for some weird reason i starting getting a headache
but it wasn't very severe so i just shook it off
next morning (or afternoon rather XD) my throat starts to hurt and my "digestive system" didn't feel so good
stayed home all day, stomach didn't feel so good... wanted to throw up
needless to say something was wrong (by the way i left a few details out..)
i decide to eat some fruits and some stomach medicine my sis bought from japan and then go to sleep.. it was 11pm
2am i wake up.. feeling not better at all.. shivering but i couldn't lie in bed anymore so i get up to see if i can walk it off
and guess what... just when i get downstairs.... mini-throw up (you know.. the kinds that lands in your mouth.. ew.. i know)
went to the sink to spit it out... then followed immediatedly by a bigger throw-up... then finaly a major throw-up
i immediately felt better... and my legs felt like they were gonna give and so i fell-sat on the kitchen floor

so i figured... stomach flu (if you've ever had stomach flu then you can guess what detail i left out..)
i believe i got it from my sis's friend from above... she had stomach flu a few days ago and had to stay overnight at the hospital

anyway.. yesterday was pretty much the same execpt i didn't eat enough to throw up... today's a bit better but still gotta be careful the amount i eat or else my stomach might not be able to take it

hopefully i'll be completely recovered by the 30th as my sis's other friend is having us over for some traditional taiwanese bbq

typhoon passed on thursday, central taiwan got the "no work no classes"
as it turned out, it was prob the nicest day in the past week...
pouring rain in the morning (woke me up several times) and a few drops in the afternoon
the air was much cleaner after the rain, not too hot and not too wet
so, ppl in central region got a nice day off~
if you didn't watch the news all week, you prob wouldn't realize there was even a typhoon.. after all, it is raining season

anyway, a little hot today (bad day to be wearing jeans)
went to the biggest night market (except it goes on all day not just at night) in taipei
most of taiwan's night market clothes, purses, bags, accessories, shoes, and anything that is not edible come from there

if you've never been to one before, let me explain what it's like:
say you're shopping for shoes and there's a huge blow-out at Sears (or whatever store of your liking)
you walk in and there's literally humongous piles of shoes and the people are like ants picking out shoes from the pile

so i'm there trying to pick out a bag... but there are way too many
i can't pick out a favourite one cos there are way too many to compare, and i certainly couldn't buy all of them
and so, out of stress and laziness, i come out empty-handed (and my feet are kinda killing me)

i think next time i'll stick with a smaller scale night market so i'll actually buy something

if there's anything in particular you want say it now.. like a cute cell phone bag or a purse or sunglasses
they're not real good quality, i would say about superstore quality, but the style is definitely fashionable

so my previous thought about updating daily didn't come through...
mostly was because my auntie's place doesn't have a computer, and therefore no internet
she is prob the only person in taipei who doesn't have computer access at home...
i stayed there all of last week, spent the entire day in front of the tv surfing channels
at least she had cable.. or i would have just jumped on a plane right back to canada...

now i'm at my sis's place, full internet and computer access~ (it's nice to be living in the 21st century again)

so what have i done in the two weeks of vacation...?
shopped, ate, shopped some more and ate some more and most of the pics are of food and me eating food (there's a reason why i can't be on a diet...)

i did manage to get some view pics, which i will manage to post later
but really... taiwan's not that pretty... there are no views worth taking pics of
not after seeing places like rocky mountains or vancouver
the only things worth taking pics of are the food.... too bad technology doesn't allow taste and smell to be captured

anyway... back to the title, typhoon "pearl" is maybe coming
hopefully it will just miss us because, if you've ever experienced one, it's not fun
it will also be raining all week because of the typhoon

on the bright side, at least it won't be scorching HOT! ;)

so are some things i learned since the date of flight..

1. People at westjet are very close
the cabinet attendent said so... apparently, the pilot was her ex-husband, and the co-pilot is her current husband.....

2. Westjet still needs improvement on connections
the original plan for our flight was that we stay on the same plane until vancouver, waiting inside the plane for approx 1~2 hours
however, they changed it and did not tell any of the people connecting
most people only found out when the cabinet attendent (the one above) told us that the plane is heading straight back to s'toon

3. Division of classes still exists, and very much so, on planes
we arrived at international terminal at YVR (that's the vancouver airport), seeing way too many heads than expected... so, being the good citizens we were, we line up like everyone else hoping that the line will move fast enough so we don't miss the plane
we were traveling in business class, but my mom didn't know we had our own very special line that had no one in it... i saw the little sign posted.. asked the person beside it... and that person replied in a tone like "why are you lining up like every other suckers in economy class, you're in business class! you're special!"

4. They spoil you in business class (or first class) except with tons of "looks good but isn't really" food
as soon as we got on, we received a full 3-course lunch... followed by some more food a few hours after (which was breakfast...)
by the time we were landing, i was ready to throw up.. food and turbulances don't go too well together

5. Taiwan is hot
should i explain more? it is a tropical island...

6. Rain season is here in Taiwan
it started raining around 2 am last night, i believe it just started pouring split second, if i was standing outside, i would have been completely soaked in 2 seconds
it stayed like that all night and all morning the next day (12 hours at least)
how can the clouds hold that much water.....?

and finally..

7. My new cell phone is cool

alright.. it is now 4:04 am here... i shall go to bed.....(i don't think i have jet lag...)

i'm leaving on the 30th!
7am flight to vancouver then connet to taipei, which means we have to be there at 6am....
way too early for me...considering i slept till 3pm today
and i don't mean waking up every half hour since noon.. i mean really, really asleep
the multiple phone calls in the morning didn't wake me up as usual

so, apparently, they shut off the water gauge again this morning at 11am, fixing a pipe just up the street (and put up the notice telling when the water supply is cut off "after" they shut it off...)
yesterday they dug two big holes in front of our house, the first hole completely missed where they were supposed to fix, which is why they dug the second hole

anyway.. i still have tons of stuff to do before..
like packing.. and cleaning my room...i'm pretty much living in a whole bunch of last-minute notes for final
and also some stuff to buy... what does saskatoon have that's special...? and not too expansive...
(i know.. nothing..........)