Today was a busy day. We started off going to the Taipei Zoo, wherer we met our language partners. These were Taiwanese people that the ICLP program found for us, for us to practice our Chinese. We walked around the zoo, looking at animals and getting to know each other.
The zoo was OK. Since it was a hot day, many of the animals were hiding from the heat and therefore hiding from us. Also, a lot of them were really far, too far to see well or snap a pic. Since we finished an hour and a half early, my language partner recommended we go to a print shop.
At the print shop, they had different blocks with symbols on them. The symbols were Chinese characters, Japanese characters, zodiac symbols, letters of the alphabet, etc. I bought three blocks, one for each of the characters in my Chinese name. I also purchased an ink pad to press the blocks onto, much like a stamp.
On the way back from the shop, we walked by a fruit store I’ve walked by many times before. In this store, I could always see stacks of HUGE watermelons. I decided that today would be the day I bought one. When I asked the lady how much one would cost, she responded that each Taiwanese pound is NT$18, or ~55 cents. Keep in mind, a Taiwanese pound is 600 grams. The total came out to NT$500, or just over $16. Pretty pricey, except that would put the watermelon in at ~27 pounds. Now, this is a lot of exposition for a watermelon, but come on, it was almost 30 pounds! You can check me opening it in today’s vlog.
Link to today’s vlog: