day 4

Steph's nanny came by early in the morning to take her to get her hair cut because her bangs were (in her opinion) too long. So we went to this woman's apartment, where Steph got her hair cut last time.

it turned out DISASTROUS. i am not being melodramatic. they aren't bangs anymore. they're like 2 cm. long. it was really really really really awful x 92846786123.

It wasn't THAT bad. The lady was trying to make it look modern and tried to give it more shape...so she gave steph side bangs and lots of layers and er...a bit of fringe. Which would have been cute except for the last part...

it WAS that bad. for those who know me, i HATE layers. hate them. and well.. who cuts fringe that short?! so i cried for an afternoon and rolled myself into a ball. kari took a picture as proof.

ANYWAY, later that day Steph's other aunt took us into Taipei to visit her cousin who's a famous dentist. We both got our teeth cleaned (for free!) and then went to the cousin's apartment building. That's right. He's so rich he owns a whole apartment, something like 5 floors. It was pretty much pouring outside, so it was lucky that the apartment wasn't too far from the dentist's.

Once we got there, we went in and met Steph's grandma (who was so CUTE. She's about ninety-something years old and super short with bright white hair) and yet another aunt. Her aunt had prepared a lot of food, including some fruits only grown in Taiwan. We especially liked this pineapple thing that was incredibly sweet. We also looked around the apartment, which is really amazing. The design is very modern, and it's really elegantly furnished, so that was fun.

a little elaboration on the apartment. it's all wood paneled and marble. the ground floor has a home movie theatre that looks really expensive. i've seen it before, but it's still impressive. the garage is cool, too. my cousin (odd since he's around 50 but still my cousin. my nephew is 3 years old) has a lot of expensive cars (porsche, etc) and the garage "floors" rotate with the car on them? that's the best i can describe it. the balcony looks out on taipei and you can see the taipei 101, the world's current tallest building! i think it looks like a bunch of chinese take-out boxes stacked on top of each other, but it's supposed to resemble "graceful stalks of bamboo with ribbon tied around." silly.

Later, Steph's first aunt took us to a department store in Taipei. We went down to the food court to eat dinner (all the department stores always have food courts or grocery stores in the bottom floor) and tried shabu shabu. It's a Japanese "hot pot" where water is boiled on the table and you have all these raw meats and vegetables that you stick in the water to cook and then eat. It was really good, although I had to use chopsticks the entire time. They didn't have any forks. So pretty much all of my concentration was focused on not dropping my food (although I'm getting better at it).

just a side note, we are constantly full, because everyone keeps shoving food at us. i've gained another 5 pounds already.

No she hasn't. But seriously, we always have a full stomach.

We then split up, Steph's aunt going in one direction and Steph and I wandering the seven floors of the store, which also contains the biggest bookstore in Taipei. Although we were pretty much exhausted and I had to kind of drag Steph around. We didn't buy anything except a berry yogurt ice cream thing for dessert. You get to pick the fruit to put in it, and then they make the ice cream with it, so we tried mulberries and blueberries. It turned out really good.

i was sleeping against the wall when my aunt came. sad. i'm sure passerby were like "what is the white girl doing with a sleeping taiwanese girl??"

Finally Steph's uncle picked us up to drive us back to Banciao, where we immediately fell asleep. Again.

yay.