Final Chapter (Thus Ends...)

Pointing to roof, "Wode dongxi zai nali, wo ke bu keyi qu?" (我的東西在那理,我可不可以去)

The Tea Tour, that is. Though this post would of course share a title with a BG song. I've decided to give a few people some more face time, because I know some of you like to put names to faces. This is also the part where you learn how I recovered my hack...

In the morning we again broke fast with our host father-ish guy, and watched part of an Agatha Christie movie on HBO. We put our stuff in the bus then walked uphill in the blazing heat to a tea factory. There, we made cookies. I have a hilarious video of Anna snorting a line of flour as if it were cocaine...here is the aftereffect thereof:

At the tea factory they said we could eat the half-dried tea, so we did. Also once we were outside we picked leaves fresh off the tea plants and ate them. I found them pretty good, but Kenta pretty much sums up the experience with his face:

We then went to this random place & made those wooden pencils that you can buy in BC tourist stores--you know, the ones made from a twig--and found it's actually quite easy. You just need some power tools, graphite and glue. There was much aimless milling about, and we saw a few interesting things, like a frickin huge spider, which you can see when I get back. It was spindly but damned big. Also, there were dead birds in the nets around a vinyard, and that was likewise creepy. In the spirit of 'creepiness' and being politically incorrect with respect to Wiccans, here is Anna being a "witch" on the brooms like we have at school.

Again, we had lunch, but then it was time to depart. Apparently, the schedule said we were going to some village, which was actually kind of town-like & very touristy... but only for about 10 minutes. So that wasn't too exciting, though Scott took a picture of himself in a tank. Eventually we had to say goodbye to all the down-island people of coolness. Before we move on, here's rifle-owning Scott in front of one of the "guns are illegal" signs:

Once again, we headed to the infamous rest-stop to bid adieu to Ada, Catherine and the likes. This time, I had a plan which had been stewing in my mind for 48 hours. Scott & I found a cleaning lady & I asked her in Chinese "My thing is up there [pointing to roof], is it ok if I go there?" and she responded in the affirmative. With laughs of glee at our luck and the ridiculousness of it all, we went at a dead sprint towards the upper level. I hopped a fence down about half a storey to the roof level, retrieved & promptly pocketed my hack, took a momen to shout obscenities at Fabio from my high vantage point, and returned to the bus with Scott. It was cool, but I would have preferred not to have lost the thing in the first place, regardless of the delightful retrieval.

We got back to Taipei city around 6:00 ... on the way we were discussing the logistics of the Christmas Party. Or rather, the numerous logistical difficulties of the "traditional Christmas Dinner" we were trying to pull here, because ovens just aren't that common and totally useless in Chinese cooking. Most people don't have them, and we're having trouble finding a venue. On the subway, Scott & I discussed his role-playing world & the completely unrelated definition of hotness, because he was confused by why some people were attracted to a certain girl. And that's it in a nutshell. or a dos shell, if you can get that online.