The next day, Summer picked me up a bit late. I wore working attire because I really didn’t know what to expect. He drove me down the street to their office and I was sitting next to what looked like a present and I had a strange feeling it was for me. When I walked in, Annette handed me some information that was pretty much of no use to me and then told me we would have lunch in about a half hour. Annette was talking on and on about this and that and she said “would you like to meet the Mayor?” So, I didn’t really know how to respond to that so I said “sure?” She had her assistant get on the phone immediately to see if we could work out a meeting with her, but she needed 24 hours notice and tomorrow I didn’t have time. But, just the thought of it made me feel special and silly at the same time. What would I say if I met the mayor of Kaohsiung? Thanks for having me, you have a great city?
After that, we sat around and did nothing; no one was really doing anything including work. Really, I wasn’t surprised; despite being the 2nd largest city in Taiwan there really wasn’t too much going on here. Lunch was made by the company maid/cook. It was served family-style on a table-top that rotated. The food items in front of me were things I wouldn’t normally eat. Don’t get me wrong, they were not atrocious by any means – but there were things like shellfish that didn’t open on their own (I was told at home that if it doesn’t open automatically when cooked, then don’t eat it!) and there were pieces of bones with bits of meet and lots of fat on them. Not my idea of a great meal. Asian food is just different, I’ve come to realize. Much different than I’m use to and it takes an acquired taste to get use to it. After lunch, for some reason, we needed to wait another 45 minutes before we could leave on our “tour”. I checked my mail mean-time and Annette sat down in the waiting area up front and fell asleep. Literally. Can you imagine? What if a customer walked in, maybe that was normal? I just hung around, took out my phone and started playing games, and at times just stared at the fish because I had no idea what else to do.
When it was time to go, Summer went out and cleaned the car and we hopped in. Just as I thought, Annette mentioned that the gift in the backseat was for me. We drove to a part of the town listed on my grid and oh look, we happened to be driving by a mall. Would you like to go see the mall? She asked; I could tell she wanted to go in so I said sure. Not like I haven’t had enough of Taiwanese malls after seeing all the major malls in Taipei as it was. So we did, we went in the mall. Just before getting in to the department store, there were some umbrellas that caught her eye, they’re good and they are cheap, she said. So we walked in the store and checked it out. She picked one out, a UV protection umbrella, bought it and said here; this is for you. This is to prove that the Chinese are nicer than the Taiwanese. HAHAHA – after she had already bought me these really nice bath salts. Annette was my suga momma apparently. We walked through the department store and into the mall where there was a store that sold all sorts of exercise and relaxation equipment. So of course, we stopped to check it out and try it out. There was one that we both got on that did nothing but shook your fat. Apparently it was the new way to lose weight! Very popular in Japan. We did that for about 10 minutes until moving on to the foot massagers, and then the back massaging chairs. Poor Summer was just hanging around saying nothing (as usual) and looking bored. Annette decided to buy the fat-shaking machine (even though she was a super skinny little lady) and we sat in the massaging chairs until the transaction was approved. Two girls who worked there went off for a bit to go and get something, and came back with some passes and a huge stuffed something or other which Summer carried for Annette. She said to me, I don’t know what I would do without him. He was an agent and she was his boss and she used him as a chauffeur, etc. So funny.
Our passes allowed us a trip on the (very slow) ferris wheel so we went up to the top and pretended like we were children. What a crazy day. From there, we went to the seaside where I took some pictures of some beautiful temples and Buddhist statues. Then Annette thought it would be nice to visit the old British consulate location, so we did, and here she bought me a magnet to take home with me. We took a ferry to a small island where we walked around a bit looking at the open-air seafood markets and decided to eat at one of them. We had some fresh raw tuna slices, bamboo, fish soup, etc. All of it was chosen off of the ice where previously it was sitting out raw, and it was all paid for me! I was a little nervous, once again; but it was pretty good and I ate as much as I could stomach.
We concluded our night with some “ice cream” which was more like a frozen drink. Annette asked Summer if he had a girlfriend – to which he replied no, and then she asked him if he had a female lover – which he replied no. Then she said “as a boss, I try to keep work and personal life separate. I don’t ask those sorts of questions” and I tried as hard as I possibly could not to burst out laughing. She was one crazy Taiwanese lady who had lived in Canada.
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