Disaster Strikes!- Sunday

It was a rough couple of days, but all's well that ends well.

First, on Sunday I came home after a longish day and couldn't get into my apartment. See, there are two doors, and the outside one always locks automatically, but the inside one doesn't, and the key is very big and cumbersome, so I took it off the keychain. Lo and behold, I came home Sunday and the inside door was locked.

Now, locksmiths are not hard to come by in Taiwan. In fact, they put stickers with their numbers everywhere- like on lampposts, or the sides of people's houses. But I didn't have a number handy, and how would I tell the guy where I live? So I went down to try to enlist the help of the security guard. He was very nice but mumbled with a heavy Taiwanese accent and I just had no idea what he was saying. At one point he got out a chart and kept asking me questions, and I was like sorry, I just don't understand, and he would say, "Nide guoyu shoude hen hao!" (Your Chinese is so good!), but no, it isn't. Finally I called Jasmine for translation.

The locksmith came in 20 minutes and it cost a whopping $300 NT (about $10US). Imagine getting that deal in the US. Imagine even getting a locksmith to come on a Sunday night!