Holiday Weekend

Friday was Tomb-Sweeping Holiday, when people go and burn the brush away from the graves and make offerings- they eat a meal gravesite I guess to share with their ancestors. It seems like every holiday in Taiwan is about ghosts and fire. So I had Fri and Sat off from work.

I had my first talk on Friday in Chinese. It went pretty well. Everyone said they understood it and I've decided to stop worrying about whether or not they're just being polite.

I also went shopping for a new bike- I found a shop where the girl spoke pretty good English. She had lots of good advice. My main concern was getting a bike that was the right size. This shop is about 20 minutes from my apartment but I went to a few other shops but they were either weird or didn't have the right size, so on Saturday I rode a taxi back to that shop (surprisingly easy and cheap) to buy my bike. The English-speaking girl wasn't there but I pretty much knew what I wanted and there were some very nice people. It turned out the only one they had in the model I wanted in the right size is a bright tomato red which I wasn't crazy about but I bought it because I wanted to ride it that day.

I'm very happy with it. Even though I don't think it's beautiful it's very easy to see which is nice for, you know, not getting hit.

I rode it all over the place on Saturday- about 5 hrs altogether. I didn't tackle too many hills. But I'll try those out soon. It's so comfortable and it's really nice to have a bike that's the right size.