Friday, January 11, 2008

The Principal's Office is Empty, His Glass is Full


Full of Liquor. Thats right. So is the Vice Principal's. So is the Gym teacher's. Let me start from the beginning of this section of the story and then I'll work my way sideways through the minor events of the last few days.

We walked about 27 kilometers yesterday and were looking for a rest stop when we came upon an elementary school. We had been told, before the trip, that elementary schools and schools in general were good places to sleep, so we went in. As we neared the building we saw some people sitting at a table near the school. We asked if we could sleep there and they said "sure." Then they invited us to eat food and drink with them. It was only after I sat down that Jeff informed me that we were sitting with the principle, the Vice Principal, the gym teacher and another regular teacher. It didn't take very long to realized that the gym teacher was pretty hammered. The rest were getting there. We ate some crab and some soup and then they offered us this certain type of liquor with a 58 on the bottle. Jeff said, "here, have a sip." I had a sip.

It felt like lightning. I didn't really need much more, after a first small glass, but the gym teacher insisted. By insisted I mean poured it into my glass even as I was saying how I was fine.

So it goes. The night was funfilled, eating, drinking, joking and playing games with the drunk elementary school administration of the small Taiwan town of Jhuhu.

Pictured above is a picture jeff snapped in the morning when the kids came to school. I was sleeping. They were not. The kids were very cool and quite curious.

I would be too if two foriegn hobos came to sleep under my elementary school pavillion.


Lets work backwords now. Yesterday. Slept on a pier after another long day of walking. I woke up to the sounds of motors on fishing boats starting as they left for the day. We were at a fishing pier. Our breakfast was noodle soup although a local suggested we buy a fresh fish and grill it at a park nearby. We're lazy and not good at scaling and cutting fish.

Another man we would meet down the road was.

As we walked we took a random backroad to take a rest and look over the ocean. When we did this, we passed the beginning of a little party. They invited us under a tarp to drink rice wine and eat candy. We did. Then a man arrived with a fresh fish and started cutting it. After about 10 minutes he brought over what he had cut: fresh sushimi aka raw fish. We ate the sushimi with nose burning wasabi and sticky rice. It was delicious. The wasabi almost killed Jeff and I.

Earlier in the day we had passed another small party on the side of the road and they too invited us in for some food and a drink.

One of the old men there "Mistah Tien" as he said it, was also present at the above mentioned party. It was quite a coincidence since the next party with the sushimi was at the next town and we just picked a random road and we met him there. This leads to my conclusion about coincidences. People say "oh it was just a coincidence" to explain strange events. We say it as if what happened can be explained by some sort of logic. This logic as well as the presence of, say spirits, cannot be proved or disproved. Thus, its interesting to think about what might be causing the coincidences in all of our lives.

Thats right. I got deep there for a minute.

So heres the end of the post.


Todays famous doctor: Dr. Scholls

Headline of the day: Drunken Pair walk across Taiwan, Lead Stray Dogs to Presidential Victory

(Note: This references people giving us rice wine and then us continuing to walk, the fact that Jeff has this idea that he's going to get a pack of stray dogs to follow us down Taiwan by offering them food and building their trust, and the fact that the presidential election is coming up)

2 comments:

. said...

"A few years back a stranger blew into town, and Turd City ain't never been quite the same since."

Unknown said...

Remember when we went to clarksville elementary. I wonder that if we ever found someone sleeping under the overhang you would walk up and be like " yea, thats my future"

and what a beautiful future it is.