i surprisingly had a very great day today. i wasn't looking forward to it cause i had to wake up early to go help a friend with a project, then do some shopping at the computer market, which is a madhouse on the weekends. but the project work was really good, i learned some things and had some good discussions. then i met a friend for lunch and she spoke a lot of Chinese with me. It's always nice to meet up with friends I haven't seen in awhile because they can see how much i've improved since the last time wet met. Much better than the people who i meet often and can see how slowly i pick up new things. ha.
I lucked out at the computer market, being able to get all my things done on the outskirts of the market without having to enter the lion's den.
but the best part of the day was that another friend was feeling a bit sad. so to cheer her up i took her to get some of my favorite frozen yogurt, and then i took her to a secret farm in taipei city, that has cows, goats, pigs. she had a fun time playing with the animals. It was quite funny to see her very very slowly warm up to the animals and feel comfortable enough to pet them. I shared a smile with the parents who had brought their children to see farm animals for the first time.
In another part of the farm, students were planting rice in rice field. They were surrounded by a crowd of people who had never seen rice being planted before, and judging by the quality of their work, the students had never planted rice before. It's a bit sad when you really think about how as time goes by, fewer and fewer people know how to do things of the utmost importance, like farming. Although it might be ok for the government, which actually pays farmers to not grow rice, since there is too much rice produced in Taiwan.
Also on the walk, we came across some students practicing bocce ball. It's what you can see pictured above, although kind of hard to make out the balls. It was nice to sit there and pretend I was in a park in Paris watching old men play bocce. It also made me reflect on the sad state of the world, where there is a very popular video game of bocce in which you use real motion to throw the virtual ball. I know a lot of people who play this game, even though it would really take no effort at all to come to this park and play.
Well that's pretty much it for my surprising Sunday. I hope that your day will be equally as good.
