To this day I'm haunted by one apartment I saw when I first arrived in Taiwan. This was at a time when I really didn't know much about real estate in Taipei. This particular apartment was a large apartment in a brand new building that over looked the river. One side of the apartment was just complete glass from floor to ceiling. The best thing of all was that it had a big western style oven.
I didn't take this apartment. It wasn't because of price, as it was actually very cheap. It was because it was far up to the north of the city and that time I didn't have a good grasp on locations and transportation so I figured it best to have a place in the city and closer to where I would be working. Although in a ironic twist, years later I would move out to live even further past that place, and work even further away from where I did at that time.
The thing that haunts me though, is the oven. I was so stupid because I thought that since that place had an oven, most places would have an oven. Sure some apartments I looked at didn't have one, but they were much older buildings. Of course newer buildings would all have ovens in their apartments. Which is just not the case at all. And to this day I miss that oven that I never used in the apartment I never lived in.
However since that time I have met two people, who have ovens. Friends of friends of friends. And with thanksgiving coming up I'm dying to do some baking. So I'm hoping that I can use thanksgiving and the sadness of not being at home and celebrating that holiday, as a way to weasel my way into one of those two people letting me use their ovens.
Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to go look in the mirror while I practice my sob story and try to force myself to drop a few tears.
