Skating In The Subtropics

A tragedy struck this morning: our computer, Lappy, died. He will be remembered fondly for helping me with all my lessons, downloading my favorite TV shows, finding me directions for everywhere I want to go in Taiwan and for helping me write our blog. Basically, my life revolves around that computer. There had been signs that his health was failing- he'd really started to slow down in the last week, and this morning it happened... I get emotional writing about this because I was in the room when I saw it happen... the blue screen of death popped up. The age-old trick of turning him off and then back on again didn't work either. RIP Lappy, we're screwed now.

So here I am in our school staff room (where you really should never be when you're on vacation) writing about an otherwise pleasant day. We met up with Nareesa this afternoon
to go to Ice Land in the Taipei Arena. I look forward to going skating every winter and was pretty excited to find out that there was a skating rink in the city. After lunch and then triumphantly leading us all onto the wrong MRT line, we took a quick taxi ride to the ice rink which is on the second floor of the arena. Don't ice rinks usually go on the first floor?

We got in line to buy our tickets only to be advised that YET ANOTHER THING IN TAIWAN was "mayo": no skates left in any of our sizes. They took Nareesa's cell number and promised to call when skates became available, but since there's a 2 hour limit on skating we knew we wouldn't have to wait too long. And we were right- we only had time to use the washroom before the phone rang and we were able to go get our skates. I was given two right-footed skates at first but luckily giving me an extra pair wasn't "mayo".

Other things about our skating were "mayo", though. First of all, everyone was wearing helmets and if they were provided for free I would wear one too if they told me to (even though my ass is from Canada and I can skate circles around anyone at that rink). But, they weren't providing free helmets- they were charging for helmet rentals so we had to sign a legal waiver agreeing not to sue them for letting us skate without helmets on. Most people on the ice had also paid for knee pad and elbow pad rentals too- gee, skating is pretty dangerous! Their policy is also that you must wear gloves and there was no waiver you could sign to change their minds. Mel and I had brought mitts with us, but the ice police made Nareesa go buy some gloves. Later on, we sat on a divider that had been set up to split up sections of the ice designated for hockey but the ice police kicked us out of there too EVEN THOUGH loads of Taiwanese had been resting on it all afternoon. The ice police lady was tight.

Those gloves came in pretty handy when Nareesa wound up falling down. She blames the fall on me, but I can't see how it was my fault. I was just dragging her around by her hand while I skated as fast as I could around a corner. Jeez.

The tight skates had started to blister our ankles up, plus Nareesa had another wet fall, so we decided to head home. I had been craving ice cream but I didn't see any ice cream places during our walk to the MRT until we were just about to leave and I spotted it- a Movenpick store! Mel had seen it and had made a decision not to mention it to me. I love Movenpick! I just wanted a cone but when we went into the store a waitress seated us and gave us a menu with some very lavish-looking ice cream creations. We decided to split "The Ferris Wheel"- our choice of 7 large scoops of ice cream, a fun way to sample a lot of flavors. We ate each ferris wheel scoop in order: green apple, raspberry, swiss chocolate, panna cotta, caramelita, vanilla and strawberry- each one tasting more amazing than the last. It was the best ferris wheel I've ever been on and I have a feeling that, now that she knows of the awesomeness of Movenpick, Mel will probably let me know the next time she sees one of their stores!

Now if we can just find a good computer repair store....