This was bound to happen. Events have outstripped my ability to chronicle them. I have to retrace my steps and account for what has happened since yesterday’s game.

We came back to the hotel and waited to greet the team. Everyone filed through the lobby--except J and D. They had been chosen for drug testing. J says the officials came up to her right after the game and she had no idea what they wanted. Eventually, they had a string of interpreters so that the official would talk Chinese which was translated into English which was translated into ASL and then explained further to Jessie whose ASL skills are imperfect. The women had to produce a sample which apparently took extra time because there had to be witnesses!

There was nothing we could do to expedite the process so we went for lunch at the Grand Hotel, a building that lives up to its name. It is built in the traditional Chinese style with a graceful roof that looks like a huge bird just landed and may take off again at any time. Their restaurant overlooks the city and serves Cantonese food. We took the suggestions of our waiter and had a lovely crispy fish in spicy sauce and chicken in some sort of sweet sauce along with dim sum and the inevitable (and delicious) fried rice.

D wanted to see the Chang Kai Shek Memorial and we arrived just as the guard was changing, a very precise and even intimidating process given that they were twirling real guns with real bayonets. All of this occured in front of an immense statue of Chang Kai Shek looking very genial. He’s sitting in a big chair like the statue of Lincoln in his memorial, but while Lincoln seems very solemn about the burdens of the Presidency, Chang Kai Shek looks almost jovial. His monument is certainly impressive with 89 steps to commemorate each of the years he lived.

The lower levels house galleries including an art gallery with some very lovely flower paintings--the artist had his picture taken with D & Z. Another gallery includes some of the President’s personal artifacts including two bullet proof cars and a loving reproduction of his office with a wax version of him sitting at the desk. It was all a little too reverential for my taste and apparently for the taste of some Taiwanese citizens who are lobbying to make the monument less of a shrine.

The monument is adjacent to the National theatre and concert hall, two massive and beautifully decorated buildings. Everything is surrounded by gardens but, in the heat of the day, they didn’t provide much relief. Instead, we walked a couple of blocks to something called Monster Ice. Shaved ice is a Taiwanese specialty with good reason. You get an enormous bowl of ice covered with sweetened fruit (I chose mango) and then topped with just a dollop of ice cream. Cold. Sweet. Scrumptious. Even when everything has melted into soup.

You wouldn’t think we would want to eat again after that kind of snack but sure enough when dinner time rolled around we were hungry. P joined us at Umeko, a family style restaurant where we drank quite a bit of Taiwanese beer and sampled a plate of traditional chicken with crispy skin, a vegetable that looked like a rhinoceros horn, shrimp with pickled vegetables and some kind of crispy spring roll. (We voted against the duck bowels.)

No one was in the mood to turn in, so we decided to go to Brown Sugar, a jazz joint downtown. We didn’t have the name in Chinese so we thought we’d point out the location on a map. No need. As soon as we said, Brown Sugar, the cab driver knew where we were going.

I guess that’s because Brown Sugar is the sort of place that attracts both tourists and locals. The jazz band was pretty good though, from our point of view, the music took a turn for the mediocre after they were joined by a singer. Never mind, the place was worth visiting just for the people watching.

Everyone seemed young and hip--especially the bartenders who were VERY good at their jobs. They would raise their shakers head high to agitate the drinks and then pour them just so and snap the decanter away. All the liquor was located on glass shelves above their heads and they would reach up and pull down exactly the right bottle without looking. It was a mesmerizing performance, though the alcohol we were consuming may have heightened the effect.

Overnight, there was a change in the wind. Before today, I was immersed in everything Taiwan. This morning, I started thinking about home and even felt a little teary. The local cure for the blues seems to be shopping so we went to the weekend Jade Market which is supposed to be the largest in Southeast Asia. It’s located under a freeway and stretches for blocks, table after table of jewelry, beads and carvings. Much of it is in jade but many other precious and semi-precious stones are represented too.

We’d heard that the bargains were good and that haggling was expected but we quickly realized we couldn’t tell the difference between authentic jade and processed quartz. Zach turned out to be the best shopper, partly because he made friends (again) with an attractive young woman who shared some shopping tips. After a while, J and MJ joined us and they were equally enthusiastic about all the things for sale. It all made me wish I had the shopping gene. After a while, my head was spinning and I just wandered around feeling seriously over stimulated.

MJ had a restaurant in mind for lunch so we headed to, believe it nor, the Toilet. The Taiwanese are very fun-loving and irreverent people, and this restaurant is apparently quite popular. The seats are, you guessed it, toilets!!! And the food arrives in hot pots shaped like, yep, toilets!!! For desert, there’s a plop of custard shaped like… Well, never mind. Suffice it to say, many pictures were taken and there were lots of potty jokes. I can’t really comment on the quality of the food because, I suspect, I’m too old to fully enjoy this kind of humor. Still, it was an experience we are all likely to remember.

The restaurant was part of a huge outdoor mall filled with hip little stores and movie theatres and even a film crew shooting some sort of action movie. The Taiwanese seem to thrive on all this bustle and excitement, but I needed a break so it was back to the hotel for a swim and a bit of blogging. Now at least, I’m up to the minute. I wonder what will happen next!!