Morning Market

So this morning we went to a morning market for the first time and all I can say is that it was amazing!  I feel like I have been and will be using that type of expression far too often, but I can’t help it!  Everything here is just so… cool.  

Anyway, the morning market.  So it actually reminded me a lot of New York City – the hustle and bustle and the people and the noise… of course I couldn’t help but love it!  We had to be back for a meeting at the school, so we didn’t have a ton of time, just enough to walk down the street a ways and gaze with wondering eyes at everything there was to see.  And believe me, there was a ton! Just a taste –

 

The fish in that pan? Definitely ALIVE.  We watched them breathe and move and it was creepy but fascinating.

So the real triumph of the morning market episode was that I had my first “real” conversation in Chinese with a Taiwanese person!! It went kinda like this (except in Chinese):

“How much is this?”

 “80”

[exchange money and little trinket]

“Xie xie, xie xie”

[big smile, walk away]

The end. 

 Life changing, right? I thought so, too! :D

I can’t even tell you how proud I am of myself about that, because it would probably be a sin. 

Of course, being that prideful, I was pretty much required to take a fall.  The next conversation I had was an epic fail. I thought I was buying one bunch of grapes for NT40, but ended up with one POUND (or possibly kilogram) of grapes for NT90… Now I’m not sure exactly how that happened but I now have a ton of grapes!