Week 30: Lowkey Vibes on Little K

This week was pretty chill. Lots of Little K exploration and Thai restaurants, plus another birthday and another family visitor.

On Monday, I taught my classes, as usual. During lunch, the other Little K ETAs and I checked out a new beachside park called Donglin Seaside Park. It was wonderful! There were swings, a zipline, a merry-go-round, and some mildly terrifying slides. I wish I had that kind of playground when I was a kid (maybe minus the slides).

I went to dinner with a couple other ETAs before Chinese class, where we had another ETA join. Then later, everyone went to the nearby FamilyMart to meet up with another ETA and her sister, who came to visit for spring break.

Tuesday was long, but some of my classes went much more smoothly than expected. After school, three other ETAs and the sister of one of the ETAs visited Little K. We went back to Donglin Seaside Park, where we saw the fluffiest little dog, then checked out Shaxi Old Fort, which is the westernmost part of the island. Our third and final stop along the way was the art exhibit fort with abandoned cars.

We watched the sunset from the car fort, then headed to our hotpot dinner (which had been floated from Sunday to Tuesday). As stunning was the sunset on Little K was, I think the drive back across the bridge was beautiful too. The moon was rising full and gold as I scooted back, and the bridge and the streetlamps were illuminated the same golden color as the moon.

On Wednesday morning, I checked out the new 7-11 on Little K, then taught my classes. I liked my lunch; in addition to the shiny green kind of jujube, we also had the shriveled red kind. I also got a little sleeve of Ferrero Rocher chocolates since it was International Women's Day (婦女節). I didn't do much in the afternoon, just took an unexpected nap.

I went to dinner at a Yunnan-style Thai restaurant in Jinning with some other ETAs plus another Taiwanese friend and the same Temple alum-turned-freelance blogger from last week, then had class. Once I got back to the apartment, two other Mr. Hong House ETAs and I took turns bonking one of our leftover Christmas ornaments with our heads. You know, like people running on a normal amount of sleep do.

I had a chill teaching day on Thursday, then went to the Little K honey shop during lunch. I had some honey green tea ice cream, and my partner got a honey latte. It was excellent ice cream! The two of us also got to see Pipi, the shop's other cat.

Since Thursday was another Hong House ETA's birthday, the cohort went to dinner at another Thai restaurant. We sang happy birthday to her, then gave her some blondie birthday cakes. Everyone else then went to the Jinning apartment to watch Ella Enchanted, but my boyfriend and I went back to our apartment for a bit to introduce him to my parents. It went well!! Then, the two of us went to Jinning to catch up with everyone else, and we caught maybe fifteen minutes of Ella Enchanted.

Friday was another EV day. I think it went relatively well. Another ETA and I got dumplings and douhua for lunch. I also went a little crazy with the stamps at EV and ended up with ten of them all the way up my arm (oops). The rest of the evening was pretty chill; I just did productive things, then called a friend from home.

Besides catching up on the last couple of months, we also did some uQuizzes and brainstormed concepts for our next visual novel. It's been a while since I've done much creative writing stuff, but I've missed it dearly.

I didn't do much on Saturday. A good number of the other ETAs went to Taipei for the weekend, so my partner and I just spent the day chilling and doing work. I had planned a board game night for that evening, so we went out for dinner, then bought some games at the stationery store. Along the way, we met a Brazilian man whose wife is Kinmenese and his kids, who were adorable. Board game night itself was pretty lowkey. We played lots of card games, chatted, etc.

Sunday was lowkey too. I went to lunch at a Sichuanese Thai restaurant (third one this week), then explored parts of Jinning with my partner. Among other things, we saw the temple dedicated to a deified soldier, then went to the Beishan Broadcasting Wall. Back home, we hung out with the other Hong House ETAs when they got back from Taipei, then we had another weekly hotpot. Over the course of the evening, we also watched one of the other ETAs' phones deteriorate in real time from a semi-functional device to a nightmarish handheld void. Good times.

Although I usually like to stack my schedule a bit more, I was glad to have a calmer one this week. I'm especially glad this week was chill because we have five visitors from various other Fulbright cohorts coming to visit next week.

Since the weather's getting nicer, it's also more tempting to explore Kinmen more. It's already been seven and a half months since I arrived, and admittedly, I haven't explored as many places as I probably should've by now. Somehow, we only have two and a half months left?! Terrifying!

Hopefully, whatever happens next year is wonderful too. Until next week!

Writer's Note: This post was originally written on Tuesday, March 14th, 2023.