Er shi qi sui le!

It's 4:15 a.m. and I think I managed to rack up some good hostel karma by Planning Ahead so that I was not rummaging through my backpack, rustling plastic bags, nor making any more noise than necessary when I woke up, got dressed and got out of the room in five minutes flat. I remember all too well being woken up in various parts of the world by inconsiderate dorm mates who seemed to think that a plastic bag opened slowly is somehow quieter that its faster cousin.

So, happy birthday to me on about three hours of sleep! No matter, since I always fall asleep as soon as I'm seated on a plane (seriously, I think it's been years since I've been awake for take-off, though I usually wake up in time for the meal), and it's only a short flight back to Tokyo. Also, I had Birthday Poutine last night! :D It seems if you want a decent plate of poutine in Asia, you need to head the Bongos in Taipei. The owner has actually lived in Canada and has family there, so she knows what she's doing, though she told us -- and confirmed my suspicions -- that it's impossible to get cheese curds over here.

Taiwan has jellyfish! And I have a burn mark on my calf to prove it!

Taiwan is a very silly place. Or rather, M-P and I were very silly in Taiwan, though we tried to control ourselves. Sort of. For a day or two.

Day 1: Taiwanese culture is Serious Business! *plan to visit museums, botanical gardens, etc.*

Day 2: *plotting the best strategy to cover as many night markets as possible*

Day 4: *cackling like hyenas over huge bowls of shaved ice and fruit, recalling some of our Greatest Hits* (those being, for A-L's benefit because she's the only one who'll get them, Caroub! and Bille dans le nez!)

Day 5: *silliness was briefly disrupted when an attack from some rogue jellyfish interrupted our beach day, but we got back to on track in the evening at the hostel and spent half the evening giggling, though I can't remember what about. M-P?*

Day 6: *walking through incredible marble gorges*
Me: We should have brought a fish!
M-P: O_O;
Me: Because then you could take pictures of me pretending to be Gollum eating the fish in the tunnel! :D
M-P: ... I could photoshop the fish in? And give you glowing eyes! XD
*take the picture, which is surely the most hideous picture of me ever taken, and I'm not really photogenic to begin with, while bemused Taiwanese tourists try to avoid tripping over us in the dark*

Day 7: M-P: We'll make a LOLM-P and LOLM-A blog! :DDD
*do some more hiking through the gorgeous scenery while taking stupid pictures of each other with the express purpose of adding captions to them later*

I got home a couple of hours ago and have done nothing since then but catch up on the ol' lj, going back in time and commenting on entries. Damn, you people posted a lot!

I had all these grand plans of emptying my backpack and doing laundry and cleaning out the apartment and going out for groceries, but most of that is obviously not going to happen tonight. For one thing, my apartment was not full of mildew and bugs upon my return, so the cleaning can wait a bit. For another, what's up with this weather?! I leave the country for ten days and come back to a COOL Tokyo? The hell? And this rain - how is my washing supposed to dry, eh?

The groceries, though, are sort of essential, since I would like to eat this evening. And I should at least, you know, charge my phone... *too lazy to open backpack and search for charger, or even USB cable to upload pictures*