Was rather uneventful in reality. My boss had agreed to come over and pick me up and my luggages from the hostel, so I got up early, thinking that he would be here before the computer classes begins at 9am, but he didn’t call nor answered any of our calls. In the end, we got fedup of waiting and went back to sleep and got up again at 1pm in the afternoon. It was raining heavily by then. Still no calls from our boss though.
Eventually we got tired of waiting, and were hungry since we didn’t had anything to eat except for mangoes since morning, so we headed to 7-11 to buy ourselves a meal and plopped back in front of the television set, watching random programs. By 3pm, still no sign of the boss, so decided to try calling him again, and this time we got through. He said he would be coming around 4pm now. More than half the day was wasted waiting for him! Yet a few minutes later he called back, and said that he was coming over to the hostel, right now.
Quickly packed up what’s left of my stuffs and headed out with my luggage, which had put on a tremendous amount of weight since I got here almost 2 months back. Thank god the boss helped me to haul it up into his car, and finally it was time to bade farewell to the lady boss of the hostel and my partner whom I’ve worked with, and the place where I had stayed for the past 45 days. Before I left, people kept asking me if I would be overwhelmed with emotions, but I didn’t felt anything like that. It was more like, my job here is done, and I’m just moving on. I do feel that it was such a waste to not being able to bring the wonderful scenery along with me, because if I could, I would certainly try to squeeze the wonderful mountain air and dancing mists which floats out among the closely grown trees into my luggage.
Byebye Neiwan. I loved your mountains, mists, river and forests.
Heading up North towards Muzha, Taipei, where I would be spending the night, the weather changed gradually. From a slight rain in Neiwan, to a heavy downpour from Guanxi all the way to Yingge, then the amount of rain gradually reduced until it was just cloudy weather without a single raindrop in Muzha.
Reached the boss’s home in a narrow alley of Muzha, and he helped me to carry my heavily pregnant luggage up to the third story of the apartment where he stays. Bumped into his daughter on the way down as she was heading out for a gathering with her friends. Put my luggage inside the room where I would be staying for the night.
I have to say that his room is very crammed. He does have a lot of stuffs crammed into this tiny apartment! Even the room which I am staying now is also filled with stuffs to the brim. I had to tread very carefully, or else I might step over something? Chatted with his wife before we headed out for dinner at 6pm. They decided on having hotpot for dinner today, so we took a taxi to the place which was only a short drive.
Went into one of the restaurants which they had eaten at before, but after choosing a side dish only then did they learned that the hotpot offer was over, so we excused ourselves and headed on to the next shop a few doors away. Here the soup is made from sour vegetables stock. Ordered a set for three and I got mutton to go with mine.
It was very delicious, and the set even came with a xiao long bao (soup filled meat buns) plus onion pancakes. Dessert was red bean paste pancakes with grass jelly. What more can I ask for?? Satisfied, we walked back with a full stomach, which took us about 20 minutes. They ran into an old friend along the way and stopped for a small chat.
Getting back to their apartment, I showered and was then asked to sit down with them for a fruit platter. Felt very much spoiled and fussed over by my boss’s wife. He then borrowed me his desktop to surf the internet, and I found an email from my senior regarding a job which I had keeping a watch out for. Quickly emailed my senior back, and spent the next hour retyping my resume. I was both excited and nervous at the same time, so I was fussing over the fine details, and after clicking send only did I found out that, auto-correct had ‘corrected’ my name.
この長い旅で 