Max and Mae were off to school- it is about a 10 min walk for them.  Mae likes me to fix her a breakfast and Max is very low maintenance and usually has cereal and an apple.  Zach has been sleeping in until about noon- but he is up until about 3AM overnight- watching TV and “working out”.

I usually walk down to 7-11 when the kids leave to get a newspaper.  There are 2 English language papers in town- I think they are published by the same company as stories are almost identical.  Our local 7-11 is our go to place- 7-11’s are all over Asia.  They also have different fast food choices-instead of an 87oz big gulp: you can get 10,000 year old eggs (eggs hard boiled in soy sauce) or sweet potatoes!  There is a competing chain called “Our Family”, this is Max’s go to place for lunch everyday between classes.  He has had the same girl help him both these weeks, she gives him these little stickers that he puts on his phone case- he has like 4 of them.

Did some research and found a couple new areas to explore- headed out to the downtown area.  Very large shopping district- I almost died when I found a shop that had all Frenchie things……clothes, embossed leather, bags……The kids held an intervention and said “I have a problem”………”i’m obsessed”……….what ever!!  Ungrateful brats!

Zach got sick- he easily gets an upset stomach.  I call it his delicate constitution.  We’d both eaten this bread/egg thing:

they are super yummy.  Anyways he needed to return to the apt to “use the facilities”.  I felt fine- I swear that kid has a glutton issue- but what do I know?  I’m only the mom.

Mae and walked around a bit more.  Like most countries some things get lost in translation- for instance this restaurant we saw while walking around:

 You CANNOT make this up- it was actually called “Modern Toilet”- needless to say we did not eat here.  And yes those are toilets……..

I’d reserved tickets to a Chinese Opera show called “TaipeiEYE” they were performing “Legend of the White Snake”.  It’s the #1 thing according to TripAdvisor to do in Taipei.  The boys were NOT excited to go- maybe Zach made himself sick.

I have to admit- Chinese Opera is not my favorite.  The few times i’ve been its been usually outside and I would get sat next to the orchestra and it was like 100 degrees.  The music sounds kind of like someone repeatedly pulling the tail of a very pissed off cat…….very difficult to explain, and harder to listen to.

This was different, it was actually not to bad.  We were in this theater, only about 50 people, kind of sad.  On either side of the theatre there where translations (English, Japanese, Chinese and Korean) projected on screens, plus they gave us a little synopsis of the Opera before we entered so we would know what it was about:

 The show actually was really fun to see- the costumes were fantastic and so was the acting.  Mae, who went to the show under duress, she really liked it too.