DaHsi, Dashi, DaXi

Wednesday was Double Ten Day (Shuang Shi), a national holiday, so no school. Tuesday night, I went to DaHsi with some teammates to do some beach-camping. This was the same beach I went to to go surfing with John, Becca and Dan. This time again, I went not long after a typhoon. The sand was littered with huge rocks and garbage. We just made the train from Taipei Main Station after some momentary confusion and bad instructions from the ticket seller. Luckily the ticket checker set us straight. We walked north from the station to get some supplies from the convenience store and town market, then headed back towards the beach. On the way, a cute black dog started tagging along. He was our pal the whole weekend, checking up on us every so often, looking for a good tummy rub or checking if there was any food. When we went to sleep, he would bark at any strangers that came near, including early morning fishers other dogs. It was nice of him to protect us, but it also would have been nice not to be woken up so often.

Anyways, Geoff was the man and brought the whole grill set up along with an enormous amount of food - steak, chicken, tofu, eggplants, mushrooms, onions, chopped carrots, and drinks. We had to wait til the next morning for dessert because we were so full. [Camping Snicker-Apple Dessert Recipe: ] He cored apples and then stuck a snickers bar in the whole, wrapped it in foil and then set it in the fire pit. 15 minutes later (or so), they were ready to be eaten - the apple softened, the chocolate melted into a nutty, caramely gooiness that had Mitch licking the foil for a good 5 minutes to make sure he had gotten all of it.

We played some cards - including the Ozzie version of Oh Hell which they call 500. Or maybe that was the other game that was the combo of Bridge and Euchre (I hope I remember the rules to teach Grr and KC). The next morning I taught them slapJack-ooQueen-clapKing and then Vietnamese Poker, which we played all the way home to Taipei. I also played a variation of Spit - except Geoff and Craig's rules were no pile ups! But otherwise the same. We also had a round of rock-paper-scissors, which I won. This isn't really significant, but it reminds of the 3 rounds I won at dinner at the steamed dumpling place last week. This was a trick I picked up from the Northwest Tofu eating gang (Emery, Edmund, Ann, Colin, etc) where when a dish comes each person gets one piece (or however it evenly splits by) - then for the remainder, you roshambo. You participate even if you don't want to eat it. So I played last week the first time for the winnings, and then the second and third times for the glory - I forced Dan to eat a dumpling he didn't even want. Oh the power! This is an all time high of a 4 win streak!

This is how I always pictured camping - gathering your own rocks to build a fire pit, finding dry wood to build the fire, and then laboriously fanning until you have hot flames spouting forth. The camping Christina and I did this summer was very much the opposite - using either the Coleman stove that KC lent us or eating baked tofu sandwiches (no cooking necessary). Trout grilling is similarly easy - you just show up at Angie's house and someone starts a blazing fire effortlessly for s'mores. Or you use a fancy shmancy grill.

p.s. Winning receipt lottery numbers were announced a couple weeks ago. Of the 4 receipts I have from August, no winners.