The "Bucket Toss" and Other Adventures

Greetings from Taiwan!! Yes, I know it's been nearly 3 months since I last updated my blog. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself, so you don't need to say a thing.

A lot has happened since I wrote last (obviously, a lot goes on in 3 months). I have 3 stories this time around that seem worth sharing. One is interesting, one amusing, and one is really quite embarrassing.

I'll start off with interesting. Who doesn't like going to the fair? There are lots of games, food, prizes, and interesting sights. What's not to love? I recently discovered that the city I live in has a perpetual fair...that is it's here every single night. They call it a night market here, but to me it seems like a county fair minus the livestock barns. For 50 NT (New Taiwanese dollars or roughly $1.50 US) you can play games of chance with rings, ping pong balls, fishing poles, air guns, and more things that I have now forgotten. And once you've worked up an appetite playing games of chance and winning useless prizes that you didn't really want anyway, you can move on to the dozens of food stalls for beef kebab-like things or tasty tofu snacks. Then, strengthened and refreshed you are ready to move on to the shopping portion of the extravaganza.

Alright, now your ready for amusing. I had the privilege of attending a wedding here in Kaohsiung the beginning of November. Two people from my church here were getting married; so I got to experience my first English/Chinese bilingual service. The bride was Taiwanese and the groom was Australian. The translator did a wonderful job. She had to translate the entire sermon from English to Chinese and various readings from Chinese to English---not an easy task I'm sure. As I said she did a wonderful job! That is right up until a slight pronunciation problem at the very end. After the ceremony she announced, much to the confusion of everyone present, that it was time for the "bucket toss" and asked all the single ladies to come forward. Of course we all turned to each other in wonder waiting to see what kind of interesting Taiwanese tradition this could be. She repeated her request for all the unmarried women in the room to come to the front for the bucket toss...and it began to slowly dawn on us that this was actually a western tradition. We were meant to come forward for the bouquet toss! The poor lady! Her slip provided us all with a little something to laugh over at the reception. I went forward, but, alas, I didn't catch the "bucket."

Now, the moment you've all been waiting for. The promised embarrassing story. It all started because my mom gave me several of the Betty Crocker microwave desserts. Now, in case you've never had one of these wonderful creations, it's basically single serving size brownie mix that you just add water to and microwave. We don't have a microwave that works in our apartment, so I had the bright idea to go over to my boyfriend's apartment (his name is Charles in case your out of the loop) and use his. The mixing step went great, but the microwave step was a true catastrophe. I put it in, set the microwave to 40 and walked away. The directions said 40 seconds...unfortunately the dial on the microwave meant 40 minutes (yes, I didn't really put a whole lot of critical thinking power into this scenario). A minute or so later Charles and I were startled by a thudding sound as the microwave door was thrown open due to the expanding air inside (air expands drastically when heated). I was dumbstruck at the sight of my dessert en flambes. Truly, it was in flames! It was easily extinguished by a 1/4 cup of water, but it took a good 20 minutes to clear enough smoke out of the apt to breathe correctly. This story sadly proves what my dad has lovingly and truthfully asserted for years now; that I am domestically challenged. Pray for my safety in the kitchen!

Well, that's it this time around. Until next time, I bid you all a fond farewell!