Guess what? Taiwan doesn't like China.

Hello there, my amazing nonexistent readers. How are you today? Well? I hope so. Moving on.


You know what Taiwan loves? No, not manga or anime, though they like it. Not cute stuffed animals. Not food, even though they realy like that as well. Nope. What Taiwan loves is paperwork. Or, to be precise, what Taiwanese government officials love is paperwork. Superfluous, redundant paperwork. Seriously, it get to the point where you should carry your passport and visa everywhere, because odds are somebody's going to want to see it. Just last week I wanted to take a look at the Taipei Public Libary, just to see if they had anything in English, but to simply get it you have to be older than nineteen and have some form of ID. Not even to get a library card. Just to look.


Moving on again. A key difference (one of them) between Taiwan and China is that Taiwan's been rabies free for a good couple of generations. China is not. Actually, rabies still runs rampant in China, even in Shanghai, where I used to live. I should know, since I got bit by a monkey at a zoo there and had to get a series of rabies shots, and, later, my thumbnail removed. The thumb's perfectly fine, but my pride will be forever wounded. Long story short, China has rabies, and since Taiwan's the equivalent of China's whiny college student who wants to get out of his mother's house, they love making trouble for anyone coming out of China. Not that I blame them, but sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in a fight between two petty children. China won't realize that Taiwan's never going to become part of it, and Taiwan just won't get over the fact that China has a large store of missiles...pointed right at them....and they're not far away....right, someone tell me what I was talking about, again? The sudden fear that China's going to nuke Taiwan into nothing has paralyzed my mind.

Oh. Right. The dogs.


Which has meant that my poor dogs, Daisy and Happy, have been in the USA for sixth months so we could get them here. (The dog to the left is Happy.)


For the last two weeks they've been back, but in quarantine, just to make sure they don't have rabies. Even though we've gotten them rabies vaccinations since they were born and numerous blood tests show they're clean, they can't come home for another eleven days. Thankfully we got to visit them in the quarantine area in a city called Taichung (has a nice diner) today.


The poor guys have been stuck in a cage for the last two weeks, in this dirty hellhole they call a facility. Let's just say that Asia's standards of cleanliness differ greatly from that of the West. The sad thing was that I wasn't even surprised. I shouldn't judge, because it's not like they have the money to make it much better, and the employees were great (mathematically speaking, about 98% of the Taiwanese are extremely friendly. They have the highest percentage of friendliness in the world) but my dogs have already been through a lot. I'm surprised they don't hate us for dragging them through all the airports and planes, but they were happier than ever to see us. I love dogs. 


Right. Enough semi-ranting for now. I'm tired, and the hour is late. Tomorrow I'm going sightseeing. We'll see how that turns out, yeah? 


Story Word Count: 116,000 words and going strong. Seems that the closer exams get, the more I'd rather write. 


Thanks for reading,
-Ari