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I didn't really make an article on my first host familys house now tahat I think about it. Only wrote shortly about my room in Joni's house back in the days when I hadn't used half of my time here in Taiwan. But today has something more to cover. The whole building in the top of this post is belong to my host family. For Joni it was only one floor with plenty of room for one person. Here it's almost the same. There's 5 floors and 6 people living here normally. Then of course it's 7 with me, but it's not like I don't get a few floors all to myself now and then anyway.
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The family business is water. Or that is, water dispensers and anything related to water in that way. Also that is why my host father has the nickname Water in my host club. (In Banciao Rotary Club, and many other clubs it seems, (almost) everyone has an english nickname depending on what their business is in. All of the clubs members are more or less heavy guys when it comes to money and that results in many charming names such as Ocean, Gas, Printer, Car, Money, etc.) Oh yeah, and if you're an upcoming YEP Student, bound for Taiwan, you're probably going to live mostly at rotary members houses. My current host parents are both rotarians, and so was Joni, whose father is also rotarian. Actually, Joni is going to be the only host family at which my host father wasn't a member of Panciao Rotary Club.
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All around the area, and sometimes even really far away, my host family members can spot water dispensers that's from this company. Especially my host brother and sister, whom I use most of my time with, both being members of the Banciao Rotaract Club just by the way.
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Someone living in this house is possesed with these little things that shake their head or makes some other movement with the help of tiny solar cells.
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A lucky toad to bring in good business.
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And an arsenl of highly advanced japanese missiles ready, should China decide to start an invasion.
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Apart from a feature that I can't tell you about because of the chance that China might be spying my blog, this ion technology-based machine can also give you pure water with any pH-value you like.
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I recommend you use a pH somewhere up in the 13's. Aim for the eyes. Remember to collect the acidic water coming out of the small pipe to the left. You might be able to use it in crafting usefull toxic gasses.
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Having a good relationship to the god(s) of business is never a bad thing either. They are in acute need of C-vitamins and like burning stuff. Especially if it's money, so people will burn ghost money on the street by their shop every few weeks. Everywhere.
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These are not part of the family. Hired here on part time, but can take me to eat dinner outside nonetheless. Taiwan rox. The guy talking in the telephone works part time as a butcher too. And no, I'm not talking about the one walking outside. That would be the guy that makes stinky tofu right next to our house.
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The house has an elevator. Mostly because second floor is for storage and it would be troublesome to move water dispensers up and down a stair all the time. There's an office where my host mother likes to sit and spy on people through the security cameras, but it's not of much interest as I've only been there two or three times and didn't take any pictures. As you can see, there's no fourth floor.
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On third floor there's a few rooms where half of the family lives. That is the two rotarians, Uncle Water & Selina (my host parents), Maxine (host sister), me and this little rodent that's gotten itself a reputation for being stupid - or even slightly mentally retarded. Which I've concluded that together with it's also rather retarded looks makes it charming, but annoying. Her name is Jili.
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That's my host parents room in there.
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Maybe hello kitty is not as big where you live, but here they have dedicated multifloor stores. You can get virtually anything with hello kitty. Telephones, cars, houses, Weddings, dog accesories or vibrators, they're out there somewhere for sure. Here in this house it's not completely crazy, but I'd say, a bit of a different experience.
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Actually I kind of like this Japanese style insanity.
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And that's the door that leads into my room. Actually, it's almost soundproof, so it's kindof hard to communicate chinese to people that they can enter if they want. Hafta go over at open it myself and cant keep it open because of the dog.
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That's where I use those few treasured 6-7 hours of daily break I have. Can you see which book is lying next to that hello kitty lamp?
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Of all these devices, there's only one that I don't use, and that's the telephone. Actually they're everywhere in the house, but I'd have no idea how to operate nor see if people are calling me or any other phone in the house. It's kindof broken anyway and makes some sound every few seconds that drove my host parents crazy every time they got into my room, so we just unplugged it. The other stuff is: Mew / Pink Floyd player, water heater (heated water in my room is totally awesome), electric heater (they've never heard of insulation nor warm water heating here in Taiwan), and finally a Mitsubishi Dehumidifier to prevent tiny rainclouds from forming near the windows during night.
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And that's the view from my room. Well, there's a little more to it, but it's not an enormeous improvement. I'm not complaining of course. I can go for a walk and find myself a good view of a lot of city anytime I want. I am, nonetheless, super jealous of some of those exchange students that get to live on 10th or 20th floors near rivers, parks or stuff in central Taipei or Tokyo.
There's a somewhat better view from Marks home on the sixth floor from which you can see a monstrous office building on top of Banciao MRT and bus station.
But that'll have to wait for now. I've written a lot, and I should go to bed now. I can cover the last two floors and hopefully get some pictures of the crew in that one. Here's another building that you can see from my room if you stand the right place:
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