compliments

The people over here really know how to give compliments. It's amazing how many you get. Esp. as a curly haired, blue eyed, pale skinned girl. The first few days I was here I was showered with compliments and on average was told at least once a day how beautiful I was. To be honest I just found this a little embarrassing especially when they would ask to touch my hair or my face. The worst is on the trains or MRT's. Randoms would come up to me to tell me how beautiful my eyes are. I don't get it at all, cos the women here are stunning. But it's not just me, people here are culturally really complimentary to each other, it's such a lovely thing. How many times a day do people give compliments in Britain? You're lucky if it's once a week.
But yesterday something changed. I got a 'wow...' but instead of being followed by 'you're eyes are so pretty' it was followed by, 'you look like crap,' and so I was dragged off to the doctors. Turns out I have some viral throat and chest infection thing, so I got loads of pills to take. yay. It's so annoying. Apart from the fact that I had to wear this surgical mask thing, I also had to cancel my weekend in Taipei with a friend, which, I was totally looking forward to.
So this weekend will now be spent in dorms, sleeping loads and eating very spicy food. (Any excuse I guess)
On the subject of food; if you ever come here and decide to partake of the menagerie of various foods, never ask what it is you're eating. If you like it, stick to it. The problem is that you only eat with chop sticks here so you can't really bite off a little bit for a taste. So, while eating lunch with a friend he pointed out something I should try. It looked like liver cubes, but he promise me it wasn't so I picked some up, (along with something that I thought was just funny looking noodles and turned out to be squids tentacles or something.) I tried some of this liver looking stuff, which was not nice, and a bit slimy. I asked what it was, and he told me that I didn't want to know. But I was persistent to the point of irritating (which I now regret) and it turned out to be congealed pigs blood. At least I can add it to my list of weird things I've eaten.