So we switched hotels this morning. My dad was upset that the hotel wouldn't give him a discount yesterday, when we switched rooms. But in the end, when we checked out, they gave us a discount amounting to approx. NT $4,000 for staying there over 20 days.
I felt like a mule because we had to transport all this stuff. I myself had 3 bags - a rolling luggage, a camera bag and shoulder bag. Then there was my dad's briefcase and a rolling luggage, a shopping bag of fruit and bread that people have given us, a shopping bag of detergent my mom left behind, and an umbrella.
But I could tell my dad was ready to leave. He was sick of the breakfast. Every morning, they served the same thing in the free buffet: rice porridge, an assortment of Chinese pickles, cooked green vegetables, eggs over easy, a salad bar and white bread. Dad complained about the toaster - how it took forever to toast the bread and when it came out, it wasn't even that brown. Then there was the juice, which he said wasn't really juice and it was too sweet. The only thing that changed switched were some of the hot items: mini wieners and sliced ham, and tempura - today there was something that resembled french fries.
At the new hotel, he claimed, they cooked the eggs right in front of you. He said that the people here were lazy and by serving people the same stuff every day, they encouraged you not to eat here, so they could save money by making less. He said at the other hotel, he would eat more every day, whereas here, he ate less and less. Today, all he had was an egg, two pieces of toast and some tea.
So we took a taxi, hauling all our luggage there. When we got there, the hotel front desk staff checked the reservation, which was for 15 days. My dad asked for the room rate again. They gave a price that was more than what they told us yesterday. So my dad went to talk to the woman who took us to check out the room. She proceeded to tell us that she didn't give us the rate, that it was another staffer who was here that did so. Frustrated and upset, my dad asked her to talk to her manager. I don't think she ended up doing so, but we ended up getting the discounted rate for part of the time - since I was leaving, he would switch to a smaller room and they wouldn't give him a greater discount on that one. As part of the deal, we paid for everything up front.
And then they told us that we couldn't check-in until 2 am. But the other staff told us we could check-in at 12 noon ...
My dad and I went to Barista Coffee next door to hang out until noon. We rested, and he took the rest of his medication. He said he was disappointed how 3-star hotels "always try to cheat you." After checking in, we took a cab to Tai-Da Hospital. We had to eat before our 2 pm appointment and I heard that they had a great food court downstairs which my mom and dad both liked.
My ordered two bentos of roast duck and rice. The duck was a little too salty and the meat rubbery. I got him a bottle of water, but it was difficult trying to get him to drink half of it. And it was a pain trying to get him to eat the rest of his green vegetables. For some reason, he thinks me and my mom are trying to turn him into a vegetarian. On several occasions, he's said, "The doctor said not to eat just vegetables, since I'm losing weight." I assume his doctor means that my dad needs protein. When I said that tofu has a lot of protein in it, my dad just brushed me off.
Sometimes I don't know what my dad is thinking. After eating, he said that he needed to go to the bathroom to rinse his mouth from the overly salty duck. So we go to the bathroom. Instead of going to the sink where people wash their hands, he goes to the sink that's next to the urinals. The industrial one that I'm sure they use to clean mops. There he scoops water into his mouth with the same hand that he uses to turn the faucet on. I asked him why on earth he did that, since it was so unsanitary and he could of used the bottled water that I bought. He just blew me off.
We found the Internal Medicine Clinic and waited for our 2 pm appointment. I sat and read a book while my dad rested. The doctor we were seeing was a liver specialist, apparently the best in China. Apparently my dad is seeing two doctors: this liver specialist and another doctor, a cancer specialist. My dad said that the liver doctor is a really good guy, he sees a lot of patients who can't afford a good doctor. My uncle, through his connections, found a way for my dad to see him when my dad was still in the emergency room at Tai-Da. And while the hospital was looking to release my dad because his fever had subsided, this liver doctor allowed my dad to stay a little while longer so he could see the cancer specialist.
From what he told me, my dad seems indebted to the liver doctor and my uncle. In the worst time - when he was in the emergency room with a bad fever - they pulled through for him, finding a way to get past the bureaucracy.
Well, being that this is a busy hospital, at 1:45 pm they posted a list of people who had afternoon appointments along with the order with which they'd be seen. We checked the list and found our number, #059, to be about 3/4 of the way down the first column of names. My dad knocked the door of the room and spoke to the nurse, who remembered him. She came out and said that we should come back at 6 pm, which is when our turn would probably be. Then she thought twice and said to rest and check back with her at 2:30, and maybe there'd be a no-show and she could squeeze him in to see the doctor early.
At 2:30, we were waved in. I entered the room, which couldn't have been more than 8 square yards, but had a desk, an examination table , a stool next to the desk, a wall desk for the nurse and another chair for the next patient in line. The liver specialist sat behind the desk reviewing my dad's files and asked him questions about the drugs he's been taking and how he's been feeling. Next to the doctor there was a nurse pulling up my dad's files on the computer. Three or four other nurses were also crammed in the room, listening, processing paperwork, preparing info on the next patient. I tried to stay out of the way, but it was so crammed.
The whole matter lasted less than 5 minutes. The doctor said that he wanted to check on my dad's liver in March, and prepared times for him to come in and get a blood test and an ultrasound scan. Before I knew it, we were on our way out. As we turned into the hall, I was shocked as to the number of people waiting to be seen by doctors here. There were about 40 rooms in the Internal Medicine ward and if each doctor saw the number of patients our liver specialist did, Tai-Da hospital seemed to be an incredibly efficient health care assembly line. Just the sheer number of people the doctors saw blew me away...
After the appointment, we took the MRT back. Well, I got us on the right train, but unfortunately it was going the wrong direction. When we got to our station, we stopped at Sogo Department Store and decided to get a snack and something hot to drink. We went downstairs to the market, got a whiff of the fresh baked goods at Yamazaki, then we headed upstairs to check out the food court, where the Starbucks was. When we got to the Starbucks, my dad said he was going back to Yamazaki for some bread. He said he saw waffles and wanted some. We went back downstairs, picked up some waffles and a French chicken puff thing for me, then returned to Starbucks. He got a coffee and I my second chocolate milk of the day.
At 4:30 pm, we headed back to the hotel so that he could take his afternoon nap. He didn't drink even half of his coffee, so he wasn't caffeinated. Around 6:30 pm he woke up and asked if he fell asleep. I said, "Well, I don't know. It seemed like it. Did you?"
He replied that he thought so and that it wasn't like yesterday when he had a nightmare and kept calling my name even though he knew I wasn't there.
The past few days, he's woken up sweaty but without a fever. I'm not sure if it's the drugs since he had this problem prior to coming to Taipei.
He went back to sleep and I woke him up at 7:30 to go eat dinner. I know he smelled spaghetti at the Sogo food court. So we went to look for an Italian restaurant. I peered down this one side street and saw this sign that said "Chianti" in English. We went to go check it out and it turned out to be this fancy Italian joint that served the standard fettucine and linguine, but also lamb chops, osso bucco and risotto. The average cost of each dish was NT$500.
We decided to look elsewhere. My dad said that the pictures on the menu looked good, but there were no customers inside. Indeed, I only saw one couple inside. We walked around the corner to a place I spotted earlier called "Just Pasta." They had posted reviews of the restaurant outside, but I couldn't read it.
Dad says in Chinese, "Oh this looks good. It must be good, there's a lot of women here."
