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You are very wise to hold on to your money now. You can do the Internet Cafe thing for a while yet.

Save a good chunk of money out of a few pay checks to buy your laptop.

I don’t know who you put up with their games, good thing you are on to their tactics.

Okay good to see you ;)

You know, biking home tonight I passed the absolute cutest little night market. It was tucked into this well paved little area (as opposed to lumpy, crumbling pavement you sometimes get on "on the shoulder" areas around here).

Everyone looked so perky and happy. There was this teeny tiny ride of cups for kids about 3 years old. This machine would fit in your living room! It was so cute, with a couple tiny tikes swirling slowly around in coffee cups!

Then there were banks of those Chinese pinball games where the silver ball comes bouncing down (yes, they really play those!)

Then a friendly farmer jumped out and offered me a fresh slice of pineapple on a toothpick, giving me the rapid fire hire pressure sales job at the same time. Too bad for him it was in the Taiwanese dialect and I understood not one word of it!

Then around another corner of this small area, there was a cordoned off area with little race cars (go karts) zooming around with kids in them, and at the end of that section (coming around in a medium sized rectangle) there was one of the most ornate ring toss games I have ever seen. It was about twenty feet wide and thirty feet deep (yes, thirty feet deep) and all over that area there were displays of things you could toss wooden rings at, and I guess you keep the object if you can ring it.

At the very back end there were these bottles of champagne placed all around, plus just tons of things, CD players, lamps, watches, all kinds of trinkets. And lots and lots of pegs to land the wooden rings on.

Finally on the way back out, there were all these food stalls, very clean and new looking, and cutest of all (after all that cuteness) was a little bakery with ornate cakes and pastries for sale.

The whole place was well lit, and everyone looked upbeat and happy. Very nice slice of the planet, this area is, more often than not. Going around here in Taiwan I often think of Africa, South America, and other very violent places which this area is simply not like! What a cute way to end the evening. I might even roll back over for a second look and some snacks. Who knows, I might win a big prize at the ring toss!