Met Nikon and Mr. Liu at the funeral home, a van was provided by 福田妙囯 to take us for a visit. It’s about 40 minutes drive from the funeral home. Sitting on a small mountain overlooking the ocean, the building is surrounded by mountains. There are several floors full of floor to ceiling lockers for urns and Budda statues around every corner (we are in the Buddhist area). The setting is very beautiful and modern. You can get lost in it without a guide. They are still building new areas to hold more urns on the floor we looked at. I found their web site at http://www.futan.com.tw/landscape_c.html
They took us to the basement floor. The floor is divided into lots of rooms full of lockers with numbers under each one. According to Mr. Liu, mom needs one facing East. We found one right above the eye level with a good number combination (adding the last two digits and look at the last digit of the sum, the higher the number the better but don’t use 9, it’s for the gods). Mom’s number is 7. We went back up to the entry hall/dining area and had the free lunch they provided for visitors. I signed the contract after lunch and they brought us back to Taipei. It was raining hard, so Nikon and I went to Brown’s Cafe and had a cup of coffee waiting for the rain to die down a bit. He was telling me about the relatives in China again and how he told them he would make sure they get some money. sigh. that again. I tried not to be rude and ended the awkward conversation. Found a bus stop and took the bus back to the hotel.
S and B picked me up from the hotel after I got back and took me to 深坑 for stinky tofu. The old street has stands and shops and restaurants on both sides. We went to 粗茶淡飯 and ordered steamed and fried stinky tofu and 龍鬚菜. Everything was delicious. We were going to have tea at 貓空 but since I’m in the mourning period, one can not go up to the mountains where the spirits live, so we drove back to Taiepi and got some avacado milk drink and they dropped me off at the hotel.
It was a full day but it is good to keep busy. I’m very lucky to have so many nice people around to help me get through this time. Mr. Liu is charging very little for the funeral and he has taken care of every details for us. Can’t ask for anything more from anybody. I will leave the dealings of the emotions for later after I get back home and have some time to go through them.