Back from the Alishan trip! (阿里山， 日月潭， etc.)

It was a great trip. It exceeded all expectations. The location was fantastic and breathtaking and I made lots of friends. I nearly missed the bus ride in the morning too! Everyone had to wait for me bc I overslept. My phone also didn't ring-Maru said he called dozens of times but it didn't ring. Finally one of his calls came through and I realized I had fallen back to sleep after waking up from my 6:30 AM wake-up call (bus leaves at 7 AM). So I ran to the bus and got there around 7:15 AM I think.

Anyways enough talk here are some photos:





The rest are all posted on Picasa Albums: http://picasaweb.google.com/macro417/AlishanSunMoonLakeEtc?pli=1

Oh I was worried that the typhoon would ruin the trip but it didn't affect anything until the very last day.

Damn it's finally getting cold in Taiwan...

Stabbing at Taida

....I don't even know where to start.

My friend, Mike Toy, got stabbed in front of Taida (National Taiwan University aka Taiwan's most prestigious university). He was exiting the MRT/subway when a mentally deranged man slashed out randomly at people with a machete! Mike was cut on his right upper arm down to the bone and he felt to the ground. The next and final victim was a 50 year old man from Singapore, who was talking on the phone. This man sustained much more severe injuries-he nearly lost his hand and has to stay at the hospital for at least a week.

news in English:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2007/11/24/2003389270
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/2007/11/24/132146/2-foreigners.htm
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/asiapacific/news/article_1375791.php/Two_foreigners_stabbed_on_Taipei_street


more details (article in Chinese):
http://tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/a/071123/17/oqpq.html

________

Today has been so weird. My phone basically stopped working besides text/SMS messages and an occasional receiving call (can't make calls). My cousin Yun Han is leaving tomorrow morning for Atlanta, GA to see her fiance who is studying at GA Tech. I also missed my teaching session in Beitou bc of the phone issue and bc Alex mixed up the dates and thought that we were going to Lava tonight. Then I ended up going to this really far place to eat crab...

ya know what...who cares....I didn't get stabbed by a machete. Life is good.

We are going to see Mike tomorrow at the hospital in Neihu and Conor is bringing food and reading materials.

The weekend is nearly over

So I haven't updated in awhile cuz I've been pretty busy and lazy...

This weekend was pretty wild. Didn't do much on Friday, seemed like everyone in Taipei was going to the Linkin Park concert. I saw the LOOONG queue from the subway/MRT. Albert said that all the Taiwanese ppl had all the LP lyrics memorized and were singing along. All I did was teach English all the way in Beitou and got 1400 NTD (700 NT/hour) even though it actually was 2.5 hrs long I thought I would let it slide since it was the first time I met them plus they were really nice. The dad picked me up at the MRT station and then I had a really nice dinner cooked by the wife. The kids were also a pleasure to teach. Later, I helped them read books while the dad prepared hot tea, it was pretty nice. On the other hand, I teach a college student, a Hakka (ke jia ren) who btw are none as 'Chinese Jews' as Alex (Canadians are none to be racist haha) calls them, and he pays me 530 an hour...I'm thinking of requesting a raise since Taipei is so expensive.

Last night, I skipped out on Amy's Cafe in Tian Mu since, I read online that each plate of food is 400-500 NTD....so I can just go to a cheaper place for authentic, Mexican food hah. I ended up having Indonesian food with my French classmate and a local girl (she got on my nerves) and the food wasn't good but it was damn cheap and filled me up. Later I met up w/ some Taida folks and went to BED (a hookah bar). They ordered some drinks a capuccino flavored hookah and 2 plates of Thai food....somehow the bill came out to be 4,300 NTD or $130 US...uhhh W T F BBQ? And that didn't even include the rounds of beer that my friend Winston paid for at the bar. I dunno...but it's all good bc the locals paid for it all...they are ballers (architecture students from Wen Hua Da Xue, the school known for having really hot girls albeit stupid since it's one of the worst schools in Taipei it's on top of Yang Ming Shan, a mountain). We say some famous pop singer at Bed that I've never heard of.

Afterwards, we went to Luxy and got in the VIP section upstairs since we know the bartender there. It was a sweet deal since we got a ton of Black Label Whiskey, Coke, Henieken beer, and snacks for 800 NTD (the cover alone is usually 600 NTD). We also had our own private bathroom, section, and balcony to look over the main dance floor. (Oh the locals from Bed also went to Luxy and they can get us in for free! It's nice to have rich as hell local friends).

We ended up moving around to all sorts of places (it's a huge club). There's another VIP section where the floor changes to different colors and ppl started break dancing there. We also had fun taking over some random leather sofas there and drinking a lot of Long Island Iced Tea and annoying the poor bartenders hah.

I think I smoked way too much last night what w/ all the cigarettes and cigar. I had Marlboros and horrible tasting Mild Sevens (Japanese cigs). The DJ was supposed to be some famous hip hop guy called Premiere. It was a fun night except for the drinking game I had with the locals. They made a drink combining whiskey, vodka, beer, and pineapple juice (only in Taiwan)...it was sick. I wasn't very good at the guessing game (everyone throws out a zero or a 5 and you guess a # and if it's that # the person to your left has to chug a glass of that vile liquid. I lost 4 times in a row....and then more times afterwards as well. I started taking really long drags on the cigs just to get the taste out of my mouth.

Albert also was a great wingman and set us up w/ some really fine girls from Fu Da (girls from Fu Da and Wen Hua are said to be the finest in Taipei). A lot of other sketchy stuff happened which I won't discuss on a public blog haha.

I was supposed to go to Jiufen with my classmates today but I completely overslept. It's because I forgot to set my alarm when I came home last night. I just went home and passed out. When Jimmy called at 10 AM I was so confused I had completely forgotten about waking up early. I've been recovering all day today...basically being a bum, surfing online and napping a lot. I really need to start my presentation on Wan Hua though. I also need to finish my workbook. Blah didn't do anything productive this week besides get paid.

Random Observations in Taipei; Jay Chou Concert

So I've noticed that just about everyone I meet seems to turn out to be mixed...sooner or later. I thought I was good at spotting mixed Asians or hapas but it turns out I'm not. From now on in Taipei, I think it's safer to just assume everyone I meet is mixed since it's the case more often than not.

The list so far:

Jimmy H. (Puerto Rican mom, White dad)
Claire T. (Malaysian dad, white mom)
Michael J. T. (Hong Kong/Cantonese dad, white mom)
Tom L. (Cantonese/Toisan mom, white dad)
Amy F. S. (Japanese, Chinese)
Janine (Chinese, white)
Alex H. (white Canadian dad, Shanghai/Fuzhou mom)
Maru (Japanese dad, Taiwanese mom)
Hirohatsu (Japanese dad, Taiwanese mom)
Enoch C. (Taiwanese mom, white dad)
*

(*Due to a request, I went back and edited the surnames to only show the 1st initial. )

and new names seem to be added everyday since I find out my friends are mixed later on....or I meet new ppl

Another random observation, in China and in America ppl usually assume I'm Korean, but recently in Taiwan ppl have been asking if I'm Japanese. I'm not sure if this is an insult or a compliment...I guess it could be taken either way. Clint and his Taiwanese friend both asked if I was Japanese. When I first met Clint he asked if I was "full Japanese" hah I was like I'm not Jap at all.

So I went to the Jay Chou concert last night. I was a little disappointed for the ticket price (1500 NTD) but I liked the last 2 songs: Huo Yuan Jia and Shuan Jie Gun, oh I also liked Fa ru xue (Shasha's ringtone haha).

My photos are all really blurry...but I'll post 'em up later. I also have some clips (w/ no sound bc my camera-Nikon cool pix-can't record sound....). I gotta run now and get dim sum.

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UPDATE 11/12

Due to popular demand (un hombre):

JC Photos are up:





That tiny guy w/ an electric guitar is JC himself!


Alex and Jimmy with the rainbow rod/candy stick/short staff/bo li gun...what have you
(bo li is slang for gay in Chinese)



http://picasaweb.google.com/macro417/JayChouConcert

That link is for Jimmy-feel free to take any or all of those photos and do what you please, post on FB whatever...I was going to post and tag them on FB but I was too lazy to add the photos to two locations online.

So I'm just going to upload 2 clips bc there's no sound and it's probably pretty boring to watch.

Good News Articles about the ROC and the PRC

ROC
(daytime view from Taipei 101 observation deck)


3 NY Times articles on travel to Taipei:

Why you should go to Taipei

Taipei finds it's groove

Taipei's night life

PRC

A Time article on China's emergent middle class:
China's me generation

(actress in a Beijing dance studio)
(30 yr old actuary in her Beijing apt.)

(actress in front of Beijing's skyline)

(I also read an MSN article stating that China is ranked 5th in most # of millionaires, the U.S. I believe is still in 1st place but China has the fastest growing population of millionaires I believe it rose around 34%. Based on anedoctal experience, I have never seen so many luxury cars, i.e., Rolls Royce's, Bentleys, Mercedes Benz's,. Audi's, etc. in my life before I went to Beijing).

In other news, my cell phone is messed up. I can no longer receive text/SMS messages. The screen is also blank. I must have dropped it one too many times, I don't know. I'm also not even halfway through my comic book, Sacred Land. So far it's about the farmer flinging manure at the troops sent to quell their protests.

Arts Festival at CKS Memorial-Flash Performance

So I was napping when Conor called me but I decided to go since I had noticed all the commotion during kickboxing so I figured it would be a pretty big event-plus he said 'circus' so I assumed there would be acrobatics (and Chinese acrobatics is always amazing) so I dragged my ass out of bed. The first couple of performances I saw when I arrived were SHITE (i.e., old , idiotic man from Holland punching a balloon, Taiwanese ppl hip-hop dancing and breakdancing), but the Taiwanese circus act made up for it. The circus or theater group is called "Flash" and it's the first Asian circus league or something...I lost the program but it was amazing.



Here are some short clips I took w/ my digital camera bc I realized the photos were so poor:






Get ready for a ton of blurry photos from the 2007 Arts Festival (specifically the Flash 2007 performance):

This is a guy covered in white powder and he's doing headstands and sorts of tricks while balancing on two columns-made up of mulitple small wooden blocks stacked on each other (very unstable-he demonstrated this once by pushing it so that it scattered). He stacked it even higher and then did a heastand and did a back flip off it the columns. Really cool.




This is a guy on basically a giant metal hula hoop and he's inside it and rolling around. He also gets out and does tricks w/ it.

This is the two girls doing acrobatic stuff in the air w/ this metal contraption while the guy in the background sings and plays Marilyn Manson's version of "sweet dreams."





This girl is in the air in this hula hoop thing doing flips and stuff. Meanwhile, a girl is playing the gu zheng (traditional Chinese musical instrument) to Nine Inch Nails "hurt!" Awesome.


Conor convinced me to go to this other performance, which will be on Nov. 10th. Jay Chou concert. I bought the ticket at an electronic booth in 7-Eleven. I love 7-Eleven...you can do everything here. Get a full meal (they microwave for you), use the ATM, PAY my phone bills, etc. etc.



In other news, I'm trying to read this comic book which is all in traditional Chinese...and I'm not making much progress. I've been looking up all the words I don't know and it's taking forever so I think I'm just going to read/skim and not care about all the unknown characters. I can probably still get the gist of it.