The longest day

So I went to Roxy last night for the 4 free drinks but two of my friends gave me their tickets so I ended up getting 11 tickets, plus I had to take care of a friend who drank too much...so I didn't get home until really late.

So naturally it was hard waking up this morning. I ended up missing a meeting I had with my cousin's friend to discuss possible career options because it would have been a huge pain to get there since he works at Standard Charter Bank on Dunhua North Rd. close to Nanjing E. Rd. on the Muzha Line. Anyways, I ended up canceling that even though it was in my interest to go. I always keep forgetting to call this head hunter, who is a friend of a friend, who I was supposed to call a month ago...I'm a perpetual procrastinator...sigh

Anyways, I ended up sleeping through several phone calls (which later got me in trouble). And then I finally left for work and took the MRT to Jingan MRT stop but then waited and waited and after 20 min I finally decided to try a different bus than Orange 5. (I looked on the sign and it said even at peak hours it would take 15-20 min and that it could take up to 30 min or more). I saw several 262 buses pass by so I decided to take one and get off on a stop that I thought was close to where the office was...it wasn't. So I got off and then called my boss to ask how to get to the office from where I was but he wasn't even sure himself. Then I asked some policemen who could barely speak Mandarin (in Taipei Xian they mostly speak Taiwanese) and they sent me in the wrong direction. I confirmed with my boss that I was walking in the same direction and then after asking some more people I headed off in the right direction. This is where it started to get weird.

There were all these cops everywhere and there were 8 lanes and the light was green but all the cars were parked. So I just decided to cross the street and the cops just watched me. Well, I just thought to myself this is Taiwan who knows and kept walking because I was already really late for work. Then I noticed that there were no cars on the roads and then I heard a loud siren and people peeking out of their stores and apartments. There was only one other person walking on the street. It was something like out of "28 Days Later." So I started to get worried and asked the guy in front of me what the hell was going on in Chinese. I was afraid there was a pesticide spraying or bomb threat or something that might harm my health since nearly everyone was indoors. He replied in accented Mandarin, "惶恐演戲 （huang kong yan xi）" which means terrified acting literally translated. So I was pretty confused but he replied the same thing more than once when I asked him again. Then when I crossed another street a cop stopped me and told me the same thing. Again I didn't understand but he said that it was broadcasted on TV. So there I was stuck with a group of 4 other people waiting impatiently in the heat and humidity.

*I'm too tired to finish tonight...more on the military air raid drill （防空演習） tomorrow...