I think this sums up Taiwan, Taipei and some of my experiences so far. One crazy night in Taipei.

T.H., the president of our division, deemed that he would generously give us all in the department a meal out and a night out at Ministry of Sound in recognition of the fact that we have won some IF design awards for our corporate book shelf. Very nice.

So, we went to Jogoya near Taipei 101 which is an all you can eat sushi place. On the way there I bumped into Tanja and Michael. Walking through Main Station we were marauded by a flock of school girls demanding to talk to us in Chinese for their homework. This was absolutely hilarious and it completely brightened up what was otherwise a bit of a shitty week.

All you can eat sushi; I think my standards have shifted as the sashimi ain’t really all that good, but the chocolate is exceptional, and worth it for that alone. Henry and Cesare – two designers from our department – had their standard eating face-off (ridiculous quantities of food) and all the Taiwanese got very drunk and rowdy in typical style.

The time came to head to MOS, so we piled into taxis and cars and promptly all headed in completely different directions to make sure that we all got as lost as possible. Some people arrived relatively directly and phoned us to inform us the queue was about 500m long and stretched around the block. Luckily we had planned ahead and booked a private room. Except, I think everyone believed it was like a restaurant and it would be possible to get a room with two hours notice. Yes, they phoned at 5:00pm, only to find out it was not possible. Well done. You fucked up again.

Instead, we piled into our cars again (we were still driving as we headed off in the wrong direction down the motorway, and were trailing the main crew) and went to Holiday KTV near to my place in Shilin. Luckily, we managed to get a big enough room, and the Taiwanese set about populating the play list with hundreds of Chinese songs ensuring it was impossible for us to get a look in. I find that rather strange – little sense of team work between our two groups sometimes. Anyway, between us realising that, settling in to drink and leaving two hours before our songs came up we got hammered, and it ended up with Markus and I serenading eachother with a song I can’t quite remember.

Roman, an industrial designer visiting from Munich, was clearly totally bemused, but I think it gave him a good impression of what we are up against. We want to build a world-class brand and we cannot even organise a simple visit to a night club!

Elvis has left the building