Just to make you laugh and me cry…. I was just in the shop reaching for some orange juice. I reached ‘wrong’ and one of the 250ml dropped to the ground. Shit. So I made my apologies and paid for the juice (even though it was clearly an inferior bottle . plastic, i ask you!) but since I was still in the mood for the OJ I bought a nice big 1000ml bottle. Yum yum breakfast in my tum. Okay so I get home, but my motorbike helmet down, and then life turns into slow motion. My sixth sense realises that the big bottle of orange juice is slowly drifting towards the floor. Even my kung fu ninja samurai skills are not enough and sure enough 1 fucking litre of orange juice sprays itself evenly over my bastard floor. DO YOU KNOW HOW STICKY THIS STUFF IS? I have washed the floor twice now and yup I still get my shoes doing the sticky sticky walk walk thing (but I have to admit that when that does happen in a supermarket, when some kid spills fruit concentrate on the floor, walking accross it is immensely satisfying). So fuck the orange juice and fuck the floor. I am sitting on it now typing and when I get up I will get that same satisfying feeling as my arse peels itself from the surface.
Tag: Taiwan
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Punishment
The Taiwanese God of Torture was clearly in a humourous mid-winter mood. He (and it must be a he) made sure the weather was perfect for doing all the things we really wanted to do – like cycling, going to the beach or just chilling out in Taipei – and that we were instead subjected to a series of ridiculous tasks that would cause only to heighten the considerable pulsing pain in our heads.
Round 1: Breakfast / Zao Fan
Precisely what I did not need was precisely what I got. Taiwanese breakfast. I really do consider myself an adventerous eater, but not at breakfast, when all I want is the things I grew up with. What is it? Rice soup with fried offal, a fried egg, some stewed tofu in a spicy MSG sauce and if you are lucky some mechanically seperated pork meat (AKA pork floss, my nemesis).
Don’t mess with the J-ManRound 2: Strawberry Picking
Miaoli is famous for its Strawberry picking. Now, ordinarily I would be quite excited about this and would be looking forward to running around the local fields targeting enormous juicy red taste bombs in the quest to find the perfect one. What we got instead was a field smaller than the car park meagrely stocked with pale, tasteless fruit in neat, shrink-wrapped rows.
Anke – you seem disappointed in the taste of the strawberries
D&G; Winter 2005 – “Strawberry Chic”Round 3: Pottery
For the second stage we went around a traditional Taiwanese (read: Japan / Dutch / Spanish) pottery. This really would have been okay, normally, but I really was not in a creative mood and had no temper to mess around. We did get to play with some clay at the end, though, put they gave us newspaper to build on, the newspaper absorbed the water and disintegrated and the newspaper neatly and evenly distributed itself through the clay.
Rough, but laughing through it!But seriously… we really do enjoy these trips. It is just that us Euros enjoy more complaining about it! These are the times when we often see the true cultural differences, and we are pretty priveleged to be able to catch a ride with it.
The clay is on my head, see…
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Team Building
We had another company trip last weekend – this time, only the ID dept. After the previous experience I knew what to expect a little more and to sit back and relax when 6 cars, all armed with allarming levels of GPS, head off in different directions completely lost.
This time, we headed to Miaoli for an afternoon strategy session, a brutal night of drinking and a punishing day of strawberry picking and pottery to rub salt (plus tequila and lime) into a badly wounded head.
At one point in the evening (I am not entirely sure when) the restaurant owners brought out a big wooded bowl full of rice and two large hammers. A harsh lesson was delievered to the poor soft grain, as teams of two pelted the bowl with blows hard enough to vibrate the floor. The resulting pathetic lump of squidge gradually became more and more glutinous until eventually the ref called time and announced humanity winner. I was quite surprised, therefore, that they turned the bowl out into a dish and let the team pull and rip at the rubber-like substance, filling their mouths until it was all gone and we started over again. This is the traditional method for making and consuming ‘Mah Ji’.
Kyle wields the ritual rice torture mallet
The crowd demands blood
Diego delivers the fatal blowAfter the ricicide, a trip to the hot springs and running around the river a bit, drinking games brought whetever dignity we had left firmly to its knees. The main game involved a set of 4 dice. I would like to describe the rules, but the only one I cared about at the time was that I always seemed to drink on every round. We rapidly dispatched the beer and began on the Mexcal (Tequila’s rough older brother), and I was surprised to discover the Taiwanese keeping up and staying up much later than usual.
Destruction passes through the local Taiwan Beer population
Hello Nasty
Markus and Michael laugh heartily at one of my many jokes of the evening -
Giant NRS G / AKA my new bike
I am a happy bunny today. I bought a new mountain bike and it is simply perfect. Most Taiwanese frames have 16.7 million colour painting, but this one is matt black with silver line art Giant logos (the manufacturer). It is a great frame (worthy of a £1500 bike) but with middlish components that I will upgrade when I need / want to. And I got the whole lot, plus accessories and helmet for £500. Very happy indeed.
I’ll stop being geeky now
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Pigs Might Hike
I had a very pleasant walk today with Anke, Lars and Alex (Aussie dude). We planned for a 6K hike, which was slightly waylaid due to ignoring the wrong things in the hiking book, but the result was a splendid wee series of random events that made us all laugh over the Pizza in the evening.
The star of the show was certainly Ah Fu – the Chinese pig that thought he was a dog. He was the coolest thing to be walking with and much calmer than most dogs, and had the amusing habit of eating the plants as he went his oinking way. A definite hit with the other walkers, a source of total bemusement to the other dogs (“hey, you are supposed to be dinner!”) and was truly full of character.
Ah Fu investigates
A loyal pig, it really liked walking between its owner’s legs
We stumbled across a few amusing things. The Taiwanese are masterful at turning public spaces into community spaces. You can see what I mean here – at a break in the path we found a small medicine cabinet with some supplies in it, and alongside it were tethered 3 pots of various balms and lotions – one of which was Tiger Balm.
Alex and Anke dig the whiffsAs a hilarious post-script to the walk, we came up against an army check point, complete with guns, guards and bunkers. We wondered how to get past or around it when the station commander came storming out claiming we were on army property, and ‘what were we doing there?!’ Somehow, we had breached the defences of the back door to the base so we actually came to the gate from the wrong direction … Taiwan eh! We gave the guards a quick nod, but on second glance we could see them laughing as well, in on the joke.
Special Agent Anke cracks the security at the maximum security check point … with a stick -
Christmas in Taipei
The Taiwanese really dig Christmas. I think it gives them an extra excuse to go shopping and certainly to decorate everything with more flashing LEDs. This is the local shop of lights – at any time of the year you will find appropriate lighting systems for Halloween, Chinese New Year, Christmas… or for any family occasion that requires a high degree of fire risk. Observe the restrained point of sale display.
A world of lights
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Andrew’s Birthday
We had a nice wee celebration for Andrew’s birthday in the office today. It gives me a chance to introduce some people, too.
Claire, Andrew, Cesare and Diego in festive mood
The Incredible Fukang works it for the camera
… and Mitch looks after the details (with Debbie in the background)
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Nearing Christmas
I have not really written much in the last two weeks. I have found Taipei quite hard in the last fortnight because of work, and because of a that life seems to sway too much between that hard graft and rebellion at the weekend. However, several of the big projects I was working on have now drawn to a close and I can concentrate on Christmas, spending time with my family and reflecting on 6 months. I believe that when I come back in January things will be rather more in focus. Judge for yourself.
Anyway, far be it from me to bring down the festive tone! I have had some very nice nights out recently. On Saturday, I met up with my design friends from several other companies and we enjoyed a boozy sushi session at Jogoya.
Free wine free wine!After, Gerd took us to a local bar called Cream but it seems that it had become a private members club fronted by a bathroom sales showroom. Undeterred, we headed around the corner to find ‘So Nice’… it wasn’t, so we ended up in the Irish Pub! (first trip to Irish Bar in Taipei – it must surely be a record for a European visitor)
Tanja and I at the Christmas tree near Taipei 101 … from the inside (now you know how it feels)
View up the middle of the tree
If this doesn’t make you want to drink Jaegermeister nothing will… -
Taiwan Elections
Taiwanese politics is usually better known internationally for its petty fist fights in parliment, but this week saw the Legislative Yuan voted in (I understand it as the equivalent of the Senate in the US). Michael wrote a much better piece on the subject and spent time taking lots of photos. Therefore, I will point you towards his site instead! Enjoy.
Another week, another fist fight
Electioneering, Taiwan-style
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Feline Fine
My cat-related theme is continuing this week, it seems. Whilst shopping for blinky techno things I got sidetracked by this bag that someone was carrying … and it had a cat in it (hard to appreciate, I know). They were of course very proud of their little moggy, though I am not sure what the cat thought…
Especially for Bianca…