Fill the Void

Its been a while old friend, but I am back with a feeling of freshness. There are a few new things in my life over here that I would like to tell you about. Firstly, I purchased a new mop and have been keeping things neat and tidy for the most part. I can been seen bellow during a Saturday mid afternoon mopping session.


Recently I have received a few unreal packages in the mail, one of them featured a picture of my friend Colm that was so off the charts I decided to take a picture of myself with the picture.


During Chinese New Year I went to Hong Kong. I stayed at a place called Tom's Guest House located in a building called the Chungking Mansion, and here is the e-mail that I received after booking my room.

Dear sir/madam,

Thanks for booking room of Toms Guest House and I will reserve a room for you on 23 Jan,2009.

Please find attached the map of my guest house.

Please go directly to my guest house as somebody around you may say he is "Tom" and bring you to the place where you will be charged much more. Please note that we will not wait for our customers around the building. Don't follow any stranger who say he is "Tom" around the building!

Thanks for your attention.

Best regards,

Tom

Thanks for the tips Tom. When I arrived at the Chungking Mansion I stepped out of my Taxi and was immediately rushed by 2 or 3 "gentlemen". The first on asked if I wanted a Rolex, the second asked if I needed a room, and the third asked if I wanted some hashish. I turned down all offers, although briefly contemplated the Rolex and the hashish. When I got to the front of the building and approached the entrance I was asked if I needed a suit and again if I wanted a cheap room. When I finally got inside the building it resembled the basement of the Dixie Value Mall, there were people of every different race and culture you can imagine all hanging out selling everything from bootlegged DVD's to cell phones to banana's. I had to venture up to the 16th floor where I found Tom's Guest House which turned out to be unreal. Here is the outside of the Chung King during the day time.


I think in Hong Kong you can buy anything you could ever imagine. I thought it was unreal how places like the Mak Kam Kee Shoes Maker or The Poon Company could do just as much, if not more business then Louis Vuitton or Giorgio Armani just down the street. I guess depending on the person you either go to Hong Kong to hit the large scale big name stores or the no name, cheap but still unreal shops.



I also met my friend Anastasia in Hong Kong from the banking days. We took a trip up top and and ate some shrimp while taking a solid birds eye of the city.


I just made a pact with myself to update this piece on a weekly, that only means 4 posts a month, get down.

Who Made Who.

Here is a game, can you spot me?

What! 2009.

Here is where I was to ring in the new year. The tall building in the back is Taipei 101, formerly the tallest building in the world. I counted down the last 10 seconds in Chinese this year just to mix things up a little. It sounded something like this, "she, jeo, ba, che, leo, ou, se, san, er, e", and this happened.


Oh ya, and after that this band called Mayday got on the stage and just started to belt out the hits. Check them out.


So smooth.

Christmas Classics

Our Christmas party at school was all killer no filler. We had food, games, excitement and recorders. Here are some of the rascals by the Christmas tree.

Celine sported that sweet mask all night.

Kelly taking a bite out off the tree.

Lulu and Kiki holding it down.

I had to give Jimmy his monthly oral test two days ago and when he was done I said good work, and handed him his test and tape and said "carry on my wayward son" and he said "O.K Teacher Jon" and ran out of the room.

After the majority of the games were finished I got my band together to play some Christmas hits. The band consisted of about 8 students, Rick, Simon, Shelly, Rita, Eric, Jerry, Charlie, and Jenny. They all whaled so hard I couldn't even believe it.

Rick and Simon.

Jerry Wonder.

Rita, Jenny, and Shelly.




To cap off Christmas Eve night I went to Ximan Ding to meet up with a few friends for some Christmas celebrations. We went to this party where they were serving us unlimited Heineken's for some reason. I must have gotten carried away and drank far to many for my own good. On the way home I got out of the cab right in front of my house and said good bye. I knew at that moment I was feeling the effects so I decided to take a walk around the block to see if I could render myself into a state suitable for going to sleep. As I walked it seemed to be getting worse and worse until finally right out side of the Wish Sky Cafe I let it rip. So there I was on Christmas face down in the gutters of Jhonghe, what a classic. After I spued I felt much better, so I stopped off at the 711 picked up some chips and shut it down directly.

Feel the Flow

I have snapped out of my funk and am starting to feel the flow of the Taiwan Christmas. At first it was a weird adjustment, like when you first use a different kind of toilet. It doesn't feel right but after you use it a few times its ok. For example, here is a kind of toilet I have encountered here, people take deuces in this.


Anyway, today I am going to be teaching one of my classes how to rock Jingle Bells on the recorder, and then we will be playing it at the Christmas party tomorrow evening. Just in case you have never heard it before, here is a clip courtesy of a one O. Pauk.



I was venturing through the streets the other night in Taipei with a few peeps and we came across an old tobacco factory, so we stopped the bikes and took some time to take some pics with the Christmas spirit in mind. This is my friend Kenny, what a solid cat.



If you didn't get my Christmas card here you go. This lady is Evens mom.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!


I also have some bad news to report today. Judy committed suicide two nights ago. I got up in the morning to find that only Ted and Tony were swimming in the tank. I thought, thats weird, I wonder where Jude could be. So I started searching until I found her corps under the couch covered in dust. I couldn't believe it, she must have jumped out while I was a sleep. Here is a classic track in memory of Judy's free wheeling life style, take a moment.



Also on the down side Eve busted her wrist on the slopes this weekend, so maybe you can sign her cast if you happen to see her.

Breakfast

Crickey, I have had a little bit of a hiatus it seems. I think with the Christmas season in effect I have been feeling the lonesome effects a bit and as a result have just been keeping a low profile over here. Don't worry, everything is solid, I haven't gone mental or anything. Its a weird feeling flying solo through times when the maintenance is usually at an all time high with with the peeps you like maintaining with the best. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned that I picked up two more fish to keep Ted company a few weeks ago. I was looking at him one day and thought "man he's not looking so good". It seemed as though his bright orange tinge was starting fade and he had an expression on his face as if he felt like he had to take a giant deuce. I though a couple smaller friends might cheer him up, so I went down to the fish shop and picked up a couple of tiny orange fish with black stripes. Now Ted, Tony, and Judy are living in extreme harmony and it seems as though Ted's colour has come back and is even brighter then before. Almost every morning I get up and stretch, look out my window, assess the temp and hightail it over to Evens breakfast shop for some eggs. I have to say this breakfast shop is one of my favorite places in all of Taiwan.


It doesn't look like much from outside, but once you get inside every moment is quality. They have many magazines and newspapers to look at while you are eating. I usually just look at the Ikea catalogue because its the only thing a can understand, once and while there is a copy of the Taipei Times, which is Taiwan's all English newspaper. Pretty much everybody that comes in there knows me by now so I am constantly clearing up ongoing debates between local people on how to pronounce English words. Its unreal how bad most of these peeps want to learn English.
This is Evens, she runs the shop and is so solid.


The other day I went to the store with her to pick up a new mop, and she also gave me about 10 packs of Hi Chew and a free breakfast for my birthday. Her mom is always trying to get me to eat all kinds of weird food, sometimes I try it and most of the time it is succulent. This is Evens sidekick Peggy.


Peggy doesn't speak much English but always spots me walking in and dials me in with a steaming cup of coffee and I say "Shi Shi Peggy" which means thank you.


Evens and her pops are a classic duo. Her dad smokes cigarettes through one of those extender things, like Cruella Deville. I showed him my bike one day and he loved it. He kept on picking up the back tire and spinning it so the peddles would go around, its like he was hypnotized by it.


Here he is making some Tuna salad, and let me tell you it is sooooo succulent.

The appilances:

Nov Friderday

Oh, hello. It is starting to get colder here and there are hints of a familiar fall feel to the air. I have to say I have been soaking it up. So I have mentioned before that the last Friday of every month is Friderday and fixed gear riders from all over Taipei come together for a ride. This past Friday the festivities started at around 10:00 p. We all met up at a 7 11 somewhere in Taipei and road to a place called Danshui. If you look at the purple line on the map you can see where we went. We rode along a trail beside the Danshui river, there was about 20 of us and I think it took about 2 hours to get there.


When we got there we maintained at Danshui station for while, ate some food and drank a couple of brews. We stayed in Danshui for a few hours before riding back, on the way home I have to say I was feeling the effects. By the time we made it back to Taipei it was about 4:00 a, and I still had to ride back to Jhonghe. I rolled in my front door at about 5:00 a, slept for a solid 2 hours and got up for work at 8 a. It was a ditty morning. At school I am teaching my class to sing Yellow Submarine, we are doing some sweet moves along with the words and singing the chorus. There is a concert coming up in two weeks that they will be performing at and I think things are looking pretty good. Also I think I might be teaching a Christmas carol recorder class. Everyone plays the recorder here and luckily I brought mine. I have been polishing my skills for when the time comes.

Here are some Friderday pics.






In the spirit of the winter season, check out this unreal cross cunting video.