Best this is that this week, due to a visit from Singaporean friend, David, I got to have dinner with some of my favorite people: Natari, Charlene, Dino, Carrie, and another friend who must remain un-named for the time being. The bonus guest was Dino's son, Alex, who is here visiting from California. Nice kid, 18 years old, looks so much like his dad (despite the bleached blonde hair), and has eyelashes so long and thick that women everywhere (including Carried) were trying to figure out how to steal them. I won't be posting any photos of Alex, because I don't think it's a good idea to put the children of stars into the public eye, but here's a cute pic of David with 
Dino. Dino is demonstrating how he copes with frustration.David is a huge fan of Dino's and is currently studying drumming. He was able to pick up a few tips from Dino during our evening out. He also scored a pair of Dino's drumsticks, the ones he used during the Singapore concert at the beginning of the month. As you see, Dino must have suffered a lot of frustration to leave the sticks in this condition!
After eating a little bit at Din Tai Feng, famous for their xiao long bao, we moved over to one of the whackiest restaurants I've ever seen: Indian Jurassic Park. You have to check out the photos of this place: Indian Jurassic Restaurant
It was a very noisy place, and rather smoky, but lots of fun. We had some tasty food there, including fried rice, deep-fried squid, Three Cup Chicken (三杯雞), some clams in a yummy sauce (炒海瓜子), some veggie (空心菜), and some fish. The fish was beautifully presented that I had to take a photo. If you can work your way through the Chinese at the above link, you can see some photos of other food. We of course also had beer.
I was happy to have some time to spend chatting with Dino's son. He was a little jet lagged, so he wasn't too lively, but he seemed to be enjoying himself. We share some of the same heritage, American Indian and Italian. And we've both lived in Wyoming, him in Laramie and me in Cheyenne. He's not too interested in becoming a drummer, but he might want to be an equestrian veterinarian when he grows up. He just graduated from high school, and now he's trying to figure out what he should study in college.
Anyway, that's about the only really fun thing I've done. My Korean friend, Kayun, has begun studying English with me and is coming twice a week. After class sometimes we watch movies, which is fun, especially now that I have the new Pioneer DVD player and surround-sound system. This week we watched a great Korean movie called "Welcome to Dongmakgol." A big thank-you to Cheryl for passing that one along to me. And last week I finally got to see "Old Boy," a movie I've had for over a year and a half but never watched. It was just as intense as all the reviews had said.
Let's see, what else? Well, my friend/student, Aaron, left for his year of study in the UK. His family invited me to a goodbye dinner, and the food was excellent. His mom and dad are both fantastic cooks, and I really appreciated them asking me to join the rest of the family that evening. I'm going to miss Aaron, and I hope he adapts well to life in England. At the end he said he really didn't want to go, but it was too late to change his mind.
I've started trading English lessons for Chinese ones. Ye Ying, one of the teachers who had been at CLD while I was there, is planning on going to Holland to study Chinese culture. Personally, I think that's a bit weird, going to a European country for Asian studies, but she said the school is famous for it's courses. She wants to improve her English, and my Chinese has been regressing, so we're doing a trade. It will be good for me to get back into the study habit before I start at Shi Da in December.
I'll be heading back to Singapore on October 2 for a three-day, four-night stay. I spent some time yesterday online making a list of places I want to see, and I'll mostly be alone on my journeys. But, that's how I like it! I was able to find a very inexpensive hotel (only $156US for four nights), so I won't be spending too much. However, I am a little miffed that I didn't know earlier that Wu Bai & China Blue would be in Macau for a show on 9/30, because I would have gone there instead! Dammit, they never make these announcements early enough. Also, my friend Maddy from Florida will be in Hong Kong while I'm in Singapore! Again, had she told me sooner, I would have gone back to Hong Kong so I could see her. Rats rats rats!
I've completely avoided discussing the political situation here in Taiwan, because I really do hate politics and politicians. I'll briefly say that a bunch of people who have their heads up their collective ass are currently doing a sit-in protest to try to convince the president, Chen Shui Bian, to step down. They're all riled up because of alleged corruption. I think they should read this informative editorial in the Taipei Times: Taiwan's Color-Coded View of Corruption
If I have to choose between two evils, I'll take the lesser, and Ah Bian certainly qualifies as that. No, he's not perfect, but he at least wants Taiwan to be an independent, democrat country, while the Kuomintang would rather give it back to China and lose all the freedom we have. Idiots. And I can't even begin to explain how incredibly stupid Taiwan's vice president is. Root around in the editorial archives of the Times for some interesting stuff, if you have the time.
I'm done now. I have to prepare for my afternoon class now. I'll try to be better about posting, but no promises!
No comments:
Post a Comment