And yet another weekend, gone. I haven’t quite wor…
And yet another weekend, gone. I haven’t quite worked out my angst from last week, and now I have to deal with that as well as the angst from this week. As you can see, I deal with my angst much in the same way as I deal with my laundry. I have to admit neither system works all that well.
I did manage to find the martial arts store in Wanhua, and I did get a couple of pairs of traditional black Kung-fu shoes for practice. The guy disdained anything but a practice swords.”We don’t like those flashy swords,” he said. He did recommend one place, though, but it was closed and the owner was locking up when I got there, even though the sign said the place closed at 6pm. “Come back tomorrow,” he told me. I ended up walking back home all the way from Wanhua, which is a distance of several miles. The nice thing about Taipei is, no matter how well you know the city, and I know it better than I know anywhere else, there are always little pockets of it that you’ve never been to before. I felt the need to walk unfamiliar streets, and I got my fill. I even ran across a split-level temple. It was like the Brady Bunch house, but it was a temple. Cool. Beyond the Brady Temple was Wanhua Train Station, which is located underground, has been for ages, but they’re still working on the parking lot and street outside. The interposition of North-south street grids by the Japanese on the original streets has made for all sorts of crazy angles and intersections and really strangely shaped lots, resulting in even more strangely shaped buildings, as Taiwanese tend to build buildings in whatever shape the lot happens to be, in order to use all the space available.
Last night I went out drinking with Dean, Carl and Brian, who is back from the states. We went to the Mao cafe, which is moving, apparently, and thus did not even have any doritos. Some of Brian’s friends were there, too. Then we went to Saints and Sinners, run by our good friend and hostess excellente Donnabel. Later on, after a trivia contest with easy questions like “Who played Princess Leia in Star Wars?”, the British blokes kept breaking out into traditionally lewd songs and the like. It was amazing. Most of the people knew the words to these songs and sang along. I’d never witnessed anything like it. We could have been in a pub in London a century ago from the sound of it. I stayed until 3 or 4, when I was sobered up enough to ride my motorcycle home, and then remembered that I had sword practice at 8am the next morning.
I actually went. I actually got up and went, but I didn’t do anything, as today was a special day, and the special teacher was teaching a form I didn’t know. Oh, well. But I was up, so I went to the West Gate District. Everyone says “Hsimenting” or something, but I like the sound of “West Gate District”. It sounds like an old brothel area that way. The West Gate, by the way, is the only one of Taipei’s original gate to be torn down. It was torn down by the Japanese soon after their occupation, but there was so much protest that they left the other four up, and they’re still around.
But the West Gate District was closed. I wandered around it’s empty streets, lined with closed shops, from before 10am to after 2pm, when things started opening. I bought some shoes, but when I got out again, the sky opened up and rain was falling in sheets. It was raining so hard it went right through my umbrella(this may have had something to do with its acidity as well). I was soaked by the time I got back home to pick up my T-shirt materials to take to Shilin to have the shirts made. But, true to form, the shop was closed, even though they said on the phone they would be open until 4pm. Sorry! I went back to the sword store, but they were closed as well.
I saw the guy I met on the Internet again tonight. We went to see “Along Came a Spider”, which was pretty bad, I thought. Typical Hollywood, which dissapointed me because Morgan Freeman is capable of so much more depth than he was allowed in this picture. Anyway, this guy seemed a little more comfortable with me this time. He has a nice smile, and doesn’t try to speak English with me all the time, unlike some people. I want to see more of him.
In any case, the weekend is gone, and I have to be at work early tomorrow because there’s some important case that needs to be worked on, and I said I couldn’t do overtime on Friday because of my class.
Kirk just called me and want me to come to The Source. I have no idea why; he doesn’t usually hang out there. I’ve never been on a Sunday, though, so I am going to check it out, even though I really do need sleep.