Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

Jun 18 2001

Sick today. Sore throat, drippy, swollen sinuses, …

Sick today. Sore throat, drippy, swollen sinuses, headache and general fatigue. Probably too much sun, surf and running around in the rain followed by the air-conditioned MRT ride back from Tamshui. Being at sick at home is slightly better than being sick at work, since I can try to ignore the sounds of the ongoing construction upstairs and take a nap.

Steve, Harry and I did actually get to eat at Tequila Sunrise yesterday, because they had opened up another room to accomodate their weekend crowd. The food was ok, small amounts of nothing special. But at least it was a change of pace from my usual fare. Steve lent me some more CDs and gave me a picture from our Kuanyin Mountain hike, in which I look very, uh, chunky.

I noticed the other night when I was walking around the old part of town that they have spruced up the North Gate. In case you didn’t know, Taipei was originally a walled city with five gates, four of which are still standing(the Japanese tore down the West Gate during their occupation. They were going to tear them all down but there was such a protest they decided to leave the rest them standing). The North Gate is a large, red edifice about two blocks west of the train station. I walked through it and around it, taking some pictures and imagining what it was like back when it was part of the city’s defenses, when walking though it one entered the city proper. The other remaining gate are the East Gate, in front of the KMT headquarters, the South Gate and the Little South Gate, which has an MRT stop named after it.

A friend of mine from the News who lives in Taichung emailed me and wondered if I would be interested in working on a Taipei version of his magazine, which is based in Taichung and concerns the lifestyle there. I might be switching to a part-time job in the fall anyway to work more on my book, so this is definitely a possibility, certainly more interesting than my job now.

I learned recently from a friend that the Taipei Times published an interview which never actually happened. This is amazing. They called up a certain government agency and told them to have one of their staff make up an interview for them. This kind of deception on the part of the Times doesn’t surprise me, though, I have to say. It’s just pitiful that they would stoop so low.

posted by Poagao at 3:25 am  

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