I was pretty tired when I got home on Friday night. Little P was in town, though, so we and rented some movies to watch at his place. I saw Ocean’s Eleven and liked it in spite of my desire for sleep. Now I want to see the original , just to see how the two stack up.

Mindcrime and Janice came up on Saturday, and while Janice went to Danshui for choir practice, Mindcrime and I met up with Dean, Kay, Shirzi and an unidentified German person of Chinese descent at the Ben Western Restaurant on Renai Rd next to the old Grace’s Party bar where I used to hang out in my wild youth. We talked over drinks and then went to the martial arts supply store to buy some swords. Shirzi got a single-edged sword while I bought a replacement for the sword I broke a few weeks back. They had a really nicely balanced black sword with the Taoist yin-yang symbol on the hilt and blood gutters, but it was a little short and also over NT$3,000, so I passed. I couldn’t fight with it anyway; it would just get scratched up. It would be nice for form competitions, though.

We proceeded to the bamboo grove in the park where we met Peter, who had been looking for a protest but settled for swordfighting instead. Mindcrime and Kay watched as Shirzi, Dean, Peter and I went at each other for a few hours. Although the sky was overcast by that point, I was sweating buckets.

It was a good workout. Afterwards Mindcrime and I dropped the swords off in my room and went up to the area around Caves. A party of some sort was in full swing at a small temple nearby, taking over the adjacent park. We then went over to Zhongxiao E. Road for a Sichuan-style dinner. I was famished after the swordplay that afternoon and ate three bowls of rice, along with the various dishes. Then, after going browsing at Fnac, the store whose name sounds like cross between a sneeze and a choke, we went our separate ways.

Little P called me that night, but I had just gotten home and taken a shower, so I didn’t feel like venturing out into the swelter once again, so I met up with him this morning instead. We had iced drinks at Starbucks and then walked up Roosevelt Rd to the new Source, where we talked with the owner for a bit before walking over to CKS Hall. Several tour buses were parked out in front, which is pretty normal, but an inordinate number of young men were hanging around the area. I could tell from their demeanor that they, like Little P, were all soldiers out on leave. Apparently the buses are almost exclusively for soldiers. Damn, I wish they had had that kind of service when I was in the army. I always took the train.

I saw Little P off and proceeded to Jake’s, where I met Dean and Kay again. Our merry group also included Dave, Peter, Shirzi, and Rowan. After brunch everyone walked over to the nearby theater, where Minority Report was on. I declined, though, since there were no good seats left. This account was beginning to sound rather too much like a social affairs report anyway. Instead I walked over the middle of Dunhua S. Road and over through the alleyways back home, where I picked up my gear for my Taijiquan class tonight. Since I haven’t yet acquired a new motorcycle helmet, I took the MRT and walked over.

I was 20 minutes late, but it was a good class; I must have totally replaced all the water in my body several times over a couple of hours. I was definitely walking slower when I left class than when I had arrived. I turned on my portable radio to some Bach fugues, the perfect accompaniment for well-lit alleys, soft yellow light spilling for dozens of windows. I checked on the progress of the World Cup, noting with pleasure that my favorite player Ronaldo was cleaning house despite his silly haircut (or perhaps because of it). The Bach program ended and I switched to a jazz station as I got on the train.

As I was walking home from the MRT station, I noticed that about a hundred yards of Jianguo South Road was strewn with spaghetti-like cassette tape. Apparently a container of tapes had fallen from a truck or something, and dozens of cassette tapes had been smashed and scattered across the roadway. A handful of tapes were still intact, but nobody paid them any attention. I gathered them up and put them next to a plant on the sidewalk, just in case anyone wanted them. That is, all except the Celine Dion one. That one I placed carefully in the middle of the road and loitered about until it was decimated by one of the little blue trucks that ply Taiwan’s streets. The sharp CRUNCH it made was music to my ears.

It wasn’t immediately apparent when I walked into Chili’s last night where the Oriented crowd was, but when I made my way to the bar I found my way blocked by people handing out name stickers. Bingo. I recognized a couple of people there, and as soon as I affixed the sticker with “Poagao” written on it, a few people even recognized me. “I’ve seen your website. It’s a lot of fun,” one guy told me. I felt a bit at a disadvantage, not only because I didn’t know nearly as much about this guy as he seemed to know about me, but I also felt suddenly that I am a much more interesting person online than I am in reality. Dozens of people read these descriptions of my daily activities, but put me in a group with more than four people and I’m at a loss for things to say. Put me in a roomful of people, and three minutes later I’m alone at the bar, taking pictures of myself and munching on chips and salsa as I scan a newspaper for absurd stories.

I did talk to a few people, but not for very long. Maoman showed up eventually, and we chatted a bit. An aqcuaintance came over and asked me if I liked classical music. When I said yes, she seemed surprised. “Choral music?” she ventured, and when I nodded, she was clearly shocked. “I’m selling tickets to a Baroque Choral concert next Wednesday night….you….you wouldn’t maybe want to buy one….”

“Sure, give me the best seats you got,” I said, sending the poor girl reeling. Perhaps it was the fact that I was wearing my Fuck Very Hot shirt and a fubu skullcap.

“I’ll take two of those,” Maoman added, snatching the tickets out of her hand as she hit the floor in a solid faint.

Our work there done, we skipped out on the Oriented crowd and went to see Bad Company. Just because we were in the mood for Bruckheimer action flick, no matter how bad it was. Well, it was bad, of course, but I mean that in a good way. I’ve always liked Chris Rock, and he seems to be getting into the acting bit more and more with each movie. Plus, he’s filling in a bit physically as well, which means he’s getting even better looking, to me at least. I present this as yet another illustration of how people considered good looking by most people just don’t do anything for me. Denzel Washington, for example. I think Chris Rock is better looking than Denzel. LL Cool J is, too, for that matter.

Oh, and the movie was ok, too, I guess. Just bad.

Afterwards Maoman gave me a ride home, even letting me drive his Majesty for part of the way. It was nice and smooth, but I didn’t like not having instant and abundant torque available to me as on my own bike. Perhaps if I were getting a scooter I would get one of the new 250cc deals.

Speaking of larger bikes, Kymco is putting on a little show on Monday downstairs where you can fork over a couple thousand NT to ride around the parking lot on a large motorcycle, the very one parked in our lobby a while back. I don’t know if I will give it a whirl, but I will definitely be watching other people give it a try. I wonder if they have a “You scratch it; you buy it” policy.

Today was our company anniversary. We were supposed to be able to cast off the chains of work today and enjoy the little food stands and games set up throughout the office, but for some reason people kept sending me work to do. Quite annoying, that. The food wasn’t very good, but they did set up a Counterstrike LAN in one of the meeting rooms, which was fun. I think they should have gone a step further and created an accurate simulation of our office environment, complete with maps of our bosses, and then let us run around and shoot them. But that’s just me.

And now….the weekend. Mindcrime should be coming up, Shirzi and Dean might want to go swordfighting in the old bamboo grove, I was invited to a party involving not understanding what a group of Spanish people were saying, and of course there will be brunch and Casablanca awaiting my attention on Sunday afternoon. Womble and I have been working through the new soundtrack for the film, and the damn book problem should be resolved at some point next week, and hopefully I won’t end up engendering any jihad-style vengeance in the negotiations.

Blade II was pretty much what I thought it would be: vaguely interesting, mostly pointless. You could see the points at which Wesley just gave up and said “Aw, hell, make that a CG move. I’m beat.” I think might have asked the computer for suggestions as to plot as well. I’m sure it could have come up with something, something at least better than what they used. A super vampire? Right. At least they didn’t drag on Blade’s cute, tow-headed nephew who’s always getting into trouble. Oh, no. They’ll save that one for Blade III, you can bet on it.

After consuming an innocent-looking baked potato yesterday at lunch, I was beset upon by a vicious series of migraines all afternoon, making it next to impossible to do anything but lie on the couch and moan. I used to get a lot of migraines as a teenager, but then they dropped off in my 20s, only coming around once every few months to beat me up a little instead of every day. Hopefully I’ve got a few more months before the next one. That one was pretty savage.

My head was still aching, and I was still a bit wheasy when I met up with Shirzi (the character formeraly known as Seamus), Dean, Rowan, Alien and Peter at Q-bar last night, so I started the evening’s festivities rather slowly. It turned out to be a good time, though, and Peter and I even discussed the Damn Book a bit, since he works for one of the publishers I am considering. Sooner or later I am going to have to weigh both their offers and make a decision. But until I have the offers in front of me, I’m not going to worry too much about it.

When I walked outside this morning, I discovered that someone had nicked my motorcycle helmet. I’ve lived in Taipei for quite a while now, and this is the first time it’s happened to me. I’m more perplexed than angry about it: why would anyone go to the trouble of stealing a scratched up, cut-rate helmet that was locked onto the side of a beat-up, even worse-looking motorcycle? I think the most likely culprit is someone I cut off in traffic. There’s probably sugar in my gas tanks or a missing bit of machinery or something as well. In which case, however, they shouldn’t have taken the helmet to even alert me to the possibility. Ah, whatever. Now I have to find another helmet, which is a bit of a pain, but not too difficult in these parts. There is a press conference planned for Monday downstairs, however, where several large motorcycles, including the one I spotted downstairs a few weeks back, will make their debut. I tried to bribe a blackmail a few people in our company today, threatening to raise questions about the huge price differential between the same bikes sold here and abroad. So far I haven’t been able to even squeeze a reasonable discount out of them, just some Harley-Davidson accesories, but there’s no way you’re going to catch this monkey wearing leather chaps on a summer day in Taipei.

Tonight is the Oriented Happy Fun Happy Fever Hour, and since it is being held right next door, at Chili’s, I might as well go. Both this and in honor of my stolen helmet that I wore my Fuck Very Hot shirt today. I don’t anticipate much in the way of social interaction, since Alien and Rowan tell me that I am “one of them” when it comes to repelling people; I happen to agree, except I think I am far better at it than even they are. Both Alien and Maoman are trying to get me to move waythefuck out to Xizhi to a gated community. I will definitely take a look at some point, if only to mooch a few meals off of them, but I should tell them that I signed a blood pact shortly after my birth in the back of a station wagon near a holy cave in a small Mexican town that I would never, ever live in a gated community. Jaded communities, however, are ok, even encouraged.

Due to financial as well as temporal constraints, Mindcrime and His Girl Janice will be jetting off to Hong Kong sans my delicious company this time around. That’s a shame, but there will likely be other such trips in the future. Let’s just consider the facts: 1) Janice loves to spend a lot of time shopping. 2) Janice has never been to Hong Kong, or in particular, Pacific Place, before. 3) It’s hot outside. All in all, I think the odds of spending a great deal of time in neat, white retail spaces frequented by heavily made-up women holding immaculately groomed rodents is fair to good. Maybe I’ll just sit this one out.

I was in the bathroom earlier today (yes, it happens, even to me. Cut me, and do I not bleed? Feed me, and do I not shit?), and as I was walking by on my way to the sink when BANG! One of the recessed light bulbs exploded, showering me with the echos of the sound as well as shards of smoked glass. I would make some snide remark of “Made in Taiwan” if I wasn’t sure that Ministry of Truth officials would haul me down into the bowels of their offices, where they are even today still pistol-whipping Michael Douglas for that umbrella remark in Fatal Attraction.

It occurred to me that the ubiquity of spam is slowly but surely training us, conditioning us to automatically disregard anything written with more than one exclamation mark. Every day millions of people open up their email program and go down the list, the process of deleting all of the subjects written in bold and/or involving some arrangement of exclamation points or question marks not even entering conscious thought. The spammers are slowly catching on to this, however, using subject lines such as “Delivery error” or “re:hi”. Before long they’ll realize that words like “prize”, “urgent” and “now” get the automatic boot as well.

One of two things can happen at this point: either action will be taken to prevent spammers from continuing their evil work, or the effected programs, by being rendered completely useless, will just stop being used. Services like Hotmail and Yahoo are pretty much useless already, and many other services are following. If no alternative is available, email itself could fall by the wayside, perhaps in favor of instant messaging, although even ICQ is becoming unusable due to people using it for advertising.

I work in advertising, but more and more I wish I didn’t. Advertising is evil. It used to consist simply of people making other people aware of their products via comically rendered figures on large signs along the highway, but like a TV show that has run too long, it kept trying to take “the next step”, and, just as we knew the Happy Days was dead when Fonzie jumped the shark, just as we knew that Scooby Doo was wormfood with the arrival of Scrappy Doo and all the other Doos, advertising has become an infestation of corporations trying harder and harder to get your money without having to go to jail over it. Just as they cross the line, the line is moved. That’s their job: moving the line until there’s no such thing as theft or perjury any more. Any creative endeavor is sullied by its presence, or succeeds despite it. Those are the good commercials, but they’re so rare people don’t even associate them with advertising, and rightly so, because they actually deliver something of value: entertainment.

It’s quite hot these days in Taipei. I can almost smell the baking Vampire flesh (not unlike bacon, actually). While I’m glad I’m not working as a construction worker these days, I do miss the beach and the sound of gentle waves gurgling around my hot feet. But in the city, heat is an entirely different animal; it’s jumping on my black motorcycle and then immediately jumping back off again in a flash of heat-inspired movement; it’s sitting in unmoving traffic and watching, through sweat dripping from my brow, the woman putting on makeup in the silver Benz next to me. It’s straining to hear the cicadas over the roar of window-unit air conditioners. It’s bare shoulders in blue trucks.

Womble has agreed to help me out on the festival thing; this is good news, not only because Womble works fast, but I think his work is quite suitable. He’s also a mate I feel I can rely on, and since the timing of this whole deal is rather dicey, I’m glad to have him in my corner. Actually it’s quite exciting to see how this will turn out. We’re cooperating online, of course, since the timeframe leaves no room for snail mail. I sent the mpeg to him last night, and he will send the music the same way, and then I will need to find someone with a digital editing setup so I can add the new soundtrack as well as the new credits to the film before I rush it off to Toronto on a DV tape, which is the required format. Not only is this good for me, but Womble will be able to have one of his pieces played and his name shown to a (hopefully) large international audience. And unless he’s wanted for some crime such as Being Stroppy to a Mountie, this is a good thing for him as well.

No counter offer yet from the publisher. My thinking at the moment is that I’ve been treated very well by the publisher I agreed to sign with (but haven’t yet), and so this other publisher is going to have to offer a tempting deal to get me to switch back. In any case, I don’t want to wait any longer. Here’s my damn book; either you want it, or you don’t. Check one box only.

I’m meeting with Peter, who works at the usurping publisher, as well as with Seamus and Dean and who knows else, on Wednesday after work for dinner and stuff, and hopefully Peter will be able to provide me with a clearer idea of what they can offer me. Tonight I am meeting up with Kirk to go see Blade II, since I happen to be in the mood for gratuitous violence being wrought by a well-dressed black man with a sword.

Mindcrime and his girl Janice are planning on visiting the lurvely island semi-state of Hong Kong on the first weekend of next month. They are reserving a seat for me, but I’m not sure yet whether I’ll have time to go just then, with all the film/book stuff goin’ on lately. There’s always next time, I suppose. Dean will be going in a couple more months, I’m pretty sure, and Mindcrime will probably have to make another visa run around then, unless he’s somehow implicated in recent firebombings of coffeehouses in Hsinchu. I wouldn’t put it past him, but I’d be more than willing to visit him on Green Island every so often.

Not a lot of work today at the office, but I was pretty busy nonetheless. For one thing, I realized that I do not, in fact, have the rights to the music in the short film that was accepted by the film festival in Canada, so I can either achieve the impossible and get the rights to a piece by Philip Glass, or I can re-do the soundtrack. Luckily, I do happen to know some composers, and my mate Womble‘s stuff is the best for this kind of thing, I think. Problem is, he’s in another hemisphere. It’s crazy, but it might just work.

Another ongoing concern is the Chinese version of the Damn Book. I thought I had settled on a publisher, but one of my previous choices, the one where I was told I should re-write to focus not on the army but on the general adventures of Mr. John Q. Foreigner in Taiwan, wants to talk with me about a deal. Perhaps this article has caused them to rethink their priorities and they want to present another opinion. Personally I think that guy’s a bit whiny, but I suppose that, as this society becomes more and more affluent, you’re going to see more and more guys who think that being cussed out is a violation of their human rights. The article mentions that he is a NTU graduate. Well, whoop-dee-shit.

The radio interview people want me to come in for a third reading. Technical problems, they claim. And then there’s the upcoming trip to Hong Kong with Mindcrime et al. And my laundry place was closed. And the next nearest one was so overwhelmed with laundry they couldn’t get it back to me within a week. What’s going on? Was there a mass mudbath party when I was gone?

Workwise, there wasn’t a lot to do today, which was just as well since I wasn’t much in the mood to deal with it. I’m getting sick of spending eight hours a day loafing around, working on shedding this brown skin color I’ve managed to obtain over the course of three days on Green Island and bending my posture to fit an office chair.

Getting to Green Island by air is a snap. Of course, that’s if you’re smarter than I am and don’t try to sneak weapons on board the plane. Kirk and I met up downstairs and caught a taxi to Songshan Airport on Thursday morning with plenty of time before the flight to Taitung. After we purchased our tickets and were sitting outside the arrivals area, Kirk smoking a cigarette and me wondering why a guy nearby was wearing two watches, it occurred to me that I had forgotten to remove my customary butterfly knife and police baton from my backpack. I mentioned this to Kirk, but he just shrugged, saying if they had any objections we could just check them as baggage.

Ah, surely it couldn’t be as simple as that, you’re thinking. And you’d be right. As soon as my bag went through the X-ray machine the operator told me that, while the knife was ok to go as checked baggage, the baton was illegal and would have to be confiscated. Also they would have to write out a report, by hand, selected from a large, incomprehensible stack of forms, during which a great deal of pointless banter would be exchanged among those filling out the report. “You’re not going to make your flight,” she summed up as one of the other officials waved the baton around, marvelling at its destructive telescoping abilities.

“But we have a connecting flight,” Kirk protested as I walked around the office saying “fuck” over and over. The woman was not impressed, however, laughing at my naivete in assuming that, just because something was widely available in stores island-wide, that it was legal to have one. I should known.

Luckily, one of the other officials seemed sympathetic to our cause, and allowed us to leave without giving me an official criminal record, so that we run across the tarmac and into the waiting MD90. The Uni Air flight was smooth and uneventful, and less than half an hour later we were in Taitung, where we hopped on a small propeller job for the jaunt across to Green Island. This flight was a great deal less smooth, the airborne equivalent of a ride on a 50cc scooter. We landed on a suprisingly short runway on the coast and stepped out of the plane immediately, no waiting around. The handful of passengers dispersed quite rapidly, the plane took off, and suddenly we were practically alone outside the small airport.

Whereas the weather in Taiwan had been overcast, Green Island was baking under bright blue skies. The wind was hot and fresh. We found a scooter rental place and I went to pick up the scooter, since Kirk refused to learn how to drive. We took a tour around the island to get a feel for the place and also to pick where we wanted to stay. One trip around the entire island only takes about an hour, but most of the hotels are within walking distance of the airport on the side of the island facing Taiwan, the mountains of which were just visible floating above the clouds across the ocean. Off to the south was the faint outline of Orchid Island, which is slightly larger but less populated than Green Island.

We tried to get a room at the Kaixin Hotel, the largest on the island, but it was too expensive, and full already in any case, so we went next door to a smaller place and got a room for NT$800 a night. It was small but servicable, with a bathroom, AC and cable. We put our things away, slapped on some sun lotion, and walked down the street to a small restaurant for a lunch of fried rice and shaved ice. Hardly anyone was around, and most of the shops were closed. Construction workers were putting the final touches on a row of buildings. I guess they work fast on Green Island because there’s not a whole lot else to do most of the time.

After lunch we rode out past a series of interesting caves to Da Bai Sha, a beach that looks seductively nice from a distance. When we got down to the sandy bit, however, we discovered that the “sand” wasn’t sand at all, but just bits of rocks and shells. Undeterred, we spread out on the beach and just listened to the surf. It was lovely, utterly desolate. For a while we had the whole place to ourselves, but then a group of loud tourists came along, the women complaining about the heat, the beach, the rocks, the water, etc., while their husbands/boyfriends made Important Business Calls while standing knee-deep in the water.

The atmosphere pretty much ruined, we rode back to town and had dinner at a restaurant right on the seawall, so that we could watch the sunset. The sea breeze was also handy at cooling down our food and blowing things around a bit. The food wasn’t bad. Kirk was expecting Green Island, like everywhere else, to be “the Seafood Capital of Taiwan”, but he was disappointed. I was just happy to be able to sit down and eat.

After dinner we walked up and down the small strip, looking in tourist shops at inexplicably tacky wares such as paperweights and fake dreamcatchers. Kirk bought a shirt and a sarong, but I didn’t see anything I liked. One shop had a small goat tied up in front. Dinner, a pet, or both? I wondered.

That night I was reminded how loudly Kirk snores, but I solved the problem by sleeping with my head at the foot of the bed, not only to get away from the irritating noise of Kirk’s snoring, but also to get closer to the AC unit, which masked said noise quite nicely.

Friday morning we had a typical Taiwanese breakfast at the island’s only Mei-er-mei joint, and then we set off around the island in the other direction. The one road leading into the interior of the island afforded great views in all directions. When our forward progress was blocked by the entrance to a radar base, we dismounted and walked along a mountain trail until we realized that it went all the way down the other side of the island. Also, there were spiders.

We then went and poked around the old Green Island Villas, a euphemism for an infamous jail no longer in use, and then rode around to Guan-yin Cave, which is just a small cave with a stalagtite someone apparently thought resembled the goddess Guan-yin. I couldn’t see the likeness myself. The whole place was creepily deserted, and the only sound, besides the constant wind, was a scratchy recording of a Buddhist chant. Garbage from generations of tourists lay rotting in a stagnant pond.

We rode on to Yezi Lake, which isn’t actually a lake. At least, not any more. I think it was a lake in time’s o’ yore, but then the island grew, or the ocean sank or something, and the lake disappeared, leaving an old deserted village around a rocky shoreline wrinkled with small inlets. Someone had just opened a bar near the beach, but no one else was around, so Kirk and I spent some time exploring the various inlets before finding one where we could shed the trappings of civilization for a dip in the cool ocean water that rose and fell, the water burbling gently through the rocks with each incoming wave. Yes, we were skinny dipping, and it felt great. We even took pictures, but you’ve got another thing coming if you think I’m going to post those here. No, those are going straight to the personals ad.

Several hours later we were on the road again, this time up to a pair of pavilions overlooking the coast. Unfortunately a large group of tourist was occupying the area, but they left soon enough after realizing that they had no cell phone coverage. From the cliff you could see straight down into the clear ocean water, where the black stone that makes up the island dives deep into the blue abyss. It’s been years since I’ve seen such clear waters.

We raced down the hill to the saltwater hot springs, famous since they are only one of two in the entire world (the other one is in Italy), but they were closed for construction, so instead we climbed the cliff beyond the springs and walked out onto the grassy peninsula to take in the 360-degree view there. In the distance we could see an abandoned hotel located in a seemingly perfect spot, so we headed over to take a look.

The Green Island Hotel was once the nicest, most expensive hotel on the island. It had manicured grounds, a restaurant, a dance club, even its own helicopter pad. It was abandoned several years ago, however, when the lease was up. I went inside to take pictures and found an old brochure showing the hotel when it was in good condition. The place has so much potential; I really hope that someone buys the place and refurbishes it, perhaps in a 30’s flavor, with the music, décor, maybe even an old car or two. Anything else would be a waste of material.

The sun was setting as we rode back around into the village where we were staying. After dinner we walked around some more and found a prison-themed store, where I finally found a shirt I liked. It reads “Fuck it’s hot here in Green Island” in Chinese and “Fuck very hot” in English. Cute. Afterwards we sat out on a wooden deck at a teashop, drinking herbal tea and listening to the waves and wondering why there weren’t more stars. It was Friday, and the weekend visitors were beginning to arrive. I saw my first foreigners, surfer types, riding around on a scooter. We retired to our room and watched a movie involving blondes and a stolen dog, “The Real Blonde” or something like that.

When we walked out of the hotel on Saturday morning we were shocked to see hordes of scooters, vans, tour buses and people all milling about the small road. All the shops were open now, and many sold stuff from the Philippines and other southeast Asian countries. I noticed for the first time that I couldn’t even get FarEasTone, my usual carrier, on my cell phone. The display read “TransAsia” instead. Many of the shopowners even thought Kirk was Indonesian or something. We decided to get the hell out of there, although we had to wear helmets now to escape police attention, unlike on previous excursions.

We rode up past the jail complex to another little cove, where we found a huge cave with old building foundations inside, and more tempting little inlets to swim in, although the heightened possibility of being seen by tourists prompted us to wear swimming suits this time. The inlets were full of tropical fish, coral, and other varieties of aquatic flora and fauna. Fishing boats full of snorklers putted by on occasion.

We rode up a challenging path to the top of the cliff, where we could see down into the ocean. Well, actually, we had to walk part of the way, much to Kirk’s chagrin. He blames me for having longer legs and not smoking, of course. I had to take a picture of myself, since he refused to come up to the edge of the cliff.

By this time it was past noon, so we made our way back through the throngs of tourists, checked out of the hotel, and went to the airport to catch a flight back to Taitung. There happened to be one boarding, so we took it. The flight was rather bumpy this time as we flew back to cloud-covered Taiwan. The pilot flared too low, slammed onto the runway and skidded sideways for a ways before righting the plane. Kirk immediately vowed never to take a small plane again.

There was nothing to do in Taitung except lurk around the small airport for a couple of hours, so we found a drink/tacky gift shop and sat around listening to a guy with a handkerchief on his head make Important Business Calls while we waited for the flight back to Taipei.

That flight was a lot smoother. Every time I fly Uni Air they seem to do a good job. But my pleasure at the smoothness of the flight was tempered by my return to this city. I went online when I got home and discovered several dozen pieces of spam, more inane bickering in the oriented forums, and bills stuffed under my door. I need more than a few days on Green Island, I think.

I pretty much wasted the first day of my vacation. Slept in, got up around noon to see a huge wall of black moving in over the city, lightning sparking every few minutes. I was expecting a huge downpour, but the clouds just kept going, and no rain was forthcoming, so I went out for lunch and a trip to the library across the park. Berta called and we arranged to meet at 7:30 to go look at posters at the French poster place nearby. She was late, so I sat around taking pictures of trees in the park until she arrived.

Kirk joined us at the poster place, as Berta had expressed a desire to meet Kirk and learn some clever Chinese insults from him. We went to little hole-in-the-wall Yun-nan bar/restaurant where the walls were lined with old LP’s. For some reason, the mirror in the bathroom was lined with dirty pink fur. At least I hope it was fur. I suppose it could have been some exotic fungus that was on the verge of sentience.

We chatted and picked at our chicken dishes while listening to old Chinese salsa favorites, and afterwards we went to 7-Eleven so I could buy Berta a drink for guessing what TC stands for. It’s the first prize I’ve had to pay out….perhaps I should rethink this whole prize thing.

Tomorrow morning Kirk and I are going to board a plane at the Songshan Airport, fly to Taidong, switch to a much smaller plane, and then fly out to Green Island. There we were hang out for three days, coming back to Taipei on Saturday. And in the rush I’ve forgotten to arrange a guest blogger, so you’re just going to have to deal without daily posts for a few days. Sorry. I’ll try to do interesting stuff and take strange pictures while I’m there. Honestly, the things I do for you people.

I met Mr. Zheng, Maoman’s landlord, at a coffee shop near the Dingxi MRT station in Yonghe last night. It was raining and the streets reflected the neon signs. I found the shop and went upstairs to find the old man sitting at a table drinking coffee. He was well-dressed and quite friendly, but it soon became clear he wasn’t willing to budge on the rent for the apartment. We chatted about Taiwan and politics over dinner and parted amicably. I had nowhere else to go, so I went over to Maoman’s to tell him the bad news.

I arrived at his place just as he was heading out to collect some rent money from a psychotic landlady for a friend who was hiding out in Canada. The old woman went on and on about how noisey, rambunctious foreigners were a menace to society. “The police came and said ‘Admit it; you’re harboring foreigners, aren’t you? Just tell us; we won’t arrest you if you’re honest about it,'” she told us, holding out complex mathmatical computations of the white scourge’s electricity bills for the past several months. Ironically, her shirt bore the English words “Nihilism. Shy. Stupid”, most likely intended as some sort of warning to people considering engaging her in conversation. Maoman was doing his utmost to remain polite, but there seemed to be no end to her ranting, so we excused ourselves and departed on Maoman’s scooter, the woman running along behind us shouting “they were so loud the neighbors were cursing me, and I said don’t blame me….” before we were out of earshot. Close one, that.

After remembering that Dominoes now closes at the impossibly early hour of 9pm (grrr), we took a taxi downtown and stopped at a few restaurants before settling at Amigo on Fuxing N. Rd. The portions had looked small in the menu, so we got nachos, but the meals turned out to be more than enough, and quite delicous as well. Afterwards we continued the Mexican theme by having drinks at Peso before calling it a night. A rather pleasant night, actually. I was a bit disappointed about the apartment, but I have time to find something else, and looking is kind of fun as well. Theoretically I could be getting a new job, a new place to live, and a new computer in the near future. It’s time for a change. Past time, as I’m sure you’re sick of hearing me say.

Quiet again today. I added some pictures of yesterday’s desk battle to the last entry if you want to see Office Turtle Fighting alongside Jango Fett against Attar and the Doh-Dough.

Our holiday starts tomorrow, and Kirk and I still have no idea what we’re going to do, since Kirk’s night school exams just ended last night. Hopefully we’ll be able to get tickets to Green Island and maybe Orchid Island. We’ll see. I would have liked to go somewhere abroad, but it just didn’t work out. I might be going to HK some time next month with Mindcrime, Dean and who knows who else, though.

Three new pictures are now up at the Mirror Project. Go. Frolic.

I just got IM’d by a Taiwanese girl with the interesting handle of “twunclesam” (according to Ernie, the best. IM. name. ever). A sample of our conversation:

poagao: I don’t deal with customers or clients. I would go crazy if I did.

twunclesam: haha~

twunclesam: i did, so i’m gonna crazy

poagao: A distinct possibility.

twunclesam: u’r right.

poagao: How honest of you to admit that. Most insane people pretty much keep it to themselves.

twunclesam: some of them really like you say, but some are good for me

poagao: Ugh.

twunclesam: did you customer wily?

poagao: Did I what?

twunclesam: sorry, did ur cusotmers wily?

poagao: I have no idea what that means, but it doesn’t sound good.

I met Dean and Kay at the Wanlung MRT station on Saturday afternoon. It was gray and cloudy, and the neighborhood looked rather depressing. A large foreign woman was standing on the corner of Roosevelt Rd. talking with some Chinese girls. “I get the feeling there’s a McDonalds around here somewhere,” Dean commented.

“That’s not very nice,” I started to say when I noticed that he was looking at an empty McDonalds cup on the street. “Oh, yeah. And Dominoes, too.”

I had seen Maoman’s place before, but at the time I wasn’t looking at it with the idea of actually living there myself. Perhaps it was the weather; perhaps it was the knowledge that I would have to purchase and install an entire air conditioning system, buy a fridge, and furnish the place myself, but for some reason it didn’t seem as nice as I had remembered. Dean and Kay decided that the 4th floor apartment wasn’t for them, which was disappointing as well. Still, it is quite large and located next to a nice hillside, close to the MRT, but for 15k I expect at least an elevator. Last night in the shower I tried to envision finishing a shower and going outside to get back into the house in the middle of winter. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. But as I was walking around at lunch today, I thought I should at least talk with the landlord, who is an old mainland guy, so I called him up.

“I’d like to ask about the apartment you have for rent,” I said by way of introduction. “I’m a friend of Maoman’s.” He answered in a thick, yet understandable mainlander accent.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t rent to Chinese people, only foreigners. Chinese people just make a mess when they cook, and foreigners tend to be more polite,” he told me. I said I understood, but maybe we should talk about it face-to-face? He finally agreed to meet me at a restaurant in Yonghe tonight after work. I figure I can only afford to move in there if I can get the price down to 12 or 13k at most. If not, then I’ll just keep looking. For some reason, I’m thinking of moving north more than south. I don’t know what the attraction of north is, except perhaps proximity to the sea. I could get a nice apartment for cheap in Tanshui, but the tradeoff would be an hour on the MRT every morning and every night, plus not being able to go out as much. Or maybe that’s a good thing; I have no idea. I’ve become accustomed to living in the middle of the city, and I probably take the convenience for granted. Then again, I feel it’s time for a change, and living in a more rural, healthy setting might be just the trick, especially if I want to write more. Less distraction, and all that.

After we got done looking around Maoman’s place, I took the MRT out to Nangang and met up with Kirk. We took a taxi out to the Dragonboat party at our friends Brett and Alan’s apartment. Now that is a nice apartment, split-level, high ceilings, back patio, etc. On our way into the complex, Kirk found a cat that had apparently locked out of its home, and we spent about half and hour wondering where it came from, whether we should ask someone about it, but then it left on its own accord. Cats are like that, I guess.

The party was nice, with the usual mix of good food, music and interesting conversation. Unfortunately, due to the drought, there was no water in the swimming pool, but we had a good time anyway. It’s amazing how Brett and Alan can pull these things off at every major holiday every year. It’s really cool of them.

Sunday afternoon I went out for brunch at Jake’s with Dean, and then we met up with Rowan and a few other people at G-down to take a look at doing a stage version of Casablanca. Rowan’s idea is to not have a seperate audience area, and just have the action going on amid the audience around the bar, sort of like being in a holodeck simulation for all of you Star Trek fans. We read through a bit, but didn’t get much else done. Nobody really knows who’s doing what yet. They might not even have a place for me, which is fine, of course; it’s up to them. I will be needing to work on my short films by that point in any case.

By the time we were done, it was pouring rain outside, in spite of the fact that I had worn my waterproof shoes. Perhaps the spell has been broken at last! I had a couple of hours to kill before Tai-chi practice, so I went to FNAC and left trails of drool all over their Imacs and DV cameras. Then I went to Toys Backwards ‘R’ Us and bought a Jango Fett action figure and some Play-doh. At least I thought it was Play-doh, as it came in the familiar yellow plastic cans with red tops, but when I looked more closely, I found that it was actually “Doh-Dough” (Slogan: “Multi-colour. Multi-fun!”), made in China and sold in Hong Kong. Oh, well. It’s still fun to play with. I see an upcoming battle in which Jango Fett allies with Office Turtle to fight Attar the Ape, who is wielding not only a santa-shaped lollipop, but also the Globular Glowing Goo from Hell. Film at eleven.

Ahem. Tai-chi practice was good, basic exercises designed to boost and focus energy. The teacher threw me against the wall so hard it gave me hiccups. I’m still trying to learn the concept and utilization of “Qi” for power rather than through brute muscle strain. Like learning to use the force, I guess. I know that sounds geeky, but I’ve seen it in practice, and it’s quite impressive.

Last night I got an email from one of the publishers I was considering, and it seems that they don’t want to publish a book that concentrates on military analysis and hard facts. Too dry. Of course, my book is nothing like that; it’s just an account of the interesting things that happened to me when I was in the army. Their loss. I’ll just go with the original publishers, then.

It’s rather quiet today at the office, since all the Vampires are off visiting their relatives’ crypts or something, and the blinds are open all the time now. My holiday begins on Wednesday, and Kirk and I might go kick around some of the islands to the southeast of Taiwan.

I was intent on simply going home after work last night and maybe playing a little Command ‘n Conquer before passing out at some ungodly hour, but I was just getting off my bike when I got a phone call from Little P. He wanted to hook up, so we arranged to meet at T-zone later on. His family has two houses nearby the Kuting MRT station, and I wanted to see if Jedi Knight II was out (it wasn’t).

Little P is presently in the army, not even halfway through with his mandatory two years of service. Even if he hadn’t told me I would have been able to spot it a mile away, not just from his general bearing but also from his sunburned neck, bad skin, chapped lips, cheap military haircut, and the two white stripes running down his jawline where the sun had been blocked by his helmet straps during long hours of daytime guard duty. We rented a couple of movies and watched them at his “new” house, which was in the process of being tidied up by a Filipina maid. My guess is that Little P’s family has recently come into a bit of money, but they don’t quite know what to do with it yet.

Mindcrime is on his way up at the moment, and later on I’m going to take a look at Maoman’s place along with Dean and Kay, followed by a trip out to Nangang for a Dragonboat Party with Kirk. Mindcrime has been writing more and more in his blog about his peculiar skew on reality, of which I am now a part. All I can say is, he should be happy I’m too poor to hire a lawyer and sue his fat ass.

My room is presently being invaded by ants. They do this every so often, but I don’t have anything worth eating in here, so it’s a bit strange. Hopefully they’ll just get hungry or bored and leave; if not I’ll just have to go buy some ant motels or ant chalets or whatever they’re called these days, but they’ll probably just start complaining that there’s no KTV or something. All the more reason for me to move.