The Oriented Happy Hour was last Thursday. The Chi…
The Oriented Happy Hour was last Thursday. The Chillhouse, where it was being held, looked completely stuffed with people, most of which were wearing suits and ties. I continued down the street to the Subway for dinner before making another pass. This time Alien flagged me down and dragged me inside. There I found a couple of friends I hadn’t seen in a while. One of them was Cranky Laowai, who graciously and in stark contrast to his moniker put an entry on the damn book on his website. Time flew and before I knew it I was late to meet Mindcrime at our usual teashop behind Sogo. I called but he was already leaving. Oops.
On Friday I went down to check out the new “Irish pub” next to Dan Ryan’s. It’s called the Shannon and is comprised of several different types of pubs, all in one. All they need is a waterway with boats for tourists and it would be “It’s a Small Isle After All”. There’s a traditional pub, an olde celtic pub, a fancy leather pub, and the bar. It’s actually quite nice, but extremely overpriced. I met Dean, Random Gavin, Carl, and Jerome there. Carl, after making certain astute observations on the way Dean walks, gave me some good writing advice to distract me from the extraordinary numbers written on the bill, and Random Gavin owes me a Guiness Pie at Sean’s after seeing the cup-o-soup effort of the Shannon.
Yesterday was spent waiting for the adsl guy to come round, followed by a meal and Taijiquan practice. Now it’s just past noon on a lazy, wet Sunday. A heavy rainstorm just brushed through, so I don’t need the air conditioning. Listening to the rain outside was so pleasant I just lay in bed all morning. Now that I have Internet access here I’ll get a Chungking Mansions Taipei page up on my website before too long; I just need to take a few more pictures. I wish I knew more about the history of this old building, and some old pictures of it would be nice, too. Harry came over last night to inspect my new quarters. We had dumplings at one of the places downstairs last night; it was pretty good. One of the perks of living above a small night market.
Tomorrow I begin my normal work schedule, although there’s a conference at the end of the week which will demand overtime and possibly a suit and tie. I was told that I don’t have to go, but I am curious as to what exactly goes on at these things. There might also be free food as well, which is almost always a good thing. I did also manage to get a decent computer at work. They retired the old P133, which was still kicking feebily and moaning after a bout with a flash page, and replaced it with a PIII/800 that laughs in the face of rendering adversity. Well, maybe not, but it’s still a step in the right direction.
