I started looking at places again today. I know, “Joy!” you’re all saying. “Poagao is looking at houses again!” Saw one place not far from here that is about the same size as where I’m living now, but quieter and cheaper. Not much water pressure to speak of, however. I’ve told myself I’m not going to compromise this time, as I can always find someplace better. Another place I looked at on Yanping South Road was a nightmare. The advertisement said it was 12 pings, but those 12 pings must have been measured end-to-end. It was more like a long, dark hallway than a room, and only contained a pair of decrepit bunkbeds and some chairs. I will look at some other places in that area, the old city, as well as elsewhere tomorrow. I like the old city, the area within the old city walls, quite a bit. It’s got an air of history to it that most of the other parts of the city lack. Granted though, I’ve never lived in that area, so who knows what kind of disadvantages lie waiting for me in such places? I’ve learned my lesson about living outside the city for the past few weeks, though: I want to stay in the city. It’s ok if you’re living with dogs, cats, roomies and various significant otherly beings, but if you’re alone being out in the middle of nowhere rather sucks.

It seems that Google has purchased Blogger. Hopefully this will allow improvements in both without sacrificing the functionality of either, and Blogger is definitely the more vulnerable party in this respect. I came across the website of a guy travelling around the world with his Panasonic DV camera, chronicalling his various adventures. It’s quite cool what he’s doing, and I think a lot more people will be following in his footsteps before too long.

Dean got the second season of Red Dwarf in, and Mindcrime and I went over to watch it tonight. We got to see Kryton and Queeg, and a dance number with Lister, Rimmer, the Cat and Holly. On the downside though, we’re going to have to wait another full year until we can get any more seasons on DVD. Smeggin’ ‘ell!

今天看到了兩間房子. 第一間還可以接受, 是在復興南路,

Yesterday being my last day up on the mountain, I went walking in the hills one last time. I decided to take another path up Neigou Mountain, one that Mr. Gao had told me was a bit steeper than the others. He wasn’t kidding. After following a small stream up the hillside a ways, the path, indicated by white ribbons, led straight up a cliff so steep I had to haul myself up vines. It was like climbing a huge tree with boulders in its branches. About an hour later I emerged at the peak, my hands cut and bleeding from the rocks and treebark, to find a group of well-to-do holidaymakers discussing the merits of various international educational institutes while their children tortured spiders nearby. I had, apparently, taken the hard way up. A smooth, level path led down the other side. I contemplated going back down the way I had come up just to be perverse, but sanity won out and I took the easy way down. Plus it was getting dark. When I reached the lake at the bottom I came across a family relaxing along the bank. One of the children saw me and ran over to stare at me. “Hey!” she shouted back at her friends or siblings, “Come look at the foreigner!” The whole herd came thundering over, stopping in a line about twenty feet away from me. They just stared, their open mouths prompting various airborn insects to alight inside. I stopped and stared back for a moment, turned around to let them have a good look, and then waited a moment before saying “Well? Are you finished staring yet?”

“Go on, speak English to it!” one of the parents called over. They were rich, of course. Seems like rich people here are almost exclusively the most ill-mannered. The kids didn’t saying anything, so I shrugged and walked on. When I got back to the apartment complex I used my last coupon by swimming in the indoor pool and then luxuriating (and hopefully not bleeding too much) in the hot swirling waters of the jacuzzi for a bit. Felt great.

The friend I was housesitting for came back last night, so this morning I packed up and returned to downtown Taipei, aka The Big Smoke. It sure looked the part today anyway, as the air’s been full of swirling, misty precipitation that’s not quite fog and not quite rain. I made another awful meal today. I think I’ve established that substandard ingredients do actually affect the quality of a meal now. Of course, not knowing how to cook might also be a factor. My place feels a lot smaller after having a whole apartment to myself for three weeks.

I added a link in the menu to the Chinese page, although there’s not much content there. In fact, there probably won’t ever be a whole lot there; it’s just for when I feel like writing in it. It’s still kind of buggy, but I’ll see if I can’t fix it up a bit.

Tomorrow’s Monday, of course, the first real Monday since before Chinese New Year it seems. Hopefully I’ll be getting a call to work soon. It’s a bit depressing knowing that there aren’t any more holidays until the Dragonboat Festival, but after the recent slew of festivity, I think we all need a break from breaks, so to speak. Tall Paul could be getting a little production together, in which case we need to to scope out his locations, and I’m working on a little something myself on the side before we dive into production for the ghost story. I still need to get a mic and a light kit somehow. The former I’ll probably have to buy, but the latter I think I can borrow from friends. Recently I’ve been boning up on production technique, re-reading some of the texts we studied in New York, but there’s no substitute for practice. I need to get my hands dirty.

剛才從山上下來, 終於回到家了, 今天天氣好差經, 一直下毛毛雨, 明後天準備要再開始上班, 至少希望如此. 越早開始上班就越快受薪水, 可以把最近刷卡的錢交情. 為了這個目標, 我現在在找一個比較便宜的地方住, 有可能需要搬到稍微郊外的社區.

I had one of the worst meals ever the other night. It was completely my doing, of course. I now fully believe that there should be a license required for cooking, especially dishes involving black bean sauce, unidentified cheese and purple noodles. Meat of questionable quality/origin doesn’t seem to help either; I think I’ll stick with spaghetti sauce from now on. It’s been days and I can still taste the culinary atrocity I visited upon myself.

The Chinese site seems to be working, more or less. There’s no Chinese-language input on the computer where I’m staying, however, so content will be particularly scarce for the moment. I do realize that there are a lot of wrong characters. It’s a blog, and I don’t tend to spend a lot of time editing and looking to make sure everything’s pristine; I just type and hit the “publish” button.

I attended a meeting at my place of 99.99999% chance of further employment down in the city yesterday. Thankfully I was not required to answer any questions or even say anything. I got the distinct feeling I was there for show, so that they could say “Look! We’ve got a foreigner. And next to him, please note our nifty all-in-one copy machine!”

Which is fine with me. The only thing I could have proved had I been allowed to open my mouth would have been how far I can stick my foot in. I just want the job and a little security for the next few months, long enough to get out of debt and purchase a microphone and maybe some lights for my next production. Being around so many government officials still makes me nervous, though. I wonder if I’ll ever completely get over that.

Last night I went over to Maoman’s place and revealed the secrets of setting up a Blogger account on his website. Now that he knows how simple it is I’m sure we can expect great things from him on a daily basis.

The Chinese New Year season is winding down and everyone’s getting back into the swing of things. I will be ending my little mountain sojourn this weekend and probably start work again on Tuesday if all goes well. Just think, in a few more months we’ll have lovely sweltering weather, typhoons, and all kinds of other fun summer stuff going on.

好像可以用了! 其實, 我自己都不太了解到底為甚麼要寫這個日記. 阿凸仔有必要寫中文日記嗎? 還是一種發洩而已? 不知道…以後再說吧.

New stuff, though not as much as I originally planned. Things have been picking up this week on several fronts. I recently got a call from my place of dubious employment saying there was a “99.9999% chance” of my continued employment there. All I have to do, aside from a little overtime I took care of last night, is show up on Thursday afternoon at their offices to reassure various government officials that I am not, in fact, a former axe-murderer on the lamb. I think I can pull it off.

Lin Yi-ping, my little brother (from my Taiwanese family) came up to Taipei the other day along with his wife and two kids. I hadn’t seen him in ages. He’s a year younger than I am, works at a company in Hsinchu and lives with my gan-ma in her house. His kids, one boy and one girl, are cute but a real handful (they’re the reason for the Filipina maid they hired, apparently). He makes a good father, though. I should pay them all a visit in Hsinchu sometime. Yi-ping says the city’s gone downhill lately; I guess I missed the high point because it certainly wasn’t anything to shout about when I lived there in the early 90s.

The weather yesterday was fine as fine can be, albeit a bit chilly in the morning, so I rode my motorcycle up the little valley behind my temporary housing in search of a good trail to hike. I stuffed my helmet in my backpack and set out, only to realize about five minutes later that it was quite uncomfortable having a motorcycle helmet hitting my back with every step, so I took it back and hooked it to the side of my bike, hoping that it wouldn’t get stolen while I was away.

I walked past the old ruined buildings and strange-looking holes in the ground I saw last time, past the lake and up into the mountains. I didn’t see a soul after the lake, where a family was sitting at a table watching the turtles dabbling about in the muddy water. The path was very small and rocky; were it not for the little flags left by a mountain service I would have gotten very lost very quickly. The forest was damp and lush, almost a jungle, the air striking in its freshness and full of newly released oxygen. I know, I sound like a bad wine critic when I write things like that.

I reached a crest, on the other side of which were some orange groves. A sign pointed the way up to Eagle Peak, so I followed the trail up, sometimes using some leftover ropes to haul myself up the steep slope. Before long I reached the top, where a little circle of bare ground was surrounded by foliage partially burnt by lightning and cut down by hand. The only sound was that of a wounded butterfly flapping around on the ground. I shot a small video of myself, looking old and haggard after the mere 200-meter ascent, making banal remarks about the scenery.

After successfully resisting the urge to run around nekkid in the foliage (or did I? You’ll never know!), I made my way down to the orange grove, where a couple of hikers were stretching. One of them was doing Chi-gong exercises. I asked him if there was another way down, and he said I could accompany him down the other side and around to Nei-gou Mountain. His name was Gao Ming-he, and he had quit his job after saving up enough money to live on for several years without working. He said he walked around the mountains every day, just for fun, and had been doing do for around five years. He was also working on a form of Chi-gong. “If I told you what it could do, you’d say I was crazy,” he told me as we walked. “We’ll see.”

After a while we came across an abandoned homestead. The house had no roof left and was crumbling inside, but you could tell it was lived in up until the 70s from the old TVs, sofas and LPs still inside. A decrepit vanity’s mirror was surprisingly clean, as if someone was maintaining it. Spooky stuff.

We continued on down the mountain until we came across a small river. Along the way we would occasionally pass other walkers, many of whom were older men walking their dogs. A river project is currently underway upstream, turning the water brown, but the banks and bridges were quite nice. Farmers in their fields were burning rice husks, turning the green landscape hazy and almost dreamlike.

We started up another upward leading road, one I would have assumed was someone’s driveway but turned out to be a public thoroughfare. We climbed up Nei-gou Mountain, which wasn’t nearly as high as Eagle Peak (so named, according to Gao Ming-he, because it was so infested with snakes that eagles went there for frequent snacking), but it was a good workout. Then we went down the other side and reached the ruins I had passed earlier on. Ming-he said it was an old coal mining community and pointed out the columns that had supported the mining cars, and the holes turned out to be the old mines. There’s not much left, but it’s facinating to walk through and wonder what it must have been like back in the Japanese colonial period when the place was full of people. It’s in the middle of nowhere even by today’s standards; imagine what it must have been like back then. Apparently the hills between Taipei and Jilong were full of little mining communities like that, though. All of them were abandoned when it was discovered that it was cheaper and easier to just import the stuff.

The sun was setting and it was getting quite chilly when we got back to the chicken ranch at the end of the road. Thankfully my helmet was still attached to Gendoyun and I could ride back to the apartment without fearing a ticket. I had gotten the call from my employer when I was hiking, and he had sent me some work via email, but I couldn’t get to it until after dinner. Still, work is work, and I’m glad to have the chance to get some overtime in. I’ve still got a lot of debt to pay off.

The new sight and sound of the moment are up. The sight is me cavorting on the mountaintop, of course, and the new sound is Lou Da-you’s “Hometown II”, a Taiwanese song recalling Taiwan’s history in a rather abbreviated form. Another one of my favorite pieces. Enjoy. I’ve also been trying to set up a Chinese-language blog, but I have yet to get it working.

Oh, and here’s a picture of me sneaking around an electronics store. Now what could I be up to, hmmm? More trouble, that’s what.

我一直在想寫一下中文的內容,終於創

Babbling Brooks! Purple Prose! Watch out, it’s time again for….Poagao Walks Around!

The sun came out just after I finished the last entry, so I decided to ride down to the nearest grocery store to pick up some food. Unfortunately, this included inadvertently stabbing my right leg with the kickstart, necessitating about five minutes of strained cursing and oily smoke pouring out of the exhaust pipe before I was on my merry yet slightly bloody way.

After I put everything away I decided to explore the little valley that runs to the northeast of my temporary quarters. It used to shelter a small road besides a small stream, but they’re in the midst of developing it into something altogether messier, with concrete barriers and artificial channels. The road ends at a no-trespassing sign in front of a wild chicken ranch, but you can take a nice hiking path into the hills from there. The trail passes through several small ravines and the ruins of old traditional houses, causing me to suspect the area was a village in the past. It’s quite an isolated spot even today, though; it must have been really out there back then. The trail passes by a small marsh/lake with clean water and colorful birds flying around. The setting sun caused me to turn back, though the trail went on in a much rougher incarnation beyond the lake. I took the road back at a much slower pace as I was trying to stay far enough behind and thus out of earshot of an old man with a loud radio in his pocket.

Took a trip to Costco today with Maoman. I’d never been to the Xizhi Costco, but they’re more or less the same worldwide.. Costco would be a brilliant idea if I were rich. This trip was nice because I filled up on the samples offered on virtually every aisle, and I got to watch Maoman castigate an employee for picking up spilt blueberries off the floor and putting them back on the shelf to sell to unsuspecting customers.

Last night I went over to Maoman’s place again, since it’s so close, and we watched a couple of episodes of Six Feet Under, a show I like better each time I watch it. I still shouldn’t have my own TV, though. I waste enough time as it is doing things like blogging. One of the characters, Keith, spoke a line that just hit me: “When someone sees you as you really are and wants to be with you, that’s powerful.” So many little gems, so well-written throughout. I really want to see more of this show, sloth-like tendencies be damned. I’ve also been watching the re-packaged Lonely Planet show, now called Globe Trekker. Ian Wright is a god.

Should be getting paid soon, and although this does not signify the end of my financial issues, it is a welcome trip out of the red. I’ve found that it is quite cheap to cook, if not the healthiest diet in the world. Having a real kitchen is helpful too. The better the weather is the more I like living out here, but commuting is still a pain. If I were to live out of the city I’d have to be within walking distance of an MRT line, and that’s that.

Just saw the “finalists” for the WTC project in New York City. Holy Crap Ideas, Batman! One of them looks like an erector set and the other looks like the project was completed by Mrs. Miller’s Fourth-grade class under threat of cancelling summer vacation. And I hope I don’t offend any fourth-graders out there when I say that. I’ve seen a lot of prospective ideas for this space, and some of them were even pretty good, but it seems they inverted the list by accident and came up with the top two Worst Ideas. And I thought I was good at making bad decisions.

I’ve been thinking about phrases like “I knew them from their blog” or “I met them online”. The more I think about it, the more I think it’s impossible. Knowing someone from their blog is like watching “Final Fantasy” and thinking you know what real people look like. It’s not quite there, a blog is only what said person wants to show the world, and misses the rest, all the nuances, all the psychoses, wrinkles and all. Granted, I’ve met people online and gone on to meet them in real life to find them very nice, but in each case I was suprised at how different they were than I had imagined. In most cases this is a good thing, but it has the potential to be a pretty bad thing as well. It’s part chaos theory, part common sense, but nothing can ever be what you expect. Usually it’s more, sometimes it’s less, but it’s always different. Sounds obvious, I know, but it’s also something I’m still in the process of learning. When I was growing up I thought that nature was deliberately making reality to be exactly the opposite of my expectations, and while this may have resulted in the abandonment of certain religious convictions, it also convinced me to try to stop expecting things altogether, or at least to stop putting any stock in my expectations.

Blah. I’d quit while I was still ahead with this babbling but I fear I’m too late.

I called my adopted family in Hsinchu to wish everyone a Happy Goat Year, but only the Filipina nurse was home, so I called my little brother instead. He and his wife are working on their third kid; my gan-ma must be thrilled. I should go down for a visit sometime. It’s been ages since I’ve been down there, or anywhere else for that matter.