What if I were staying here, and not leaving, I thought as I looked out of the city from my hotel room yesterday morning. The light outside was brilliant again, and not cold as the day before. I decided that it would suck, as I’d have no job, friends or place to live. At breakfast I once again noted the ingenious nature of the butter/jelly packages that you simply fold, splitting the cover just so that the contents emerge cleanly in a perfect pattern onto whatever surface you desire. I’ve never seen it anywhere else, is it only patented in Japan?

I had to get to the airport, though, so I packed up my things and checked out, walked to Juso Station and took the subway across the river to Osaka Station, where I climbed and descended an annoyingly long series of stairs to wait on the platform for the airport express, taking pictures of the crowds and asking the conductor of each and every train that came by whether it was the airport train, just to make sure.

When the train finally came, I found a seat and watched the various towns pass by, some of them obviously quite poor, but fairly neat and well-kempt nonetheless. Just before we reached our destination I spotted what appeared to be a gothic cathedral in the middle of one of the town.

At the airport, after negotiating my way through a crowd of fans who were waiting for a Korean movie star to arrive, I found myself walking behind two Delta flight attendants, one younger white man and an older black man. The white attendant said he was getting out. “What are you going to do?” the other one said.

“Become a PI and follow your wife around,” the white attendant said, before talking about getting back into the health management business. When we came to the escalators, he insisted the black guy go first “to break my fall if I slip.”

I got a chocolate doughnut to eat while waiting for the plane, and finally found a usable wifi signal to twitter my impending departure, complete with a picture of the plane. Eventually they let us board, and I found my seat subject to an unsual odor, like glue, due to either the proximity of the seat to the restrooms or the guy next to me working at a glue factory.

The flight was uneventful. As we approached Taiwan, I saw a huge plume of smoke issuing from somewhere in Taoyuan County. We landed, and I spoke into my camera for the 109th and last time on the trip, saying “This is the end of our broadcast day. Thanks for watching.”

Now I’m back in town, re-engaging in this life here. It’s always interesting to see things from a slightly different perspective after a trip, even a short one. Last night I had a delicious Christmas Dinner with friends who live in a mountainside community nearby. Not only was the food good, we were treated to a show when Sandy Wee made a tribute to The Exorcist by regurgitating about 3.7 gallons of milk in a spectacular fashion. It really made the evening.

This afternoon most of the Muddy Basin Ramblers are going to be giving a workshop at the Taipei Artists Village, followed by a show later on. I’ve got most of my stuff unpacked, but my place is a mess and needs cleaning. I’ve also got 446 photographs and the 109 videos to go through. Luckily, there’s always tomorrow.

A book was just published here called “1-100 Dreams” including small articles about 100 people, one for each age from 1 year old to 100 years old. I was selected for 39. I’d been under the impression that they had simply chosen 100 random people, but when I found the book at the big Eslite by city hall last night (the copy they mailed to me went to the wrong address), I was surprised to find quite a few actual celebrities inside. I suppose they had to sell it somehow.

In other news, Blues Bash V went pretty well. As the Dream Community (the manager is Dream #46 in the above list, btw) has a nice new building with two performance spaces, we did two shows, one outside and unplugged, and another inside a boomy bar space. There were several bands from Japan and Korea, though the Korean rock band had no actual blues to display. Former DPP Legislator Lin Chuo-shui showed up, stony faced in a crowd of happy faces, or at least until we started playing. Then he smiled: a real accomplishment, that.

Good music, good food, no police calls, no violence or complaints, and good weather. I’d still rather have BBVI in Bitan.

Now that real Winter has arrived, and my work on the film is wrapping up, my thoughts are turning to travel. I’ve taken so little time off this year that, even after subtracting the vacation I can exchange for money as well as the vacation I can transfer to next year’s total, I still have seven days I have to use before the end of the year, else I lose it. I’m thinking of a trip to southern Spain over the Chinese New Year break to see where Sergio Leone filmed his spaghetti westerns, but anything before that will have to be closer to home, Japan most likely, though preferably a part of that country I’ve never seen. I’ll post details once I’ve figured out what I’m doing exactly.

Yes, it’s been a whole month since my last entry here, though I’ve written a few times in my other blogs since then. Just not in the mood for writing lately, though things are still going on. Promptly on the first of the month, the weather became very Fall-ish, with cloudy skies and cool breezes. I’m sure this won’t last, though.

The Muddy Basin Ramblers had a great gig at Center Stage, aka the former Living Room, a couple of weeks ago before it closed down for good. It was short notice after a potentially well-paying gig in Kaohsiung was canceled at the last minute, and I was afraid nobody would come. Just before 10pm, when we were setting up, hardly anyone had shown up, but a short time later the place was packed, and we played two riotous sets, pounding away until 2am. Sandman and Conor had to split early, but David, Slim, Thumper and I made our way over to the 24-hour bagel place on Anhe Road for some early breakfast. Sitting there chatting about the show and other things over eggs and toast felt like we were on some tour somewhere. I wouldn’t mind doing that, actually.

In other news, a while ago I borrowed a couple of vintage film cameras from Thumper. I haven’t shot film since I sold my Nikon FM2 years ago, so it was an interesting experience. Thumper owns an old Zeiss Icon and a Leica M3, both with 50mm lenses, f2.8 and f2.0 respectively. I tried out the Leica first and shot two rolls with it. The camera has no light meter, so I was back to guessing the aperture and shutter speed based on long-ago experience after not having to worry about that kind of thing for years. Still, after I got the hang of the double wind and the various controls, the Leica turned out to be very nice. As for being more natural and unobtrusive, it’s better than a big DSLR, but about the same as using my compact DP1. I have to admit feeling a bit more trendy than usual, as if I should be sitting in a cafe writing travel notes in my Moleskine notebook before jumping into a vintage Mini to go hang out with people wearing berets. When I got the prints back from the 5 Color photo shop in Gongguan, I was surprised to see that I got the exposure and focus more or less right, most of the time. The guy at the photo shop has a collection of vintage cameras of his own, some of which he took out to show me.

After my positive experience with the Leica, I was looking forward to the Zeiss Icon, as it has an actual light meter as well as a clever aperture/shutter speed mechanism on the lens. I might have loaded the film wrong, however, because most of the film came out blank. I’m not really sure I like the feel of that camera or the sound of the shutter as much as the M3 in any case.

Speaking of pictures, an article of mine on Matsu, based on my trip there with Prince Roy a few months back and accompanied by pictures, is in the October issue of the Taiwan Review. One of my photos made the cover, but not before being mauled within an inch of its life by a designer using Photoshop to jam a fake sky into it. I told them that I not only could have done that myself, I would have done a better job if they’d just told me beforehand.

The Muddy Basin Ramblers are doing a gig at Cosmopolitan (formerly Amaroni’s) on Saturday night, part of a double billing with Two Acres Plowed. It’s been a while since we played, and I’m sure everyone’s looking forward to it. We’re planning a riverside rehearsal tonight to get back in the swing.

I saw Wall-e the other night. I was in the last row, much further away from the screen than I would have liked, so I didn’t get the full impact. I did enjoy it, though. What struck me was how loudly the Taiwanese audience laughed every time they saw all the fat people, especially when they (the fat people in the movie) fell off their little sled things.

I haven’t had time for dedicated photography lately, but ever since I got a Sigma DP1 I’ve been taking snaps here and there on my way back and forth to work. I’ve been experimenting with street photography lately in an attempt to add another dimension to my usually human-free photography. The DP1 is black, simple and easy to use. People don’t tend to notice it. It has no beeps or clicks or focus lights. The lens doesn’t zoom. Those who do notice it may ask me how many megapixels it has. I say 4 or so, and they shrug, unimpressed. “Mine’s much better; it has 10 megapixels,” the scooter shop fellow told me. If they read most of the reviews they’d be even less impressed, as most of them are negative. The camera requires more patience and knowledge than most people in the point-and-shoot market are willing to put up with. Which is fine with me.

It’s hard to believe it’s August already. The summer light is beginning to show a bit of Autumn at the edges. Lots to do.

I really didn’t feel like venturing out into the deluge for the Hoping for Hoping music festival, but we’d been invited, and it had been pleasant in past years. I was sure it wasn’t going to do my persistant cough any good, though. Sandman picked me up in front of the 7-Eleven downstairs, and we drove to pick up David, who was recovering from a cold, and then Slim, who was recovering from a fierce hangover. Following instructions from the Internet, we made it down to Longtan with no problems, but when we arrived at the Kunlun Gardens, we found that we were no longer allowed to drive up to the site, and had to wait for the van. We waited for a long time as other people who had been waiting longer were shuttled up, including a group of aborigine kids who played drums.

Finally, we got a place in the van, but when we arrived, we found that Peacefest had become a series of tents pitched in a sea of mud. Most of the hippies, and there were many, were going barefoot. I imagined there were all kinds of dangerous objects, natural and man-made, buried beneath the surface. We found a mud-covered Lynn Miles inside the local temple.

We were on at 4pm, so we had a little practice session on the second-floor stairway of the temple before we went on. I wasn’t quite awake yet, so I had to go grab a quick whisky coke as the rest of the band took the stage.

The show started out great; the audience was dancing and bobbing to our beat, and you never would have guessed we hadn’t had a real rehearsal in months. The sound guys did a great job, and we were hot. We’d only played a few songs, however, when we got the signal to wrap it up. WTF? But apparently there was some kind of scheduling problem, so we played “Riverside” and left the stage.

The aborigine kids’ group played for a while, accompanied by a mostly naked firebreather who happens be the chief of the Dream Community, followed by some foreign bands. Each of these played for what seemed like hours. One song went on longer than our entire set. I was driving back, so I wasn’t having any more drinks. I stood chatting with the guy I have a small crush on, wondering how cool he must be to not be creeped out by that embarrassing fact.

A giant peace sign was lit on fire, and then another. A giant inflatable chicken bobbed around the area. People shot off fireworks, and the Peace Circle began with some chanting. We were still talking off to the side, and got some hostile glares from the Circle for our insolence. There didn’t seem to be any focus to the event.

The rain never really stopped; there was no place to sit down. Everything was covered in mud. We’d done our tiny bit, but as night fell the line for the van going back down the hill was too long to consider. We grabbed some sub-par hamburgers at a stand and extricated ourselves from the situation, hauling our gear back down the mountain on foot in the dark. I wore the tub on my head as a makeshift umbrella. Back at the bottom of the hill, we met some Japanese musicians, one of whom, Syusaku Kanda, was also a washtub bass player. I set up the bass so he could play it, and he seemed impressed. I was sorry I hadn’t heard his group play.

The whole experience, however, was rather disappointing. If I’d known about the no-car policy, even for bands with heavy equipment, as well as our only being allowed to play a handful of songs while other bands went on as long as they liked, I’d have rather just skipped the whole mess.

The drive back was uneventful, and I ended up at Darrell’s and Judy’s for his 40th birthday party. There were many people there I knew vaguely, and I’m afraid I spent a bit too much time talking shop with Paul and Darrell instead of chatting with other guests. But it was fun, and the food was good. Judy insisted on offering me a huge slab of birthday cake to take home, which I found a little embarrassing (but too good to refuse).

Sunday was spent editing and coughing, mostly at the same time. This morning I went to see the doctor, who said I had acute bronchitis and tonsilitis, so now I’m on the loopy pills for a few days. The rain hasn’t let up, either. Every time I think full-on summer is here, I’m wrong.

After Tai-chi practice on Saturday at CKS Hall, I called up Prince Roy to see what he was up to. As is his wont, he was planning to visit a couple of political rallies later, so after a particularly delicious lunch at the Yongkang Sababa, we walked back towards Hangzhou Road to see the DPP’s Women’s Day rally. On our way, however, we saw a bunch of people staring at a building. “What’s going on?” I asked some women peering out of a nearby shop.

“We don’t know,” they said. “We saw some people looking, so we’re looking, too.” Just then a motorcade pulled up to the building, and none other than Ma Ying-jeou stepped out and walked into the building. PR was hot on his heels, no doubt looking for another handshake picture to add to his collection. I followed the crowd down to the packed meeting room in the basement where Ma was speaking. Encouraging slogans were being shouted under a giant portrait of Sun Yat-sen. I spotted PR’s colorful hat near the middle of the room. Having gotten his picture, he was ready to leave.

We continued walking up the road to the Zhongxiao East Road intersection, where the Women’s Day rally was being held. Though most of the seats were empty, music was blasting out of huge speakers, and dancers were on the stage. Tables full of stuffed dolls and other figurines resembling Frank Hsieh and Su Tseng-chang had been set up nearby, as well as two rows of port-a-potties that were the exact shade of aquamarine the DPP has chosen as its campaign color.

PR and I walked up to the stage and watched the singing and dancing for a while as various groups from around Taiwan arrived and filled the seats. The crowd was mostly older women, and the line for the row of port-a-potties grew quite long. Yeh Chu-lan gave a speech, and I wondered if she felt at all disappointed that she didn’t get the VP candidate slot. In the crowd, old men who looked like they’d never seen a diploma held signs protesting the recognition of any such documents issued by Chinese universities.

I had to go back to Bitan by that point, though; the Muddy Basin Ramblers have a show next Friday at Bliss, so we needed a practice. The weather was nice enough that we could hold forth on the riverside, though only on our side of the river as the other side’s completely torn up. Getting home, putting my things away and gathering up my instruments seemed to take forever, and it was getting dark by the time I joined the other Ramblers down by the horseshoe. It was good to be jamming again, and David introduced some nice new tunes for us to chew on. Even at such an isolated spot we managed to draw small groups of people, some of whom took out their phones and called their friends: “Hey, you’ll never guess what I found by the riverside in Bitan! Foreigners! And they’re playing music! Yeah, I KNOW!”

“Could you speak up?” Thumper told the excited girl who was yapping on her phone two feet away. “I can’t quite hear everything you’re saying over the music.”

Later, we all went to Athula’s for our traditional post-jam rottis. Alas, he was again out of tuna. Oh, well; more fried rice at home, then. Still plowing through the endless gigabytes of Tokyo photos. Hopefully soon they’ll all be up, and the video done and posted too, and maybe then I’ll feel a little less behind with everything.

Thursday was the going-away party for Forumosa’s Stray Dog, aka Sean, so I decided to take the opportunity to check out the new Alleycat’s on Songren Road. It was quite a walk from the City Hall MRT Station, but I took some interesting shots over the wall of some construction nearby with Taipei 101 in the background. Thankfully nobody saw me sticking my camera over the metal enclosure.

The Songren Alleycat’s is nice. It was officially the Forumosa.com Happy Happy Dance Dance Hour, but I wasn’t really in the mood for socializing and spent most of my dinner eating alone and reading. Afterwards, I thought I’d make my way, aided by GPS, through the alleys to Liuzhangli Station instead of walking back the way I came. Guided by the Google Maps app on my phone, I found my way through the maze very easily, and got some more interesting shots in the process.

I’d gotten a call from Thumper late Wednesday night. He was in Da-an Park with a group of guys who were playing country music. “They need a washtub bass player to fill in for theirs on Friday,” he told me. He said he was going to play with them there at Bliss as well, and Slim was going to come, so I thought I’d go and check it out. After dinner on Friday in Gongguan at a hot-pocket stand and picking up a new backpack, I went back to Bitan to retrieve my tub and stick, and took the MRT to Da-an Station, where I got another call from Thumper, this time informing that their bass player had decided to show up anyway. But I was practically there, so I figured I’d go anyway.

The band consisted of three guys, all enthusiastic young foreigners, one on guitar, another on banjo, and one playing his bass, which was a metal soup pot with a steel wire attached to a plank. It wasn’t as deep or resonant as my plastic tub, and the action of the stick was a lot more sensitive to the slightest movement. I tried to play it a little and managed to get some notes out of it, but I prefer my tub.

The band said that it was their third public performance. They were nervous before taking the stage. As for the show…well, let me put it this way: the highlight of the evening, music-wise, was when we all stopped playing at the same time at the end of one song. I know it sounds strange for a member of a band highly lacking in the polish department to call another band “unpolished”, but there you have it: They need work. During the show the band members were supposed to tell jokes in between songs. The banjo player decided to make me the subject of his, which was a story that included me wishing to a talking frog for a beautiful princess. I didn’t know which part of that combination was less likely, but before I could think of something clever to say another guy yelled out, “Maybe he’d wish for a prince instead!”

“Nah, he’s a guy, he’d wish for a princess; come on, let me tell the joke!” the banjo player complained, and went on with the joke.

Afterwards, I was ready to go home and go to bed, for it had been a long, tiring day, but Thumper and Slim were going to hang out at a local park for a bit, so I nabbed some fried rice from a convenience store and joined them. As always, it turned out to be a lot of fun, and we stayed up until the wee hours and the not-so-wee hours talking. The sky was getting light when a group of old ladies swept across the park, picking through our trash for recyclables. The city was coming to life around us, and suddenly the park wasn’t the private enclave it had been during the night, so we bade Thumper farewell and grabbed a taxi back south.

Saturday was election day for the legislature. Our voting post was located in the old Bitan KTV Club. The voting went smoothly. As usual, nobody had a problem or even raised an eyebrow when I showed up with my voting notice, though I got scolded for taking pictures from the street. I skipped the referendums because I don’t agree with using them for election campaigning instead of on real, meaningful issues. Afterwards, it turned out that about 75% of voters agreed with me.

The DPP was completely routed, of course. Chen Shui-bian, as predicted, stepped down from the party chairmanship to let Frank Hsieh emerge from his cocoon and start campaigning with as little stigma from the election loss as possible. If there’s one thing the DPP knows, it’s how to run an election campaign, I’ll give them that. I see the results more as a vote against the DPP than for the KMT, and I hope the latter doesn’t let it go to their heads or take it to mean that everything they stand for is hunky dorey with everyone. I’m still waiting for the usual bizarre turn of events that precedes every election here. I’m thinking it will happen in March, but I could be wrong.

After voting, I went to Darrell’s for some looping with Graham, who was back in town on vacation before returning to Singapore. Dow Jones is moving him to Tokyo in late February, and a long chain of foreigners sitting in the various musical chairs related to the job are all moving around correspondingly; it seems I know quite a few of them.

Sunday morning I had just awakened to the sound of jackhammers pounding away at the Bitan riverfront steps when I got a call from Harry, who was on his way to the Dimu temple in Wantan with his religious friends. I dressed and walked across the bridge and down the “niaoley” (the piss-covered alley) between the buildings to the ferry dock. On the way over I chatted with the ferryman, who told me some unsettling news. According to him, some legal knot has been resolved, and they’re planning to develop the lovely rural fields of Wantan with ugly high-rises. He told me they were even planning to build a 12-meter-wide bridge from Bitan over to Wantan. I had thought that there was no development on Wantan because it was a water preservation site, but it seems that even that’s not enough to stand in the way of developers with their eyes on the money they could make from such developments. It would be a great loss, as I love to walk through that area.

At the Dimu temple, Harry and his group, some of whom were dressed all in Temple Yellow sweat suits, did their thing while I sat by quietly, listening to the things going on around me. I like going there to just sit. It’s not really meditation, as I’m not disciplined enough for that. It’s just sitting and being quiet. Spacing out.

That afternoon Slim and I took a cab up to Conor’s lofty Muzha mountaintop pad for some MBR practice, including some dangerously racy songs about Jesus. Conor’s pad has the usual foreigner-pad style from the rugs hanging on the walls to the various instruments from a plethora of cultures. Outside, rainclouds hung over a great view of the city; the weather had become typical winter fare, cold and wet with just enough rain to make you miserable without actually raining hard enough to make an umbrella worth the trouble.

For all of you Muddy Basin Rambler afficianados not fortunate enough to actually live in the Muddy Basin itself or with family members exiled from our fair island, our self-titled album chock full of foot-stomping jug band goodness is now available online for purchase at CD Baby. Yeah, I know, I should have put this up earlier so you could all send MBR CDs to each other for Christmas. Sorry. Go buy some anyway; you won’t regret it.

In other news, after a growing sense of unease created by the indecisiveness of various media industries and their continuing suicidal inability to decide on a single format for high-definition content, coupled with the fact that there is simply no other way for me to access HD content in Taiwan, I purchased a TViX HD4100 media box and stuck a 500Gb hard drive inside. It’s basically a media player with HDMI and other AV connections that plays just about anything I can throw at it, HD or otherwise, on my TV, all the way up to my Sharp Aquos’s 1080i resolution limit. I plug it into my computer’s USB2 port and shuttle stuff over, then hook it up to the TV, though it has an Ethernet port. With the remote control, it feels just like a DVD player and works just fine with both HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, AVI, XVID, DVIX, MP3, MP4 or whatever format. The video looks gorgeous and the sound is great. So, all of the rest of you, go on clawing at each other over whether Blu-ray or HD-DVD is better as long as you like, but try to keep it down, ok? I’m watching a movie.

The train station was busy on Saturday morning, when we had arranged to meet up for the trip. Slim was outside leaning against a wall when I arrived, and Thumper’s wife Christina waved from inside the station entrance. David and Conor showed up not long after, but Sandman was nowhere to be seen even as our departure time approached. Not wanting to miss our bullet train south, we descended into the bowels of the massive structure, loaded down with instruments and luggage, and boarded while David scouted Sandman out via the latest in phone tag technology.

It was my second trip on the high speed rail, and Jiayi would be the furthest I’d ever gone on one of the new trains. I once again pondered the wisdom of traveling the short distance from Taipei to Banqiao on such a train, but soon enough we emerged from the tunnel system onto the arrow-straight elevated track, where we accelerated to almost 300kph. It didn’t feel that fast; the distance to the ground made it seem a much more reasonable speed unless you looked at the small size of the things on the ground. I tried using my phone’s GPS to track us, but we were going too fast for the relatively weak 2G signal; Google Maps couldn’t quite download satellite images fast enough to keep up with the little blue dot that was us.

We were in Jiayi in less than an hour. No mess, no fuss, though I nearly broke the train doors getting all my gear in and out. The Jiayi HSR station is a rocket launchpad in the middle of green farmland. We caught a handful of taxis, assisted by Ah-bing, and were taken to the Songyou Hostel in Zhongpu, where we’d booked a few sunny, peaceful rooms on the second floor. The hostel, as are so many buildings in Taiwan, was built with an almost gluttonous excess of concrete, but it was on a quiet street and had a garden with tables and chairs next to farmland and greenhouses.

I slid the three mats, which had been huddled in one corner of the room, apart as we got settled in. Afterwards, a delicious lunch was had in the garden across the street. Christina even hopped onto the karaoke machine while we ate.

Our first show was at 7:30 at the Sanzhu temple in Shuishang, and the soundcheck was at 4pm. The stage was set up at one side of the parking lot in front of the temple, with a rainbow balloon bridge on the other side and a scattering of white plastic chairs in between. Our greenroom was actually a blue tent with red chairs on the lawn behind the massive stage.

The sound guys were surprisingly competent. I’d say it was one of the best sound jobs I’ve seen (or heard). They brought out a little flat mic shaped like a landmine for the washtub bass that boomed down into registers most mics couldn’t dream of reproducing. Afterwards we wandered in the golden hour as the sun set behind the temple. I found Christina chatting with the owner of a shanty shop across the street.
He had an interesting face, so I took a picture. Turns out he’s also a village official. He said there was a DPP campaign rally that night so not many people would show up at the show.

As showtime neared, the Ramblers reappeared out of the nooks and crannies of the temple and woods. The mood in the air was a little strange. The stage was too big. No foreign band had ever performed there before. The audience was there but had no idea what to expect. I felt a strange lack of motivation during the show, possibly due to eating too many almond cookies beforehand. But we were also too far away from each other, too disconnected, and it felt like we weren’t really playing together at many points. Despite the strange canned applause being broadcast over the speakers, the audience seemed to enjoy us, though I didn’t see any dancing going on, as is usually seen when we play. After the show I didn’t feel like talking to anyone, and sat inside the tent on one of the red chairs waiting to leave.

My mood improved considerably back at the hostel, however, after everyone changed back into civvies and adjourned to the garden for a long night of drinking, music, chatting and photography. Almas John and Thumper spent a disturbingly large amount of time lifting each other into the air, while I borrowed the latter’s new 30D, accompanied by very nice L-series lenses, to prowl around the area looking for interesting night shots. The revelry lasted into the wee hours of the morning, ending on the balcony of our room, passing a bag of potato chips between us.

Conor’s snoring woke me up the next morning. Well, that and the harsh whisper of Slim saying “Stop snoring!” over and over again. I sat up and threw a slipper at Conor, who did in fact stop snoring. But I was up already, and an outdoor kitchen was being set up downstairs, so I got dressed and hiked up the main road to look for some breakfast. Down the road I found a breakfast place that was still open. “I’d like a danbing,” I said. The woman behind the greasy counter pointed at a small yellow lump on the tray and said, “We’ve got one left.”

I looked at the unbroken eggs on the counter and then at the hot grill, and wondered if I should broach the possibility of making a fresh one. I decided that anyone who considered the possibility of eating a cold danbing wasn’t the kind of person who should be making one, so I said no thanks and went a couple of doors down to another breakfast shop where they were happy to make a fresh one for me. I chatted with the staff a little, and one woman asked me, “When did you get here?”

“Last night,” I said between mouthfuls. She looked shocked.

“Wow, really? Your Taiwanese is amazing!”

After breakfast I walked back and past the hostel, stopping here and there to take pictures. The weather was great, clear and cool. I walked through the fields past a nice new ranch-style house being built in the middle of some fields. A family of four, from the city by the look of them, exited as I walked by, piling into a small green VW and driving off. I waited until they were out of sight before peeking in the windows.

Past the house were more fields and a canal with a bridge, on which I decided I could go through my tai-chi forms while listening to the insects and tumbling water below.

The other Ramblers roused themselves around noon, reanimation via coffee and sunlight commenced. Slim and I took a walk down the road, exploring old Japanese-style houses and wondering at the sense of space and quiet. As we walked across a deserted intersection, I turned my head to look down the intersecting road and was surprised to see it vanish into the horizon, something I seldom see in Taipei. That and the empty old wooden buildings reminded me vaguely of Oklahoma.

Our show that night was at 7pm at the Zhongpu Township Hall. David and I were in the last car, and the sun was low in the sky as Ah-bing drove us over. It turned out that the stage was actually the portico in front of the imposing stone building’s front entrance, and umpteen microphones were crowded like a flock of black storks on the red carpet in between the pillars. The area seemed deserted, and I wondered if anyone would show up. Sure, a few faithful friends were there, but who else would seek out this desolate location?

Turns out I needn’t have worried. Soon after we began playing the seat filled up, and the crowd was soon roaring with pleasure. My confidence was restored, though the bass was booming off the portico and smothering the sound. After the show we sat at a table and signed CDs for a while, which I’d never done before.

Getting all of our gear as well as ourselves into three taxis back to the HSR station turned out to be an engineering challenge worthy of a Mythbusters episode, but we managed, and soon enough were speeding along the highway. Ahead of us, in the distance, a bullet train streaked across the horizon towards the station.

Conor got a warning whistle when he walked too close to the edge of the ultra-modern platform. A few minutes later we found out why when a train blew past only inches away from us at a startling speed. The ride back was just as quick and smooth, aided by celebratory wine, and seemed even more like magic in the dark, as the sense of speed was diminished even further. Before we knew it, Sandman, Slim and I were on the MRT, heading south and home.

It’s probably a bad idea to write under the influence of codeine, but here goes.

Friday after work I was out shooting with my new lens and decided to stop by the newly renovated second floor of the train station. It’s all done by the Breeze Mall people, and it’s a classy job. There are many good restaurants in there, including a spot for a future Sababa. Walking up from the scruffy, depressing first floor to the elaborate, warm second floor is like night and day. The restaurants on the inside of the square look out over the main hall and ticket windows, which is a cool 60’s lounge effect. Mister Donut is back near its original spot from years ago. It looks like my lunch options have opened up a lot with this new development.

I thought that my cold was over, but when I woke up on Saturday morning it was back, so I skipped tai-chi practice and instead had lunch with Eric and Daniel at the new Sababa near Yongkang Street. It’s impressive, not larger than the other stores but more nicely laid out with a nice balcony and a light, airy feel. The weather was perfect for sitting on the balcony; I was the only one in the place when I walked in just after 2pm, but in a matter of minutes it was full.

By dinnertime my cold was getting worse, and I went to bed early instead of contemplating attending the first day of the Blues Bash IV out in Xizhi. Nyquil aided my sleep, but when I got up on Sunday morning it was rainy and cold outside, and I was in no mood to go out of doors. Nonetheless, I dragged my stuff together, took a large swig of Liquid Brown Mixture that I’d been saving for just such an occasion, and headed out to catch a cab, picking up Slim on the way.

The Dream Community was nearly deserted when we arrived. David and Conor showed up shortly after we did, both looking worse for wear after the previous night. We eventually did our sound check, the technicians hooking up electrical outlets to the lights in the rain while standing on tall metal structures. The speakers, covered with plastic bags, crackled with sound.

After that, it was time for some delicious ribs and mashed potatoes, and then I found an empty table to sit down, put on my sunglasses and take a nap while everyone thought I was either meditating or purposely ignoring them.

The bands started up as the rain continued, and the temperatures continued to drop. Definitely not the best weather to have a cold in, I thought. I went into the office and found the Snowman sitting perplexed at the computer. “It won’t type English!” he was saying. We helped him switch it back from Chinese input.

The show went alright, though we had a hard time hearing each other. After it got dark we couldn’t see the audience, and nobody was standing directly in front of the stage due to the driving rain. But when we finished each song, applause would erupt from shadowy corners of the tents beyond the lights, from a phantom crowd. Playing without Thumper and Sandman was a challenge, but we got some help from outside musicians Nathan James and Bill from DC’s band, who graciously donated their time to cover for the missing Ramblers.

After the show I had some more ribs, stuffing myself pretty thoroughly, as well as some Japanese codeine-based cold medicine from Slim. Back in the office, a young Brazilian man with long dreadlocks was showing his left-handed trumpet, which had sticky valves. I offered him some of my valve oil, but he said he didn’t know how to apply it, so I did it for him. It turns out that he is just now trying to pick up the trumpet, being primarily a percussionist. I gave him a quick lesson and got him playing a C scale, which he seemed happy about.

Outside, we huddled around a portable heater chatting. I was amused to see the show resulting from three guys vying over the attentions of one girl. It was like watching a National Geographic special. “And now the male will attempt to impress the female by attempting to fit the only two Hungarian phrases he knows, i.e. ‘waiting room’ and ‘red wine’ into a normal conversation….and he’s done it! Let’s see how she reacts…”

DC Rapier was getting threats of violence from area residents, so they decided to pack it all up and head on over to Capones. I think this may be the last time the Blues Bash is held at the Dream Community; between the distance, lack of transportation options, and the death threats, it just doesn’t seem to be working out. My hope is that next year they’ll consider having it down at Bitan. On my way back to the office to get my things together, I ran into the guy who I have a small crush on, to whom I admitted at Daniel Pearl Day that I think he’s sexy, etc. I apologized for my behavior, but while I was doing so, I have to admit I was thinking: Damn, he’s sexy in that shirt.

Brent had driven his car to the bash, so Slim and I hooked a ride back to Bitan from him, which was much nicer than taking a taxi even if we did come perilously close to becoming lost in the more dismal parts of urban Xizhi (which is most of it, from what I can tell). I got in, turned on the lights, put on an album of old Christmas favorites, and began to type this out. Tomorrow: back to work.