Being Dave To

jiu fun - village on a mountaintop June 3rd, 2008

9portion (1).jpg, originally uploaded by beingd.

This was the view from our teahouse at the top of the mountain. It was a wet day but it eventually cleared enough so that we could see the view.

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Jeelong Night Market June 3rd, 2008

jeelung.jpg, originally uploaded by beingd.

Yesterday I went on a day trip to Jeelong with a few people that I’ve met while here in Taiwan. When we got there, we took this insane local bus that wound around extremely sharp and narrow bends to get us to the top of a mountain village. Two people had motion sickness by the time we got there and it was worse on the way down.

The village was really cool. very narrow pedestrian walkways with lots of vendors selling specialty foods. There were a tonne of teahouses and restaurants perched precariously on the steep mountainside, each fighting for the best view of the beaches and islands far below. It was getting late and some local saw us taking pictures. He invited us to his rooftop where he had an awesome view. I’ve found so far that Taiwanese people are very hospitable people. Even the taxi drivers.

After the day was done, we went back to Jeelong where the night market there was in full swing. It’s a harbor city so there were all kinds of seafood that I’ve never seen before. Weird-looking crabs, lobsters, and large, bright yellow prawns. We settled for a local seafood stew and oh ah jin, which is fried egg, oysters, rice dough, and sauce and beer, which we got at a seven eleven and drank at the vendor stall. That was pretty much it for my first foray into the Taiwanese country.

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Wet like Vancouver June 1st, 2008

dumplings.jpg, originally uploaded by beingd.

I went to Taiwan’s famous dumpling place on Friday. It’s called Dintaifung. It was packed. Every table ends up with a stack of these dumpling containers, each layer holding a flavourful surprise.

The last couple of days have been wet and gloomy. The good part is that it’s cooled down significantly to the point where it’s reminding me of a typical Vancouver rainy day. I’m feeling a bit shut-in today, just doing work and watching tv and downloads all day.

Anyone see Lost? That last scene, HUH? WTF? Though some of the earlier scenes in the two-part finale I found explained some unanswered questions and yea, Ben did kick some ass. If you can’t tell, I think he’s becoming my favourite character in the show. Also, Walt’s huge! have we really been watching this show that long? 4 years….sheesh.

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kua zang in taipei May 28th, 2008

Today I spent two hours learning Chinese, the first of which was in a tiny tiny room. Imagine an elevator but with two desks in it. That’s how small it was. But at least it was air-conditioned since it was another blistering hot day in Taipei. My Chinese teacher is an older lady who is pretty funny. She’s like a mom and she tells jokes that are not that funny but she giggles to herself. Her joke today was (poorly translated into English):

China Air flight attendants are prettier than that of Eva Air. However, China Air has shoddier planes that use to crash often. When the two groups of flight attendants passed each other at the airport, the China Air ones would be like “damn, those Eva Air girls are ugly”. Then the Eva Air ladies would retort “We may be uglier, but at least we don’t crash into the ground”. Then the China Air ladies would say “Crashing is but an instant, but ugliness is for life”.

yea. Anyways, it was a very boring 2 hours of class where we reviewed more pinyin. It’s been 3 lessons and we haven’t even gotten to the meat of what I want to learn - how to read and write. I think i’m going to change it up and get a private tutor who’s a wife of a friend here.

Another thing, there are way too many bugs in Taiwan for my comfort level. On the street today, I saw a big black dot maybe half the size of my iphone. When I got closer to it, it skittered away. This cockroach was so big, I could hear the skittering sound of it’s small little cockroach feet. I also ate some street vendor food in a park and got multiple mosquito bites along my leg and the back of my ear. ouch! Finally, in the downstairs courtyard where i’m living, there’s a nightly migration of snails from one end to the other or maybe they’re just out enjoying the cool night air. At any rate, there’s at least one every square foot. So, i’ve got to tiptoe around these little guys in order to get to my building. I hate thinking about that sickening crunch of shoe vs. snail so I’m especially careful. So in conclusion, there are a lot, i mean a lot, of bugs in Taiwan this time of year. If you don’t like bugs, you would not like it here.

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From my window May 26th, 2008

taiwan.jpg, originally uploaded by beingd.

This is one of the buildings that I can see. It’s typical Taipei. Probably used to be white but stained from pollution and humidity. Houses god knows how many people and businesses. Leaning slightly to one side.

I’ve enrolled in Chinese courses and am gonna head to my 2nd one today. It looks seriously hot out there today so i’m a bit reluctant to leave my air-conditioned cave of an apartment. In the past few days, I went to an 80’s karaoke bar where they print the lyrics on a projection screen. Pretty cool idea I thought to encourage group participation. Had a bbq at an animation office patio.

Got a bit of food poisoning. Walked around aimlessly near Taipei Main Station. Watched a lot of HBO. And got a sweet umbrella too from 7-eleven (which btw is on every streetcorner here in TW), yay! because when it rains here, it really really rains. I’m talking drops the size of a baby’s fist!

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Shannon Falls, Squamish May 26th, 2008

squamish 1.jpg, originally uploaded by beingd.

Before leaving Vancouver, we wanted to do a dayhike to the top of the chief in Squamish. But on the drive up, we saw that Shannon Falls was thundering with spring melt-off and also one person in our party had a nasty hangover. So instead of hiking, we spent the day taking pics of the waterfall and surrounding areas. Ahh, nature how I miss thee.

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What happened to Thursday? oh well May 23rd, 2008

I got on a plane yesterday night (Wednesday) at YVR and 12 hours later I’m in Taipei, Taiwan. It’s 5am, Friday. Wait, what happened to Thursday? oh well. I guess you have to make some sacrifices when you’re a globetrotter like me! haha.

I’ve decided to restart this blog in part to document my travels in Asia for the next two+ months and also to put up some pics that i’ll be taking along the way. Any readers out there still? hello? yea, it’s been awhile i know.

So far, Taipei has been humid, thunderstormy, and teeming with people, cars, and scooters. So far, I’ve had a street stand hamburger and egg, which was actually really tasty. meat, fried egg, lettuce, and some chinese sauce. I’ve had one of the tastiest iced lattes ever. I think this place called Cook’s Coffee, actually strained the latte, then added foam milk on top, I saw a very sad looking black lab in a shady street underpass. It could’ve been dying or maybe just the heat. Either way, my fear of raving mad dogs kept me at a safe distance. I also observed that here a garbage truck drives slowly down sidestreets playing a Beethoven riff while people, shopkeepers, inhabitants, etc. run after it and throw their bags of garbage in there. Kind of like a DIY garbage service. I found it pretty fascinating.

I’ve got a swanky one-bedroom apartment that belongs to my uncle. It’s fully-stocked and never-lived in before so I’m a lucky bastard. Best of all, it’s got full on AC and i’m blasting it. Out the window, I can see nothing but rooftops, apartments, and the outline of Taipei 101 in the distance. Wish you guys were here.

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worm’s eye view May 19th, 2008

worm’s eye view, originally uploaded by beingd.

Tulips in Agassiz, about 100 kms east of Vancouver.

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Flickr May 19th, 2008

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

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New Golf Video May 17th, 2007

This is a short vid I made while sitting around in the hotel room in Philly. The footage was taken back in April at the Westwood Plateau golf course. Part of York’s birthday gift from his wifey was a round of golf. We were partially subsidized as well. Thanks Val! We stunk up the course good that day but it was all for a good cause. Check it out.

Today my sister and I hung out in NYC. I love NYC. We started at Union Square at Coffee Shop with an avocado, bacon, and egg burrito, went up to 5th Ave, went to the Apple Store, went back down to Soho, bought some cool vans sneakers, then went to the upper west side to hang out with my aunt at her stylish new condo facing the Hudson. The only shitty part was taking the subway back to Flushing after. Express trains stop at 10pm so we had to go local which took forever. But there were two deaf mute lesbians making out right beside us so it wasn’t exactly a boring ride. On to the vid.

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