Drunk Cockroach

Last night I saw a cockroach drinking from a discarded beer can. I kind of regret not taking a picture of it. It's exactly how you would imagine it would look like. The beer can was tipped sideways on the sidewalk and a big ass cockroach (the nasty kind that flies) had it's head inside the opening. It's butt was angled upwards and moving up and down a bit, it really looked like it was excitedly enjoying beer for the first time. I wonder if cockroaches can get drunk. . .

Anyways, speaking of getting drunk. I got pulled over Saturday night for drunk driving. . . well technically drunk riding as I was on my motor scooter. That was an interesting experience to say the least.

A little background on how the Taipei police catch DUI people. Mostly during weekends but sometimes on weekday, checkpoints are setup randomly at key points around the city, almost always at on ramps to bridges and highways. You have to slow down and let the police take a look at your face and smell for alcohol.

My girlfriend and I were on our way home from a Mexican restaurant/bar. We were supposed to go there and watch the World Cup semi-final match or something like that with some friends. When we found out that the match starts at 4 AM, we said F that and we left. On the way home we passed by two police DUI checkpoints. No problem at either one, police let us pass. I told GF "Wow, crazy amount of cops tonight." When we were at the most 2 minutes away from our destination, unbelievably there was yet another checkpoint. While we were approaching it I jokingly told the girlfriend "Watch, we're gonna get stopped."

Two seconds later. . . the cop takes a look at my face, same as the two checkpoints before except this time I get asked "How much did I drink tonight?" I responded "Nothing" but I did not say it in complete confidence. I was lying. I think he knew it. I'm such a bad liar.

He tells me to turn off the engine and show him my license and registration. I'm a bit nervous now. He looks at my license/registration and asks me to walk over to the patrol car. He asks me again "How much did I drink tonight?". . . this time I said I had one or two sips of beer. I changed my story, unsurprisingly he doesn't believe me. He takes out the breathalyzer machine. He asks me "Are you sure you only had one or two sips?" trying to pressure me into confessing. I say "Yes, only one or two sips."

Now I'm really nervous. This little machine in front of me will decide if I will forever have a criminal record, if i will be fined a huge sum of money, have my license taken away, and have my motor scooter towed away. As I blow into the breathalyzer I'm thinking "What if it's defective? What if it's been tampered with?" I mean the difference between being fine and going to jail is miniscule, only a small fraction of 1% BAC (Taiwan's limit is 0.055%).

I hear a beep. That means I can stop blowing. I nervously wait for the readout on the small digital display. It feels like forever, but in reality it was probably 3 seconds.

Eventually, it flashed "0.000%"

Hahahahahahaha! Cop loses, I win! I actually only had at the most 1/4th of one beer, almost two whole hours before the breathalyzer. I was only nervous because I have very low tolerance for alcohol, a 12 year old girl could probably out drink me. I look completely wasted when I've had one or two drinks even though I feel fine.

There was a million funny things I could've said to the disappointed cop. But (very typical for me) I couldn't think of a single funny thing to say. We just rode off, relieved, tired, excited and glad that it was over. Definitely an interesting experience.

Pizza Night turned into Tonkatsu Night

This past Saturday, some friends and I went out to try a NY style pizza place. I was looking forward to it as I haven't had real pizza in a real long time. When we got to the place, we realized it was just a hole-in-the-wall/takeout type place. We had a group of 10 people, we would've needed a giant shoehorn to fit everyone inside. Oops, my bad. I should have did a little more research before choosing this place.

So we ended up going to some random Japanese Tonkatsu place nearby. While we were ordering, my friend next to me gets a call from another friend that's on his way to meet us but needs directions. The friend next to me gives out the directions over the phone, the friend on the phone then asks him what the name of the restaurant is. So the friend next to me flips to the front of the menu and scans the pages with his index finger for a few seconds, stopping near the top of the page. . . and then yells into the phone "The restaurant is called Menu!"

He immediately realized his mistake, but it was too late. We all burst out laughing.

After dinner we went to a tapas bar had some drinks/snacks, talked about random crap. . . reminisced about some of the wilder stuff we did back when nobody had a real job. How things have changed. . . I think we left the bar and headed home before 12AM.

Random Bicycle Race with a Complete Stranger

I'm planning to sell my bicycle and buy one of those newfangled folding bikes. Actually, I've been planning to sell it for like 4 months but I've been too lazy to get off my ass and do anything. First I have to wash and prep the bicycle, then I have to take pictures of it, then I have to print out flyers, then I have to post up flyers everywhere. It's not helping that i think the bike is only worth $5000 NT which is only like $165 USD which isn't much of a motivation.

So anyways, I finally got to washing my bike on Saturday. Decided to go downstairs to the riverside park for a short easy ride to make sure everything is working okay. About 20 minutes into the ride, I pass some older looking guy, i'm guessing 50-60 years old. Then about 2-3 minutes later, he passes me back. At that point I was at nice-easy-ride speed. So I turned it up a notch and repassed him thinking that was the last I'd see of him.

A few minutes later, he flies past me. I mutter to myself "oh no you didn't old man." So I turn it up another notch but all I can do is follow him because there's too many other bicyclists and I can't pass. When traffic clears up I pick up the pace and pass him. I go pretty much as fast as I can for 5 minutes, never looking back, then i slow it down slightly when I'm confident that the old man is given up.

He still caught up and passed me! Except this time he was breathing much louder and sweating noticeably more. You could tell he was tired. If I was a bigger man I would've just let him win and give up. Let him have the satisfaction of beating me. . . but nope. I passed him again and I went as fast as I possibly could go. I was surprised I had anything left. I eventually slowed down and looked back about 5 minutes later and I couldn't see him anymore.

It felt good until I realized the following three things.
1. I'm slightly nauseous from riding so hard.
2. I only barely outran someone that's old enough to be my father.
3. I rode so far, I didn't know where I was anymore.

Go-Karts Round 2

From my last post about Hooters, I joked about breaking my hip:

I won't joke about that stuff again. I think I got my hip knocked loose on the go-kart track.

Yesterday, some friends and I decided to head back to the go-kart track that we went earlier in the year. Weather was perfect and we had a lot of good racing. Most of the people in the group didn't go with us last time so the first time around I lapped everyone like twice. But by the third session, huge improvement by everyone. I couldn't lap anyone and was even passed a few times.

This is probably why my hip doesn't feel so great today. On the last session of the day, since everyone was more consistent and competitive, we were spending much more time side by side. Coming into the hairpin turn we had three people going for the apex at pretty much the same time. I had a feeling this wasn't going to turn out well.

The first person that reaches the apex loses his rear end and does a 180 spin and comes to a stop in the middle of the corner exit. By that time I've already committed to taking the inside line since I have another car directly to the right of me. I slow down as much as I can but it's too late. BOOM!

Ouch. . . and then I see my friend who took the outside line speed away, waving his hand as to say "Cya!" to the both of us. What a great friend! I know who's gonna get brake checked the next time he's behind me.

I have bruises on my elbow, my ribs, and my hip. My whole upper body is sore and I'll probably walking with a slight limp for at least a week.

But looking forward to the next time we go back.

Pizza and Movies

This past Saturday, I went to friend's place for a pizza and movie night.

Side note: Pizza is not cheap in Taiwan! We got two large pizzas and two buckets of chicken. Ended up being $1500NT which is almost $50 USD. The large pizzas here are more like medium size in the US. We had four guys and a girl and we finished it pretty easily.

Side side note: It's weird, everyone sells fried chicken here. McDonald's has fried chicken, Pizza Hut and Dominoes also has fried chicken. I think KFC sells chicken also!

So we had to choose between the action movie War and that romance movie with Catherine Zeta Jones where she's a chef and she cooks stuff and ends up falling in love with some guy.

Like I said earlier, we had four guys and one girl so it's pretty obvious which movie we ended up choosing.

Oh what a horrible mistake that was. . .

The movie was a complete mess, all I remember was guns shooting and punches being thrown, explosions. . . then some naked chick (which my astute friend immediately noticed had one breast slightly larger than the other). . . then some slow parts involving gold horse statues, and then Jet Li killing Chinese gangsters, then that weird looking girl (devon aoki) ordering a chef salad from Japanese gangsters (I'm not making this up!) , then Jet Li on motorcycle killing both chinese and japanese gangsters, and then freakin' NINJAS!!!! And then Jet Li using the ninja's own sword to cut the ninja's head off. . . and more fighting, sushi restaurant, explosions with Ferraris and Spykers in the background. and then Jet Li fights the guy from the Transporter movie, but nobody dies. And then a scene where Devon Aoki opens a box with some old guy's severed head in it. THE END.

I'm sure I've seen movies worse than this but I can't think of any right now.

I voted to watch the Catherine Zeta Jones flick. Stupid friends didn't listen to me. See what happens when people don't listen to me? You get a movie where Devon Aoki randomly orders chef salads and opens boxes with severed heads in it.

All-you-can-eat Hot Pot and Soccer

Saturday night, went to 吃到飽的麻辣火鍋 (all you can eat hot pot) and right afterwards we went to play soccer. . . in the dark, 10 o'clock at night, while it was drizzling out.

Not the smartest idea, this. . . stuffing yourself with random hot pot goodness until your stomach hurts and then going outside and running as fast as you can pretty much non-stop for an hour chasing the damn soccer ball. It was a surprisingly good game. My team won the first round, the other team won the second round.

But the biggest victory of all was not a single person puked. We should all be proud of that.
Us: 1, Nausea: 0

Toyota 101, world's tallest billboard

While I was hanging out on saturday night I noticed Taipei 101 was a little different (see pic to the right) . I love how Taipei 101, the most well known building in Taiwan is now sponsored by Toyota! :( To me that's like the Empire State building having a big Volkswagen logo on the side of it. I'm not that big on national pride or anything but couldn't they atleast get a Taiwanese company?

Oh yeah, i had dinner at a hong kong style place near Taipei 101. It was one of the very few times i remember ever breaking out laughing when I tasted my food. You see, I ordered some noodle soup. It looked appetizing in the menu, but when I got it, it looked exactly like instant noodles. I was like, okay it looks like instant noodle but we're in a hip trendy looking restaurant/cafe located in a fairly hip trendy area. . . it can't possibly be instant noodles. . .

Then i tried it.

Lesson learned: Instant noodles by itself. . . not funny. Going to a restaurant and accidentally ordering instant noodles you could've made yourself in 3 minutes for 1/10th the price. . . hilarious.

5 day weekend almost over

5 day weekend almost over. :( I didn't really do much except sleep a lot and watch a movie and protest against the president.

On Friday I saw World Trade Center: The Movie. It was basically two guys stuck in a hole, talking to each other. For a movie about two guys stuck in a hole, it's really very good. . . but I prefer movies where the scenery changes more often.

I just came back from the "protesting", I'm not really against the president. . . I just didn't want to do my assignments for class and it was a nice day outside.

Here's a picture and blurb from the Associated Press:

Thousands of anti-corruption protesters shouting slogans march outside the Presidential Office on Taiwan's National Day, Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2006, in Taipei, Taiwan. Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian spoke Tuesday, as tens of thousands of red-clad protesters gathered in the broad boulevard outside the Presidential Office building, demanding that he step down over a series of alleged corruption scandals.(AP Photo)

The atmosphere is more like a carnival than a protest. Everyone is all smiling and taking pictures of each other wearing all red and with their thumbs down. Some people bring their kids all dressed in red. . . i saw a few babies in red also. Even dogs were dressed in red. I guess even the dogs hate Chen Shui-bian.

Rain ruins my weekend

I miss having a car. It's been raining a lot for a few days here. Starting to get on my nerves . . . is there such thing as a "dry dance" I could do? Anyways, my main mode of transportation here is riding a scooter. If you look at the sketch I drew, you might think that your feet is relatively safe from the rain.

I wore sneakers. It was the wrong choice, even going barefoot would've been a better choice. I didn't account for cars + puddles = BIG SPLASH, it doesn't matter that my front of my legs were covered since the splashes came from the sides. As i was cursing at myself and thinking how much fun two hours of walking around going *squish* *squish* *squish* was going to be, I wondered to myself how the heck do other people keep their feet dry. Then I noticed everyone else riding their scooters wore sandals or flip flops. Oh. . . I felt a tiny bit stupid. When I finally reached my destination, soaking wet. I reach for my cell phone to find out where my friends are. . . phone not there. I forgot it at home. I feel extra stupid now. Too many possible locations, i'm not going to search every spot in this downpour and in soaking wet clothes. Game over. An excellent way of wasting 30 minutes and getting soaked for no reason.

While riding back I realized something interesting. At 50+ mph raindrops actually hurt a little. Not painful enough for me to slow down but painful enough to make me go "Hmm. . . i gonna post this on my blog".