Snoopy Sno-cone Machine

Does anyone remember this thing? I was browsing through a blog that I frequent once in awhile, when I saw some hello kitty drink holder. I'm not sure why but it instantly brought up memories of the Snoopy Sno-cone machine my sister and I had when we were little. I vaguely remember the sno-cone ice that came out of it could be made just as easily with a plastic bag and a hammer, and the flavoring liquid it came with was just red sugar water. . . but I think we had a pretty good time with it or else I wouldn't remember it twenty plus years later.

Crappy weather

I should really be studying Chinese but I'm so far behind that I don't feel like starting because even if I catch up this week, I'll just fall behind again when work gets really busy.
















It rains a lot in Taipei. I should be used to it by now, but I'm not.

The forecast is usually wrong though. I don't even know why I look at it. I think maybe the guy that does the forecast is in a bad mood today and wants everyone else to be in a bad mood. We'll see. . .

Turns out I'm married. . .

I got a call this past tuesday from an unknown number. Normally I just ignore them but just so happens that I was expecting a call from a friend of a friend visiting Taipei, so I picked up.

The reception at the beginning wasn't so great, so I wasn't sure I knew what the lady on the other end was saying. . . but she sounded like she knew me so out of politeness I pretended I knew her. I'm sure everyone has had that experience before. Where you meet someone or get a call and you have no idea who that person is but you keep on talking like you know them, hoping the other person will drop a clue and in your mind you'll go "Oooooh yeah!!!!".

Except this time, the "Ooooh yeah!!!!" never came. I eventually had to ask her who she was. . .

She said she's my 老婆 (wife)!

Okay. . . ... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ... . . . ...

Then I asked her how she knew me, and she said we met at some bar or club two years ago and I gave her my number. Which is highly unlikely since two years ago was when I just moved to Taiwan, I didn't know anyone and I just started phone service. I think I would remember giving out my number.

So from that point on I started, as politely as possible, to end the call. She started asking why I was so "cold" to her and I just kept on insisting I had to go. Eventually I just hung up.

I'm sure everyone is asking why I didn't just hang up immediately. . . the problem of that is that this person knows my cell phone number. If I piss her off, she can call my randomly in the middle of the night and wake me up. And I NEED my sleep.

I added her as "Wtf" in my cell phone contact list. So if she called again I would know to ignore her.

Phone rang again on Wednesday night and I immediately ignored it when I saw "Wtf" on the screen.

I'm thinking this kind of call is some sort of scheme where they trick people into going into shady places and then they stab them and cut out their organs to sell on ebay. If in the next few weeks, there's no new posts here and you find a human liver being auctioned by a seller from Taiwan on ebay. . . don't buy it! And call the police.

Anyways, she didn't call yesterday, so I'm hoping that's the end of it.

Strange Contest in Class Today

Learned the chinese word 憋 (bie1) in class today. It means suppress or hold back. The usage example the teacher gave for this word was 憋氣 (bie1 qi4). Which means hold your breath. So out of the blue the teacher said everyone hold their breaths and she's gonna time it. See who can hold their breath the longest. The first person gave up after 30 seconds. . . PATHETIC! i wanted to laugh at her for having the lung capacity of a chain smoking 6 year old with pneumonia. . . but then i realized that laughing means i'd need to let a little bit of air out of my lungs which might still contain a small amount of unused oxygen, which might make me need to breath sooner. So I didn't laugh.

After almost two minutes of holding my breath. . .

I passed out. I think an hour has passed, I'm here typing this on my PDA in the emergency room. The doctor told me there's probably no brain damage but I should check back in a few days.



Just kidding about the passing out, emergency room, and brain damage part. I was the last one to start breathing. So I guess I won this impromptu breath-holding contest. But I feel kind of stupid because my face got red and i started sweating a little. I'm normally not competitive at all 99% of the time, but sometimes, for seemingly completely random stuff I'm ultra competitive. I feel like I just have to win.

Funny T-shirt

While crossing the street this morning I noticed a girl wearing a T-shirt that said:

Friends are forever
Boys are whatever

Made me think. . . good thing I'm a MAN! trapped in a boy's body.

Chinese New Years (2nd Road Trip)

I went with my other group of friends to Miaoli for some go-karting. The place is a pretty far trek from Taipei, roughly two hours by car, but it's supposed to be the best go-kart track in Taiwan.

I wasn't disappointed.

The track is fairly large, has a fast left hand sweeper, a slightly technical section, uphill/downhill part, a hairpin, and a quick left/right section.

Each session costs $250 NT ($8 USD) and they let us run for about 15 minutes. Normally i think it's 10 minutes but since the weather was freezing there wasn't too many people there, they gave us a little more time.

First you go into a room where they brief you on how to drive and some safety stuff. This is nothing like the US. First thing the employee told us was, if you crash and damage the car, you have to pay them for whatever is broken. Second was that if you crash and injure yourself, well. . . that's your problem.

Then he talked about the flags, green means go, yellow means slow down, checkered means the session is over. Left foot = brake, right foot = gas. He pointed to where the helmets and balaclavas were and that was that. I don't think the whole thing took more than 3-4 minutes and we didn't have to sign waivers or anything. Very unlike the US, where you'd have to watch 3 videos, study a safety manual, tell them who to contact if there's an emergency, sign 10 forms, and give them the results from your most recent physical.

Anyways, we strap on our helmets and go outside. It's freezing and the wind is blowing pretty strong. I'm thinking, gloves would've been a good idea. Oh well. . . too late now.

We get into the cars and wait for the green flag. There's a strong smell of gasoline in the air as the go-kart motors are probably running pretty rich in this abnormally cold weather. After the owner guy sees everyone's in their cars and all the engines are still running, he waves the flag and we're off.

I immediately remember how much fun go-karts are. Everything is so immediate and responsive. You only have to think about going left and kart goes left. You get a great sensation of speed since your derrière is only an inch off the ground and there's no suspension so you feel every little bump, crevice, every imperfection of the track. The go-karts probably only go 60 kph but it feels like 150 kph.

I was both disappointed and a little relieved to see the checkered flag. One one hand, I still hadn't completely figured out how to take turn 9 properly. Also, one of the faster guys just passed me so I wanted to follow him and see what i was doing wrong. On the other hand, my brain/body was telling me I could use a break.

I ended up doing only one more session as my friends were too tired to do anymore laps.

Was a lot of fun. Look forward to going back when it's not so cold.

Oh yeah, here's their website:
http://wuch6011.myweb.hinet.net/

Chinese New Years (Road Trip Day 1)

I can't believe the new years break is already over. . .

Friend's company let him use company car over the break. So we took advantage of it and went to a bunch of places around Taiwan.

First stop was JiouFen (九份). But getting there ended being more fun than actually being there. On the way to JiouFen we got lost, ended up driving longer than anticipated. We pass by a clump of 3-4 seafood restaurants, it's way past lunchtime, stomachs begin to make noises, mouths start to salivate. We think, no worries, we're almost there. . . 10 more minutes and we can eat at JiouFen. 10 minutes later, there's no signs of civilization. Uh oh. . . we need to ask for directions.

Immediately my friend says "That seafood restaurant we passed, they probably know how to get there." My other obviously not-so-hungry friend says "We passed by a convenience store 3 minutes ago, we can ask them for directions. Why go all the way back to the seafood restaurant?" And then my other friend says something like "Yeah, I heard seafood restaurant workers are world renowned for their ability to give road directions." LOL, I'm not sure why we had to give an excuse, other than "we're hungry", to go back to that restaurant but it was pretty funny coming up with them.

So we get to the restaurant and have our fill of crabs, clams, sashimi, etc. The lady at the front tells us the directions. And off we go. . . Except, when we walk out of the restaurant, it immediately feels like a typhoon hit us. Wind blowing our umbrellas inside out, rain flying sideways. We head for the parking lot and it feels like a war movie. We have our umbrellas out, not over our heads but pointed straight in front of us, held very low with us crouching behind it like we're dodging bullets. Since we can't see anything in front we end up bumping in to parked cars and trees and almost tripping over stuff, all accompanied by screams and laughter. After what seemed like a mile long trek, we finally get inside the nice and dry car.

10 minute drive later, we end up at JiouFen. Nothing eventful, just a bunch of small really narrow streets and a bunch of old interesting looking stores selling random crap. Supposedly the view is really good, but since the weather was so bad, we couldn't see anything. Our clothes were drenched from the constant rain and it got really cold really fast. So it was a easy decision to leave after a little over an hour of walking around.

Next stop was perfect for our situation. . . hot spring at BeiTou (北投). Taiwan has lots and lots of hot springs. They are typically separated into public pools (one area for men, one area for women) and private rooms. In the public pools you are required to be completely naked. We were almost going to do that and split the guys and the girls up but luckily we found a place that had a private room that could accommodate the five of us. And surprisingly not too expensive, it was $200 NT per person for 40 minutes. . . but upstairs is a restaurant. If you order $400 NT worth of food per person, you get 40 minutes in hot spring for free. (That's only $12.50 USD!) So that's what we did, we were expecting mediocre food since it wasn't really a "real" restaurant but surprisingly the food was really good, real restaurant or not.

After we finish our food, we go downstairs to our private room and jump into the tubs. If you've never gone to hot spring before, it's just like taking a bath. Except the water smells funny and you smell worse coming out of it than you did going in. The minerals and everything in the water are supposed to be great for your body but I can't tell. The only thing I notice afterwards is the smell. It took me two showers to completely get rid of the smell. Anyways, we were supposed to be in there for 40 minutes . . . but it ended up being 2 hours! So the lady tells me her boss is going to yell at her for letting us stay for so long. I'm thinking, how is that our fault? We had no idea, there's no clock in the room, and nobody had a a watch on, and it's too steamy to take out the cell phones.

So I was like. . . "talk to the hand bitch!"



Just kidding, all i said was "oops, 不好意思"