so this is *truly* my last entry from taiwan. i'm at the VIP lounge at the airport, and i board in half an hour.
i got a big sendoff last night. i had expressed that i wanted to drink some whiskey, but my family sort of frowned upon me ordering expensive drinks at restaurants. so last night, i met up with my ex-coworker tony, his girlfriend rita, and (later on) his brother scott at this lounge. we ordered a $100 700ml bottle of 12-year glenfidditch (sp?) and drained it in 2 hours. i had like 7 drinks, and i puked twice. :)
it was pretty fun. i got pretty buzzed, and i smoked my brains out. we ordered a lot of deep-fried food (mozzarella sticks!) and just talked. i have never spoken so much chinese before. i think the fact that i was buzzed meant that my inhibitions were down, so i used phrases that i never used before in front of my parents (in my sober self). i still didn't quite understand everything people were saying, so a lot of the times i just nodded and pretended like i understood.
they had jameson coasters! so i got 8 of them. YAY! i told the owner of the bar (who was actually pretty cute) that jameson was my favorite whiskey, so she actually went out and ordered it from some place and brought it over. by that time, though, i was already toasted, so i didn't drink much of it. and unfortunately, plain jameson is way un-smoother (not a word, i know) than 12-year glenfidditch, so the other guys didn't like it. oh well.
anyways, it was a great way to end the taiwan trip. i was sort of hungover this morning; my lips were all stuck together, and i felt like puking in bed last night, but it was still fun. :)
ok, i'm going to look for a place to smoke in the airport now. wish me a safe trip home! geesh... a 12-hour flight.
well, this will be my last post from taiwan. i leave for the airport tomorrow morning, so tonight, i'm gonna see if i can stay out as long as possible so i can crash on the plane. if i can't do that, then i'm gonna have some major issues because i arrive in the states at 9am, and i need to stay up throughout the day.
anyways, to clarify, the "tian" in the "tian ji" (frog) means "field" or "patty" (as in "rice patty"). i got it wrong, thinking it meant "sweet." but no matter, i won't eat that stuff. :) i had stinky tofu today. in the states, it comes in dry cubes, but in taiwan, it comes in a stew or soup. it smelled horrible, but it actually tasted ok. i've eaten it before, though, so i wasn't shocked or anything, hehe.
ok, let's talk about taiwanese girls. i've been on constant lookout for cute ones, and sad to say, i think i can count on one hand that number of girls that i found attractive. in fact, the cutest one that i found turned out to be a chinese-american girl (i think she was one, because she was speaking perfect english with her friends).
i went out with my ex-coworker and his girlfriend the other night, and according to them, the hot girls ("lah mei," or translated as "spicy beautiful") come out after midnight. unfortunately for me, i usually get tired by then, but maybe tonight, if i meet up with them again, i'll try to stay out late enough to see if they really are attractive. :) we drove by a club that night, and he said some of the girls were "lah mei," but i didn't notice if any of them were particularly spicy.
but yeah, the women here aren't much to look at. although, on a side note, i have come to appreciate earrings on girls. a good pair of them can really make a nice face look even better, sort of like glasses. (you all know of my eyewear fetish, right?) i'm not talking about studs, but stuff like dangling earrings or hoops. yum!
oh, speaking of my ex-coworker, i think he's gonna be rich, or maybe he already is. he left my company to go work in taiwan, and his company is doing really well. he pulled up in a porsche 911, and later on that night, he told me that his net worth is about a million bucks (US, of course), and it might double. hot damn! of course, the downside is that he works like a slave, often until midnight, and during tapeout periods, he has been known to work until 3am. while i envy his money, there is no way in hell that i could take that sort of pounding and stay sane.
as much as i've been eating, i think i may have actually lost weight. i've been eating a lot of variety of food, but the portions are nowhere as big as in the states. this entire week in taiwan, i've only seen one fat person (as in really fat), and i haven't seen any guys with beer bellies or anything of that sort. it's just the american culture that promotes that whole "super size me" thing, i think.
anyways, that's about all i have left to report. i was wondering when my mom was going to preach the gospel to me, and she gave me her speech about an hour ago. i was pretty uncomfortable, but at the end, she told me that she wasn't trying to persuade me to convert to christianity on the spot or anything, so i appreciate that. my family's sort of weird that way; half of us are religious, and the other half are tolerant agnostics. i wonder how much of a burden the religious side has; it must suck to be them, when they believe that they need to "save" us from going to hell.
ok, well, it's been a good trip. i with my cousin D stayed here longer, so the three of us (D, my brother and i) could have roamed around the city together more, but at least we got to do that a little bit. this trip was better than the one last year in terms of doing stuff, so i'm glad i came out.
all righty-o! i'll be home in about 30+ hours. until then, wish me a safe journey back to the bay area!