Taipei times: It hits the fans...

The thing about arguing with idiots is that they drag you down to their level... and then beat you with experience. Something I realized very quickly on my 630 am sojourns from home to office. I don't claim to posses a sailor's sense of direction but after after living in a city for over two months and taking a cab to work everyday, you kind of figure out the routes. More so, if it were as simple as straight, second left, third right and into the roundabout. The rides got to be a breeze right. Wrong. Each day, a different cab driver takes me to work on different routes. More pertinently, the routes seem to get progressively longer and the cab costs rising ever so slightly each week. If you point it out to the cab driver,in your broken Chinese, that he could have taken the plain vanilla route, most likely he will say one of two things :
a) " Sorry ( or solly) sorry sorry sorry... next time OK?"
b) " This route better sir... more better
I don't know much about much... but hey the cabbies are taking me for a ride... while...er.. taking me for a ride.
Two months down in Taiwan. Feels good to dig my heels and grind it out. Feels good to be working hard... or long. In Taiwan, much to my surprise, both working hard and working long are synonymous. I am physically exhausted by lunchtime on Wednesdays and start counting down to the weekend. I eat enough cold dinners to show that i am working hard... or long.

Friday evenings are spent at 'Carnegies'... much to my disappointment. I am not a big fan of the bar. Given that crazed white-guys looking for coogers and easy pick ups and reckless parents getting their screaming 6yr olds into the bar doesn't make it any endearing either. But hey, after 4 glasses of whiskey and coke and the pints of vodka-soda for the rest of the night, you stop caring about frivolous details like underage admissions into the bar or even potential fire hazards for that matter. If it is a quiet night, then we drink till midnight and head home... if not then we move to a club and hit it hard till the acid in your stomach tells you 'enough's enough mate'...

Saturday mornings are spent recovering from the Friday brutality and catching up on lost sleep in the week. Saturday also means laundry day and grocery shopping day. for those who know me, please do not be alarmed. i am not domesticated, yet. Grocery shopping as per my definition is biscuits, beer, shaving blades and deodorant. None of those is 'grocery' is it? Should call it justshopping then.

Sunday mornings are another lazy affair. Afternoon brunches or left over pizza are the only variables in otherwise what is a pretty boring and mundane Sunday itinerary. You can catch a couple of movies on the telly though. Did i tell you all movies on show here are action movies. And then they keep re-running the same movie over and over. Much like they keep running CSI over and over on AXN. Steven Segal is the Tom Cruise of Taiwan. They love him here. He has a cult following with teenagers wearingwigs and American Indian signage to try and be as cool as him. Did I happen to mention, Taiwan is a weird place? I rest my case.