Day 2/3 Report
I meant to update last night, but... it didnt happen!
The other night I decided not to get the McDonalds. I just crashed and then spent most of the next day (Day 2, Saturday) watching TV and reading the newspaper and that kind of thing. In the evening I called back the PM from SOGA (SOE Taiwan studio) whose name is something like Yokido or Hokaido or something. Anyway, the plan was to meet up with her and her friend Greg (much easier name for me!) at 11pm and head off to a reggae club/concert. Sounds good!
I took the MRT down to where I was meeting them and then the three of us took a taxi to the club. Greg is canadian and was really interested in video games. :) We got to the club and got a few drinks and some other friends of theres showed up. One guy (Steve, I think) was from Switzerland and he was cool. The band was late, but eventually showed up and started playing. We danced for a long time and drank and danced and drank and drank. Eventually the concert died down and we sat in the bar area away from the music so we could chat. Everybody spoke English well enough for me to understand it, which was really awesome. One guy's name was Billy and he had a girlfriend LaLa, he worked there and was friends with this girl Alian Chiu, who I will refer to as Shiny Ass. Shiny Ass is a very tiny Taiwanese girl who was wearing very shiny gold pants. Her English was good and we talked and she gave me her myspace info. :D We also met up with this guy Freddy who is from the Solomon Islands. I found myself talking more in broken English when I talked to people, I must be picking up how they talk (they leave out obvious or implied words) and emulating it. You go college? What degree? How many kilos? :D
Freddy, Yokido and I started talking about how hungry we were, and we decided to go find some food. On walking out of the place I realized that it was light out. Because it was 5:30am!! ^_^ We took a taxi to some place, and on the way there the taxi driver pulls out a baggy with BETEL NUT in it! He hands it to Freddy and he pulls one out and then grabs one and hands it to me. Betel Nut (bing lang - beeng long) is about the size of a grape, but is harder. Not hard like a nut, though. They wrap it in the leaf of some plant (they call it betel nut leaf, buts not from the same plant). The idea is that you chew on it, kind of like chewing tobacco, and spit out the juice. So I took it and the driver said what to do and Yokido translated for me. It tasted pretty much like if you grabbed a handful of grass and dirt and put it in your mouth and chewed on it. :P It was disguisting. I chewed on it for the whole ride and then when we got the place we were going to eat, I promptly spit it out. It makes your mouth red and it looks like you got punched in the mouth. :P
At the restaurant, Yokido goes up and orders something and gets it and sits down. Then she says "Arent you going to order something?" LOL Yeah, absolutely no english at all in this place! She lets me try what she is eating, its basically a soybean milk soup with little crunchy bits on top. It was good, so Freddy and I ordered one each. Each bowl of soup was $25... less than $1US, maybe like 75 cents. A steal! As we're eating, the lady who is taking the orders brings over a steamer and inside of it is dumplings. They were SO FUCKING GOOD! Seriously, these dumplings were the best things I've eaten since being here and were the best dumplings I've ever eaten. Wow, they were GOOD! I also got some soy bean milk. Total cost of everything was $115, about $3 or $3.50 US.
I took a taxi back to the hotel and that was about $1.50US. Everything is so cheap here! (With the exception of alcohol, one beer = $220) Anyway, by the time I got into bed it was somewhere around 6:30am.
----
The next day I woke up at about 9:30am, Yokido said she was going to call me in the morning so that we could go to the beach, but really I had a hangover so I wasn't up for it. She didn't call though, so I'm assuming she was hung over, too. Today I mostly bummed around, drinking water and trying to get some sleep. At about 3pm I got up and took a walk over to McDonalds. I was really curious to see how it was different, but was kind of dissapointed. Luckily the asian girls behind the counter speak enough English to ask me what kind of drink and what not, so ordering wasn't a problem at all. I got a Big Mac meal for $115. It was literally the exact same thing you would get in the US. The burger was the same size, tasted exactly the same, the fries were identical. It was kind of creepy that it was exactly the same.
I also went walking around the block to see what kind of shops I could find. There are a ton of clothing stores nearby and food places, but not much else. I took a picture of Hooters. :D They also have "Women's Secret" which I am assuming is a Victoria's Secret, but they dont know who the fuck Victoria is, let alone what her secret might be. (She has a dick!) There is a little bakery and rice ball shop just down the street that I'll probably hit up later if I get hungry. MMmm, RICE BALLS!
I'm tired and beat and have to get up and go to WORK tomorrow, so I'm going to watch some TV and fall asleep. :)
The other night I decided not to get the McDonalds. I just crashed and then spent most of the next day (Day 2, Saturday) watching TV and reading the newspaper and that kind of thing. In the evening I called back the PM from SOGA (SOE Taiwan studio) whose name is something like Yokido or Hokaido or something. Anyway, the plan was to meet up with her and her friend Greg (much easier name for me!) at 11pm and head off to a reggae club/concert. Sounds good!
I took the MRT down to where I was meeting them and then the three of us took a taxi to the club. Greg is canadian and was really interested in video games. :) We got to the club and got a few drinks and some other friends of theres showed up. One guy (Steve, I think) was from Switzerland and he was cool. The band was late, but eventually showed up and started playing. We danced for a long time and drank and danced and drank and drank. Eventually the concert died down and we sat in the bar area away from the music so we could chat. Everybody spoke English well enough for me to understand it, which was really awesome. One guy's name was Billy and he had a girlfriend LaLa, he worked there and was friends with this girl Alian Chiu, who I will refer to as Shiny Ass. Shiny Ass is a very tiny Taiwanese girl who was wearing very shiny gold pants. Her English was good and we talked and she gave me her myspace info. :D We also met up with this guy Freddy who is from the Solomon Islands. I found myself talking more in broken English when I talked to people, I must be picking up how they talk (they leave out obvious or implied words) and emulating it. You go college? What degree? How many kilos? :D
Freddy, Yokido and I started talking about how hungry we were, and we decided to go find some food. On walking out of the place I realized that it was light out. Because it was 5:30am!! ^_^ We took a taxi to some place, and on the way there the taxi driver pulls out a baggy with BETEL NUT in it! He hands it to Freddy and he pulls one out and then grabs one and hands it to me. Betel Nut (bing lang - beeng long) is about the size of a grape, but is harder. Not hard like a nut, though. They wrap it in the leaf of some plant (they call it betel nut leaf, buts not from the same plant). The idea is that you chew on it, kind of like chewing tobacco, and spit out the juice. So I took it and the driver said what to do and Yokido translated for me. It tasted pretty much like if you grabbed a handful of grass and dirt and put it in your mouth and chewed on it. :P It was disguisting. I chewed on it for the whole ride and then when we got the place we were going to eat, I promptly spit it out. It makes your mouth red and it looks like you got punched in the mouth. :P
At the restaurant, Yokido goes up and orders something and gets it and sits down. Then she says "Arent you going to order something?" LOL Yeah, absolutely no english at all in this place! She lets me try what she is eating, its basically a soybean milk soup with little crunchy bits on top. It was good, so Freddy and I ordered one each. Each bowl of soup was $25... less than $1US, maybe like 75 cents. A steal! As we're eating, the lady who is taking the orders brings over a steamer and inside of it is dumplings. They were SO FUCKING GOOD! Seriously, these dumplings were the best things I've eaten since being here and were the best dumplings I've ever eaten. Wow, they were GOOD! I also got some soy bean milk. Total cost of everything was $115, about $3 or $3.50 US.
I took a taxi back to the hotel and that was about $1.50US. Everything is so cheap here! (With the exception of alcohol, one beer = $220) Anyway, by the time I got into bed it was somewhere around 6:30am.
----
The next day I woke up at about 9:30am, Yokido said she was going to call me in the morning so that we could go to the beach, but really I had a hangover so I wasn't up for it. She didn't call though, so I'm assuming she was hung over, too. Today I mostly bummed around, drinking water and trying to get some sleep. At about 3pm I got up and took a walk over to McDonalds. I was really curious to see how it was different, but was kind of dissapointed. Luckily the asian girls behind the counter speak enough English to ask me what kind of drink and what not, so ordering wasn't a problem at all. I got a Big Mac meal for $115. It was literally the exact same thing you would get in the US. The burger was the same size, tasted exactly the same, the fries were identical. It was kind of creepy that it was exactly the same.
I also went walking around the block to see what kind of shops I could find. There are a ton of clothing stores nearby and food places, but not much else. I took a picture of Hooters. :D They also have "Women's Secret" which I am assuming is a Victoria's Secret, but they dont know who the fuck Victoria is, let alone what her secret might be. (She has a dick!) There is a little bakery and rice ball shop just down the street that I'll probably hit up later if I get hungry. MMmm, RICE BALLS!
I'm tired and beat and have to get up and go to WORK tomorrow, so I'm going to watch some TV and fall asleep. :)