Father's Day
Taiwan Fact: Their healthcare is universal and dirt cheap. Everything is free for the poor and for veterans. Preventative treatments, dental work, maternity/child care, checkups, prescription drugs, and traditional Chinese medicine will cost you a co-pay of about $150 ($5 US). One of the guys I was working with told me when he got here from the US he hadn't seen a dentist in a few years so he went in and had 11 cavities filled (plus some other work) for about $450 (that's fifteen bucks...).
Friday night Mark woke up. So I met him! He's Australian. He, Gillian and I went to that bar that's just down the street and ate some awesome curry. I called up Andy and he came down too, 'cause we were going to head to another bar to watch Holland vs France. It was a fun game to watch- high-scoring for soccer. Got to know Mark a bit, made some new friends, stayed out until 4:30am.
Saturday I slept until about 3pm. While I slept, our washing machine got delived. So when I got up I went to the store for some laundry detergent and came back with bacon and all the fixin's for potato pancakes. Except applesauce or sour cream :-(. I started a load of laundry and grating potatoes. I made way too much, but they're good for leftovers. Gillian helped me cook and we had a full dinner together like a family, a weird family where not everyone is able to speak to each other.
After dinner, Gillian took Mark and I too a club called Luxy. There was a dress code and it was $600 to get in, at least it included two free drinks. Better yet, we walked over to the line to get in and almost immediately one of the door guys came over to us and ushered us in, ahead of everyone else. I was dressed that well. Nah, it was because we were white/white/a girl I imagine. We had to take an elevator up to the actual club, an elevator that only had buttons for floors 1 and 5. It was slow when we first arrived, but the place was so big there were probably more than 200 people in it. We walked into the room the hiphop DJ was spinning, scoped it out and moved to the room with the electronic DJ, which is where Gillian and Mark wanted to be. There were also two smaller dance floors above those, with windows looking down on them. They had a humidor. The night was young, it was only about 11:30pm. About the time I was feeling ready to dance, the rooms had filled up considerably. The "godfather of Taiwanese electronic music" was there sporting a mustache- I think Gillian is finally starting to accept they are devastatingly awesome.
This is in the hiphop room. The bartenders put on a show with flaming bottles for a bit.
We left at about 4am. I keep getting surprised to come out of wherever we're hanging out and seeing the beginnings of sunlight. After the cab ride home, we grabbed some tea and cheesecake at a place on our block. It had corals and shells under the glass tabletops.
Today I wrote letters to my grandpas and talked to my dad. The internet went out so I also made a movie showing off my new place. It was down for a while so I had plenty of time to do lots of unnecessary editing. My mic is kind of crappy, so sorry I'm hard to hear.
Friday night Mark woke up. So I met him! He's Australian. He, Gillian and I went to that bar that's just down the street and ate some awesome curry. I called up Andy and he came down too, 'cause we were going to head to another bar to watch Holland vs France. It was a fun game to watch- high-scoring for soccer. Got to know Mark a bit, made some new friends, stayed out until 4:30am.
Saturday I slept until about 3pm. While I slept, our washing machine got delived. So when I got up I went to the store for some laundry detergent and came back with bacon and all the fixin's for potato pancakes. Except applesauce or sour cream :-(. I started a load of laundry and grating potatoes. I made way too much, but they're good for leftovers. Gillian helped me cook and we had a full dinner together like a family, a weird family where not everyone is able to speak to each other.
After dinner, Gillian took Mark and I too a club called Luxy. There was a dress code and it was $600 to get in, at least it included two free drinks. Better yet, we walked over to the line to get in and almost immediately one of the door guys came over to us and ushered us in, ahead of everyone else. I was dressed that well. Nah, it was because we were white/white/a girl I imagine. We had to take an elevator up to the actual club, an elevator that only had buttons for floors 1 and 5. It was slow when we first arrived, but the place was so big there were probably more than 200 people in it. We walked into the room the hiphop DJ was spinning, scoped it out and moved to the room with the electronic DJ, which is where Gillian and Mark wanted to be. There were also two smaller dance floors above those, with windows looking down on them. They had a humidor. The night was young, it was only about 11:30pm. About the time I was feeling ready to dance, the rooms had filled up considerably. The "godfather of Taiwanese electronic music" was there sporting a mustache- I think Gillian is finally starting to accept they are devastatingly awesome.
This is in the hiphop room. The bartenders put on a show with flaming bottles for a bit.
We left at about 4am. I keep getting surprised to come out of wherever we're hanging out and seeing the beginnings of sunlight. After the cab ride home, we grabbed some tea and cheesecake at a place on our block. It had corals and shells under the glass tabletops.
Today I wrote letters to my grandpas and talked to my dad. The internet went out so I also made a movie showing off my new place. It was down for a while so I had plenty of time to do lots of unnecessary editing. My mic is kind of crappy, so sorry I'm hard to hear.