Taking my time..

God im so lazy...
just sit at my computer all night long feeling bored and doing buggar all..
but still i cant bring myself to update this blog..
I think the fact that i have such a back catalogue of events to write about is really playing on my mind and making it harder to write it all up..
never really been one for blogs..
so i guess i have to se how it goes..

So Close But Yet So Far

15th

Moving to the single room was such a bad idea,
but its not like i can say no really.
I couldnt get any sleep as the traffic started at 6am..
but worse is the fact that so many people use mopeds here,
and early in the morning the crappy sound echos throught the streets..
so i had to just get up and pack all my things.
and get ready to go to the wedding.

First up Anna sed she'd look after my massive suitcase while i was away.
so i met her and ray for lunch at Evan's burger, some weird american style cuisine.
And then i had to go to Taipei main station to catch the coach to taichung for the wedding.

The coach didnt have as many people as i thought there would be,
only about 10 of us altogether, it was freezing cold on there as well,
could have done with the body heat!



Unfortunately there was lots of traffic, and the wedding ceremony was scheduled for 3.30ish...There was a crash and it was so bad the tail back was 3hours long..
it meant i missed the wedding...
i just hope that whoever was in the crash hurt themselves bad!
haha.. thats just a joke.. kinda..

The coach got there just in time for the dinner..
and a good thing too..
kinda made up for missing out on the wedding..



I got taken up to the hotel room and saw Cherie for the first time in 5 years,
considering how it was the last time i saw her,
seeing her for the first time again, and in a wedding dress just blew me away.
looked way better in a wedding dress than a certain someone else. (who just got married)
haha



I got assigned a bodyguard, Joy,
she was basically my chaperone for the weekend,
and the maid of honour as shes the one that introduced the mariied couple.
Apparently she was the only one that could speak english, but turns out alot of them do.



If i had known at the beginning then i would have spoken to more people.
but i was quite happy just talking to Joy.
Also saw Winny for the first time in sut as many years,
our friendship has mostly been on the internet,
so it was fun to meet her and her husband.
they spoke to me in English all night so that helped.

Food was good.. didnt take any photos of it tho..
my bad..
haha
I ate the sea cucumber aswell..
felt a little ill afterwards..
haha

There was a church band, but they werent particularly good..
too many instruments, and just not in sync.
so seemed more like noise than music.

Cherie sung 2 songs, didnt know she was good at singing..
was amazing, and she wasnt even nervous standing on stage singing,
guess she knews everyone there tho..
:P



And of course there were lots of pretty girls.
haha.
the one that stood out the most was Cherie's cousin Angela.
Definately thought she was outta my league.
and she kinda is.... now...
haha



After all the food and singing, everyone got changed and we ended up heading their favourite hang out spot,
as dark as it was, at least the food was good, thats right... we ate more!!
all fried stuff tho.. haha.. basically the opposite of what was served at the dinner.



there were 2 live bands, with the same sort of line up, lead male and female vocals, lead guitar, bassist, keyboard and drums...
i guess thats the nrom in taiwan then.
both were pretty good.. and both the girls were pretty hot..




ended up drinking tequila,
not sure why, but tequila isnt that bad for me..
finished a bottle in super quick time aswell.
haha



yum..
then got driven back to the newly weds new apartment,
she was just a little bit over the limit im guessing..
haha.. but we made it ok..
:P

after no sleep and a long coach journey and then that much eating,
i was so glad to hit the sack!!!
the newly weds apartment is really nice..
but as its in taichung its alot cheaper than in taipei.
maybe i will go to taichung after taipei next year.
haha

The Journey Stalls

14th

Didnt really do much,
Everyone was busy, so i just had a little look into available accomodation.
that didnt show much promise,
so i went to ximen as i needed to buy a suit for the wedding the next day.
i couldnt really tell what to get, and made me regret not just buying it in london.
walked around all day.. got so tired i almost fell asleep standing up.

Was so annoyed, why is starbucks absolutely everywhere always?
its not a surprised that its in taiwan, but theres almost more starbucks than there are in london!
Found it hard to buy anything, coz u can bargain in taiwan, so if you dont then they get a nice little bonus.

Luckily Cherrie eventually turned up..
and we went to find a suit..
its still quite expensive for things other than food in taipei,
so the suits were about 5500NT which is over £100.
she managed to take her down to 4300.. even tho all of the stuff is made in taiwan.
Like how they try pretend to be european with a crappy name like Gaudi Homme.
Had to get it hemmed, so we went off to eat at Modern toilet..
just crappy food, with the novelty of having it serve in a toilet shaped bowl.



After picking the suit up, we went to meet Cherrie's sister and friends,
and went for a beer, taiwan beer is quite nice actually, but very light.
After a little while in the bar, we realised that the area was the gay district,
haha.
but noone bothered us as i was the only guy with 5 girls..
We didnt stay too long as there's no public transport after about 00.30.

The Journey Begins

13th

Complete fail with trying to keep a blog if im honest.
But guess i have to start somewhere.

so been here for about 2weeks now,
and altho i seemed to have done alot,
i cant really remember too much of it.

So might aswell start from when i left.
Getting to Heathrow wasnt too difficult really,
but the suitcase i was carrying was heavy as shit,
and thats kinda the main problem i had when i went to check in.
Bag was like 8kg over, and its not even like i had much in it.
It was mostly coz the Suitcase itself wasnt heavy,
and so i ended up leaving qutie a few things at excess baggage,
stuff i doubt i'll ever get back with their extortionate rates.
Shouldnt have taken anything out anyways,
the flight wasnt even full for starters and wen i went to weight it again,
i'd only managed about 4kg..
and coz it was nearing the end of check in the lady let it pass.
what a waste of time and money.

Besides that everything else went really smoothly.
Cathay Pacific is awesome.
haha..
food was quite nice, had a couscous feta salad, stir fried chicken with mushrooms,steamed rice and veg, followed by double choc moose..
:P
then for breakfast fruit salad and yoghurt, shredded pork congee, with a bread roll.
there were cup noodles and other stuff, but i didnt bother asking.
Didnt even sleep on th flight coz i'd spent the evening and night sleeping,
that frustrated me a little.. just a little.. ok maybe alot..
Grrr!

It wasnt really sinking in that i was leaving for an extended period of time really,
not until we hit were about 1hr from HK, at least.
The sun rise on the horizon, was almost like signalling a new dawn,
so i took a photo.
xD



Once we landed in HK, i just lulled about for a bit,
lots of shops, but nothing to buy.
Really wanted to get Anna something, but couldnt see anything to get her,
Jenny had mentioned that i should get perfume,but thats so obvious..
Really need to think what would be good.

The flight to Taipei was short and sweet, only 1hr30mins.
But as i had left UK in somewhat of a hurry, i didnt actually sort everything out.
I did however manage to hide my student visa, stuck the edges of the page down..
and hopefully will be able to pry it open later.
The reason i did this is becoz British passports are visa exempt in taiwan for the moment,
so i can enter without a visa, but the student visa is better, as its easy to get an extension for.
The only problem is that its a single entry, and i want to go HK for CNY.
so had to blag it a little, got a little worrried coz the girl was staring at the passport photo for ages!

The Airport is suprisingly small, thought it'd be a little bigger,
it is the newest of the 2 in Taipei, and its further out.
As i was saying before i didnt sort anythign out,
so i didnt have a hotel/hostel to go to.
which meant i had to get my laptop out and try find one,
spent way too much time on facebook tho. FML!

Whatever happened i would have needed to get a sim card,
so i just walked over to the desk for sim cards and just bought any old one.
even tho its not really expensive, it doesnt seem to be much value for money in terms of using a mobile.
So the number i have is probably only going to be temporary, unless i cant help it.

Called Anna, and luckily she was working from home, and helped me call a few places.
Found one quite close to her, and then had to work my way into central,
luckily its kinda cheap to take a bus from the airport.
After getting to Taipei main station i jumped into a cab to take me to the hostel.
The cab driver was deaf i think, and so he just shouted all the time,
but even then he wasnt very clear, we tried to communicate as much as possible,
it was hard but it made it a fun journey!
He got me to the road that the hostel was on, and almost left without taking the money,
but then after checking the price, and even after a mini-struggle, he decided to refused to take any money.
That made my day.
Too bad the hostel was at the other end of the street tho.
haha.



I was pleasantly surprised at the price and the state of the hostel,
cost me 1400NT but i got the double room for the price of the single.
Altho later i got moved to the single, and the traffic noise from outside was absolute hell.
I was way too tired to do anything, so i just went to sleep for a few hours.

I woke up at about 8pm, and called Anna, turned out she was ill,
which is why she was working from home.
shingles is like the adult version of chicken pox and much worse!
Now i felt worse for not geting her a gift.
Also happened to have another friend in taipei,
just out of coincidence, but i'd never met her before as shes an old internet friend from malaysia.
I went to meet her in Shida night market, it was walking distance from the hostel,
but i took a wrong turn and once it have started to rain,
i just gave up and took a taxi, quite sure he took a slightly longer route than he needed to!

It was a little weird meeting Cherrie for the first time,
mostly as her friends and family were with her,
so they were teasing her about me.
unfortunately we left the market didnt eat, and just left for a bar.
On the way there i got a call from Anna to check up on me,
and where i stopped to take the call just so happened to be the street she lived on,
and the bar was on the oher corner of the block, so i waited there for her bf to come pick up somethings.
Had never met him before, so we had a little chat, but he's cool, so thats a relief.

I went back to my other friends, and chatted a bit, but then everyone had to go home,
but just before doing so, i managed to get them to help me get an easy/i-cash card,
means i can use the public transport and pay for things at 7-11.
its basically like the oyster card, but better, only not as good as the octopus card.
:P

The First

So today was the first day of the rest of my life.
Its about time i made something of it.

more to come.
Welcome.