From Asia to Europe

Isn’t this blog site working wonderfully to motivate (guilt) me into keeping a consistent chronicle of insignificant events on ‘this side’. (Open to interpretation.)

I suppose at this point I might actually send out the blog website to family and friends as to actually move in the direction of my goal here: to keep in touch.

The past weekend was as usual as weekends come: a book on Friday night, dinner on Saturday evening, a BBQ on Sunday evening, and a 2 hour, roundabout, bun-crunching scooter adventure to a remarkably rainy port city in between.

Saturday evening, my dear ‘Hsinchu crowd’ gathered in Taipei for their first ‘book club’ meeting. This group of old and new friends is the most darling bunch of honestly, broadly and wittily minded people. The other weekend I took a bus across to the Hsinchu apartment of my friends Lisa and Dan, for Dan’s masterpiece Indian dinner. It was only there and then that I met the group live and full circle – a party of Canucks with a smattering of South Africans ‘for culture'(!!) Some I’d known for a year while others, only a few months down to a few minutes.

It was after that dinner that their ‘book club’ was conceived; the goal, to trade books and opinions while leaving personal dedications and impressions written on the inside covers. It came as a novel and exciting idea in my experience; though I kept to the outside and didn’t boldy attempt to invite myself into its Hsinchu ‘branch’. (I considered for all of a half second that my mix of self-help, politically left-wing, cooking and herbal books weren’t any fit for anyone who is remotely ‘with it’.)

After the bookclub gathering (and later, in coming to realize I should have been audacious and butted in as they all bought brand new books to trade around), they wandered over to the local (and only) ‘Chili’s’ restaurant for a western fix. I joined them there and had a great old time chatting about nothing in particular and admiring the map of the scooter trek that Lisa and Dan are now continuing down the east coast. It was soon after that I suffered ‘torturous harrassment’ into fulfilling my commitment to drive over with them to neighbouring Keelung.

Sunday morning, after a breakfast of milk tea and the popular ‘danping’ (a sort of ‘tortilla’ topped with an egg and covered in ‘special brown sauce’, which always leads me to consider a more appropriate name of ‘dumping’) and a walk around the nearby botanical gardens, we set out on our way. Lisa on her own scooter with all their gear, and myself on the back of Dan’s scooter, after deciding that taking my 50cc, combined with the added round trip time, wasn’t the best of choices.

I’m losing my stamina just now; so now that I’ve so carefully set up the plot, I’ll race through the storyline. As best as I can remember, and in reverese order, the trip went as such: a return commuter train ride back to Taipei, some aimless and enjoyable wandering around Keelung, the purchase of several hair thingies at a market that make me look like an egg that’s sprouted ears, grit in my eyes and buns of steel as we approached Keelung, a traffic jam near the local ‘Death Services’ office just in time for Tombsweeping Day on Wednesday, a fascinating cemetary built into various hillsides in Shihjr swarming with armies of families sweeping the tombs, several wrong turns in finding highway 5, and the neverending story of a journey across Taipei in an attempt to leave it all behind.

Oh yes, and later than evening at my colleague Gary’s BBQ, I was the token fag bangle to a group of 5 lovely, half and completely tanked gay men who were, at one point, giving each other sensual massage in turn.

Just another weekend at the farm.

Windburntedly yours, Laura.

Tags: Taiwan Living

This entry was posted on Monday, April 3rd, 2006 at 8:10 pm and is filed under Taiwan Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.