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Chapter The Next: In Which Madam Spends A Lot Of Money Not Seeing The Volcano
I'm in the Philippines for the next couple of days, basking in the glow of fulfilling my ultimate fantasy - doing shit-all on a tropical island. Yesterday I flew into Manilla, opting to spend only one day as I'd heard from reliable sources (ie Ross and my travel agent) that '1 Day In Manilla Is Puh-lenty). Having done some websearches on what ( Read more... ) -
Chapter 45: In Which Our Hero Does 'Coyote Ugly'
Life is all about seasons. We move slowly, like a piece of shrapnel in a bust-up knee, from one to the next. The season du jour for Our Hero right now appears to be Fall Retrospective with a heavy dose of Farewell thrown in for good measure. There is a photo folder on my laptop called 'Parties' and it's beginning to fill up with more Farewells than ( Read more... ) -
Rainbow Flags And Boys In Drag
Aaaaaaah, gay pride, or should I say Gay Pride, that wholiest of holy days where boys who like boys, girls who like girls, boys who like boys and girls, girls who like boys and girls, boys who like boys who like dressing as girls, boys who used to be girls and girls who used to be boys get together in all their finery to show off just how fucking ( Read more... ) -
Is That A Pomelo On Your Head Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?
I love Taiwanese public holidays. And not just cos' they're a day off work. Tomorrow is Moon Festival, also, I'm gathering, known as Autumn Festival. Which is in itself an odd choice of name, as they learn American Engrish here, so autumn is a foreign concept to most Taiwanarnians. Say 'fall' and suddenly the stark flourescent light of recognition ( Read more... ) -
Winnie The Poop Biscuits
A random drunk guest at the recent Housewarming Party arrived bearing gift - a Winnie The Pooh tin with biscuits inside. Mavis, in need of something to go with her tea, was offered a sample of the Disney-proffered delights. Turns out - and this is so friggin Taiwanese - they're bacon-flavoured savoury crackers with strawberry icing inside. Now that ( Read more... ) -
Ice-Cream Surpreez
Last week, to mark my move from Jhonge (the Taipeinese equivalent of Boksburg) into Taipei City (at last), we threw a little houswarming bash for some of our (read: mostly my) nearest and dearest. My two new roomies (aka The Claires) and I arranged a housewarming-slash-dessert party. I made a bastardised version of my gran's awesome Mandarin Jelly ( Read more... ) -
Super Stitions
The Taiwanese, presumably on account of their being somewhat Asian, are a rather superstitious lot. A number of social-cum-cultural taboos exist, which usually confuse the snot out of the foreigners. No doubt it's some sort of conspiracy to keep us on our toes while we teach their small people to read and write. Some island-of-Taiwanarnia ( Read more... ) -
Random Thoughts
I had my ear pierced, at the top by the cartilage, for my 21st. It was a birthday gift from Gina and Sam. Now, 6 and a half years later, I took it out last night while jewellery shopping with Justin.
Random Thought Numero Uno: The hole was HUGE! While not quite large enough for fisting a small cockroach through the gaping openness of my aural ( Read more... ) -
Sand Nipples, Nefertiti’s Head & The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Quest
aka The White Sand Beach At The End Of The Universe ( Read more... ) -
Congratulations You Not American
Told to me today by the new manager of my new school upon learning that I'm not a shitizen of the USA: "Congratulations you not American." Note the distinct lack of comma after the 'congratulations', the lack thereof used to indicate the abundance of Engrish Mz Thang was speaking. For the truth is I'm paraphrasing for emphasis. It actually sounded ( Read more... )