Taiwan Pop Culture Doesn't Interest Me

I don't like Taiwan pop culture. It's unoriginal and uninventive. Everyone copies famous people. Girls like to copy Japanese girls. Boys like to wear colorful/pink hip hop clothes and dunks because that's cool right? It's not fashionable, but it is because everyone says so.

I went to the Taiwan version of NBC tonite and got to see a live taping of a show. The female host was Rainie Yang. My dad said she is the number one singer at the moment (the 15 minutes that Jolin isn't number 1 UGHHHH) and that every girl copies her style. Thank you for proving my previous point, dad. The male host was a guy named Jacky. I don't really care who he is because thought he was all that and a bag of chips. He wasn't really funny. I couldn't even laugh at him because I was so confused. I decided to crush him with my fingers.

My point is that pop culture here has consumed 99% of the youth population here. It's ridiculous. These kiddies need to learn how to become individuals by thinking outside of the mainstream. Don't fall into the relationship culture that has engulfed Taiwan. EVERY song is about love. EVERY show is about love. EVERYONE on the street is a couple. (I really only hate extreme PDA, but the first two really piss me off)

The moral of the story is: I don't like Taiwan pop culture, and could probably never make friends with kids here (or fobs haha).

My daily commute

I take the Taoyuan city free bus to work every day. It's not like American buses; it's probably less than half the size of regular buses. It's more like a large van. Anyways, the focus of this post isn't on the bus, but the bus drivers, and possibly Asian drivers in general.

Today I got on the bus at 9:10am. When I saw "got on," I mean "jumped on" because the bus didn't really stop--it did a rolling stop. So the bus did a rolling stop in front of me and I had to jump on to the bus. And after the driver sees that I'm on the bus (does he really see? or does he just give me five seconds after opening the door to jump in?) he jams on the pedal and I'm flying towards the back of the bus. It's where I'm going anyway, since taiwanese people like to hog seats meant for two people for themselves (they're just rude like that). But the back ceiling of the bus is depressed for a reason unbeknownst, and as I tumble towards the only seat availble, I almost get clotheslined by the low ceiling. I say almost in the sense that I didn't fall over after I hit the ceiling. And so, after that 15 second ordeal, I wait for the bus to bumpily jolt from stop to stop, until I reach the hospital 20 minutes later. I graciously say "thank you" to the skillful driver, and engage in a game of chicken with passengers trying to get on while I get off.

I love the morning commute.

Dear Fresno,

I miss you.

It's July 4th. If I were in Fresno, I'd be drinking and eating bbq to my hearts content with my friends. And then we would fill water bottles with gunpowder and blow them up in the middle of the street. Or we would drive around and throw little poppers at people on the street. And then we would run around with sparklers and attempt to throw sparks at each other. Sigh...good times.

It's oh so hot

It's so hot that no one goes out during the day. How hot is it? I would imagine that one could get the same sensation when one puts his or her head in an oven. That's my hypothesis. But the people walking around wearing jackets like its January may disagree with me.

In other news, I watched X-men 3. I didn't pay much attention during the movie because I drank a whole bottle of soju. No matter, I've heard from xmen junkies that it wasn't that great. I do remember that I laughed really loud after "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" Or maybe it was loud because I was the only one laughing. Soju is good =]

811 Lounge

The 811 Lounge is located in the lobby of the Miramar Hotel in Taipei. At first I thought the hotel was just a giant alcohol store, but I found out later that you can't really take chinese characters literally. "Hotel," for example, is spelled using the characters for alcohol "jiu" and store "dian." Unfortunately, liquor stores can never be so fancy--all the shady customers would stay away haha.

The place is usually packed for lunch, but we (dad, brother, and I) found out that dinner is not so packed because the price is a little expensive. Three set dinners came out to over $200. It probably would have been delicious, but I had a furiously painful stomach ache that day. The food had potential though. It tasted good despite the pain--I just couldn't enjoy the dinner completely.


I have provided some pictures of dinner. Sometimes, asians have weird tastes, especially taiwanese people. Among the items we ate, we were served white bean salad, roast duck, a fish tower (wtf?), salsa and bread (WTF?!) and chocolate cake (mozart's favorite?). The cake came with tomato sorbet, aka ketchup slushie.

We were also given a $30 dollar bar tab, and my dad promptly asked me what alcohol I wanted. I think he has accepted my alcoholism haha.

Tasty is not "Shee-Tee"

Nor is it Shi Ti (shitty haha get it?), but that's how you pronounce the Chinese name for Tasty restaurant. It was quite a delicious lunch. Tasty is a prix fare restaurant, so every meal is the same price, with the exception that dinner is 30NT more. Lunch is about $14 and dinner is $15 (that dollar buys an extra appetizer).

The meal consists of the following: antipasto (but not really antipasto cuz it was more like a cheese fondue), a salad (I chose potato salad), a soup (the pumpkin soup was deliciousnessyness), a main course (i had spare ribs), a dessert (i ordered panna cotta, but my dad said the ice cream and sack of chocolate/chocowonton was the best), and a drink (i have no idea what fruit drink i got). yes, i am lazy and didn't want to write more descriptions of the food i ordered, but I have pretty pictures! yaaaaaaay



Panna cotta has officially made my list of favorite desserts, which include: cheesecake, pumpkin pie, strawberry pie, root beer floats, fruit tarts, almond jello, shaved ice, cake, and pecan pie. I want to go again before I leave. taiwan has such good food.

I am Boring

For the most part, vacation is over. I work in a hospital now. I translate presentations. I shadow doctors. I read medical textbooks. This is a 9 to 5 job. Everyday I try to wake up as late as I can and will probably pass out when I get home. If it weren't for the world cup, I'd probably go to sleep at 10. But I got to sleep at 12. And don't feel like a badass for doing that, because I get on the verge of passing out at 11. I am boring with a capital B. Now repeat that for Tuesday thru Friday and you get my life. I'm gonna be so lame when I grow up.