27.01.2007 - Walking is the new driving.
This weeks MMI brought to you live Live from that ass groove ^
Yesterday after coming home from work I sat down at my table but my usual knee jerk reaction to fire up the computer was hampered by the required effort to take it out of my bag and set it back up. Instead I picked up my PSP and set about recrutingmore hapless souls for my slowly growing team of soldiers in Metal Gear. After this became tiring I put on my coat and headed downstairs to the pub. When I got there they were in the midst of their chinese new year cleaning and strewn about the floor were boxes of junk which one of the two guys working at the time was idly nosing through. After a while he gave me a stack of sketch pads to check out. The artwork contained was that of an ex employee whos paintings constituted the entire decor of the room. My friend hates these painting but I dont mind them so much. Even so, I didn't stay long since the place was empty and my usual appetite for complimentary pretzels was strangely absent.
Instead I decided to use my free movie tickets to go see NANA2. After failing miserably in my post movie Taiko spree I scrambled to my seat and let myself relax and absorb. The trailers were pretty good and I always feel like I am in the right side of the world when cinemas advertise things like Tales from Earthsea and Naruto before the main feature. And so the film starts and I chuckle to myself about the obsurdity watching something like this without subtitles on a huge screen on opening day, the only white guy in about 300 faces. The film opens with a huge overhead camera pan of Shibuya by night, just the way I remember it, magical and insanely busy every inch covered in glowing neon signs which difuse in the thick air to create a collage of coloured mist. (The effect of which is multiplied by ten if you are sleep deprived and blurry eyed). So I put my Japanese head on and sat through what must have been 2hours plus of wonderful NANA brand emodrama. After it had finished I realised just how tired I was. I cought a glimps of myself in the bathroom mirror and prescribed myself a good long sleep to shake off the teaching week.
But as soon as I put my key in the lock of my apartment door I got a call....
It was my freind upstairs who is leaving next week out with his work colleages for a drink. Partially woken up by the cold night air and also torn that I would seldom have a chance to spend some time with my friend I threw on another layer and headed out once again. The walk out there was quite peaceful, despite the fact that Taichung is not designed to be walked through since there is technically no pavement that isnt taken up by shop fronts and parked cars. The level of the pavement you are able to traverse takes steep drops and inclines without warning so its best to just drive. But since my scooter died about five days ago I have been walking everywhere. Arriving at the bar it seemed the entire foreigner population had accumulated in this one watering hole and much to my amusement they were all smashed. I found a corner to hide in with my friends since I was in no mood to join in with the already far escalated rowdiness. Instead I enjoyed the ambience and took some pictures. The band were doing almost all english songs of almost all genres they could think of. I must have been the only one sitting quietly and I was in no mood to dance around but all in all it was a fun little place.
After a while the party moved somwhere else and my friends an I took our leave of the crowd. On the way home we stopped into a little place to place darts and since I was tired but complely sober I gave everyone a sore beating. One of the guys I was playing against knocked my bottle of corona all over the Fusball table and in a typically polite Taiwanese kind of way quickly went to buy a replacement. Once again I was having a pretty good time but it was getting stupidly late and on closer inspection the friend I was walking home with had fallen asleep. It was time to go and luckily we were mere yards from home so I woke him up and helped him up the stairs to the safety of his room. Now I was wide awake and on my own so before turning in I headed downstairs once more to pick up some food. Another great feature of Taiwan is the abilty to buy anything at any hour.
After placing my order I stepped outside to take a breather. The same pub from earlier had its doors wide open and the staff, were just milling about. Something I did frequently with the staff of all the bars I have worked at do after a long shift. I asked how the night had been and chatted to a girl who must have been a friend of the staff. She had with her one of the high fashion cosmetically enhanced cats which always seem to be drugged up and incredibly dosile. It was wearing a tarten jacket and being held like a baby. She told me his name was Neko, japanese for, you guessed it, "cat". I picked him up and held him in the way he was accustomed to. It had a really pathetic sleepy meow as if it wanted to disagree with the way it was being pampered and emasculated but could not muster up the energy to move. If he could have talked he would have said something along the lines of, "Come on, im a cat, stop dressing me up and spraying me with perfume and let me free". But alas, he could not.
And it was time for me to pick up my Kimchi beef and fried rice and secure myself a comfy seat on my sofa, eat and then hit the sack.
I woke up around 10am to realise i had been bitten about fifty times by mosquitos. I ate breakfast and played Castelvania for about an hour before It was time for me to head to my drum lesson. The weather was miserable and the drissle falling from the skies made it impossible for me to play my PSP. Instead the long walk out gave me lots of time to think, to think about everything and take in some views. I grabbed a can of hot coffee from 7/11 and headed in just on time. My drum lesson was very long and challenging today and I always seem to arrive whilst someone half my age is tearing it up in the practice room. I really need more time to get better so I have decided to rent out the practice room a couple times a week when Im not going to the gym.
The weather had not improved after I started out for home. I stopped into the same 7/11 again to purchase a cheap umbrella. The confines of the daft pavement meant I had to keep taking said umbrella up and down to weave in and out of shop front debree. Passing a building site the umbrella got snagged on some barbed wire and I remembered why I dont use these things in the first place. On the way home I found a little music shop and picked up the latest Mika Nakashima album which i am currently enjoying as I type. I called up my friend to meet me for some Teppanyaki on the way home and we ate for about half an hour. In the restraunt I used Portable Op's Wifi recruitment thingy to secure another soldier before we left. His name was EEL, a rookie, but I see potential in his eyes. I stuck him in Bravo team since alpha team is full, picked up my bag and headed in the direction of home. One final stop before heading up was made at the Japanese supermarket since I needed toilet paper and mouth wash.
That brings us to now, where all is quiet and peaceful at home. I have no plans for the evening since I have to get some school work done. I still need to watch this weeks bleach but I might save that for post work reward.
Till next time,
This has been MMI.
Where were are happy to say Welcome back Arcadefinger.
posted by Aaron | 2:18 AM
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