Monday, March 13, 2006
Hello this is the Chinese new year's post i had intended to post a long time ago but what with one thing then the other it's out only now.
Okay so now it's chinese new year in Taiwan. Which technically means that it's spring. Bah! It's still (as of this writing) cold, inhumanely so. Mostly because of the wind, which removes the layer of water vapour covering your skin which typically keeps you warm as your body heat is trapped there. This factor if I'm not mistaken is known as wind shear. Therefore with this wind shear phenomena the temperature outside can be much colder than it already is.
But I digress.
Over here we had a sort of mini celebration for those who didn't manage or want to go back for the new years. It was a steam boat dinner with loads of processed foods and suspicious looking seafood. I'm not a big fan of steam boats there's just so little... order in the whole affair. Everyone unceromoniously dumps their food into the pot and scoops out someone else's food. Some say it fosters unity, I say a pox on them. 10minutes into the steamboat, we have people stealing eggs, sausages, cockles, mushroom heads and fish balls.
After that we had a little lucky dip sort of thing where for 50 yuan you can get a red packet, which could contain anything from 10 to 1000 yuan. I bought 2 packets and won a total of 120 yuan. A 20 yuan profit isn't bad, at least it covered the week's laundry.
Two gambling tables were set up. A Da xiao (big, small) table and other unique one that I've never seen before but it looked fun. I tried both and won another 20 yuan. Good enough for the dryer for my laundry. Satisfied with the bounty collected, I returned to my bunk to prep for a night on the town. Which isn't as wild as it sounds. Heng Chun is a very small town with not very much to offer. My forages into this area usually centers around shopping for essentials, food, the night market or LAN gaming.
Speaking of LAN gaming, that's how i spent my 9 DAYS of Chinese new year holidays. LAN gaming is ridiculously cheap over here. 100 yuan (SGD$5) gets you 10 hrs of gaming. So it was really easy to pass (waste) the time. I pride myself in ranking about 5th or 6th in the MTL. Or rather I think i'm 5th or 4th in MTL. The map that we often play with is called " Xing Chang" i have no idea what that means but as with most things in Taiwan, it's all in chinese and " Fan Ti" too. One gets used to it after awhile (it's like DOTA), what with my intense training from ypm and poly (Shhh don't let my parents know) I took to it like a duck to water.
Another thing about this small town, or rather Taiwan in general, the garbage that service the area don't do it quietly like in Singapore. No no no, they have speakers and merry music to accompany them on their way. I suppose it's to get the folks to bring out their trash, though for us, it's to run AWAY from the trash. What sort of music is this? Put it this way, never in my life has " Ballade Pour Adeline " been so rightly associated with trash (Sorry piano folks but when I was a kid, I was traumatised by a classical cassette tape).
Anyhow I ended the Chinese New year with a spot of prawn fishing, but nothing fantastically interesting.
Not much in this post, anyhow here's your Jonathan's Gem for today:
"Think out of the square"
That is all
Jon.P™
Okay so now it's chinese new year in Taiwan. Which technically means that it's spring. Bah! It's still (as of this writing) cold, inhumanely so. Mostly because of the wind, which removes the layer of water vapour covering your skin which typically keeps you warm as your body heat is trapped there. This factor if I'm not mistaken is known as wind shear. Therefore with this wind shear phenomena the temperature outside can be much colder than it already is.
But I digress.
Over here we had a sort of mini celebration for those who didn't manage or want to go back for the new years. It was a steam boat dinner with loads of processed foods and suspicious looking seafood. I'm not a big fan of steam boats there's just so little... order in the whole affair. Everyone unceromoniously dumps their food into the pot and scoops out someone else's food. Some say it fosters unity, I say a pox on them. 10minutes into the steamboat, we have people stealing eggs, sausages, cockles, mushroom heads and fish balls.
After that we had a little lucky dip sort of thing where for 50 yuan you can get a red packet, which could contain anything from 10 to 1000 yuan. I bought 2 packets and won a total of 120 yuan. A 20 yuan profit isn't bad, at least it covered the week's laundry.
Two gambling tables were set up. A Da xiao (big, small) table and other unique one that I've never seen before but it looked fun. I tried both and won another 20 yuan. Good enough for the dryer for my laundry. Satisfied with the bounty collected, I returned to my bunk to prep for a night on the town. Which isn't as wild as it sounds. Heng Chun is a very small town with not very much to offer. My forages into this area usually centers around shopping for essentials, food, the night market or LAN gaming.
Speaking of LAN gaming, that's how i spent my 9 DAYS of Chinese new year holidays. LAN gaming is ridiculously cheap over here. 100 yuan (SGD$5) gets you 10 hrs of gaming. So it was really easy to pass (waste) the time. I pride myself in ranking about 5th or 6th in the MTL. Or rather I think i'm 5th or 4th in MTL. The map that we often play with is called " Xing Chang" i have no idea what that means but as with most things in Taiwan, it's all in chinese and " Fan Ti" too. One gets used to it after awhile (it's like DOTA), what with my intense training from ypm and poly (Shhh don't let my parents know) I took to it like a duck to water.
Another thing about this small town, or rather Taiwan in general, the garbage that service the area don't do it quietly like in Singapore. No no no, they have speakers and merry music to accompany them on their way. I suppose it's to get the folks to bring out their trash, though for us, it's to run AWAY from the trash. What sort of music is this? Put it this way, never in my life has " Ballade Pour Adeline " been so rightly associated with trash (Sorry piano folks but when I was a kid, I was traumatised by a classical cassette tape).
Anyhow I ended the Chinese New year with a spot of prawn fishing, but nothing fantastically interesting.
Not much in this post, anyhow here's your Jonathan's Gem for today:
"Think out of the square"
That is all
Jon.P™
