Alone but never lonely

Because people who care for me are thinking of me, and just a phone call a way.

Because I know I’ve got friends there that I can contact in times of need. Just that I don’t wish to drag them along in things that they probably wouldn’t be interested in.

Because being just one person, makes moving around and well.. cutting queues much easier hahah.

These were thoughts that came across my mind, as I spent my last day in Taipei on my own.

I really seldom do travel blogs by days but I really gotta blog this whole thing out in sequence, simply because I want to remember it forever. Its been a trip that that has been such an experience, of ups and downs, of the familiar and totally foreign.

Just a note, I will be keeping certain names and events confidential and vague. If anyone wants to know more, just ask me out la hahha.

Warning…… this could take you forever to read! But if you are bored, I hope it will help entertain you till you get off work =P.

27^th Dec 2006 – The aftermath of the earthquake

Close to 1pm, the plane landed at CKS airport.

Our luggage came out quickly, as they were all marked with priority tags (thanks to my boss who grabbed the bunch of priority tags for everyone, from my dad before the luggages were checked in).

At that point, the luggage seemed less important than the urgency of trying to connect to a telco network, so that each and everyone of us there could contact someone back home, that we have already landed safely.

We soon learnt that an earthquake hit the south of Taiwan just yesterday and this could have affected the phone lines. Nonetheless, we (I) kept on trying.. from walking out of the arrival hall, on the bus all the way to the hotel. I couldn’t help thinking that SH and my mum would be worried sick.

The bus quickly maneuvered its way around the familiar streets of Taipei, and came to a halt at an even more than familiar hotel, now with a new name.

It loves new names so much, that its even given me a new name haha. Check this out…

We were allocated our rooms (I had one to myself) and I quickly took down the rest of the guys’ room numbers (a usual routine so that I could always find the people I needed to). At that point, as I handed the 2 pandan cakes I brought over from Singapore to XX, I learnt that the meeting which we had initially scheduled at 5pm, would be changed to 7pm.

Shit. Just when I can’t get to Ms Bear through the phone, and I had already pre-arranged with JL to bring us to Mr J for dinner at 7pm for Ms Bear’s burpday celebration.

I rushed to the room to use the phone and tried dialing overseas to SH and even Ms Bear’s s’pore mobile number. Then I desperately turned on my laptop, hoping to catch some wireless network that could log me onto msn. But none could work. All I got were dead tones. And all the while, my mobile phone couldn’t log onto any network either. It was by then, 3pm. My mum must be worried bad.

Giving up, I went to meet Uncle Z at the lobby, for lunch with the other guys. There, he decided to call our Taipei office to see if anyone had the local number of anybody who could possibly be with Ms Bear at that time. We finally reached her of course, and to learn that she was also trying very hard to contact us. Only at times like these, do we realize the importance of phones and working phone lines.

We quickly came to a decision to make use of that time before 7pm to go for dinner at Mr J. and I’ll rush back for the meeting. JL too, agreed to come pick us up at the hotel at 530.

In the end, we didn’t have lunch but Uncle Z but I headed out to buy a local sim card for me, only to learn that convenience stores don’t carry them. What’s more, there wasn’t a shop selling phones anywhere near this area. That was when Uncle Z felt we should just go to the office to see if we could use their phone to call back home.

Good idea I thought, since JL was at the office and Ms Bear was at the company hostel, plus I’ve never been to the office before. And it turned out much nearer that I’ve always imagined it to be.

There, I got a sim card from the accountant hehe, and a tour round the office, as well as introductions to the colleagues whom I’ve never before met… and another surprise to meet a name I’ve heard of before and get a free yet very nicely autographed album from him.

Anyway, at the office, all forms of connection (phone / email) between Taipei and Singapore were also cut. All except for the amazing and formidable msn haha. Who would have thought… It was at that point, that I searched my list and found QH online and asked her to converse my message to SH.

As we waited at office for Ms Bear, we got a call from Dave that he’ll be going along with us for dinner as well. And gosh did the entourage grow bigger haha. It took quite some time before they arrived, and I was quickly running short of time before my meeting.

So JL decided we should set off first with Ms Bear and along the way, he called to place orders haha.. a very clever and efficient idea I must say. Because by the time we got there, we could eat immediately. I finished my share in less than 20mins and that was where the rest of them arrived.

In total, we had 1 Taiwanese, 3 Singaporeans and 7 Malaysians. But I took my leave after we took a bday photo with Ms Bear to remember by. Uncle Z being the great person he is, offered to return to the hotel with me even though he wasn’t involved in the meeting.

I was early in fact, because my boss, J and PP hadn’t arrived yet. The meeting well, was more of them talking and me trying my best to take down all their off-the-top-of-their-head-talk as fast as I could, without losing too much of their intentions (otherwise I would be dead meat). It was done swiftly under 2 hours. And as they headed off to the venue, I very politely declined my boss’ offer for me to go along with them hahaha.

Waited quite long for Ms Bear to return from office, so we could go out to the night market and I gave up after a while, to end up walking out onto the streets of Taipei myself, for the first time.

There was just one place I really wanted to go and I did go walk those empty streets once again. Not sure what for because its always quite pointless going there but yet, there are so many things that are irrational anyway.

As I scoured through the exciting convenience stores one after another, I got a call from Ms Bear that she had already reached the hotel. She had moved in with me to my room. Although it was already midnight, we still decided to go out to Tong Hua night market just for the heck of it, and because she was feeling quite down that day (which if you remember me mentioning, it was her birthday).

Over a bowl of 愛玉 and some very very good 鹽酥雞, we talked and talked.. then we ended up as 2 very blue people roaming the streets of Taipei in the wee hours of the morning. Yet, we didn’t want to return to the hotel to sleep.

Instead, we headed down to 誠品just to buy a book each and then went on another tour of convenience stores around our hotel area, before we decided to call it a day. It was 3.30am by then. The bad part was, I hadn’t even started to make changes to the work that I needed to do haha.

^ The pile of poo-h at a watsons

^ I think the words on the board speaks for itself hehe

(The 2 dogs that were sleeping happily outside a 7-11 and never moved an inch even as we entered the store. Notice the dog near the entrance? The opening of the door is actually where its head is hahah. If you're afraid of dogs, you can look for another convenience store...)

Pushed on with my work till about 5am when I gave up and felt I should wake up earlier to continue. It was really tough trying to type Chinese or use a pc application on a macbook.

Erm, I forgot to mention, that during the times when we were in the hotel, our favourite channel would be starworld, where all sorts of cheesy old hk movies would be aired. And yea… they are cheesy, corny, layered with lousy background music and a little *cough* ‘A’. But let me clarify, just in case you start wondering why these 2 girls are so weird… these shows are good to watch because you don’t have to invest that much energy into it when you turn your eyes to watch every now and then.

Off to bed I went, 24 hours after I first woke up for my flight.

28^th Dec 2006 – Rehearsal Day

Awoke at 10am to start on my modifications and kept going till around 12, when Ms Bear decided she will go out to buy 關山便當 for me, when I only mentioned it to her yesterday how good it is. It was really very sweet of her to take a cab out just to buy it.

Before she returned, my boss called me to look for Uncle Z and asked me where the CD for the rehearsal was, as ‘jio leng’ was gonna be there soon. The CD was with me, but Uncle Z of course wasn’t. He wanted me to bring the CD to the venue and try to contact Uncle Z to go over immediately. At that point, I was still in my ‘sleeping clothes’ and my hair in a more than messy state. Couldn’t imagine going out and walking over to the venue like this, so I arranged with Uncle Z who was out for lunch to meet me back at the hotel lobby before he headed towards the venue.

Passed the CD and I rushed back to my room as fast as I could, to hide my messiness which was really a bad match against any other person in that hotel lobby haha.

After I ate the delicious便當 Ms Bear brought back, I made my way out myself to the venue with 2 heavy laptops (mine and ms bear’s) because I wasn’t sure if my wonderful mac would work on the projector.

Took me some time to find the entrance but eventually I did. Couldn’t believe I’m back that this place once again and it somehow looked different from this new perspective.

(The stage)

And as expected, I soon learnt that there was no adaptor that would match my macbook and the projector. I walked back to the department store next to the hotel, at the advice of G who said there was an apple store there.

Just as I wanted to step out, I realized it was raining. Wanted to borrow an umbrella from the guard there, but strangely… he had none (he even tried looking behind the drink dispenser machine =_=). So, in the end, I braved the rain and went in search for an adaptor.

Unfortunately, the search was fruitless. I returned to the venue and switched from my macbook over to Ms Bear’s 小白 instead. As I was doing so, I very stupidly got my little finger caught in between seat and steel of the chair I was sitting on. It hurt real bad~~ and blood started to ooze out. I even got blood dripped onto poor 小白.

Guess that was the beginning of a spate of ‘accidents’ where I would hurt myself and an omen of a bad show for me. To fast forward a bit, I hurt my other fingers twice where I never realized, and once when I was lying in bed trying to cover myself tightly with the sheets. Then I also banged my hips against the hostel table when I first stepped in. How more stupid could I get? But I believe the pain cannot be compared to my boss banging his head as he got into the taxi hahah =P (ok, I shall not be evil since he did treat me well there)

(More yummy 便當 for dinner!!)

The rest of the rehearsal went on as it usually would, only that this time... it lasted till almost midnight. I was really quite burnt out by then. Yet, as we stepped out of the venue, we didn’t want to just go back to the hotel for an early night’s sleep. Afterall, this is Taipei... where night markets abound!

So Uncle Z, me and Ms Bear, decided to go to 師大 night market for makan. Soon after we reached, Ms Bear’s Singapore friend as well as KW and her Taiwanese friend joined us as well, to have the very delicious 滷味 but very very bad and sweet tea that we needed to order, so as to meet a minimum spending when you dined in.

There, while eating the滷味 I was craving for so badly, we had a nice chat with KW’s friend and we also gave YZ a call to surprise him with a Happy Birthday song while he was out having a massage.

2 plates of 滷味 and 2 unfinished pots of lousy tea later, the rest of師大 night market was already 90% closed. That was when KW’s friend told us his friends were at 士林 ktv-ing away and made us foolishly hope that it shops would still be opened there. It wouldn’t be any harm because he was going to drive us there anyway heheh.

By the time we got there, it didn’t appear very promising. Nonetheless, we went to the KTV first because Uncle Z wanted to use the toilet there. When we came down, KW’s friend’s friend was already there. They introduced him as T, and so did he himself. Earlier on, KW’s friend had said he was in the same company as T, but I didn’t know that he would be at the KTV.

As I shook his hand, I was trying hard to connect this name to the face that I had always linked this name to. Ok, that sounded complicated… what I meant, was, he looked different from how I imagined him to be. I hope I didn’t look too puzzled haha =P.

Anyway, T got a kick out of figuring out we were Singaporeans and exclaimed how he could differentiate between Taiwanese, Singaporeans and Malaysians. The rest of that meeting, I don’t really remember, except for the fact that they were all going to watch the show tomorrow.

We bid goodbye and went roaming the empty streets of士林 before we really decided it was quite stupid, walking around aimlessly. By the way, it’s the first time I’m walking in士林 with everything closed hahaha, how strange it felt.

While KW and her friend left for 誠品, Uncle Z took me to look for YZ and D-ge who were on their way home after their massage session. They also very very kindly offered to buy porridge for the both of us. Really good for a cold night like this =)

We arrived at their hostel just a few minutes after they had arrived and we dug into the piping hot porridge. This porridge is really different from our regular porridge.. I just don’t know how to describe it. Mine had fish and squid in it, the rice wasn’t very mashed up (more like teochew porridge) and there was egg flower in it as well. It tasted pretty good except for the fact that the bowl was huge and my stomach was already bloated from eating the滷味 just about an hour ago. Sorry I don’t have a photo of it haha.

Done with the eating, D-ge then picked up the guitar and starting playing and singing his favourite songs. *whisper* I believe he knows just these songs and he keeps practicing them haha. But no matter what, he still plays the acoustic guitar better than me (I suck…). They try to push the guitar to me, but I push it off by saying I got my finger injured and I’m only used to electric guitars hahah (yes, lame excuses... but they do work you know).

I mean, how can I play the guitar when there are 2 experts plus one novice who is much better than me there? So most of time, I was just watching Uncle Z and YZ teach D-ge.

Let me also mention that it was already 4am by now. And without any regard for time, Uncle Z thought it was a good idea to help YZ move the TV from the living room, to his room. I almost fainted haha…. And as G remarked the next day ‘你跟錯人了!’.

All these night owls… testing TV connections, moving TV sets and finding modly rotting stuff in the room, plus Uncle Z drinking coffee at 4am in the morning. It was unbelievable. And I always thought me sleeping this late was bad hahah. These people, just don’t take care of their health…. erm, actually me too =P

Finally at around 530am, they were done and we caught a cab back to the hotel. Ms Bear was still awake with her friend in the room. As I went to shower, I was quite surprised that she was intending to go out with her friend. OMG, another incredible night-morning owl hahah. 一晚還有一晚晚….

By 630am, I conceded defeat and was already snoozing away, while Ms Bear was still somewhere out where… (I began to wonder if that house of night owls we left, was already sleeping too)