Attitude is Everything

Today is another lazy day at the office - the things to do are piling up, but I am possessed of such lethagy as to make almost everything seem inpossible... Oops! According to Michael, salsa instructor from LA who occasionally takes time out of his busy schedule to lecture me, words like "impossible" and "but" should be erased from my vocabulary. Well, I am very happy for him that Keith Harrell's "Attitude is Everything" has changed his life, BUT how about if I just find ways to embrace and find happiness in my lethargy?

I seriously thought about taxi-ing it home this lunch break to take a nap instead of eating lunch. Maybe it is my overly active social life taking the toll on my energy levels? Ha ha... Well, although there has been no heavy drinking, no wild on-the-bar/table dancing, this week HAS been busy. Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights (as salsa scene favorite Rick is leaving Taipei again, perhaps never to return) were spent out dancing (sedately and not under the unfluence of anything) and there was a barbecue party at home on Tuesday... Perhaps I need to ease into having a social life more slowly. (Although it will all have to end when I return to my studies for York at the end of the month).

Tonight I will spend a little time at the gym and then go home to sleep. I am working out with a guy who did a degree in kinesiology at a university somewhere in Ontario, Canada. He is great as he is helping me correct balance and alignment. I believe this will translate fabulously to the salsa floor as well. If only I could keep from slouching at my desk... or learn to type without looking at the keys. Do you think "if only" are other taboo words?

September 28th

Well, September 28th is over... It was a significant day as it was not only Moon Festival, but also my brother's birthday. He would have been 31. We had been planning to spend this particular birthday in Taipei... 

As it was, I just stayed home all day. I watched an American TV series on DVD - 6 Feet Under. What was I thinking? The series is about a family which owns a funeral home... but I couldn't stop watching. Somehow, it made the events of this summer seem more real/normal.

WILD DESIGN

Today I received a pet... a little gray spotted long-haired cat. This little blue-eyed beauty came all the way from Vancouver in a plastic bag! (Thanks Joan) The beauty of this cat is that it needs no food and can function as a paperweight on your desk, potpourri (It seems to smell of lavendar)... or a beanbag throw toy when you're annoyed at a coworker! It might also scare away intruders as it's long hairs are more wiry and sparce than thick, soft and fluffy... and it's tail sticks out at an alarming angle. I thought at first it might have a name, so I read the label: Wild Design... designed and handmade by Jacquelin Spark, Canadian artist, to celebrate out companion creatures on earth...

 

Anyway, I started wondering if there were also dogs and other such pets... so I typed in "wild design" and came up with a site for racy underwear/swimwear and other latex things.... OK, try again: "'wild design' canada". This time I came up with a site for John Fluevog Shoes in Vancouver... nothing to do with latex OR stuffed pet replacements (AKA celebrations of our companion creations here on earth)! However, Fluevog Shoes being nostaligic and all (my one luxury during my "Goth" period... late 80's/early 90's), I admit to browsing the catelogue. On page 2 of women's footwear, there was a model called, "Hi Joan." Do you think I should purchase and send a pair to the Joan who sent me the cat?

 

PS. If you write me, I will send you a picture of my new pet and you can join in the naming contest. Winner receives something wild from Taipei.

On My Way to Work - Morning Reflections

Photo copyright S.Yoshino

On my way to work this morning I was thinking:

1. Will 67 seconds be enough to cross this little street? (There is no such thing as pedestrian right-of-way... the little green walking man knows nothing).
2. Should I stop for a Shao Bing Jia Dan (an egg beaten with MSG and green onions, fried and sandwiched in a folded pastry thing coated with sesame seeds)... or should I forfeit $100NT + for a double latte at Starbucks?
3. Why is it I am so deathly afraid of cockroaches (even dead ones on the sidewalk) when I have no qualms about munching huge deep-fried crickets with my beer or candied grasshoppers with my udon noodles?
4. If I finish all my work in the morning, dare I tell the front desk clerk that I have my period and take the afternoon off to sleep? (I still can't believe that women in Asia can do this. It is a priviledge I - although female- have never exercized.)

The Chusok Bunny is Coming

Next week Tuesday is the 15th day of the 8th month on the lunar calendar! Happily for me (and many others living in Asia), we can have a day off for our host country's respective mid-autumn festival. What makes this day so auspicious is the FULL MOON! Hopefully, my friend Farheen in Vancouver will not be busy surprising people with her sudden tranformation into a werewolf, but will be occupied with gazing at the moon with some lucky suitor!

And what do you see when you look at the moon? If you are in Korea, you will likely not be seeing a man's face, but rather a rabbit bent over a mortar pounding the glutinous rice for songpyun with his pestle. This makes good sense to me (seeing as songpyun is the sweet eaten on Chusok - Korea's mid-Autumn -or harvest - festival).

I asked some of my Taiwanese coworkers what they see when they look at the full moon. They agreed that they also see a rabbit, but the rabbit is grinding medicine, not glutinous rice. When I asked them WHY MEDICINE, none of them could answer. You see, on Moon Festival in Taiwan, neither songpyun nor medicine are made by locals... They are too busy barbecuing, lighting fireworks, making pomelo hats and eating moon cakes. Anyway, the editors in my team have since provided me with the following Moon Festival (Taiwan and China's Mid-Autumn celebration) stories... and rabbit explanations:

1. The story of Chang-Er
Once upon a time, there was an evil tyrant... wait! The Internet tells a different story! The local editors omitted the 10 suns! Please see the story from this link below:

The time of this story is around 2170 B.C. The earth once had ten suns circling over it, each took its turn to illuminate to the earth. But one day all ten suns appeared together, scorching the earth with their heat. The earth was saved by a strong and tyrannical archer Hou Yi. He succeeded in shooting down nine of the suns. One day, Hou Yi stole the elixir of life from a goddess. However his beautiful wife Chang Er drank the elixir of life in order to save the people from her husband's tyrannical rule. After drinking it, she found herself floating and flew to the moon. Hou Yi loved his divinely beautiful wife so much, he didn't shoot down the moon.

2. The story of the Rabbit and the Moon (The Jade Rabbit)

In this legend, three fairy sages transformed themselves into pitiful old men and begged for something to eat from a fox, a monkey and a rabbit. The fox and the monkey both had food to give to the old men, but the rabbit, empty-handed, offered his own flesh instead, jumping into a blazing fire to cook himself. The sages were so touched by the rabbit's sacrifice that they let him live in the Moon Palace where he became the "Jade Rabbit."

I guess the editors figure these are connected. It logically figures that since Chang-Er is the goddess of the moon, that the rabbit is now keeping her company. Perhaps he is mixing up more of the elixir of life to help her keep her goddess state?

The Trojan Horse - An Earthquake?

In book 5 of my current project, unit 2 describes the 921 Earthquake in Taiwan. In researching other great earthquakes and how they affected society/history/culture, I came across a number of interesting earthquake stories… like how an earthquake in 1692 dropped 33 acres of Port Royal, Jamaica (then dubbed “the wickedest city on earth”) into the harbor! Was it divine retribution? Then just after that, there was the great tsunami that washed over the coasts of Japan - the effect of an earthquake in the seabed. But way before any of these earthquakes, there was… Troy?

We are all familiar with Troy (at least the Troy of Homer’s Iliad), but I wasn’t truly aware that Troy was a REAL, not mythical, city!

The Iliad… emanates from a world that was ‘witty, ironic, mordant, decorative, compassionate, energetic and human.’ It is the "first poem that gives equal dignity" to Trojans and Achaeans ‘and shows the ‘enemy’ in a compassionate and noble light.’ Of the Iliad’s great power and influence, there has never been any argument. Of its historical truth and its origins, there has never been anything but. [John Fleischman, Smithsonian] Link

The story is one that has universal appeal… An archaeologist, who has worked on items recovered from the Troy site, is quoted on The Courier Mail (Australia) site:

"It has themes that just resonate down through the ages, it doesn't matter what age you're living in or what culture you're living in," he says.
"It has these universal elements to it: it's love, it's war, it's greed, it's ambition, it's trickery, it's treachery, it's the agony of defeat. It's all the clichés.
"The hero loses the girl, the hero goes back to get the girl, the hero eventually gets the girl with the help of his best friend who happens to be his brother."

Anyway, what would appear to be true is that there actually was a Troy (in fact there seem to have been more than one), but there was one fitting Homer’s description in the Iliad. In Homer’s story, Helen, in leaving her husband for the brother of the King of Troy, brings the battle which destroys Troy.

She, Helen, brought to Ilium her dowry, destruction. [Aeschylus,
"Agamemnon, 406.] Link

The destruction was brought by means of trickery: the gift of a wooden horse containing the Spartan army. But what we don’t know is if the Trojan Horse really was as described… or something else:

• Theory 1: Poseidon was the god of earthquakes and the animal associated with him was a Horse! Was the Trojan hose an earthquake?
• Theory 2: A horse-like battering ram

I am siding with Stanford University’s geophysicist and going with the earthquake theory... partly because I find it plausable… and partly because it makes my project more interesting!

Below excerpt copied (without permission) from the Stanford Today.

Don’t blame a hollow horse full of sneaky Greeks for the destruction of ancient Troy. Over a period of 50 years around 1200 B.C., a string of killing earthquakes may have toppled dozens of bustling centers of scholarship and industry, the great Bronze Age civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean, including Troy, Mycenae and Knossos.

Historians and archaeologists long have cited civil war, invasion and pestilence as possible causes of such widespread destruction. But Stanford geophysicist Amos Nur sees another possibility: The earth moved. Earthquake activity also may be at the root of the biblical prophecy of Armageddon, the site of the final conflict between good and evil. According to Nur, the repeated destruction of the city of Megiddo probably inspired the author of Revelation to script his haunting prediction of the Apocalypse.

New Taipei Apartment - Photo Tour

Finally, the Photo Tour of our new Taipei apartment is here! I had all but given up on figuring out why the uploaded photos weren't showing and posted some of the photos on my Web Album... Then it hit me! I hadn't included the file name in the linked address. Please view the empty apartment for now, and I will paste the "after" photos later... If I can. YOu can go to the Web Album link above if you want a closer view.



The view from the front door. Note the 3 colors of wood! What was the person who renovated thinking? The furniture was lent to us by the landlady: very traditional... and very hard - wood with tile, but we are grateful as the it fills some space until we get our designer leather couches. We will let you know when we get these... (Hope you aren't holding your breath!)


2 views of the Study! Was it once a "tatami room"?


The front foor is on the left, and the right leads to a space for a dining table and to the kitchen.


The kitchen is very old style. The bare bones sink etc loks more like what some Taiwanese families use when their cooking area is on the balcony. (The balcony is reserved for our washing machine.)


The bathroom... much like Japan - enter fully first, then turn around so you will have room to shut the door. This is the bathroom with the wondow into the storage area (see previous post)


This is my room. A wierd freak of design put a wondow between my room and the living room - a frosted window with 2 dragons carved in relief. See below:


If you put your eye up to the dragon's eye, you can see through. I will be getting opaque curtains as my roommate likes to stay up late playing X-box!


This is another view of my room (so you can see how much closet space there is! This is a PLUS! The open wardrobe doors show only 1/2 of the space. The open door is the infamous walk-in storage space.


This is inside Tommy's room. I won't show you his room as it is a mess, but you can see the architect really thought hard when he arranged the doors thus! YOu open the door to the room, and the ensuit bathroom door is blocked off.

Well, that's it for now! If you have any great ideas of what we can do with all this space, please let us know.

Taiyang Bing

A suncake (Chinese: 太陽餅; pinyin: taiyang bĭng) is a popular Chinese dessert originally from the city of Taichung in Taiwan. It is made of flaky pastry, with sweet fillings. They are normally packaged elaborately and meant to be given as gifts. Many different pastry stores claim to be the "original" store that first produced suncakes.

If you were wondering why you didn't hear from me yesterday, it was because I was in Taichung for work. I gave an early morning training, then had lunch, went shopping for Taiyang Bing... then back to Taipei. It seems that in Taiwan, as in Japan, each locality has it's specialty food item. (Like Kobe beef in Kobe, or basashi - raw horse - in Kyushu... or Dojang - hot soy milk- in Yonghe). But I am digressing. Yesterday I brought back a box for my new landlady who is very kind (and works in her father's business on the main floor of my apartment building). I wanted to say thanks becasue the other day, she did my roomate, Tommy, a favor. He was on his way to his old apartment to pick up a few items and she not only gave him a ride, but also waited for him to pring several loads down in an alley so narrow, you have to keep backing up or driving forward to the entrance of the alley let cars pass in either direction.

Anyway, after dropping off the cakes, I climbed the 4 steep flights to the apartment to crash. I was exhausted after the long bus ride. Then the phone rang. It was Tommy asking me to come and help him buy clothes to attend a gala thrown by the Mexican Trade Council - an event I was not invited to! I had to decline, but I did offer him my VIP shopping cards for Mexx. (I had better things to do anyway... like go home, take a bath and eat the whole box of Taiyang Bing I brought back for him!)

Anyway, now Tommy has just called again and is now insisting I attend the gala (He can't understand why anyone would pass up free champagne). The event begins at a very early 6:00 pm. Do you think I can leave work at 6:00, wash my hair, iron something appropriate, fix my broken nails (I have recently been nailing up cupboards, scraping paint, and cleaning my apartment from top to bottom) , put on make-up and still arrive at a reasonable time? The box of Taiyang bing is looking very appealing!

Publisher's Blues

Hi, Amy! This really just should be a response to your post, but I thought that my lyrical efforts were worth a space of their own! I don't know much about the blues... being from Canada and all (although I have been to blues night at the Yale pub). I am also sure those rules you wrote out would suggest that the pairing of the words "publisher" and "blues" is an oxymoron, but here goes:

SMALL PRINT: I'd like to note that the below lyrics are fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or workplaces is accidental.

Publisher's Blues
I’ve got the blues…. blues that I can’t lose.
And it feels so bad, baby! Ain’t you heard the news?

The other night, when I was working late.
I realized I’d never finish by the bound book date!
Requests are sent, but the freelancers ain’t never paid!
It’s no wonder why I’m the only one who stayed!
I wanna quit too, but can’t afford to go.
Help me please, baby! I really hate it so!

I’ve got the blues… blues that I can’t lose.
And it feels so bad, baby! Ain’t you heard the news?

There ain’t no team spirit, I working all alone.
My boss calls to chide me at night on the telephone.
I know I’m right, but I’d better not stand my ground.
The people in charge don’t listen and are never to be found.
I feel I’ve nothing left, I’ve lost all control.
Sometimes I think I sold my very soul!

I’ve got the blues… Blues that I can’t lose.
And it feels so bad baby! I wish I had some booze.

The work is sloppy and fills me full of shame. (Oh, yeah!)
I wouldn’t want you to open something and see my name.

I’ve got the blues…. Blues that I can’t lose.
And it feels so bad, baby!

Mos and Mac

While someone somewhere is eating naegmyun in a hole-in-the-wall shop staffed by a surly Korean auntie, I am scarfing down a Raisu Ba-ga (rice burger) at Mos while waiting for the friendly staff at Mac to figure out why my space bar isn't working... Actually, I know why! I dropped it in the Narita terminal while whiling away the 6 hours of my stopover online. (Friends who have chatted with me over msn will appreciate that I am finally fixing the space bar problem... I will be able to type sentences which are not just composed of one really long word!)

Before leaving Taipei, I was thinking I could take advantage of Narita to have all those wierd Japanese specialties that, although available in Taipei, are few and far between. I hate to admit it, but I had secretly wished there was a Mos burger in my neighborhood... and a place to have cream anmitsu (a sweet made from green tea ice cream with red bean topping and sprinkled with Mochi/jelly-like things).

Anyway, Narita airport didn't work out well for me... but on returning to Taipei, it turns out that my wish came true and there are new Mos Burgers cropping up all over! There is now one right next to my office and one around the corner from my Mac shop! . Former students at Nichi Dai University in Tokyo (from whose business program the chain sprang from) are sticking out their tongues at the Taipei Times, who said the chain wouldn't survive here (based on it's higher prices... and from observing that 15 McDonald branches closed recently). I am guessing the secret to their success in Taiwan is PEANUT BUTTER! Imagine biting into your burger of shrimp bits sandwiched between two patties made of rice and detecting the slight hint of... peanuts! Or better yet, you sink your teeth into your breakfast of egg mos-muffin and again find the flavor of peanut butter mingling with your eggs and ham! Mmmmm! This should work in Thailand, too. Don't you think so?

My question to all Japanese patrons is, "Is PEANUT BUTTER slathered on the items of the Japanese menu too?

PS. Unfortunately, although the Mac guy (from around the corner of the Mos burger) had a keyboard from a used laptop he wanted to GIVE me, the space bar had the same problem as mine... so we had to order a new one. Should be in next week.

Moved In

Welll, the weekend is over and I have moved into the new place. I have been having fun discovering just how undomestic I am. I really only know how to buy dishwashing detergent (which is easy as the packaging loooks the same as in North America) and laundry soap (which boasts the familiar TIDE colors/logo). But when it came to the other stuff, I had no idea which cleaning supplies to buy. I couldn't find any containers resembling the stuff to put on the bathroom tiles to cleach/clean off any mold. I couldn't find hardwood floor cleaner and furniture polish. I suppose I missed it as there were no cans or bottles that said "Pledge". I even forgot to buy Windex (although I am sure they sell that here).

 

Anyway, I cleaned and moved/stored stuff. The landlords left a lot of dirty junk in the place. I moved it all to the walk in storage area off of my bedroom. Then I discovered something wierd. There is a window between the storage area and the bathroom. That means that everytime I take a shower, the water is likely to leak into that area. This is somewhat incovenient. I also discovered that many of the doors open up in the wrong direction. For example, when you open the door to the back bedroom (which has an ensuit), the ensuit bathroom door is blocked. Actually, I think that not much thought is put into designing most apartments in Taiwan. All of the ones I looked at had some problem - bedrooms with no room for a bed, kitchens with no windows... or whole apartments with almost no electrical outlets, etc.

 

I like this apartment as it is bright and having hardwood floors reminds me of Vancouver. However, the designers of the building have ruined this somewhat by combining cherry colored hardwood floors with blondish build-in cabinets and the prior tenants bought dark chestnut furniture. But anyway, for less than 1 year (hopefully), it is MORE than adequate.The landlady, despite having left the place dirty, is nice. She has lent us some of that dark wood furniture. And seeing as we have none, we shouldn't complain. The furniture she left includes a "sofa" 2 chairs, a coffee table and end table. The dark wood has green tiles inlaid and is (in typical Taiwanese fashion" is HARD. There were no appliances, so she brought in a 2-burner gas range... which we have not been able to get to work. The kitchens here almost  never has space for a fridge and outrs in no exception. However, we went out to the used appliance market ion Yonghe and bought a very clean fridge and washing machine.

 

My room is in the middle of the apartment. It is HUGE (the first time ever I have had a closet big enough to actually hang all of my clothes and store all of my shoes. But it has no windows to the outside. To compensate, there is a big frosted glass window with a dragon design in relief between my room and the living room. There is also a narrow window running along the top of the wall between my room and the study. That means that I will definately need black-out curtains for the frosted window... but how to shut out Tommy watching TV until late every night, I don't know. I didn't think about this then.

 

PICTURES TO COME!

 

Anyway, it will be good to live with someone... and Tommy has already demonstrated his usefulness. Last night, he came over to watch TV and eat. As I was cleaning up, I heard him scream, "Cockroach!" Damn! After so many years in Asia, I still fear roaches more than earthquakes or typhoons. He called for me to help, but all I could do was stand far away and yell, "Kill it! Kill it!" He managed to coner and catch it with a pair of chopsticks. This is unfortunate as I thought the place was starting to look pretty clean. Cockroach killer is now on the list of items for the next shopping trip.

Thanks Ginger

Paul Gauguin. The Seed of the Areoi. 1892 Oil on burlap, 36 1/4 x 28 3/8 in. (92.1 x 72.1 cm) The William S. Paley Collection 2001.The Museum of Modern Art (New York)
Learn more.

Fri, Sep 10, 2004 00:57:50 Pacific Time (US)

I had a great time in NY. I am sure it has something to do with the host. Thanks also for accompanying me to the museums and the salsa clubs. Next time definately warrants another trip to MOMA and a visit to Frick. Hope you are now enjoying a NY fall.

I am now back in Taipei, but would rather be in Taboga! Given the beauty of Gauguin's Tahiti, I am guessing Taboga is even more splendid. I had no idea that Gauguin would have preferred Panama over Tahiti. Maybe that will be my next stop after Taiwan?

Look forward to seeing you in Taipei soon.
Meezan

How's your city today?

Nice and warm, but humid and smoggy! I checked today and found that today’s temperature is 28ºC, but the rate of suspended particles in the air is 62.1. “But hey… Taipei is cleaner than New York,” says the woman in my neighboring cubicle. Not so! Most days, New York (which is one of the dirtiest places in the US) is under 50! So is Tokyo for that matter. I suppose I should look on the bright side and be glad we are doing better than Seoul’s 85 or New Delhi’s staggering 370. I hear this is a topographical problem as Taipei is located in a kind of bowl and is ringed by mountains - a situation which keeps the pollution from escaping. (It would be worse if Taipei’s mayor hadn’t added all those trees and introduced better public transit). However, I don’t really believe this accounts for all of the chocking smog. There are still huuge throngs of motor scooters clogging every major intersection, weaving in and out of lanes and knocking over pedestrians at crossings.

Years ago in Vancouver, I ran into a student from Mexico City at the university fitness center. She was thrilled at being able to exercise at the gym (even if it only was for just 20 minutes). The pollution in her hometown, combined with her asthma, kept her from doing anything overly active. At that time, I was proud of Vancouver, which is still considered one of the top 3 best places to live. Although quality of life surveys include crime rates, income and other more biased factors, air pollution surveys still place all included Canadian cities in the top 20 (out of over 300) category of cleanest cities. I used to think that to clean cities were also sterile cities, but I am now revising that opinion. Carrying a Ventolin inhaler everywhere is more of an inconvenience than not being able to find a “happening” nightclub mid-week.

How to Find a Place in Taipei

Congratulate me! I finally found a place! It is a couple hundred ($US) more than we (Tommy and I) were looking for, but it is better than I expected in a neighborhood I never expected to fina place in. I will be living in Wanhua (West side) not so far from the gym and my office: 5-10 minute by cab... OR 1 stops by subway with a 10 minute walk on either end.

The place is huge by Taipei standards (40 ping)! It has a living/dining room, a study, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It has hardwood floors in all areas except the kitchen and bathrooms (which are the usual tile). It also includes a few items of furniture (although NO appliances). Now the argument will be who gets the big room with the walk-in closet... and who gets the small room with the private bathroom. The extra one is for all you to come stay in! I will attach pictures soon (my newly repaired digital camera is ready for pick-up today).

Anyway, usually after doing this kind of search, I promptly lose all the contact details of the agencies with which I found success. This time, I will list them here for future reference:

Rental Agencies - Usually more expensive / Can do a lot of the leg work for you
Master Realty
Berlin
Stonehouse
More in China Post / Taipei Times

* I found my place using the ALL A Rental Agency. (aparently favored by Taiwanese students relocating from areas outside TAipei)

Online Classifieds - hit and miss, but cheaper
www.tealit.com
www.forumsa.com

Places to look for rental adverts:
For shihlin / peitou / tienmu area - Shidong Market
For Sogo area - corner of Fushing and Civil Boulevard
For ShiDa area - Grandma Nitti's cafe (I think)Shih Ta Road, Lane 93, #8
Also ShiDa area - Mandarin Training Center, NTNU

In Search of a Place to Call Home

Today is the one week marker of my return to Taipei and I am still... homeless! But to be honest, I only started viewing apartments since Monday. I have been to 5 apartments so far. One was in a miserable neighborhood far from any transportation. One had almost no electrical outlets and required the renter to make a 3 month deposit AND pay an agent fee. The third had tiny rooms crammed with ugly furniture (One room had no room for a bed). The fourth required you to walk through one of the bedrooms to get to the kitchen. The fifth was the best so far, but had the same problems as the others (listed below

I had forgotten how hard it is to find a suitable place in Asia. My troubles are mostly connected to the fact that windows are small and scarce and the kitchens are tiny, mostly unsuited for any form of Western cooking with no appliances or... a 2 burner gas deal placed under antiquated grease-clogged and encrusted fans.I can just imagine switching on the lights in the morning to find cockroaches glued to the big silver tubes interlacing between the fan and the wall. And if you plan to purchase appliances, your refridgerator may have to go in the living room... along with your microwave!

On the upside... the floors are mostly tiled (much better than carpeting) and many of the apartments have 3, rather than 2 bedrooms. Some of the things that worry most Taiwanese home-seekers do not bother me... so that is another benefit. (Mainly, I don't mind walking up 3 or 4 flights of stairs in an apartment with no elevator). And I don't care if the apartment is older if the building is clean.

On today's lunch break, I will go to another rental agency to get them started on the search. And in the evening I will visit a couple of places belonging to a coworker's Auntie. Wish me luck.

Can't Reach Barbados

Why is it that I can't seem to use the calling cards at the local 7-11 to reach Barbados? I tried so many times, I had to give up and call customer service. At first, they couldn't locate Barbados. Then, they said I need to add 1 before the country code to reach it... but I know that isn't true as the time I tried to dial 1 before 246 (from here), I reached a country I never heard of before! (Do you know where Diego Garcia is?)

I now have the company fax machine sending a fax. And in future I will use the handy tools my friend in California sent me. You can find out exactly what to dial from one place to anotherat Country Calling Codes.

And after you know how to dial, you can click here to buy calling cards online. I think they are not so cheap FROM other places aside from the US, but perhaps they can at least allow you to reach certain countries which local companies are not even aware exist.

Back In Taipei

I woke up this morning with the sun struggling through the curtains - which look like they have hung undisturbed since 1950. I roll over on the hard-as-a board bed, my back aching and the circles under my eyes redefining the word black. I breathe in with difficulty and wonder how long it has been since the filter in the air conditioner has been changed – a definite health hazard! I am reminded of US $2.00 a night back-packer hotels in Vietnam and Thailand. At least, at much more than 10 times that, Taipei boasts a private bathroom with running hot water.

Maybe this would be better if I really were backpacking through South East Asia (up at 10:00am for brunch in an open air café on the streets: banana pancakes and Vietnamese coffee). Instead, the alarm on my cell phone goes off at 6:00 am. I rifle through a closet stuffed, not with shorts and sarongs, but with office clothes. Then I make a half-hearted attempt to cover up the under-eye bags without knocking over a rickety bathroom shelf crammed with perfume, make-up, etc (If only I could go back in time and un-purchase these things to use the $$ on a 5 star hotel… or better yet, the Far Eastern Plaza Hotel).

At 6:35, I step out onto the street to be hit with the warm wet smog that melts my make-up and makes my clothes stick to me. I teeter over the broken pavement in my heels (this is an old area of town) thinking of the contrast of a month ago… running barefoot along a beach in Barbados. Time for daydreaming is over. I swipe my card and clock in, pour a cup of office coffee and settle into my cubicle on Chong Ching South Road. Another day back in Taipei has begun.