sorry for the lack of updates around here. this last week has been the lunar new year holidays. so for part of it peter and i went up to taipei. we took the highspeed rail up there(under two hours from tainan to taipei compared to the 4-5 hours by bus). the train isn't very convenient from where we live(the station being way outside tainan city), but i may take it again.

while in taipei i went on a small cd binge:

a few of these i picked up because they were in the discount bin. the selection of cds up in taipei is different from down here so i couldn't resist a few of these. the chinese cd(won fu) came with 100 nt inside! apparently some of the cds had money inside. i guess i was lucky. i'll probably just keep the money inside as part of the packaging.

while in taipei i got to spend some time with my friends james and sarah. they were wonderful hosts and even had a bbq with most of my favourite colleagues from when i worked up in taipei. most of these people i hadn't seen in close to six months. an innocent comment about a bowlcut ended up in a mild transformation of one of my colleagues into ed asner/danny devito. well, that's how i see at any rate.

after taipei, peter and i went to taichung county to visit one of his sisters. they live out in the country surrounded by guava and mango fields. we spent the night and lunch the next day ended up being a big deal. the entire extended family came for a catered meal. there were round banquet tables set up and people went around toasting people at the differnt tables just like at a chinese wedding. as a result peter's sister's husband was a bit too drunk to drive us to the bus station so we didn't get back to tainan as early as we would have liked to.