A Little Fun...Just a Bit ;)

The last couple of weeks have been a bit rough on me, as you can tell by my last post. Things have not been going my way with work or with my health. I've been frustrated.

Fortunately I've got a good group of friends that can help me forget my worries and relax. I'm feeling mostly better now, so I can share some of the good stuff that's happened in the past couple of weeks.

Right after I got back from Thailand, Luke and Ariel and I met with Luke's friend Tony and his wife Crystal.

Tony, Crystal, and I

We ended up going to a restaurant with a big pool in the middle. You are handed rods and you can fish for your own prawns. Actually, 'restaurant' is not quite the right word, as there was just a grill in the back and a picnic table in the front, no service, no drinks other than a cooler of beer and tea in the front. Very DIY. Much like a camping trip, only in the middle of the city.

Ariel trying to catch her dinner.

Tony and Luke fishing.

So relaxing. I feel like I'm out in a fan boat on the Everglades.

Showing off the catch.

We didn't catch many shrimp, but the guy spared us a few more, and we had a nice snack of grilled creepies before heading off for a real dinner.

Mmmmm...

Last weekend, we went to a combination going away party for our friend Jerry and birthday party for our friend Melanie.

Luke and Mel

Me, Ariel, and Luke at Citizen Kane restaurant

Luke and Jerry

Me looking very zen in front of a fake Japanese garden in a department store

Ariel preparing tea, the traditional way, at a teahouse

If I didn't have friends, or these little excursions, I don't know what I'd do to keep my sanity. I'm grateful.

Christmas!

Sorry this is so late, but I've been working a pretty full schedule this past week and haven't gotten around to updating this thing until now.

It was good to see many of you Wyszynskis over the Skype video chat last week, and it was very kind of those of you who sent me e-mails, or gifts or cards, or who called me. It's really comforting knowing that all off you are thinking of me.

I had an interesting Christmas here. Never before have I had a sunny, warm day on December 25th, but I rather enjoyed it. Luke and I heard about a Catholic mass here in Linko from one of our neighbors at a Christmas potluck we had last Sunday night. We went looking for it after we got off of work on Monday night, but it was so rainy and cold that we decided it wan't the best idea to be riding our scooters around in that muck after dark. We decided to get into a taxi and head into Taipei to attend the English vigil mass at Holy Family in Da'an.

It was a nice service with priests from Nigeria, India, and Taiwan giving the various parts of the mass, and there were many Filipinos, Africans, European, and Latin Americans in attendance.

The next day, we didn't have any plans of our own for the day we took off work, so after opening our presents fro home we went with some friends to a barbecue in Taipei. Most of the people there were South African, and so the day passed in a mixture of English and Afrikaans, with much wine and laughter and really good food.

Luke and I kept discussing how it didn't feel at all like Christmas without the snow, Christmas trees, and close friends and family, but it was still a fun day, and a worthy way to spend Christmas given the myriad of other places we could have been.

I hope you all had a happy and joyful Christmas as well.

Christmas 2007

Crash

I'll keep this brief because it hurts to type.

I wrecked my chopper. I was out driving yesterday afternoon with Luke, Melanie, and Jerry, and I didn't brake hard enough making a downhill turn on a mountain road and my scooter slid off the road. Fortunately, I fell off the scooter before it crashed into a wall, unfortunately I missed the soft berm and skidded along the pavement.

I skinned my left hand pretty badly, and my right elbow and knee. I may have a mild sprain to my left shoulder, and the bridge of my nose has a couple scratches from my helmet visor hitting me.

After I stood up, I felt to make sure I was all still there. My jacket was ripped to shreds, and my jeans had a couple of new holes, but the damage to my body was thankfully non life threatening. I realized I couldn't move my left arm up to unbuckle my helmet, and that scared me. After putting in a lot of effort, I finally raised my arm and felt a triumphant pop as my arm righted itself back into its socket. Success!

Of course, I took some photos after the wreck:

Minutes before the crash, we stop to take in a view and strategize.


The scene of the crash.


I still had a sense of humor, and I was still standing.

WARNING: EXTREME GORE!!!
(click to supersize)

After the crash, the rest of the group came back and we assessed the damage. My Yamaha Fuzzy 125 is in roughly the same banged up shape it was in before the accident, and my injuries didn't look too severe.

We got back on our steeds and drove slowly back to Linko, where Melanie helped clean the gravel out of my wounds and put some antiseptic and iodine on them. Thanks Mel!

I spent the rest of the day self medicating with Taiwan Beer and amoxicillin.

The lesson I learned: Be extra cautious driving on any road, but most of all on steep gradients and sharp turns. Also, always wear a helmet. Always.

Leofoo Village

Yay, I got the net back up and running. Now I can watch more YouTube videos of people falling off ladders or finding leprechauns in trees or other such nonsense.

Last weekend, out branch took a trip to Leofoo Village Theme Park. Getting up at 7am on a Saturday is something I don't usually do, so I had to have been fairly curious to drag my ass down to school and get on a bus that early. The ride there was foreboding-- the bus we took came with an 'entertainer', a guy that told (supposedly offensive) jokes in Mandarin, and led the group in some KTV (karaoke.) I was planning on sleeping another hour.

When we got there, it was still too early to go in, so we mulled around the parking lot for a while before going in.



The original plan was to stick with the people from our branch. That all went right out the window when they made a beeline for the park's wettest water ride. Being that it was a chilly (by Taiwan standards) November day, and that it was not even 9 in the a.m., Luke and I ducked out of the line at the last minute (sorry Betty, Christina) and went to find Mike and Will, our friends from the Yingge branch.

We explored the park's four themed areas: Wild West, African Safari, South Pacific, and Persian Castle. I think my favorite was Wild West. Not only did it feature the park's only legitimate big steel coaster, the Screaming Condor, but it also held the Wild West show, which I will describe later. Will is a Texan, and he said the Wild West section of the town was literally identical to the small, Asian populated theme park town that he grew up in.

Anyways, the rides were all pretty standard stuff, there were thrill rides, a few kiddy rides, a big swinging ship ride, a free fall ride, and a nominal number of coasters. There were some interactive rides, and even a Budweiser Keg ride.



This ride almost made me vomit:



The zoo was pretty good. There were camel rides for NT$50, and there was a bicycle that you could peddle along a track over the monkey cages, and the bike itself looked like a baboon! Awesome!



Before we left, we went to the Wild West show. I couldn't understand it, since my Mandarin is still in its infancy, but I suspect that the real Wild West didn't have quite so many flamingos or parrots. I didn't take pictures of it, but imagine a big theatre with old west themed building facades as the backdrop, and a Taiwanese guy in a safari hat hearding flamingos, dogs, and parrots around a stage. That was the show in a nutshell.

We went for some dinner at a flower garden after the park, and that was the end of an interesting day out.

You can see the rest of the photos here:

Leofoo Village Trip 11-25-07