adrian is rad

It’s very popular here. I’m jumping on the bandwagon this weekend, going to Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan by high speed train (208 miles in 90 minutes with two stops!) and staying at the Huahou Hotel.

I’ll report back on how it is.

This movie look great[1].

Here’s the soundtrack listing. Lots of Kimya Dawson and also Sonic Youth, Cat Power, and Belle & Sebastian as well as the old favorites Buddy Holly and Velvet Underground.

The song at the end of the trailer, if you were wondering, is All the Young Dudes by Mott the Hoople. Classic!

You can also check out four more clips from the movie.

[1] Hopefully it won’t be a Garden State-like great trailer, great trailer, okay movie situation.

I just made a sufficiently embarrassing phone call.

“Hello, [Hotel/ Apartment]”

“Yes, this is Adrian in room [x]. I managed to lock myself in my kitchen. Could you send someone up to let me out?”

Good things:
a) I have a cell phone.
b) I carry an address card for the hotel with me all the time. It has the phone number.

And, yes, for whatever reason, the kitchen door has a lock.

To go to a country, approach people and speak to them in a foreign language and expect them to answer is a very egotistical thing to do. In a purchasing situation, it can almost be justified: exchange of money for product and foreign language skills. But otherwise, it’s something akin to saying your language and culture is more important than theirs [1].

This is not a justification of my actions, this is a fact.

[1] In the case with travel to Chinese-speaking areas it is especially absurd as there is no space for an argument about speaking the dominant language in terms of number of speakers, cultural weight, economic significance or really anything else.

You’re probably confused. This isn’t September. Originally, the September mixtape was going to be delayed and the I was going to go right to October, skipping the Sept mix entirely. Well, when I was putting together October, I had too much music, by about a factor of 2 [1], so the September mix was back on the table, albeit ridiculously delayed.

The October (October.2) 2007 mixtape will be posted probably Wednesday, so start listening to this one already! This one is more toward indie pop and October is more towards the acoustic.

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007sept playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. I am really surprised sometimes that there is so much good music out there. Great tracks from old favs Jose Gonzalez and Jens Lekman, new tracks from relative unknowns and up-and-comers like Caves, the Cave Singers and Octopus Project.

Adrian’s September (October.1) 2007 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])
(I’m trying this because hosting the zip was a significant bandwidth drain. Let me know your thoughts on it.)

As always this’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week), so grab it now.

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

[1] My online mixtapes are always between 60-76 minutes long so they can be burnt onto a single mix CD if you choose.

[2] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”

Wulai. (”ooh-lai”) I spent yesterday in Wulai, which is known for their hot springs and one of the highest water falls in Taiwan. The hot springs were excruciatingly hot. If I hadn’t seen other people in there, I would have doubted that a human could sit in there. I got in and it was nice. But the advice of a fellow bather provied useful: “don’t move”. I think it worked similar to the recommended advice for falling into cold water: if you don’t move the water directly around the body get closer to the temperature of the body and acts as a protective barrier.

I walked to the waterfalls, about 1.5km. There’s a miniature railroad along this route. The cars are about 10 feet long and the tracks are maybe 2 feet apart. It’s really cute and I wanted to ride it but I decided that I’d do so on the way back, only to find I’m misread the hours and I’d missed it! Disaster. I really like riding odd rail and cable transportation[1], especially funiculars (being a son of Pittsburgh [2]) but others as well.

The falls were nice. Nothing like Victoria Falls or Niagara, but something nice to look at for a few minutes. From there I started walking toward Doll Valley, which the guidebook listed as about an hour away. As I walked away from Wulai, the scenery became lusher in the valley I was walking in and the cars and whatnot became sparser. Eventually I turned onto a foot path and saw a few people and a number of smaller waterfalls. I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to get back by sunset if I went to Doll Valley which I deemed a Bad Thing (TM) so I turned back but the hike was nice.

Sometimes it’s good for the head as well as the body, you know?

Wedding. Today I went to a wedding. Correction, I didn’t go to the wedding, which was held in the family’s home and wasn’t attended by many; I went to the wedding “party” (as they called it) or “reception” (as the Americans might call it). It was pretty interesting. For instance, the couple entered along with lasers and fog machines. The bride changed dresses twice (three dresses total) and the couple would reenter to much fanfare each time. As I understand is the case with many Asian cultures, the wedding presents were actually envelopes of cash. The food was largely really good: about 20 dishes (in 7 or so courses). It was way too much food, but I gave it my best effort.

This is a wedding, not a night club?

No one was drinking the bottle of scotch set aside for my table so I was given it to take home. Now it’s just time to see if I still don’t like scotch and if so see if I can change that.

Lugo’s catch (available here). Perfect. Perfectly timed in both execution and in shutting down a rally by the Rockies.

The Red Sox are highly paid but I’d like to note that they’re getting a lot out of players that aren’t very highly paid at all: Papelbon, Pedroia, Ellsbury, and Youkilis are all low paid players.

It made me really happy that Dice-K that got a two run single.

Couch. After two months, I may have found the only marginally comfortable position on my couch. That is a remarkably uncomfortable couch for sitting, lounging or anything else. Despite being aware of the recommendations I am using my bed to sit and lounge with my laptop or book when I get tired of the chair.

Arnold. They seriously show my governor’s movies all the time here. All…the…time. By the way, TV programmers: they’re mostly not very good, those movies.

[1] The best yet is Wuppertal’s Schwebebahn. If you’re anywhere near Wuppertal, it’s worth a trip just to ride that.

[2] at one point I dated a daugther of the American Revolution. she was really into that.

I didn’t get any photos of these things. Sorry!

• yummy season: A sign for Subway had these words along with a lot of chinese characters. It is yummy season
• ninja cupid: a shirt I saw on the subway said this along with a few chinese characters and a depiction of what is apparently a ninja cupid. I am definitely buying one of these if I see it.
• boring pie: a cookie/ biscuit-like product with this name and the slogan something along the lines of “get out of boring time.”

Note: I carry my camera around a lot, but I can’t always get a photo of everything.

One of the weirder wikipedia pages: list of people who have disappeared.

The older ones are full of mystery and are pretty interesting. The newer ones are largely kidnapped kids; kidnapping kids is not interesting or fun; kidnapping kids is sad.

Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson are strange.

Chuck Klosterman is strange.

The security guard at my work building’s big head nod greeting and “Zao” (meaning “‘morning”, short for “zao an” meaning “good morning”) every morning.

Kinder Chocolates (and other Kinder products like Kinder Bueno and Kinder Ueberaschung!) are widely available and reasonably priced. Delicious!

Riding on a scooter down Ruiguang Rd., a man wears a jacket with embroidered letters (as may be for a sports team):

POOH

Still not my favorite but it’s close and the simplicity of this one does win some points.

Springboks win. World champions! Vrystaat!

Update: This is likely better news for Southern Africa, though Zim is still screwed as far as anyone can tell.

I slept late, later than I’ve slept in months probably. I was quite proud of myself.

Breakfast was cereal with “drinking yogurt”. That stuff is weird. I like cereal with milk or with yogurt. This was…okay..

Blue skies came out, albeit, not Palo Alto style–there were still a few clouds.

I left to seek out a few things I’d only read out online: taipei’s indie record stores and a store selling traditional chinese instruments.

(I’m abandoning capitalization except for I, because I am important. Okay, maybe I’ll still capitalize some.)

IMPO records is a small place on the 8th floor in the Ximen district. You couldn’t find this place unless you knew exactly where to look. Between that and their 2-6pm hours (closed Wednesdays and Sundays) and their out-of-the-way location, I’m not sure how they make money. They don’t have the newest stuff either and their prices are closer to the import prices in America for the most part, with a few deals. I liked the store and the owner, though. I got the Morr Music Japan Tour 2005 EP and an album by the Lodger out of the UK. We’ll see how they are.

I then went in search of a Chinese musical instrument store. The people on forumosa mentioned 3 locations that happen to be in a three block radius around the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial.. None turned out to be right. Literally right after I gave up on finding it, I found one at 9-2 Xinyi Rd., 1F, across from the CKS Memorial. I immediately saw the erhus and asked, in Chinese, how much they were. The proprietor proceed to presumably explain, in Chinese, how they were priced different based on material and quality of material. My blank stares led him to explain this in English. What I was more interested in were the double reed suonas, which I asked about. They had one and while it wasn’t expensive, it wasn’t cheap enough for me to buy it on the spot. Those things are possibly louder and shriller than their double reed cousins from Scotland. I want one.

I was walking back to the MRT and learn some sounds from Renai Rd. I went over there to discover a parade of sorts. I should note that this parade was going through the ZhongShen round-about, a very big intersection, but they hadn’t closed it to traffic. The parade would proceed whenever they had the green light and then stop when they had the red.

Anyway, this wasn’t any traditional parade or anything, more like a multicultural parade. Everyone had handmade costumes, everything from kids on stilts to storm troopers and jedis to flowers or angels to an African drummer and dancer (she was really good) to people simply walking with their flag and face paint of their country of nationality. It was very odd.

Looking down Renai Rd, lined in palm trees, I could see the blue sky and Taipei 101, which, I’ve mentioned, is not only the current tallest building, but a very attractive design, and all these weirdly costumed individuals.

Life is very weird. It makes me happy.

I continued on. White Wabbit Records was my next stop. It’s primarily a record label, but they also have a record store with records from other indie labels. As soon as I got there I knew I was somewhere I wanted to be. They had a indie good selection even by American standards, which compared to everything else I’d seen in my travels was an amazing selection. There were two taiwanese hipsters girls working behind the country. (I may have a crush on one or both now). Most of their prices were decent. They also exclusively license some foreign releases from their primarily labels/ the artists. Things like Giardini di Miro, Mum, Mice Parade and Explosions in the Sky are now produced for WWR in Taiwan. On these discs and on records by bands singed to WWR, their prices were great–a little under $12 new. They even had signed records from Saxon Shore and American Analog Set on the wall. I’m definitely going back there.

While I was there I was able to buy a ticket for the Apples in stereo, who inexplicably are playing in Taipei a week from Monday at the Wall (in the same building as WWR). Should be good. I saw the Apples for the first time over 7 years ago, as a freshman in college, and who I haven’t seen in probably five years.

It is/ was World Toy Camera Day, so while I was out and about, I shot a roll of Velvia 100 with my Lomo Fisheye camera, which, while it isn’t traditionally a toy camera (it’s not a holga or diana, basically), it’s not much above that. I think I got some decent shots. I miss shooting with film. I think I’m going to start carrying my N70/ 20mm f2.8 / Tri-x 400 around instead of my D80 sometimes.

There’s a place on Ruiguang Rd with that name.

I didn’t see it as (Home Run) Dental Clinic at first, but rather Home-Run Dental Clinic. Well, I’d much rather have my teeth checked out in a more official sort of place, one run out of an office or something!

The two little TVs on the bus show Bee TV. It has ads for movies and various other things, including an occasional English lesson.

One lesson was about “I’ll make a call”. It had little cartoon kids demonstrating how to apparently use this phrase. “I want a hamburger. I’ll make a call.” Or “Where’s my mommy? I’ll make a call.”

While that usage isn’t really wrong, my reaction if someone said that would be something like “um, yeah, you do that.”

What’s with having 12 months? Does that make sense at all? Years and days make sense–they are determined by the behavior of the earth, but months? That’s just silly. I vote for ten 36.5 day months.

And while we’re at it, 24 hours? Why not 22 or 28. At least 28 is a perfect number. All 24 has going for it is that game [1]. Come on, split up the day into 10 hours, each of which would have 10 minutes, each of which would have 864 seconds [2].

Throw out those old archaic systems. Who’s with me?

[1] It is a fun game. Who’s up for a 24 tourney when I get back??
[2] No, not 10 seconds. The second is already the SI unit of time.

My daily bus, bus #902, has a high female-to-male ratio, maybe about 10-to-1 or 15-to-1.

For a couple weeks I thought about how all the ladies must be completely in love with me.

But then I began thinking about why there might be such a ratio. My best guess is something along these lines: in Taiwan it’s more common for a couple or family to have one (or no) cars than two. Because of the norms, the husband would be seen as the one that “needs” the car so the wife is left to take the bus.

Some families, I’m sure, have a car and a scooter–there are scooters everywhere here–but a lot of the companies along the bus route tend toward white-collar and I’m not sure how much people ride scooters in business dress, so I think the bus is perhaps a preferable option.

Either that or the bus has a sign that says “females only” and I just can’t read it because it’s in Chinese.

Their first lost of the post-season was the first game of the post-season I was able to watch in its entirety. They lost in 11 innings. It was a good game for most of it. Hopefully they’ll pick it up next game.

I left my Boston Red Sox “authentic” cap in Hong Kong somewhere. I looked but couldn’t find it. I bought that when the Sox were 4 outs from being out of the post-season in 2004. I’m a little sad because:
a) they don’t make those hats like that any more:
i) they’re not wool (I believe)
ii) they have a black, rather than grey, underbill.
b) BoSox hats in particular are really hard to break in. It’s very obvious who has a new hat and whose has been worn for a while by how bright the blue is.

If anyone has a line on the last year’s version of the fitted cap in 7 1/4 or 7 3/8 (probably the former, that’s what this hat was, though it was tight till I broke it in), I’m good for it. Remember: wool, grey underbill, “authentic”.

It’s ridiculous to be sad about losing a hat. I acknowledge that.

I didn’t get photos of either of these so descriptions will have to do.

1. In a market in Hong Kong where haggling is pretty common, a sign for hats.

$20
No bargain.

2. On a big ad for computers on the side of a building in Taipei:

Performance up to 20%

How a few letters can make all the difference.

More Hong Kong action.

I’m blogging a lot.

I haven’t been talking very much.

I was in the United States today, for a little under an hour. (If I wanted to do that annoying blogger outlandish-statement-now-I’ll-explain-the-situation thing, I’d say “You see…” Actually, I am sort of doing that thing to an extent but not that much and at least I’m conscious of it, right?) I went to the U.S. consulate today to get some extra pages put in my passport. (Read here if you’re still confused.) Originally I was going to do it in January when I’m back in the States, send it off to the authorities and get it back a couple weeks later. Then it was going to be Tokyo in November, then I realized it should be Hong Kong so it because my one and only to-do item for my time here in Hong Kong. It took a little under an hour. I’ve never had to get pages added before but I’ve been crossing borders at an unprecedented rate.

They’re running public service announcements here encouraging parents to give their kids space and not to smother them. There’s also one about bird flu.

I went back to Stanley Market today. On the way there, I passed the building with the giant hole in it (for the dragon to get through on his way from the mountain to the sea) in Repulse Bay and took the same photo I took of it in 1997. At the Stanley Market, I very nearly bought a name chop at the very same stall I bought one at in 1997, but I decided that I hadn’t used that only once (save one letter to my friend Sam) and I really didn’t need two name chops I wasn’t using. Practicality beats out sentimentality…this time at least.

Speaking of stuff, I’ve bought a couple small things in every place I’ve been and now I’m realizing it may be a problem when it’s time to leave. I might have to throw out some stuff.

Michael Clayton was pretty good. I mean, it was dramatic and suspenseful and everything it was supposed to be. I’m not sure if it was long-lasting good, though. Good for those two hours, though.

Cheung Chau is a small, carless island off of the Hong Kong mainland. I spent most of today there. It was pretty cool. Maintenance people had little golf cart things and there were bikes everywhere along with boats in the harbor and whatnot, so there was still some noise, but it was pretty peaceful relatively.

I think at one point Hong Kong was considered cheap for something. It may be cheaper than the U.S. for eyeglasses and tailoring (and knock-off products) but not much else these days. This is an expensive city, on par with San Francisco in a lot of respects. Zhuhai (China) is about a factor of 5-10 cheaper than here, depending on what is being purchased.

I went back to the Spaghetti House last night. It’s one of two places I remember eating way back in 1997 (Jumbo Floating Restaurant being the other). I remember it being good and cheap. I was totally amazed then. Now, it’s neither. Mediocre and $20 for the meal. Every night it seems like “this will be my one splurge meal” and then the next night it seems like the same deal. Oh well. At least tonight’s meal was really good, really fresh fish in a strange-but-good black bean (but not the Mexican black bean) sauce.

What country do I live in these days? I feel like I’ve been traveling forever.

I went to the Hong Kong History Museum yesterday; Wednesday is free-museums day in Hong Kong. A recently built museum, it was pretty interesting, the way China and Hong Kong protray HK to the world. It wasn’t a hand over from the British, it was a “reunification.” And–in the view of this museum, at least–while the British were bad, the Japanese were just plain evil.

There was a section of the museum protraying life in HK in the early part of the last century, 1920s or so. An old record was playing along with a kitchen or living room scene from that era. There was this old guy, propped up on his cane, singing along to every word, even anticipating the song a little bit. At one point he looked back at me. I had a huge grin on my face. He smiled back.

Speaking of super-cute, there was this construction worker on Cheung Chau that as I walked past, lifted a tiny baby kitten out of his hard hat by the neck skin. If I’d gotten a photo, I could be rich off of that one.

People talk on their cell phones all the time here. They’re out to lunch with someone else and spend the entire time talking to someone else on their cell phone. And, pal, when you’re out to dinner with your girlfriend, take that stupid bluetooth earpiece out of your ear.

A haircut in China is like a carwash in South Africa (Jwerberg knows what I’m talking about): in America it takes 15 minutes and costs $15. The haircut and the carwash cost about 1/5th as much and take two hours. Shampooing, a head massage, rinsing, conditioner, rinsing, neck and shoulder massage, head massage, hair cut, washing your hair again. By the way, it’s short, the hair. It was time.

I’m back in Hong Kong. I was here for a day a week ago and a week 10 years ago. I’ve seen a lot of the “sights”, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t rush around and try to see them all again. The thing is, I’m pretty tired. Physically, because I haven’t quite been sleeping enough and because I’m a bit under the whether, but also socially and mentally. The work I was doing in China was a lot of hours and mentally and socially draining. So I may not do all the sights here. I think I’ll walk around a carless island off the west side of the main island. I may spend half a day at a beach. I may even go to a movie or Hong Kong Disneyland.

I spent half a day rushing around Macau today. Wikipedia will tell you more about it, I’m sure, but it’s somewhat accurate to describe it as a Portugese (rather than British) Hong Kong + the Las Vegas of South East Asia. I went to, I believe, the world’s largest casino (the Venetian Macau). I walked around and saw a bunch of cathedrals and churches and ruins and whatnot. Along the way, I saw a lot of beautiful mediteranean-style architecture.

It’s a pretty cool city. Very charming. I have a thing for Catholic cities, though (Boston, Pittsburgh). The signs were great. Things like Supermercado de Hong Koi and then a bunch of Chinese characters.

The place I’m staying in Hong Kong is very sparse. The room is small and the bathroom is just silly. Imagine a small toilet-only bathroom. Then somehow add in a sink and a shower. I’m not sure how that’s going to work. But it does have a private shower and A/C and sheets and towels. And by Hong Kong standards, it’s cheap–let’s just say that for five nights it’ll be about the price one could easily pay for one night many places in HK.

The Steelers are doing well. That makes me happy. I’m a little confused, though. Cowher was a good coach. We didn’t pick up many players in the off season and yet we seemed pretty horrible last year and good this year. Maybe it’s the energy from the new coach or maybe Roethlisberg’s just feeling more confident.

The Red Sox swept the Angels. That was cool. I was hoping for a sweep in all 4 division series, but the Yankees foiled that, but only put it off a game. The Red Sox-Indians series should be interesting.

Pork chop and rice for dinner tonight at this diner. I figured it’d probably be good because it was packed with locals and there wasn’t anyone out front shilling for customers (as is fairly common here). Initially it was so full they sat me at a small 2 person table with an old woman who continued to talk on her cell phone. That was pretty awkward for me. The pork and rice seemed very familiar to me, something I saw as a revelation. It was nice and hopefully it’ll sit well with my stomach/ body.

None of us have booked tickets but it looks like a group of 2-4 teps, including myself, are going to japan the second week of November. I’m very excited. Should be legendary.

Okay, that’s enough for now. I’ll blog more if I can find a wireless network–currently I’m in the reception area and they’re staring at me.

So yesterday I spent a lot of the day staying near the bathroom. My body must have been purging something (perhaps salad washed in unfiltered water). Anyway, there was some hilarity to the day.

I need something to take care the of the situation, some Immodium AD. I didn’t have any and they don’t carry Immodium AD at the nearby pharmacies. I went to the pharmacy and they’re like “can I help you” turns out they don’t speak any more English than that I managed to indicate that ti’s a stomach problem so they start showing me medicines and pointing to the “English” on the packaging and looking at me expectantly. Well the “English” was stuff like “Zheng Way Pian”. I thought for a moment I might have suffered some sort of brain damage that makes normal English look like nonsensical words.

Turns out the medicine manufacturers simply don’t know English either.

I told the pharmacy girls, “yeah, that’s not English” and left. Eventually I got someone from the hotel to go down to the pharmacy with me (there are some benefits to staying in a schmancy hotel) and get me what I needed.

In other news, Hot Fuzz (which you can’t mention without saying it’s made by the Shaun of the Dead people) is really good. It’s a send-up of buddy cop movies, but it’s also a perfect buddy cop movie itself. And it’s really really funny. Highly recommended.

In the particular building I’m in China, people have name tags up with their name, often their English name but some just go by Chinese names as well.

Here are the top seven English names I’ve seen:

• Twinkie
• Swift
• Cutie [ed. note: actually fairly cute]
• Gypsy
• Snowmen
• Journey
• Tiny [note: a man was named this]

I might have to name one of my kids Swift. That’s an excellent name.

[Update:] I think Twinkie might actually be “Twinkle”. I did meet a “Blue” today, though.

For andyl, my roomie, here’s his new favorite restaurant:

It’s in Hong Kong.

FOCAL tep:

ring pull tab coke cans! I can’t believe it!

Also, wikipedia pages are blocked but google caches of those pages appear to get through.

I wasn’t able to get the mixtape done before I went traveling and now I don’t have the tools (e.g. my laptop) to get it done. Unless I figure out some technological work-around I may be severely delayed or I may have to simply skip the September 2007 mixtape.