oops

Sorry. Took a little break there. I haven't been eating anything new lately - just the same old stuff. But I have some news. I may have a new job where i will make more $$$ for less work, paid vacations, and no weekends in a beautiful school near to my home. It seems to be better in every way, but we'll see if it works out. I hope so.

I had a fun experience last weekend. I went with my buddy Dan to see a baseball game. Baseball is the most popular sport in Taiwan, and although most of the taiwanese people I've asked think the quality is too crappy, I had a great time. Admission is around $9 us and the stadium is more than half empty so sitting in the front row, or anywhere else is no problem . The game i saw had plenty of action (the pitchers suck) and at least one home run per inning for the first few innings. Taiwan beer (which is cheap swill, but not undrinkable) costs about $1.50 us, and is brought to your sear by beautiful girls in short skirts. The fans of the 2 teams sit on opposite sides, and when their team is at bat they chant songs in chinese (frequently to the tune of Popeye the sailor man) and play drums (a taiko style drum and a western marching band drum, in the case of the game we went to) along with those noise maker sticks and deep horns. It was a lot of fun. The teams we saw were the La New Bears and the Sinon Bulls. The bears won by one run. My favorite team in taiwan is the Brother Elephants - On the back of my baseball cap it says "We are all Brothers." I realize this doesn't have anything to do with food. just fyi, they don't have American ball park food. I ate sweet popcorn (not good), a fried chicken cutlet (ok), and some salty soup with grn. onion, cilantro, and pork balls (pretty good but a little too salty). After the game i went to a pub to watch arsenal win and had fish and chips (good, but no malt vinegar). sadly, i forgot my camera for the day - next time.

Speaking of drums and horns, the park where i go running is also the practice space for some Dragon dancers - I see them if I run in the afternoon. It's great to run with that throbbing drumming and resonant horn echoing around the park. And so cool to see them practicing the dance - without the dragon it looks the same as a kung fu form, with kicks and jumps and punches (which would move the thing around I suppose). All the kids doing it are covered in tattoos - my understanding is that young gangsters attach themselves to temples here and do this kind of thing. Great.