Old friends in a new city & Moving in finally...

Finally met up with Garin - Kuansie found me his Taiwan mobile tel. He works for Dell - the competition! But it was great to see him again. Then we managed to convince Kuansie to come visit for the wknd. So she did what Ms Hardcore did - fly in Friday evening and leave Sunday afternoon. Life of a jetsetter, spend your wknd in a different city. :)

Food - yeah, she wanted to eat.. a lot... so Singaporean hor?
Check out her Flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/tankuan/sets/72157601762442777
Thanks to Kuansie, we now know http://www.prawn.com.tw/ It's actually pretty good, albeit pricey.

Top of the World
We paid 350NT + additional 100NT to check out the view from the tallest building in the world. I can see my work place, my apartment... Way cool!

Agora is the service apt I lived in for my 1st month - moved round the corner, walkable distance.

Office is next to the 101 Building, perhaps a 15-20min walk to work.

Gross Encounters
Snake street. Boy, was it was cruel! I saw 3 snakes murdered. No pix allowed during the show - but mostly my hands were over my eyes.. sooo...

Smelly Tofu. It tastes as bad as it smells, contrary to what folks say about it's taste. EEyew...

Home Sweet Home
The next day after Kuansie left, I moved out of the Agora and spent my 1st night in my
apartment. I must say, my bed is rather soft and comfy. More comfy than Agora I thought...

The Year 1996

Did u know that Taiwan considers this year to be 1996?

I first smelled a rat when buying milk - surely the cows can't be milked in 1996?????! Smart alec me, tot perhaps they have some kind of cryptic numbering for milk instead of expiry dates.

I just learnt - one of those lightbulb moments, that Taiwan is still using the old imperial Chinese tradition of using the emperor's name and year of reign. It is also called ming-guo (民國), which starts in 1912, the year of the founding of the Republic of China.

Hence, 2007 is the "96th year of the Republic" (民國九十六年, 民國96年, or simply 96).

Months and days are still numbered according to the Gregorian calendar.

Incidentally, Korea and Japan are also using similar era type of calendars.

My source is Wikipedia - so this time I am right. The cows are milked this year. Whew!

Super Typhoon Sepat

This is typhoon no. 3 since I got here. First 2 were small ones affected south of Taipei, 台中/台南.

Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau issued both land and sea warnings for Typhoon Sepat yesterday - calling it a Category 4 typhoon or a super typhoon. Sepat packs winds up to 234kph, with a radius of 250km - will engulf the whole of Taiwan when it hits us as we sleep Friday night and into Saturday.

The typhoon warnings began Thu, being the kiasu Singaporean and 1st timer with typhoons, I went to my new place and closed all the windows I had opened for ventilation. Then went home to Agora for the gym, skipping my initial plans to go rockclimb at the Y17. Then I saw on TV, folks in Taipei were still out partying - peek out of the window confirms it (the Agora is next to the Taipei 101). Chey! Just ignoring the rain and thunder display.

This morning (Friday) boss came by to check on me - told me to stock up on food for the wknd. Guess she didn't want her newest and stupidest member of her team to be casualty no. 1 to 1st serious typhoon of the year. Awww.. isn't she sweet?

And Ashley just congratulated me this morning saying "a typhoon is popping by to say hello.."
So anyhow, my boss popped by at 3pm and told me to go home, so I did, took a nap - ain't that grand?

Went for a walk & dinner with Sam - he wanted me to see his new apartment in Keelung, altho he hasn't picked up his keys yet.

It was dry - no rain, no wind yet but the new typhoon is serious and Taipei are taking the warnings seriously. Windows, doors are tapped and sandbagged. As mentioned on TV, either tape your glass with a mi (米) or cha (X) pattern. Which I didn't quite understand until I saw - refer to photo, the movie adverts are mi and the doors are cha.

Video taken from my balcony. I risked arm & leg, hey this typhoon ripped billboards, trees off, throwing stuff at people all night. Ok, ok, so I got my arm, camera and a little of my face wet from the swirly rain. Dedicated to Derek.

Getting a grip!

Slowly but surely I am getting there. This week, I have gotten my alien residence card (ARC) which precludes everything in Taiwan - from opening a bank account to even applying for a mobile phone.

So now I have a Taiwan Fubon bank account - which is very important cos my salary goes in there... duh!

My apartment is 3/4 clean and unpacked - I feel like such a maid! Who has a parttime maid to loan me? I'm so sick of cleaning, scrubbing, moping!

I have 11 days of being in Agora service apartment where housekeeping cleans up after me... 2 days of honeymooning at work cos boss and colleagues back from biz trip from Monday next week...

Oh did I mention there's a newbie here - he's HK relocating from the US. When I see him, I thank God I have a much easier time. The dude (that's what he keeps calling me) is so lost! No house, no ARC, no bank acct, no mobile phone...

Dinner

Had my first social dinners this week.

Friday evening went out to Mala Hot Pot with Ghee Hwee and Angela - both new colleagues from my NB team. We laughed about differences bet SGP & Twn all nite. Then I went home with Ghee Hwee to see her flat. She stays very close to my apartment but she's paying ~ $350SGP more in monthly rent. Her place is swanky - new building, nice and slightly bigger then mine. But I am still happy with my place.

Sunday evening Alex and his wife invited us to his place for dinner, along with a few extended desktop PC colleagues. I felt more comfortable with them - maybe cos I used to work with these guys and know them for at least a year. But I felt they were much more sincere.. Feasted on mee siam & prawn mee soup that Alex's wife made - Jorraine is fantastic! Then we pigged out on numerous desserts, cake, icecream.. oooo I am fat!

Language Gaffe

I like to think I am managing well. Thus far, except from not being able to distinguish North, South, East, West in Chinese - I've been understood - well most of the time.

Except when I wanted to go to Carrefore in Neihu. That's where all the hypermarts are, Costco, Carrefore, RT, 3C. Needed to buy vacuum cleaner and other electrical applicances (couldn't buy in SGP due to different power voltage, Taiwan is 110v).

My conversation with taxi driver.
Me - pls go to Neihu, I want to go to Carrefore, Kang Le Fu.
Taxi driver - ??
Me - Kang Le Fu? Buy lotsa stuff? (Hypermart mah)
Taxi driver - ?? then starts digging in his pants
Me start gettting nervous, what the @#$ is he digging in his pants for...
Taxi driver producing a Carrefore key chain - you mean Jia Le Fu?

Carrefore is 家乐福, Jia Le Fu. Kapish?

Week 1 Taipei

I survived 1 week of work! Actually colleagues and boss were really nice - gave me a slow start. So work wise I've been ok.

Somehow I've been feeling tired after work - not sure whether it is becos of new environment or lack of a monitor - toll of staring at my notebook's tiny screen all day.. or have I been missing my hardcore friends.

Finally forced myself to go gym on Friday evening - spent 1 hour and feel so proud of myself.

Saturday I slept in a little then went to clean my new apartment. I was astonished at how horribly filthy it was. Expected to finish in a couple of hours, I cleaned house til 7pm.

Today I ache all over - Fri gym + Sat clean house. But I still managed to go find the climbing gym - it is cool! Then walked around and did some touristy photo taking....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8062670@N07/sets/72157601229753452/

Monday (tomorrow) my stuff arrive - yay!

Scootering in Taipei

It is so convenient with a scooter, esp parking.

1. find a spot

2. shift surrounding bikes roughly aside to make a gap big enuff

3. tadah! park bike





Very interesting. The scooters even have their own unique box to stop in at traffic junctions.








I was shopping in Geant (a bit messy like Mustapha but everything oso got lor), and they sell scooters.

The 100cc ones go for 40,000NT (or $2k SGP). Average taxi ride (home to work) is 70-80NT. In 1 month, I'd have amortised out the cost of the scooter.

Hmm... the only downside is possibly losing life/limb they way the drive here...