djkr and friends take on Life

see you in 2007 guys.

tonight is my last night in taiwan after spending a great total of 31 days here. seen a lot, eaten a lot and slacked a lot. on christmas day, i will be on a plane back to singapore.

goodbye and thank you taiwan.

ggkthxbb.

merry christmas to all.

i have been to seperate job interviews in the last two days in anticipation of my ORD. here is a summary:

the first job interview i went to was on monday at 1330 hrs. the interview venue was at Pandan Loop. If you don’t know where that is, its somewhere near west coast road. the name of the interviewer was kenneth.

me: (i arrived 5 mins late due to the rain) Sorry i am late. i got caught in the rain.
kenneth: its ok; please fill up this form.
me: (after filling up the form) here its done.
kenneth: ok. anyway, let me introduce myself. my name is kenneth and my partner (gesturing the stoned face man to his right) name is kiat.
kiat: (acknowledges with a nod, but otherwise remains silent and stony faced)
kenneth: we work for a company called wingco. heard of it?
me: yes i think so, it sounds familiar (trying to smoke out)
kenneth: its a company that produces Point of Sales machines (POS) machines and we need people to set it up. the pay for the first two weeks will be $6 per hour and following that it would be $8 per hour. if you work fulltime, you can expect $1800-$2000.
me: (momentarily stunned at the obscene amount of pay)
kiat: (notices my momentarily stunned look but otherwise remains silent and stony faced)
kenneth: i understand that you are going to taiwan for your holidays. its ok. we can arrange for you to work for the 2 weeks before you go for training and you can continue to work after you come back.
me: (calculating mentally how much i can earn before taiwan and realises its a lot just for training purposes)
kiat: (….)
me: what does the job entail?
kenneth: well basically you will be setting up POS machines all over singapore. its not rocket science but you will be doing a lot of wiring and it can be quite mundane…
me: (picturing myself in overalls with grease and oil, bored but rich)
kenneth: … and the equipment is expensive and we cannot risk any damage to it.
me: (picturing myself in overalls with grease and oil and bored and extremely screwed and broke)
kiat: (probably imagining me getting screwed for dropping one of the equipment)

the interview went on and ended after 30 mins. on my way back, other then the incredible amount of i would earn, the thing that bothered me was that the hq was at Pandan Loop, 1 hour away from my house and 8-5 meant i had to wake up the same time as i do going to camp every monday to friday, and the extremely expensive equipment.
__

dyed my hair today… brown and highlighted green. one thing i like about taiwan is the service.

you go in, they greet you nicely. ask you whether you want tea or coffee. give you a good selection of colours to pick from; recommending a suitable hair colour that fits your face. wash your hair till its silky soft, dry hair under a glowing red device that threatens to eat your head up, paint your head with a brownish paste, wrap head with plastic wrap ala food that needs to be refrigerated, head under head-eater, paint, head under head-eater, hairstylist comments in chinese that hair is black as black can be. suffer 3 times of noxious fumes finally followed by a wash. is the water too hot? no i reply. bits of hair wrapped aluminium foil with a gooey green paste, akin to marinating meat. 7 mins under head eater again, all this while enjoying some obscure hong kong film on some tv in front of me. commented that the tea served was good; hairstylist offers to give you the whole box. the marinated green hair is cooked, a wash is due. the hair stylist takes a pair of scissors and starts trimming away. snip snip, green and brown fall to the ground. and finally, the wax is out, lessons on how to style your hair. it time to leave; oh its raining. here is an umbrella says the stylist. return it on your next visit. they thank you as you leave the store.

all this for 1400 NT (70 sing). taiwanese service is good.

admist all this, i forgot that i went to mos taipei on the 9 of december, nearly a week ago. i met toh yean lih there and off we went. dave seaman was playing that night; progressive house. mos taipei is 2 1/2 stories. first story is suited to live performances. a giant floor akin to a mosh pit. the 2nd, for electronic music. a square floor with floors that can light up. on level 2 1/2 is a whiskey bar. we think it is members only.

there is no such thing as early entry means cheaper entry. 600 NT a pop, to explore the cavern within. took us 1/2 looking for the place; a sad little brown concrete building with no lights around it. to say i was disappointed is a understatement. saw uncles and aunties (literally) enter the building. what the heck, since we are here we thought. at 2300hrs, a canto/hokkien/chinese hip hop group started rapping bad english. this was intermingled with a bartending performance and bar top dancing. dave seaman started his decks at 0130 hrs… but some how, his music that night was too….house for me.

mos singapore eats mos taipei anytime.

still got chiang kai shek’s residence, martyr’s shrine and the mountain behind my house left to visit.

(yes, there is a mountain behind my house)

its day 21 of taiwan… i have been lazy updating the blog…
well…

i been back to qing tian gang, that grassy hill i came to 2 years ago. it is still a beautiful place, with a sulphur geyser for company nearby. also headed to danshui, one of the northern places on the taiwanese metro. it is near the sea and has a very nice quaint feel to it. also, at taipei main station, there are catacombs of underground shopping malls. and i do mean the word catacombs. literally tunnels of shops selling different kinds of items; it is so easy to get lost here. visited jiu fen, a mountainous area that used to be a gold mine. the view at the top is breathtaking and with taiwan getting cloudy weather, at that height, clouds fog one’s vision.

one of the main highlights is that i visited the original din tai feng in taipei. it is voted one of the best restaurants in the world. they have 5 branches in singapore, but nothing beats visiting the original branch. of course, i ate the xiao long bao. i mean how do the chefs manage to keep soup stock in the dumpling without it spilling out? also, they have great dessert baos. the taro dumplings…mmm….

hokkaido is the name of the islet (one of 4 main japanese ones) at the northern most end of japan. it is nearly locked in eternal winter; snow is as commonplace as grass. my family headed there for a 5 day holiday from 27 nov – 1 dec.

hokkaido is famous for its hot spring baths. the temperatures vary from 40-45 degrees and the baths have different uses (beautifing, detoxifying etc). there are entire hotels with its concept built around that of a hot spring. u can walk around the hotel wearing only the yukata (japanese traditional dress) and sleep on mattresses on tatami mats that magically appear after 7pm. the only catch in these hot springs is that you have to bath naked. because the japanese regard them more has baths rather than spas.

bought loads of stuff, chocs mainly. it was really hard to do shopping because the tour time was mostly devoted to sight seeing.

in my time there, i visited mountain parks, sulphur valleys, giant lakes… scenic areas. the sights are beatiful. but what hit me the most was when it snowed on the 4th day. the snowflakes were huge and with the postcard background of hokkaido in the backdrop, it reminded me of a pretty few anime scenes. especially when i was at the hokkaido shinto shrine on that day. it was only the second time i had seen snow falling from the sky.

today in taiwan, i went to this place called costco. basically, imagine ntuc. then imagine it X 10,000. everything in it too. they sell items by bulk. i have never seen such a huge frosties box before. my mum and i went insane in there. we bought and bought. giant kettles chips packets(yes the very ex but very nice ones), giant pepperridge farm cookies packets. heck. i even bought a pair ck jeans for 50 sing! and yes its original!

in the afternoon, me and my mum walked around the shilin mrt area. in the end, i ended up in a beautician clinic. i did a treament there much akin to skin peeling (putting acid on the face) and facial combined. the facial wasn’t painful. it was more painful talking to the beautician for 40 minutes straight and trying to make sense to her in chinese. it was like a oral exam, except there are no marks and that you are lying down. but you are still trying to make yourself sound stupid.

i still gotta get my clothes. i gonna scout shilin night market tmw again. and on sat, i gonna meet toh yean lih (one of my ns officers) for dinner. he is in taipei for holiday. probably head off to mos after.

ps. i been watching death note anime and i have to conclude that it is good. but disturbing. yea. disturbing.

its 2am. i going to sleep now. i came back from hokkaido like 4 days ago and the place was great. i will blog more about it soon.

i was just doing some thinking.

thats all.