First Date Fun

I had my first date with Catherine tonight...good stuff.

We met up and headed over to Alleycat's for dinner. She is from Myanmar (Burma), so I doubt that she has had too much exposure to good pizza...Alleycat's didn't disappoint. We chatted, ate some slices, and drank some red wine. It was a great dinner. We knew pretty much nothing about each other, so this was a good time to answer all the requisite questions.

After dinner, we headed over to the Lantern Festival. It was at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. The lanterns were incredible. There must have been 50,000 people there, it was packed. We made our way through the crowd and took some great pictures. Catherine's English is pretty choppy, but we did OK. She is a lot of fun...great sense of humor, likes to giggle.

After awhile, it began to rain. We hung out for about a half of hour thinking it might let up...nope, it started to pour. We quickly made our way back to the subway station. We were both soaked and decided to call it a night. While we were waiting in line at the turnstile, she mentioned that she had a great time and wanted to go out again next weekend...alrighty!

We said goodbye and headed our separate ways.

p.s. I'll be posting pics from our night out tomorrow.

Schedule Craziness & Pizza Heaven

My work load has changed dramatically in the past week or so. One of the Chinese teachers quit, so I have to pick up some of the pieces she left behind. This past week has been intense. My new schedule includes a two-hour class on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and 2 two-hour classes on Saturdays. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it's tough when you have to handle about 8 one-hour classes and a few tests on top of the two-hour spots each week. The problem isn't the class-time, it's the amount of preparation that goes into each class, you can't go cold into any class, you have to have a plan. I can handle it, I just need some time to adjust.

Called my good buddy Scott the other day and invited him to join me on a trip to Alleycat's. He accepted, of course. You'd have to be on your death bed to miss a trip to Taiwan's best pizza joint. We're heading over there Saturday night. I plan on eating pizza until I keel over!...lol.

I just found out that I have 3 days of vacation time coming to me and I have to use them before August. Can't decide if I should take one day at a time and just chill out here, or take all three at once and head to somewhere cool like Bangkok...gotta decide soon.

Christmas is Coming and Alleycats

Christmas is a week from today. It's kinda odd here...this isn't a Christian nation, so Christmas is nothing more than a marketing blitz. For instance, outside of the Taipei 101 building there is a "Christmas" display. It's a Christmas tree with children running around it while a dragon is wrapping itself around the tree...lol. Colleen (my best gal pal), said it looked like Santa Claus meets King Arthur. The Christmas tree outside of a local department store is decorated with discount coupons from the store...lol.

We have decided to have a quiet celebration with some good food and egg nog. Probably just a few folks over, nothing fancy.

Last night, Colleen & I went to Alleycat's for dinner. Alleycat's is an insanely good Italian restaurant. The pizza is as good as any I've had in the States. We had a great dinner. Afterwards, we were planning on going to "Snake Alley", a world-famous night market. At the market, they kill snakes, drain the blood, and folks drink it!! It's supposed to be good for you...I'm a bit skeptical. Anyhow, as we were walking down the street, a young taiwanese guy grabbed us and invited us into this wine bar to celebrate his birthday. It was too funny. There must have been about 40 people there drinking like fish. Vincent, the birthday boy, said that it was 500 NT$ per person for all you can drink. That's a decent deal because 500 Taiwan dollars is about $17 American. Prior to going into the bar, Colleen & I had split a bottle of red wine, so we were already pretty loopy...there was no way we were going to turn down this invitation. It turned out to be a lot of fun. As most of you know, I'm not much of a drinker. I woke up with a RAGING headache this morning.

It was great to get to spend the evening with Colleen. She is a great woman, crazy, but nonetheless, great.

Pizza Heaven!

I went out with my buddy Scott last night. We had a great time. I finally ate at "Alleycat's", an amazing Italian restaurant. The pizza was as good as any I've had in the States. After dinner, we headed over to the electronics night market. I bought my very first cell phone! I think I got a pretty good deal...it's a Benq phone, brand new for NT$2500, which is about $75 American. It doesn't have a camera, but it's a nice flip-style phone. Cell phones here are cheap and everyone has one. It's important for me to have one for work and to make apartment hunting easier. I saw a million cool electronic gadgets that I'd kill to have at the market...not gonna fall victim to all those enticing vendors. After the electronics market, we headed across to the clothing/food night market. This place goes on for miles, it's incredible. I managed to pick up a great jacket (about $30 American) and some rip-off Calvin Klein cologne for about $5 American. This market is mind-boggling, wall-to-wall people for miles. The bargains are great. You can find anything. We had a killer time, I think I'll be back to search for more bargains in the near future.