Another eventful weekend has slipped by. I remember friday as not being the greatest day of working. That night, though, the five of us room mates plus Hung-Miao went to KTV, karaoke. I had no idea what to expect so when we turned up at what seemed like a very fancy hotel I was suprised. We missed out reservation at this particular venue, however the karaoke consierge hailed us some cabs that took us to another KTV Party World in town (and paid for them!). The highlight by far was watching Luis and Meng-Yuan team up on My Humps.

Saturday afternoon I found myself wandering alone through Ximending, a popular area of town filled with cinemas, street shops and vendors, some street performers; not far from some very old temples. Inadvertendly found myself down by Longshan Temple before heading back. I stumbled upon a street parade (for lack of a better turn) blasting intensely loud music from the backs of automobiles. Live, though, not recordings. I came upon it right in front of a temple too, which was a plus because a brave man was lighting off firecrackers in front of the entrance.

That evening Luis, Kotaro and I made our way to Taipei 101. Currently the tallest building in the world, it's quite a marvelous structure. It houses the fastest personal elevator in the world, too; it takes 37 second to travel the 84 floors from the 5th floor to the 89th. My pictures from the "top" (we were still 20-something floors from the final floor!) suck so I urge anyone reading this to check out pictures of Taipei 101 yourself.

Yesterday the gang took the MRT to the last station on the route, Danshui. Nice historic and tourist town at the mouth of the Danshuei River. Ungodly hot but lots of sights and sounds and foods and peoples.
Come sunset we headed to XinBeitou, known for its hotsprings. Capitalist pigs have seized many of the the springs and built hotels on the land, so we had to enter one of them and sit in a tub inside. I was fully prepared for a total Goron experience; outside in the public with a friendly atmosphere calling eachother "Brothers!" This hotel was indeed public but I guess it was a slow night? Just us; total sausage fest if I've ever known one but thems the breaks.

Back to the grindstone again today. Hard to believe it's our fourth week already; I've so little work to show! Oh, I guess I'll try to get up some more pictures before the apathy establishes itself.

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