Disconnected thoughts that may prove to have been better left unexpressed:

Am I the only one who’s afraid the new Janet album is going to suck? I actually liked 20 Y.O. She sounded relaxed. She seemed to be having fun. Yeah, she was ripping off herself and everyone else, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. “Feedback” sounds great while you’re listening to it, but I forgot I’d even downloaded it a day or two after it was released.

I’m enjoying Taipei, but it’s a very…intimately-scaled place. Over the first few weeks I was here, I was introduced to three or four guys in the Family (“Ooh…I have a friend you’ll just LOVE! He’s gay, too!”) and met a few others separately out and about. When I got back last Saturday, I was invited to a party. They were all there and all knew each other. It was kind of cute. Good thing I live a simple life, or the moment of realization might have been a little sticky.

And the weather in this place! Rain, sunshine (briefly) smog, mist, more rain, the temperature going up and down wildly. The friend I’m staying with lives part-way up a mountain. It’s still officially Taipei City, but it’s not urban at all. There are hot springs. The wind howls constantly, often flinging rain at you. Going for a run is great; the steepness of the roads makes it feel like you’re doing stadiums. It’s all nicely primordial…and she has cable! So yeah, things are going fine. Just busy.

Added 25 February: Another thing that’s struck me since I’ve been here: Taiwan is full of South Africans. Canadians, too. In Japan, you get used to every third foreigner you meet’s being Australian. Australia and Japan (touchingly, considering their war history) have very good relations nowadays, they’re comparatively close together, and Australians like to knock around other places. In Taiwan, I think I’ve met one Australian in six weeks. Just about everyone from North America here seems to be Canadian. Handful of English. And lots of South Africans. This appears to be one of the places it’s easy for the young and adventurous to make money away from home.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 24th, 2008 at 06:30 and is filed under misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.