Taiwanese Gameshow!

I was on a Taiwanese Gameshow!!  On Monday night, after coming home from work, I saw a group of people hanging out in front of Uncle Sam's.  I checked it out, there was a cameraman and people holding lights.  Being a white person, I stand out.  I get asked by someone if I want to go inside, I told her, I wanted to know what's going on.  She explained to me, that it's a gameshow.  You get to play rock paper scissors against a Taiwanese celebrity and if you win, you get a sandwich for $1NT or $.03 US.  She asked if I wanted to play, I said yes and she took me to the front of the line, which is pretty sweet.  I called Jennifer to come over and check it out.  She got to play too.  Anyways, when I played against a celebrity, they asked if I knew  Chinese and I said in Chinese "Where's my newspaper?"  They said to the TV, "why does he know how to say that?  Oh, I know!  When he comes downstairs, he asks the people at the front desk, 'where's my newspaper?'"  To make a long story short, I beat some taiwanese girl celebrity by throwing rock.  They filmed me playing, ordering the sandwich in Chinese and eating the sandwich.  It was really cool.  I'll get to watch it on Friday.

Canada

A belated Merry Christmas to all of those who are reading this!  Last week, I flew to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada so I could meet up with my family and go skiing in Whistler/Blackcomb.  I hadn't seen my family in about 6 months, so it was great to see them.  I spent six days skiing from morning until the mountain closed for the day.  As much as I ate, Jennifer still said that I came back skinnier than when I had left.

I flew EVA Air, there and back on a 747-400 and I was on the upper deck baby!  It was still economy, but it was better than economy, because I didn't feel as squished as I normally feel.  On the lower deck in economy, it usually 10 across, but on the upper deck it is 6.  There is also some extra elbow room if you're sitting by the window because they have a storage bin on the side for your carry on luggage.  And if you're lucky enough to get a exit seat, you have about 3-5 feet of leg room!  I wasn't lucky enough for that, but its okay.  Normally, I don't sleep on airplanes, because it is hard for me.  But, on the flight back, I took two ambiens and I slept for half the flight.

For the things that matter.  Whistler/Blackcomb was awesome.  It was icy and rocky, and not all of the slopes were open.  It was especially icy on all of the popular runs, but if you're like me and you look for runs that are out of the way or aren't open yet.  Then, you're bound to find something amazing.  I found a lot of runs that were closed, but still had a lot of snow on them.  My family and I had a blast on these runs, well you'll have to ask my Dad for his opinion.  But, I think he had a good time.

Never before have I scratched my skis up this bad.  It is unbelievable how bad my skis are scratched up.

A couple things worth mentioning: I almost lost my wallet.  It fell out of my pocket at a sports bar.  I realized this once I returned home, but some girls found it.  One was from Jersey (the island) and one was from Seattle.  I ended up buying them and my Dad a shot of Jagermeister.  I tried to get a shot of Yukon Jack, but they didn't have it!!!!  It's made in Canada!  One thing that I did find was Brahama!!!  Brahama is amazing, it is a Brazilian beer and I could buy .5L for a dollar in Russia.  I bought a 6 pack and took that back to Taiwan with me.  Second thing.  My brother John and I decided to go out one night, unfortunately for us it was a Tuesday night.  Not many people are out on a Tuesday night.  But, we fonud one that looked like there was a party going on.  There was, but we found out a little bit later that it was for a mutual friend of everyone's in the bar that had died a year earlier.  That was awkward.

On Christmas Day, my mom and I did first tracks, this also included breakfast, too.  It was great to be one of the first people to carve up the mountain, especially on Christmas Day.

All in all it was a great vacation.  It was great to see my family and it was great to go skiing.

Highlights

Here are some highlights from the past couple of weeks. 

Club couple of weeks ago, a girl with braces tried hitting on me, lucky for me, my boy Graeme came in and took her off her feet.  That same night, I got hit on by an Asian guy, kind of creepy.  Also my friend got in trouble with a bouncer for trying to talk to a girl.  Whoa!  Best line of the night:  "What are you doing here? You're not Asian."  "Oh, I'm on vacation"

Last Saturday, there were tons of people outside of the Football (Soccer) Stadium near Yuanshan MRT, and there were people lined up all around the stadium.  There were tents as well.  So naturally, in best English.  I ask them, what's going on here?  Taiwanese girl, "Mayday is coming tonight"  

me: who is Mayday?

girl: (shows me a picture) this is the drummer, this is the bassist, guitarist, singer

me: are they good?

girl: yeah!!!!

me: ok thanks a lot

girl: my friends and I have an extra ticket, do you want to come with us?

me: nah, its okay

girl: are you sure?

me: yeah, thanks though

Oh yeah and they looked about 16 and they had braces.  Awesome.  I should've tried to get two tickets.  Me at a Taiwanese rock concert would probably be sweet.

A week ago, saw a commercial being shot at some intersection, with a guy in some animal suit.  Earlier this week, the band that owns a cafe/sandwich place nearby, Uncle Sam's, came and officially opened it up.  They're called 6655 or something, we asked some lady and she looked at us as if we were crazy.

Updates: I leave for Whistler tomorrow and I am so excited!!!  But still have a lot of things I need to do.  For example: make sure my Christmas play is perfect, got in trouble over that recently.