No Tailgaiting.... (?)

I was walking around the other day in a somewhat sad mood when my eyes came across this scooter near my house.... I'm pretty sure that you'd have to pay extra for this one in the states!


Irregardless, the occurrence made me laugh and lifted my spirits, another quirk of living on this wonderful, unpredictable island! (I wonder if the owner knows what it means?)

Here's Lookin' at You, Kid

I know it's a bit silly, or perhaps just very "American" of me to be "shocked and awed" by things with eyes and heads that I am supposed to eat... the small fish that Taiwanese (and perhaps all Asian countries) like to put in their soup or with rice freak me out... too many eyes looking at me while I prepare to eat them... daring me to take a bite... maybe it's a sort of performance pressure!?

"Come on, eat me, eat me, kid"



Anyway, I had the chance to confront and conquer this silly fear of mine when I ordered chicken with my room mate. As soon as the box was opened, a cute little roasted chicken head popped out, to the surprise and delight of us both.

Being manly men, we attempted to shrug off our initial surprise and do the cool "Chinese Chef Chop", with the big knife they use in Chinese restaurants. When the first large, arc of the knife missed the chicken neck and instead split open the head, I lost my cool. What followed was a flurry of frantic chops from my roommate that ended with the head flying through the air and landing in the kitchen sink...

And so my head-o-phobia remains~

Goooooooooaaaaaaallll!!!!

Building off that old traditional theme that seems to be a trend, the marketing in Taiwan is both innovative, imaginative, and shocking to me. I spent several minutes in the MRT train station looking at this sign, trying to figure out the point... when I finally saw what this picture was, I actually took a step back in open-mouthed shock... this is surely something I would never see back in NY, but it is somewhat effective at... well... at getting attention I guess. ;)

Taiwan is certainly a land of paradox... on the surface conservative, but underneath, and in many different facets/areas, very surprisingly liberal. As for the ad, well, if a man-sized penis cannot stop AIDS, then I guess nothing can...!

Modern marketing~

I am often "shocked and awed" by some of the creative marketing here in Taiwan/Asia... take this underwear above, which apparently not only helps store your balloon collection, but also has a lot of stretch/support for those who want to wear it. ;)

A whole new world~~~

This is somewhat dated news, but I wanted to say something about that new planet everyone was talking about last week (in case you hadn't heard of it). It seems like pretty exciting news, although it's reeeeaaaallly far away. Still, how cool is it that another world with an atmosphere possibly the same as ours is out there...?

Well, only somewhat cool, I guess, as scientists also said that the gravity on this planet is so strong (due to the larger size of the planet) that the only thing here is probably big, flat bugs. Ah well, maybe they have people too... with really, really big calves.