Don't Squeeze The Bishop!

Do you know who Wang Lee Hom is? Me either. The Christines in my life have been feuding over this guy for a few weeks now and Friday night we were all invited over to Christine Sr.'s apartment to watch one of his concerts. You should look him up. He's not your average thug (according to the CD liner notes) and his best song is definitely "Ya Birthday", which is a complete rip-off of 50 Cent's "In Da Club" with the "hey shorty, it's yo birthday" hook stolen to use as the chorus. Also, we taught Christine Sr. a new word! She thought "shorty" meant midget. For years now she must have wondered why all the American rappers were rapping about midgets!


On Saturday, I had to teach for a couple of hours- the first time I've been roped into this H1N1 make-up class business. It wasn't bad because the class I had are some of my favorite kids, they entertained me with magic tricks and we watched "Up", which is one of my favorite movies. I wish every class was like that! In the afternoon Mel and I ran a few errands at the Carrefour (where we were given free samples of whiskey at the grocery store- WTF!) and then I got my hair cut at a $100NT place. It's my favorite place to get my haircut- you just stick $100NT ($3CAN) into a machine and it spits out a number. When your number is called the hairdresser will cut your hair for up to 10 minutes and then to finish the vacuum up all the loose hair on your head with an actual vacuum. Classy! I wonder what happens if your haircut isn't finished in 10 minutes? I attracted a bit of a crowd too. While the guy was cutting my hair, a couple people lined up along the glass wall and watched me and pointed for several minutes. Just because there's a wall doesn't mean I can't see you!!


Also on our shopping trip, we bought the world's most basic little Christmas tree for our apartment. In true Taiwanese fashion the Christmas tree cost $1 CAN but the lights were $6. It brightens up our living room and I love it. Now we just need some presents!!


Saturday night we had peoples over for drinks and games. We played the "Game of Things", which turned out to be pretty funny. To play the game, one person reads the name of a category and everyone else writes down something that belongs in that category. The goal is to guess who wrote each answer. Some example categores and their respective answers:

Things you shouldn't do in public: "Squeeze the bishop"

Things you shouldn't give away: "My tits"

Things that would make work more interesting: "Big Boobs Night"

Something you would like to do on vacation: "Sex with a midget" (Hey shorty!)


After that exercise in creative writing, we went out to a Karaoke place in Ximen. Unlike the karaoke places we are used to from Korea, this place basically functions as a full-service restaurant. Included in the price of the room is $100NT per person in food or drinks so we had quite a feast while we sang- including a keg, a dozen cans of refreshing beverage, wings and the above platter of rings, fries, chicken and weiners. Oh, and halfway through the night we were served 4 banana splits! So awesome!


Lovin' the tunes.


We sang a bunch of English songs, a Spanish song and we were treated to some Chinese songs by Kris and Jason. And guess what amazing song they had... p-p-p-p-poker face. No "Sorry Sorry" though... womp womp.


We'll call this the "after" photo. Pretty respectable, right?


After 3 hours of singing like angels at the karaoke place, we walked across the road to the main Ximen shopping area where we were treated to a salty Starfruit juice and then had a seat for a while at Mark's favorite gay bar- the Bear Bar.


Grrrowl!


The teachers who live in the school dorms had their curfew extended to midnight on Saturdays (win!) and since we arrived back home at the strike of 12, Christine couldn't come back to our place to grab some stuff she'd left there. So, we took it back to the school and passed the bag through the bars. Next time we'll pass you guys a cake with a file baked in it so you can saw your way out! Anyway, we had a fun weekend and hope everyone at home had a good weekend too. Time for me to go wrap some Christmas presents, because tomorrow they're getting mailed out on a dragonboat headed straight for the east coast of Canada. Estimated time of arrival: Christmas 2012. Enjoy!