Wednesday Night: Watched Terminator Salvation. Action was great, Christian Bale was manly, not enough plot. I give it a B-.

Thursday: Jen, Michael, and I went to my grandmother’s house and watched my aunts make zhonzi, which are rice triangles wrapped in bamboo leaves.

We ate a giant lunch and played lots of Blokus and Big 2. Finally, we headed back to our place for a group nap, then ordered pizza and mahjong-ed the night away.

Friday: We got brunch at The Diner, which is the best thing since sliced bread. Seriously, they took it and made toast, added bacon, eggs, and a yogurt fruit cup.

They serve breakfast all day and, man, is it really good breakfast foods among other delicious entrees.

Then, we went to see the Dragon Boat Races under the DaZhi Bridge. I think next year, I will sign up to do the race. It looked like it was lots of fun! And I miss being on a team.

Later, we had dinner at Chili’s (Mmm.. it was an all American food day.) and watched Night at the Museum 2, which I give a B for its funny parts and ridiculous cheesiness.

Saturday: Jen & I decided that we were going to go to the zoo to see the pandas, so we take the MRT all the way out there only to find out that the panda tickets were all given out. Since we’ve already been to the zoo, we decided there was no point in paying for admission, so we turned around and went walking around Zhongxiao Fushing instead. Then, dinner with Michael’s grandparents, then night out on the town to meet up with some of Michael’s friends at Champagne 2 and Room 18. Champagne 2 was a really nice lounge bar, and we sat around chatting and ended up playing teams of Blow Cow. Room 18 was so crowded to the point that it hurt to breathe.

Sunday: We went to Jioufen 九份 , and on the way, Michael took us to this beautiful overlook on top of the mountain.

Jioufen was high up in the mountains, and so we climbed about 3000 flights of stairs today. Legs are now toned for the rest of summer.

Jioufen was beautiful, filled with tea shops and was very touristy, and definitely had some good eats. Apparently, all the good places had lines so of course I had to stand in them to find out what the big deal was. These fried shrimp balls were totally worth the wait!

Before we left, we stopped and had tea at this cute little tea house with an amazing view.

My boss started this poker thing.
They set up tournaments at this bar, Tone 56, and you can play for free. The goal is to rack up points to win the ultimate grand prize in the end. So instead of a gold bracelet and millions of US dollars as a prize, you get something just as cool like plane tickets or something. Then again, it’s free so you don’t have to throw in thousands of your own money just to participate.

Even though it’s, I repeat, for free, there are still some really hardcore players out there. Poker is poker, regardless there’s money involved or not. One dude was even taking notes, then again he did pretty well so I guess it helped. Maybe next time, I should bring a notebook and do some doodling while I play.

These are the boys we hang out with on a regular basis. They all are upstanding good men and all speak English!

Because I had to work Saturday morning, Michael and I decided to leave around 11:30pm and stop by Primo, just for a sec, for his friend’s birthday. I was already dressed for the occasion, and since I’ve never been to Primo (which apparently is one of those clubs where you have to know someone to get in), it was like killing two birds with one stone. The plan was to say hi, meet some people, bounce in 20 minutes, and be home by 12:30.

Yaaah.. I got home around 3am. Woke up five hours later and zombied my way through the day at work. I’m definitely not doing that again anytime soon.

Saturday night was dinner with my aunt and uncle to introduce them to Michael. Michael is a Taiwanese-American boy whom I met through mutual friends here in Taipei. And since my own parents are so far away, this was the way for them to get to know better what’s going on through family here (but my parents have met him through Skype). The dinner went well, and we ended up going back to my uncle’s place to play mah-jong with my cousins until one in the morning.

I definitely overslept Sunday morning, enjoyed the nice weather, cleaned house, and then had dinner at one of the most amazing Japanese BBQ places. The meat was amazing, and it went so well with a very smooth but very expensive Cabernet Sauvignon. But surprisingly, all of the food also went very well with ginger ale (I can’t even remember the last time I had ginger ale). The restaurant was called Da Wan 大腕燒, and it’s at S. DunHua Section 1, Alley 177, No. 22 台北市敦化南路一段177巷22號1樓 (phone 02-27110179). I personally did not take pictures, but I found some that did it justice. If you’re interested, look here or here.

Tomorrow is Jen’s birthday. We’re planning to have cake and wine at our place, just a small gathering. But the real party is Friday night at a bar. Called A Bar. Clever, isn’t it? I haven’t been, but I hear they have a cat there, and I’m just deathly allergic to them. We’ll see if I make it out alive this weekend.