Arrivals/Departures

ok. so i made it all the way to taiwan. i don't even know where to start. firstly i guess by thanking everyone in new york for such a lovely last week in town. it was rough. last minute visa problems, a death in the family. terrible, terrible. but then i had such a lovely send off. a sushi dinner party friday night and dance parties one after another all weekend. i couldn't ask for a better summer time in new york slice of life to hold onto as i move along on my way.

the flight went well. better than expected in fact. i don't like flying on the best of days and 18 hours of it is really pushing my (and anybodys, really) limits. no seat made by man is comfortable for that long. it's just not possible. the food was edible. they really feed you on those international flights. i guess they figure if you have something to do it's easier. i couldn't help stuffing my face with thier sub-par reheated platters. i can't ever turn down free food. i didn't really sleep at all on my 16 hour flight to hong kong. maybe only 2 hours. my feet and legs swelled up like sausages. gravity works, ok? and it ached terribly making sure i didn't sleep hardly a wink. i played more games of video solitaire than i'd like to admit. in hong kong my layover was just long enough to shuffle from one terminal to the next and be herded onto my conecting flight to taipei. i'm quite proud of myself. i handled it quite well. there wasn't a single moment of creeping panic. i'm somehow able to attain a sort of airplane zen. it's kinda like this detached meditative state. the flight is a blur now. but it was kinda a blur as it was happening. more the better.

gordon, my employer, picked me up at the airport. he's such a wonderful, child like man. so enthusiastic. he took me imediatlely to some street stalls for snacks. mango ice. it's basicaly cubed mango covered in a mound of shaved ice and toped with sweetened condenced milk and brown sugar syrup. you wouldn't believe how good this is. especially when it's 80 degrees and 80 percent humidity at 11pm. the mangos here are of a completely different caliber that what we have in the states. they are like butter. sweet, orange, fruity butter. we also ordered a little bag of fried squid and diakon cakes from the guy next door with the choose your own adventure fried food stall next door. i wasn't even aware i was missing out on anything as far as fried food goes. but seriously, you are. i'm sorry. i don't know what they dust it in but it's wonderful. please, barce yourself. this is only the first in what i assume will be a long line of travel essays expounding on the virtues of taiwanese cuisine. then we drove to the dream community and gordon showed me my room. andrea, it's painted the same color as that one green building you love. it's nothing fancy. a bed. a table. a fan. a small desk. it's directly above the bakery. they mill all their own grain and have fresh baked bread daily. all of their offices are are on this one one or two block strip. there's the bakery, the dorms, the cafe, the dream community offices and apartment complex. it's awesome. and as we drove up i noticed that every door was left wide open in th middle of the night. the bakery and the woodshop were just sitting open for all the world to see. gordons laptop sitting on a desk 5 feet from the door in a completely empty building. i like that. i like that a lot.

i tried to sleep a bit last night. 4 or 5 hours was all i could muster. i had hoped for more but i think it's nerves. i was up at 6:30 rolling around in bed waiting til 9am when someone would be down in the bakery to bug. i came into the offices around 10. i met clebson who is the brazilian costume designer i will be working with all season. his english is really poor but i think we can work it out. he's adorable. he came out last season and stayed. he's been here a year! i met all of the office girls who's names i can't remember. they all jumped up and ran from behind their desks and hugged me, giggling. they are all really sweet girls. i'm glad that they are as excited for me to be here as i am. everybody i meet knows my name and where i'm from and everything. they have been waiting. everything seems really well organized. i think it's going to be really easy to be here. gordon wants me to just chill out for the next 2 or 3 days until we go to ludong. i don't know if i can. i want to explore and if i can't do that i want to be working. i think i'll go bug clebson now and see if he needs any help. so here in is.... the first sleep deprived installment to this trip.

Let's Pretend We're grown-Ups

So I'm already sucking at keeping this thing up to date. Day to day life just isn't that interesting here in the quiet closing weeks of my stay in New York. Although, I did finally accomplish the last pressing task to get me on my way to Taiwan. I managed to convince the Taiwanese Consulate to give me a visa. There was some crying of real tears and a little bit of begging for good measure but in the end I got them to acquiescence and give me a meager 30 day visa. This, for the record, is total garbage. Everybody get's a 30 day visa. You don' have to apply for it or pay for it or anything. They let everybody stay for 30 days or less without paperwork. They kept my $130 application fee, the bastards. But I can't complain. It will get me there. It will do.

That same day I bought luggage. That's a funny thing. It's just one of those things I never pictured myself doing. Buying shoes, a backpack, dinner, yes of course. But luggage? That's so nearly adult. Walking around the wholesale district in Manhattan looking for a good deal on a (gasp) rollerbag felt a little out of character. "Yes, hello good sir. I am going on a trip and I would like to purchase the finest luggage that $50 or less can buy." Haha! It was actually very settling although. That and getting all my paperwork straight. The days are no longer nervous, anticipatory days with my departure date looming over me. Now they are lazy days. Days I wish would actually speed by. I'm ready now and I want to go. Thank you New York for everything but it's time to move along. It is a relief to finally, fully, resign myself to the choices I made months ago to take this trip.

I Heart Puerto Rico

Ok. First post. And what better to kick it off with than Puerto Rican Day? Every year in the city of New York there is a Puerto Rican Parade down 5th Ave. in Manhattan. And every year every Puerto Rican citizen of New York goes ape shit in the streets to celebrate. It's insane. Unfortunately I didn't snap any pictures of when the boys and girls at Hood Ink in Bed-Sty took over the streets and blocked Myrtle Ave. for over an hour. I didn't get any pics of when they started stopping all the buses, climbing all over crowded buses filled with people, waving flags, and tagging every surface in reach with "PR" in white shoe shine. I didn't get any pictures of when they did the same to the garbage trucks and ambulances and anyone else thinking the had a right to be going anywhere down Myrtle Ave. in the middle of their celebration. We are talking about 100 drunken hoods screaming and waving flags in the streets, music blaring, stopping traffic, and -my god!- doing graffiti, as the cops sat on the corner in a puddle of their own flaccid inertia. It's just nice to know that someone out there is getting away with it.


This guy!

Roof top parties!