Happy birthday to meee....

Sniffles...
Jen dropped by right before midnight, with a couple of Coronas... A very nice surprise, really appreciated that. So yeah, talking to friends on msn now, can't help but to get all teary and stuff hehe...
Phil - u and me... laugh forever...

Sigh, I love you guys.... U know that.... But really, I do.

(Stop laughing at me, you know that I'm a crybaby!!)

Kisskiss
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Oooh.. slow update ehh...
So yes, as you might know, I had a fantastic bday celebration. We ate dinner at Onion Café, a lovely 5 course meal! Jackie tricked me away from the table - "had to check a spot" was her exuse.. and when we got back, there was a cute birthday cake on the table. Weee!! Cake!!!! Made my wish, blew out the candles... sigh. We had a quick drink at VT Art Gallery before some of us went to see Free Jimmy (Slipp Jimmy fri), night screening. Oh pffff... The festival was stupid and didn't use the original Norwegian voices. We got American and British accented people instead. They kinda ruined half of the fun and missed most of the puns... siiiigh... But the movie was still crazy. A little bit too freaky I must admit, haha.

My birthday was very different this year - but it was nice. Super nice. Thanks for all the attention!! From all over the place. Makes it easier to be away from home.

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15.11.2006
We ditched school. Muaahahahaha... First time E, Jackie and I missed class actually. And we felt bad too. Haha... But it was great to just sleeeeeep. We just relaxed, bummed around, jacuzzi and sauna - meheheheehehh. Felt like my birthday lasted for 3 days haha.
I had dinner with Heather. I got to know her when she was an exchange student at BI last fall. She's my only friend who has celebrated my bday in two different countries. Then we went to Mei's and met up with E and J - as usual. Mei's is a great place. It's kind of a café-bar. We love to go there for red wine, tea and Mei's special meals. Mei is an awesome lady!
We spoke Chinese the entire evening, which was nice. Usually it's Chinglish, bad habit, I know. But it'll will stop when the new semester starts!!
Anyways, I was making fun of Taiwanese Mandarin - which to me sounds so bad. I know, I know, I kind of have that accent too when I'm lazy and mispronounce. But I'm doing everything I can to change that. So I just spent the evening imitating different Chinese accents, speaking crappy Shanghainese, Cantonese and Szechuan hua. My parents must be so proud. Maybe I should just use (proper) Mandarin.

16.11.2006
The usual stuff, with my fave people.
Bar 45 - it looks kinda run down, especially since half of the building doesn't exist anymore. They actually have a door on 2nd floow floor which leads to nothing but thin air. Hah...
I skipped practice that evening.. and almost ran into my team on my way home. Oops..

17.11.2006
Oh, met up at Mei's again. And this time E and I got free cakes!!! Haha, we go there 1-2 times a week, finally she's appreciating us... Met up with Jen at 45 - yes again. We like to return to the places we like. Early night.

18.11.2006
Weeee... My cousin Kathy moved into a new place, so we helped her get settled, went shopping and spent the day together. I like to spend time with my two cousins. Later, met E and J for a quick shopping round. Bought a new sweather - it's starting to get cooler here.

Our night out: Roxy!!!
So, 3 of the girls ditched E, Jen and I this evening. Roxy is right next to me place. On my way over, E called me and said that she had forgotten to turn off her stove. Oh f god... Taiwanese use gas here, so it was still burning?! We jumped into a cab went to her place - phew, still a lil bit water left. While E was upstairs, Jen and I just walked around in Ximending, sipping on a little bottle of Johnnie Walker. Heh... charming. Then, another attempt to get to Roxy. E suddenly craved some snacks, and told us to go ahead and stand in line for Roxy. We were surprised that Roxy had a line.. Then we found out that we'd been in the wrong line... Oops... Aha, no line at Roxy's. Roxy is more of a pub than a club. Suits me better. So we just hung out, by the bar, watching all kinds of people that surrounded us. Later, one of my roomie's came with her friends, weee! I had E's illegal bottle of Johnnie in my bag, so I made her whiskey and coke's the entire night. Drunk? Oh yes.. So we were all tipsy and in a good mood. Then Jen or E came up with this great idea of making a bet. The first one who gets a free drink from a stranger wins. And the winner has to buy the loosers a drink (umm.. yeah, doesn't make much sense...). So the girls started to harass me. I was wearing a tank top with some buttons.. and the girls kept ripping them apart... heyyy.. you know me, I'm shy!!! I got a couple of free drinks, but not becoz of my top!! Eiren got herself a nice drink too. Haha.. she was dancing and shaking her ass, everybody around was cheering and it was hilarious Ahhh... Then it was time for snacks. We were right outside my place, I actually went up to use the bathroom, but somehow went back downstairs, and went to a completely different place for snacks. Taxi rides and all... Errrrr... no brain activity I guess.

19.11.2006
Went to our usual Starbucks. Then ate Indian. Meh, it was ma-ma-fu-fu. ZzzzZZzzzZZzzzz....

Hipp Hipp Hurraaaaaa!!

Halloen dere der!!

Yesterday was a nice day. A very very nice day actually. I spent the entire day with my relatives. The occassion? My grandma's birthday this year is the same day as me, according to the Lunar Calendar. Yes, it's very confusing to keep track of two calendars, but the official one is the same one we are used to. So my uncle picked me up, we went and got a delicious birthday cake, picked up auntie and uncle, went home to grandma, uncle and two cousins. Ate lunch (my god I miss home cooked meals...), watched some cartoon and I fell asleep. Then it was time for CAKE!! Woohoooo, singing birthday song, making a wish, blowing out the candles.. sigh... My last birthday in Taiwan was when I turned 5. After the cake, the grown ups played many rounds of mah-jong while me and my cousins watched a baseball match. One big happy family eh? And then we went out for dinner. Grandma insisted on bringing a bottle of red wine to the restaurant. Dinner Chinese style of course. All of us gathered around a big round table, with lots of great dishes in the middle on a spinning thing. I know it has an English name, but i've forgotten it.. oh well, I'm sure some of you know what I mean..

Yessss.... Hoorayyyy....

"白人 !!" (White person!!!!)

Haha, Taiwanese people never stop to amaze me... As you may have noticed, one of our good friends is a lil bit different than the rest of us. Most of us are "bananas" - yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Eiren is an "egg" - white on the outside, yellow on the inside. Yes, we laugh about it everyday. Anyways... We went to the National Palace Museum on Thursday, walking around with E as our guide (she knows her shit I tell you). The musuem has the World's biggest collection of Chinese historical objects, and it's also the most noisy museum I've been to... Lots of crazy old people, and rude kids running around. So, we were just strolling around in the museum, looking at objects which are over 5000 years old when this group of kids runs towards us. Suddenly a couple of them started to stare and point at E, yelling "Bai ren" (whitey). We just stared back and wanted to kick their ass. We continued our tour amongst E's most favourite items, the Jade Cabbage etc. WOW was the only thing I said for an hour. So many things to look at, and they were so amazing. Our favourite was the ivory items.
No matter where we went, people would stare. Even old Cantonese tourists would say "Guailou", and the kids just would shut up with "bei ren"... So... Jackie wanted to punch the kids, but since she's our "guai-guai" (the goody one), she would just gave the lil Shits the look of death. I think I tried to do the same (yes, I'm lazy). But Jen is our crazy member, so she just joined the kids at yelling "bai ren, bai ren", pointing at E with a shocked look on her face and scared the lil rugrats to death. Haha, that was great...

It seems like some Taiwanese don't have a problem with being obvious when they are staring at somebody. I know, all of us look at people, but we usually don't stare for that long, and we normally turn around if the other person is being bothered. But no, we've met several weird people who'd actually stand right next to you and talk about you, looking at you. I may look stupid, but I'm not deaf nor blind???!!
Look, it's only some people being like this.... But it's still annoying! Most people are sweet, and they get so impressed when E speaks Mandarin. This one old lady at a vegetarian place loves her. Everytime we go there, she's always commentating on how pretty she is, how good her Chinese is. She actually said: "Oh, you foreigners are so beautiful, becoz your face shape is so nice, you sleep on your side or stomach. While us (looking at me..) we don't do that, not so pretty." Uhm.... Heh... What was that supposed to mean?! Haha, I'm sure she just meant to compliment E...

"Excuse me, Mister..."

Ok ok, we were at this shop which sold lots of Havaiana flip flops, and Jenny wanted to know the price. So she asked this person who worked there. This person was wearing a hat (lue), big sweatshirt and baggy pants and was facing down folding some clothes. "Excuse me, Mister... How mu... Umm.... Sorry Miss!!!!". You should've seen the look this girl gave us.. She gave us the dirtiest look ever, which is kinda understandable. If looks could kill, we'd be dead by now. But really, she was so pissed off and after seeing her face, we started to laugh... out loud ok... Well, atleast the four of us did, Johnny and Joey were chasing bubbles coming out of the machine. We didn't mean to be rude, but the whole scene was just hilarious.

Gender confusion? Yes, indeed, and it's not the first time we've wondered whether a person is a boy or girl. It's bad I know... Especially since I'm a tomboy myself.. (um, I just looked up the word Tomboy, some of the desciptions don't really suit me... Blah anyways, U know what I mean!)... Oh wait, I'm a Western tomboy according to Eiren, and I find that much more suitable haha.. and Wikipedia agrees! What was I saying btw... Um, yeah blah blah, I've forgotten what I was supposed to write. Oh well, that's me in a nutshell these days, my brain keeps on wondering off at times. Sigh, it's the weather I tell u.
It's grey and stuffy here, but so much cooler, which is very very nice. It's still over 20C, but it's actually quite cool - sweather/jacket weather. I'd still run around in t-shirts if it was over 20C in Norway!

Yesterday the class went to KTV with the teacher. It was fun I guess, only three would sing though, the teacher, Joey and her friend. The rest of us were drinking beer and would only sing together. We sand a couple of English songs, and we were brave enough to try some Mandarin songs too. We've definetly improved our reading since last KTV visit. Now we could maybe sing 3/5 of a song! I'm sure it was a pleasure to listen to us. After the cat concert, we went to a lounge called Champagne. Guess what their specialty is? I had the lychee champagne, it was sooooo good! I love lychee, lychee martini, lychee mojito, and now lychee champagne. Phillip, you come over here lah...


A lot of weird babbling in this entry, but that's ok, I'm sure you guys aren't very surprised.

Oh and btw, The Taipei International Movie Festival starts next week. Unfortunatly Paris Je t'aime and Volver are sold out.. But we have tickets for Little Miss Sunshine, Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema and Free Jimmy (Slipp Jimmy fri). I'm extra excited about Free Jimmy, since it's Norwegian and all, and I haven't seen it. We'll see it on my birthday actually, the night screening. It's gonna be soooo great! The others already think I'm crazy, after this movie they will probably think that all Norwegians are crazy. We saw the trailer last week.. Haha... I'm sure those who have seen it understand what I'm talking about.

I need to take my med. now. See u guys later!!! Lots of hugs n kisses. Savne!!