Atelman, Nooooo!

My basic day here is waking up at 1-2PM, waiting to see when or if Des will come back — she’s long since ditched me for her own daytime wanderings — and then wait for my friend S to see if we’re headed to a cafe. Once there I fiddle around on the computer for awhile, thinking about doing some things online but ultimately just browsing and chatting. It’s a lovely rhythm and it’s been awhile since I’ve had regular laptopping times, since Sundays in San Francisco nearly a decade ago. Last Saturday we went to this Sofar Sounds thing that Des concocted, an exclusive invite-only music event that she’d previously been to in LA. The Taipei version was small and cramped, and my friend and I spent the entire post-first act on the stairwell outside, contemplating when we should leave. Luckily Des and her cousins were also ready to get out of there so we headed down the a Mercedes closing night event in Xinyi. The crowd was mostly the young nightlife Taiwanese, as opposed to the hip indie ones ...

Coincidentally Des was in Taiwan about the same time I was slated to be there so we made plans to take a little side trip to Tainan, located about 300km south on the east coast of Taiwan. Her two cousins came with us, and all we did was eat eat eat — Tainan is reputed to have some of the best food in the country. Having her cousin, Tim, along was a tremendous boon as he could literally eat all day. I followed a guide from Synaptic, as well as Clarissa’s articles, and used Foursquare to navigate us around for back-to-back-to-back meals. Standouts was the 豆花 and shaved ice that comes topped with a pudding. I mean, c’mon! There was also visits to some of the local sights like Fort Zeelandia, Anping Treehouse, a very unexpected Michael Jackson dance/music night at Legends Sports Bar, and my favorite, the National Museum of Taiwan Literature. Even though I couldn’t actually read most of the on-display items, the museum was one-of-a-kind (Taiwanese lit!) and the presentation and displa...

2018 started with me blitzing down the 405 at 2AM, on the way home from Santa Monica after a rousing night of karaoke. I had the entire Wizard of Oz soundtrack on blast, looping "If I Only Had a Brain” over and over again. Thematic? Not really. But as it was one of the rare chances I had gotten out of San Diego in 2017, it felt very freeing. Brief update to start things off. The house is done, 2017 is done, travels can begin anew. I was pretty much unproductive the whole year — just look at that overly ambitious mind map —  aside from having the remodel. It does feel nice to have a home though, a place that is presumably mine, that I can always return to and put my stuff in. Of course, as soon as the house was done, I made plans to leave. So the start of 2018 will be journeying, as I set off to Asia for a few months. First Taiwan, then Bali, then Vietnam, and finally Japan. Based solely on the strength of watching Terrace House, I have become a Japanophile and would l...

My niece called me "atelman" for a long time because she couldn't say "uncle Jon." And then AMR made her keep saying "nooooo" afterwards because she was shutting me down from many things.... feeding her, reading to her, interacting anything. Sometimes she would just preemptively say "atelman nooooo" when I walked in the door. Kids, gotta love'em.