Sloppy in Taiwan!: Night Life

          It shouldn't even be called night life here...it should be called "life". Because "night" would imply that said "night-time" activities occur within the constraints of the time when it is dark outside. Last night, I left the club and the sun was up. Not coming up...up.
          People don't congregate at the bar here before the go to the club...they congregate at the 7 11. Here's why: not only can you buy beer in the 7 11, but they will actually open it for you at the register and you can drink it in the store...as you leave the store...and as you walk down the street. It's totally legal. You can even loiter outside the place and drink, and people definitely do this.
          This all starts around 10 pm... people START to come into the clubs at 11 pm. The clubs here are INSANE. There was so many people in this place you could barely move...and it's a big place. Underground with two main rooms...all new and chic. Everyone is dressed up and gorgeous. As I've said before, there are very very few fat people here. Actually, there are very few ugly people here. So everyone looks great and the sound system in the club is super high fi. The bass is so loud that the whole dance floor literally shakes...the drinks on the bar vibrate like in Jurassic park. There were hired dancers dancing on the bar tops...what a scene. We congregated with my teacher friend who had rented a vip table section. Good time...I'm not typically a club person, but even I enjoyed myself. This club was called room 18. This is the classy club.
         Now, about the "other" club. There are two foreigner bars that I went to. We are not well represented. It seems like just about every foreigner I talk to at these places is beyond incoherently drunk. To be fair, there are quite a few people who are incoherently drunk. The first two times I went to "Roxy 99", people passed out in the bar. I'm not just talking regular pass out, I'm talking EPIC pass out. This one girl literally fell flat on her face and was completely unconscious when she hit the floor. Epic. So people fall over and knock people over all the time at this place...it's a mess.
        This type of thing doesn't really happen at the other club, but the other place is more expensive. The other foreigner bar I went to was called Brass Monkey and there was a lot of foreigners there. It's like an Irish bar in Taiwan. Nothing special, many of the same people who were at Roxy were there.
        Anyway, I've been going out too much. I have to reel it in...it's getting expensive. But the point I'm trying to make is Taipei goes hard...real hard...real often. I mean this week I went out Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And then tonight I went to the night market and it was packed. So time to tone it down a bit. This is much different than Philadelphia...more like DC or New York...but it doesn't have that "small town" appeal like Philly does...anyway...apples and oranges.
        So I got some cool stuff for my room and I'm almost done furnishing. I have a new bed (mattress) coming, then I'll put the couch mattress back on the couch at which point I will have a couch...then I'll get a Japanese divider to section off the sleeping part from the rest of the room...then a wireless router so I don't have to run this hideous yellow chord across the room. The room will have a Japanese feel to it...mattress on the floor, sitting cushions, a few tatamis, the divider thing...I'm excited.

My sweet new tibetan singing bowl.

My sweet new meditation cushions.

Taiwan Beer...it's not great, but it's cheap. They drink with ice cubes in the beer...at first I was revolted, but it's actually pretty good...now I can't drink it without...of course I would never drink say, Guiness, with ice cubes.