taiwanese update

hey y'all,
i finally found a fast internet connection and will post a quick write-n-run while i have the chance.

JAPAN
So my brother Dan came out to visit for a week in Japan and we had a blast, running through a high-speed tour of Kansai. First we went to Kyoto, had a tea ceremony with a Maiko (young Geisha), which was awesome. Then we went to Kiyomizu Temple and ran into these two old Japanese ladies that were at the tea ceremony, who we ended up having Okonomiyaki with (random, right).

Day two we went to Kinkakuji and Ryoan-ji, the first the famous golden temple of Kyoto, the second the famous Zen garden of Kyoto. After Kyoto, we headed back to Himeji for Okinawan dinner with Ayame (she and her guitar class gave us a special performance of Sha-In, Okinawan traditional folk music guitar), and we met these two guys from the Kinoshita Circus (which is in Himeji until mid-January). It was wild talking to this one guy, he is the wild-animal trainer for the circus and works with tigers, lions, elephants, etc. on a daily basis. He had really big hands! Ayame and I are going to see the circus show on January 8th. It's gonna be cool.

After spending the day in Himeji walking around the castle, eating eel lunch, we headed home where Dan cooked awesome homemade pizza and we lounged around. The day afterwards, we headed out to Osaka to meet Markane for yakiniku and an all night Warcraft session. It was awesome. The morning afterwards we scrambled to get to Kansai Airport, and off we flew to Taiwan.

Taiwan was an awesome time with Dan. We chilled with my Dad a bit, and hung out with an old friend of mine from SF that moved back to Taipei, and even my crazy uncle Da JoJo, who is like the Chinese version of the Marlboro Man. We ate tons of good chinese food - dumplings, noodles, street stalls food - the best was HAO DA JI PA "big huge chicken steak," dim sum, and more dumplings, homemade wontons, and a bunch more that I'm forgetting. We managed to get in a bunch of shopping and hit a couple of night markets, and saw a bunch of new parts of the city that we hadn't explored before.

Anymore that's all I got for now. It's 5am and I've just come back from the NYE fireworks from downtown, they lit up the tallest building in the world - Taipei 101, it was AWESOME... pictures to be posted later.

g'night y'all! happy new year. i sure am looking forward to a kick ass 2007.

love,
-m.