Typhoon #2

Typhoon Fung Wong, or Pheonix... 180 kilometers per hour winds... that's over 100 mph.
Here are two videos on CNN about it:

Typhoon Pheonix

Huge Waves

Lots of flooding in certain places- but here in Taichung its not seeming too bad, just a lot of wind and rain! I used to wonder what Taiwanese school children did without snow days, but now I know they have typhoon days to look forward to instead, well that is unless their house floods or something, then it's not so fun.

Typhoon Part 2 + Movies!

Typhoon Haitang was stronger than estimated. Very surprising to Taichung residents, some streets were flooded waist high. Taichung is famous for not getting much rain and flooding is just about unheard of. A lot of people did not know what to do it seems. On the news there was footage of people trying to rescue their scooters, which is silly, they are already under water, so of course they ended up being swept away by the water. I am not sure if there were any deaths though. This article talks about large damage to agricutlure:

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/detail.asp?GRP=E&id=65563

Dodging between rain I was able to meet with my friend Elvia. We ate sushi at a very cool Japanese style restaurant that uses conveyor belts and color coded plates to let you know prices. Later we watched a movie called Donnie Darko. She mentioned she likes Butterfly Effect, I think they are similar in theme. They both deal with time travel and making choices to change your destiny, and actually being able to see the different outcomes.

Ian + Elvia - Making faces!

Last night, Albert, KC, Claire, and 3 of Claire's friends came along with me to go see Dark Knight, the sequel to one of my favorite movies, Batman Begins. The movie was amazing. Comic book fans, and people who didn't really even know who Batman was really enjoyed it. There were many amazing actors all giving perfect performances. The late Heath Ledger was amazing as the joker and just about made Jack Nicholson look like a hack. I don't want to say anything about the plot, but right now on IMDB Dark Knight is already rated as #3 best movie of all time behind Godfather and Shawshank redemption. Of course the rating will fall back down into place over time, but it can really give you a hint of the quality. I can't imagine any mature viewer not liking the movie. GO SEE IT!

Typhoooooooon!

Not much to say on this one really, just letting you know Taiwan is in the middle of a small Typhoon. Well when i say in the middle, I am serious, take a look at this weather map, can you make out the outline of Taiwan from within the pink?

Taichung city, where I live, is a little above the white central part. There is a lot of rain and a lot of wind. So far I have been super lucky and driving to and from work have not needed much more than a small windbreaker to keep off the rain.

Speaking of the scooter, I am still drawing on it, got a lot of space to cover still, it's pretty fun just doodling on it.

My buddies!

Well I am happy to say I have made some good friends here in Taiwan! KC and Claire are both really nice girls and very funny! I am always making bad jokes for them to make fun of me with, haha! Well KC had to go early but Albert came over later and we watched Batman begins! I felt watching it for probably the fifth time, it has quite a slow build up, but I think it will be worth it in the long run of the series because so many questions are answered that are usually a bit confusing about the Batman character.

Ian + Claire + KC

Dark Knight is getting really good reviews, I have been waiting 3 years for it. I guess I am a little hyped, I hope it can meet my high expectations!

Ian + Claire

Albert and I (sorry, no photo of him today!) have also been discussing E3 events. Thats the big video game conference where the companies announce their new projects. Seems we are both really excited for Street Fighter 4. Also Mega Man 9 has been announced. Both are really exciting for me in particular because they are part of the reason I got into drawing. I used to go to my friend Michael's house all the time and watch him play the games while I drew the characters and created my own, was really fun, and inspired my creativity!

I am trying to get going on my animation and video projects so hopefully I can get something up soon!

SPIDERS - MAN!

Spiders - they like to hang out on walls. They never get bored of them. They can just stare at a wall for hours and hours. They don't make any noises, just sit there contemplating the universe. Well anyway I saw a few big spiders in my house - well they aren't tarantulas - but for a house spider they are pretty big!


Okay, so look at this photo above, you may think, oh its not that big. But compare it to the back of my hand - first of all I am not touching the wall so my hand appears slightly bigger than it should - and even at this size the spider looks like it could probably cover my palm just about. When you see how fast they run its really freaky! Haha! The little geckos are quite quick too!

Recently when I was in the park near to the Science museum I saw some BIG snails too, I guess their shells are a little bigger than a photo roll container. It was night time and I didn't have a camera but I will try to get a photo if I have a chance - really cool to me!

Tomorow I am hoping to get my friends Albert, KC, and Claire to come over to my house to watch Batman Begins. The sequel will come out on Friday, DARK KNIGHT. I am pretty excited about that, it is getting good write ups, has some amazing actors, and one of my favorite characters - BATMAN! I am really happy I have enough friends to have a small get together now too! I hope my friend Ivy will also be able to come with us for Dark Knight on the weekend! If everyone can make it I will feel really happy!

Gotta change my lifestyle

KC + Emily + Ian @ 89k

UGH!!! I haven't written on here for a while because I have been lazy. It's really bad! I think I just need to MAKE myself a scedual. When I was in the US, I worked 40 hours a week. I woke up at 7 something, got to work by 8:30 and worked till 5. Got home around 5:30. If I wanted to get anything done I had to do it on my way home. Well my point is that I had to do things at those times because of my work time.

Here in Taiwan I work only 19 hours, and its from around 3:30 - 9:10pm. I am not a morning person and before work I am always watching the clock to make sure I won't be late. So I end up waking up really late, going to work, coming home, and staying up really late. Also because of this timing I find its harder to get dinner.

Because of this I think I really need to enforce my own schedual and change this lifestyle. Today I woke up at 11am which is EARLY for me here, haha! I feel really tired right now, but I can't let myself take a nap or I wont sleep earlier tonight.

I think I need to be asleep by 2am. Then I can wake up around 10am, that should be plenty of sleep. After waking up I can go get some proper lunch/breakfast, all the shops will be open at this time. Then I need to stop being paranoid about being late for work, just set an alarm to warn me when I need to get ready to go. On weekends I need to stick to the schedual most times too or it will get out of whack. People have told me that sleeping between certain hours gets you better rest. Not sure if that's true, but I am not getting good rest currently so I can try it.

Hm... so what else is new? I just met a few new people in the past weeks, I think I need to try to be more social - part of stopping being lazy. We went to 89k to see some bands play. Actually they were pretty good I think. After that we went to the dance club Lobby, it was really crowded but having a bunch of friends in there is more fun I think. It's funny though, I thought having all this free time would make me more productive but it doesn't. I still need to make sure I am not sinking into the lazyness cycle. I really need to get working on my video and stuff. Just right now I am really having a hard time with thinking about the structure and format...

Ian + Emily @ 89k

On Saturday night Albert and I rode our scooters down a long road that led towards the mountains, then up beitun road into the next township. Albert just bought the scooter so he is practicing still. The roads at that time didn't have much traffic so it was good, and fun to drive faster on a straight road.

Okay - that's all I got for now - I'll try to post more later!