My Rants

Hello everyone,
I'm in KaoHsiung Taiwan! Second largest city in Taiwan, No. 1 being Taipei up north. City of scooters and pollution. It is a shipping port and has an interesting history. People from KaoHsiung are a little more homelier than the Taipeinese (without being too rude, KaoHsiungers are also probably a little more Kampung compared to their northern brothers and sisters - my wife always gives me the evil eye when I say this though - but they are also nicer cos you know what they say about city folks). This trip has become an annual migration for us and its one of those times of the year where we look forward to getting away for Brunei for a little while, letting our hair down and relaxing in the hot springs, spas, and enjoy all the sumptuous food in the night markets of Taiwan. I will most definitely be keeping my postings going, updating for those of my visitors who are interested in knowing Taiwan a little better (no, I don't think Taiwan should be part of China.. heh, I don't marry into a Taiwanese family without getting slightly influenced!). I will also post some pictures up when I can. My sister in law will be getting her hands on a new Nikon SLR tomorrow, so I will take that and stick my 50mm 1.4 on and give it a spin. Should be fun. So far the trip has been marred by one little incident. The fucking (and I curse at them cos its just not on) idiots at Kota Kinabalu Airport broke into our luggage, AGAIN. It happened to my Mother in Law - they cut her luggage's zipper, and last year it happened to us - my wife lost some gold jewelry, however until today we thought perhaps we misplaced it, but now we are pretty sure they fucking broke in and stole in. How do I know...? well I put padlocks on my luggage, one was missing, the other luggage I have two on, and they destroyed one of them and left it hanging there as evidence - some pics to show what they did on the way. So when I am on my way back, that little evidence will go straight into the police report I am putting through at KK airport. Fuckers... By the way if any of you readers have had this happen to you, let me know, we can all write in a petition to the Malaysian High Comm and let them have a piece of our mind. (p.s. you are probably thinking maybe its the Taiwanese side, but I doubt it. My parents in law fly in and out of Taiwan and KaoHsiung airport frequently and this NEVER happened to them but did so only on the KK route. And it is NOT BRUNEI, cos Bruneians are not as low as our neighbours and Brunei outbound passengers NEVR complain about these sort of thing). Hell will freeze over before I put my camcorder and ALL my equipment into the check in luggage now..

In any case, enough cussing! Here's the plan for me and my filming in Taiwan:

1) Shoot some scenes to show the daily lives of Taiwanese going about earning a living over here. Taiwanese have business in their blood and they work hard. Something I truly admire. While our Bruneian traffic jam going home from work starts around 5-530, their rush hour going home is around 7-8pm. So you get an idea of their working hours.

2) Shoot a mini doco tentatively called AN AUSSIE IN TAIWAN. My sister in law's friends will be coming to Taiwan and this will be their first ever trip. I will film them, amongst other things : a) trying out smelly tofus, b) trying out squat toilets, c) interacting with the local people, d) reactions of the local people to 'white people' trying to speak chinese to them! and e) anything that pops up.

3) Riding on a scooter in Taiwan Traffic: This is a VERY tricky one. I hope to be able to zoom around the streets of KaoHsiung with my DVX on me and record how fast we go around the streets, while only inches away from big buses and insane drivers. I say this is tricky because a) to be careful of the traffic and be in one piece, 2) making sure no one notices my expensive camcorder and comes riding towards us to snatch it - yes it can happen and it is potentially scary. So most likely no night rides, but in the middle of the day around areas we are more familiar with.

4) Shooting the Pinang girls - if you want to know more, just stay tuned.. they are skimpily dressed and are always interested to look at... :)

Well that's about it I guess, very unlikely I will do any edits while I am here so there won't be any video postings, but pictures will come along when I can get around to upload it on the computer.

Chai Chien (see you again in Mandarin).

p.s. something wrong with blogger, I can't seem to put paragraphs into my postings. Not easy on the eyes so apologies.

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