Beach Party

Now I can tell you not all beach parties are great. At least the one I just came back from really sucks. Guess all parties need right participants- party animals you call this type of ppl- who can be relaxed, a bit crazy, and always enjoy in every situation no matter good or bad. My friends Anna and Jason are just in this type and you can always have fun partying out with them. Most of westerners know how to party and what to do in parties. So as long as the party is held by westerners, you can always have a good time.

The one I went to tonight was heard from an email forwarded by Jason, a beach party in Bai Sha Wan (white sand bay), everything's free including entry, food, and drinks. Sounds cool isn't it? So we went to that beach early in the afternoon to have some swimming first, then stayed until party got hot.

7pm, some people left. Guessed they didn't know about the party and just came for swimming.

9pm, more people were leaving. Guessed they had been there for the whole day and got tired so went home early.

11pm, some new people came, but the beach was still empty. Well, let's wait for another hour as there'll be more and more people coming after 12, according to previous experiences...

12.3oam, the beach was almost packed! Let's go dancing! What happened? No one's swinging their body in front of dj tant but only standing there drinking and talking....

1,30am, people kept coming down to the beach. Eh? Still no one's dancing!!?? What the hell... Look out all over the beach, 99% are local young people in college age. They mostly came in groups with guys and girls mixed. Once they got to the beach, they would sit in a circle, screaming out loud for lossing some game or something, shouting to one another, running around along the circle, or drinking and talking quietly in the circle. Those who stood in front of music just held some alcohole in hand, slightly shaking their heads, drinking, shaking heads, and drinking.

So no one's dancing hard. Nobody. No single one. Girls walked around following with some guy friends or their bfs ahead, guys walked around talking on the mobile trying to find their friends. One girl even took her puppy dog there and walked it around. Rarely we saw a group of 4-5 western guys sitting and drinking alone on the beach, but soon after 10 mins they got invaded by a group of local girls and 5 mins later they were out of our sight and then we found they moved up to melt into the girls' group. Still no one was dancing.

I have no idea why this western style beach party turned out to be a local party or some kind of school activities. I am not discriminating anything but what we expected was supposed to be a crazy one just like a outdoor pub, but not some sort of beach concert where people only listen to music and drink and talk that's it. So I guess not every beach party held in taiwan will be fun. I should've consulted some western party animals before I go to any beach parties. Yeah, I should. Next time.


The Biggest Moon I Ever Seen In My Life

As usual, I got home at night, took off my contacts, ran upstairs to my room, turned on the laptop, clicked internet dialup.  

The dialing tone resounded loud and clear throughout my tiny room, and I was spontaniouly waiting for the shrill sound responded by the server.  Unexpectedly, the dialing was stopped in the middle by a busy tone.  What the hell... the server in 21 centry would never respond a busy tone... I clicked re-dial again.  Busy.  Redial.  Busy.  Redial. Still busy....

In a sudden my mood started to drop down to the bottom of the earth.  I started to worry what/who I would miss out online at the moment.  I started to get stressful not being able to link to the internet.  I started to check my lines, reboot my computer, recheck my phone, look for internet provider's number, and call to customers service center.

(Doo...doo... ) "Hello! Customers service! Sorry, our service lines are all busy.  Please don't hang up and we will get you to the service soon."
          
(10 secs later) "You're in the waiting number 15.  Please don't hang up."

(1 min later) "You're in the waiting number 8.  Please don't hang up."

3 mins later someone picked up my call and once in a while I wondered if it was voice recording.  He told me the dialup line has changed and gave me 2 numbers I should use from now on.

So all my worries are gone after changing number on my internet options.  And I can get thru to my mailboxes and msn again.  And I finally felt relief. 

This is what happened when I got problem accessing internet.       

One Of My Days

I'm not an obedient person.  I contempt all unreasonable rules.  Or reasonable but unnecessary regulations.  I would fight or argue for justic.  Or things I believe in.  This makes me become a self-centered person in people's eyes, at school or in workplace.  In groups, I'm a difficult one.

So when the boss told me off for the frequent lateness I made to work, I retorted that if I didn't get compliment by working late for several hours, why should I be blamed for just several mins late to work? 

So when the HR manager reiterated about the dress regulation at office when everyone's busy re-arranging showroom, I emailed back to comment that if it is logical to wear a 3000nt decent suit to carry heavy boxes here and there, packing and unpacking samples for display/storage, and if company would buy up our suit once it's ripped from labor work.

So when the superviser asked me to tear down factory's quote again and again to fill up our company profit, I gave him a dirty look and threw the job back to him. 

I had this feeling that the whole company has been talking about my rebellious behavior behind.  The most well-known rumor is I have foreign boyfriend(s). 

Then today when I was late to work again, new HR manager asked me to her office soon after I sat down for just 10 mins.... 

******
  
("Why are you always late to work?")  I assumed she's going to ask me the same thing I had been asked twice this month, one by my Team Manager and the other by the Associate Manager.
 
She smiled at me trickily, and in a sudden I couldn't believe what I heard from her tricky smiling mouth. 

"What do you say if you have a chance to be transferred to Offshore Dept?" She asked.

(Wait a min... aren't you gonna counsel me that being obedient and on time to work is a virtue?)

"It'd be a good opportunity to your career in this company and you can work independently as you wish." said she.

"We think you're a suitable one in this office to take over the vacancy and we believe you can do it well."  She kept persuading me.

"You know the Offshore GM is very glad if you can join in his  team." (Hmm... really....?)

"You may have to travel to south east asian countries often, like indonesia, phillippines, malaysia.. etc..." (Wow.. it's getting tempting...)  

"And you will be under Assistant Manager Paul, who might not be a nice person..."

"But you can deal with customers directly, and won't be controlled under senior staff or managers...." (Cool... no more arse obstacles!:P)

"Would you like to accept this new challenge?"  After all the fancy words she threw me a yes/no question and a 'better-say-yes' look.

So I took the offer.  Getting pretty excited at travelling to south east asia more than to china.  Maybe too many gross stories from china which made me puke everytime coworkers talked about them.  I can tell you some next time if you wanna try puking.  

The transfer will be effective in mid Aug if things go well.  I'm gonna take a week vacation before new job starts.  Glad I have something to look forward to in future life.

This is what happened on that beach party night....

So this actually happened in my REAL dream, and then on day it did happen in my REAL life.

We set off to the beach around 3pm on Saturday. We couldn't hop on our train as this beach event had been over promoted and loads of on-vacation students were like "oh yah! we can hook up with our school mates again!" so when groups groups groups of them tried to sqeeze on the train stuffing all the space and every doorway and even the platform, we could only sit back at aside and wonder if joining in the battle with those youngsters or saving our little life. 20 mins later 3 smart arses decided to travel to the previous stop so as to get on the train... safely, and thank god 1 hours later they finally made it their way to the beach!

The quiet tiny fulong station was all packed from platform to subway to ticket hall and also to the street when we got there around early evening. We could only flow with the crowds and tried to keep away from sweaty body touch and stand the heat and stinky smell in the subway. It took us 15 mins to get out of that around 100 meter long tunnel to the other side of fresh air.

The beach had totally been occupied. The food booths, drink booths, souvenir booths, medical booth, body painting booth, people, more people, more and more people, loads of people.... (I HATE 7-11!!) oh by the way, the event was held by 7-11 this year and thank to its great job of promoting this annual r&r beach event, it brought the most people that it never had before to this beautiful white sandy beach where normally only several hundred people would come on weekends. (yeah, I HATE 7-11!!) Last year we could still go close to the stage and gaze to my dream man singing, and after concert we could even go soaking into the water; this year the stage was way out of reach and no one could allow to approach the water either. (I SO HATE 7-11!!) So last year we could sit down and watch the show for the night, but this year we could only play balls and chat on the beach and drinking. Oh well, it's actually not that bad, cuz we had some guys joining in our conversation and... oh well, ok... yeah... it's good this way too!hehe...:)

We were totally sunk in the joys with friends and had no idea when the concert ended. Meanwhile another group of people were gathering and more and more crowds were approaching to our neighborhood. There was a 3 guys' band who played pop music and invited people to request songs and sing for the public. A guy around 18-20 yo went up to sing a local hip pop king's songs and just acted like he's a super star and enjoyed in his performance with his 'so so' voice, but he kept getting crowds applause for his confidence and courage and some funny tricks. Then more young kids went up to sing with inaccurate vocals. Crowds applauded still, and so did i. That night I witnessed the fearlessness and creativity that new generation posses and their strong life energy.

We left around midnight to another beach party in Dashi, where is popular in local foreigners loop for surfing and rave party. The beach in chinese name is honeymoon bay, and just like the name it is a small bay with not very wide sandy beach right by the northern highway. The other side of the road is mountains, so this small bay can be quiet and dark and romantic at night. So we met our new friends- the 3 canadian guys again there and their friends, and started dancing hard in front of the dj tant on the sands. It's a very special experience to dance on the beach. The harder you step on the ground, the deeper your feet sink into sands, and the more slowly you react for the next step. So eventually you either loss your balance, or dance weirdly. Thank god it was dark and people got too drunk or too high to see your awkward motion so you can still look sexy dancing there.

Not sure how the night passed, just when noticing the sky was cracked by the dawn we were all passed out on the sands. I tried to force my brain to get some sleep but my mind was still clear, and my heart still beat fast. My breath followed the frequency of the snore next to me and in a sudden I sensed the familiarity and the peace. The music was still hot when the sunshine got broiling around 6 am, and people started to jump into sea waves one by one. We ended up this journy before being burned like bbq chicken around then, and came back to reality on sunday morning 9 pm.

My dream finished at the dark night of the beach and I woke up with wondering who those guys I talked to and where it would be and how it happened. Now I finally saw the whole story of the dream. It's like the feeling that you see the movie trailer by chance and then you get to see the whole movie one day. I am pretty happy it was a sweet dream.