P.S.

Dave Holman is my hero.

P.P.S. and if you haven't already, do check out this article.

Urban nomad

The past two weekends I've spent in Taipei, but they could not have been more different. Last weekend I played in an ultimate tournament with Renegade Province, a team composed mostly of expats working or studying in Taipei. Lin kindly let me crash on her couch and play with her amazing dog. We also checked out the hoppin' Shilin and Shida night markets. This time we had a long weekend for Double Tenth Day, and we were invited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to a morning ceremony and parade, as well as a formal reception at the Taipei guest house, where President Ma made an appearance (right). I was also pleased to meet some delegates from Burkina Faso and pull out my very rusty Bamana (dooni dooni). On Saturday we visited the Taipei fine arts museum, which is actually a modern art museum. It was pretty hilarious. I especially enjoyed the Free Beer exhibit ("free in the sense of freedom, not in the sense of free beer") which involved a game of smashing potatoes with a hammer as they came out of a chute. The graffiti machine and beggar robot were also ingenious. I was surprised to see that they were actually planting vegetables in the courtyard, as part of an interactive exhibit - there are gardening workshops on the weekends! I like this picture from Edible Landscape Taipei imagining a green Taipei 101.

To complete the modern, urban cultural experience, Mary and I went to a contemporary dance performance by Cloud Gate Theatre. The program was appropriately called 花雨 as the stage was blanketed with flower petals and more blew in as they danced to the Bach suites for solo cello. Finally, I stayed with some family friends and got a tour around National Taiwan University before heading back to Yilan.