Savoury Savagery

2012-01-05T14:58:00.001-08:00

I'm back!

2011-09-29T04:00:00.001-07:00

Despite the derision of my previous post some three years ago, I've decided to rejoin the blogosphere; not because I believe that I have something that others need to hear but more because writing fulfills a need in me and helps me to relax and process the things I encounter. The act of publishing something - regardless of how many people will read it - gives one a certain sense of achievement and removes one from the realm of the critic to that of the potentially criticized. It is far more courageous.

I hate blogspot

2008-07-28T04:19:00.000-07:00

I have been finding it increasingly frustrating to lay my photos out properly on this blog so I have changed to a more dedicated photo blog site. Check out my new blog! www.photoblog.com/Savourysavagery.

Off to the Typhoon Coast

2008-07-28T02:38:00.000-07:00

We set off on Saturday on the train to the North East coast of Taiwan to go and do some camping near the ocean. We hopped off the train after a three hour journey, all told, and found our way to what has been labelled as the best organised campsite in Taiwan. When we arrived, I soon started thinking that it might be one of the best organised campsites in the world. Each plot has a wooden deck. There are a number of communal ablution facilities, a pool, roller-rink, convenenience store, sheltered eating area with cooking utensils as well as kayaks, windsurfing equipment and bicycles for the bike track for hire.

We pretty much arrived, walked the short way from the town of Fulong to the campsite, paid our money and ran to the beach. We were greeted by a lake, with a very big estuary area. The beach is pretty much a sandbar that can only be reached by a bridge over the river. The swimming area was cordoned off with small buoys and what is more the beach was closed unceremoniously by the overweight, betelnut chewing, middle-aged lifeguards at 5 sharp. This prompted a mass exodus from the beach. We checked out some sand sculptures before we joined the stampede to the town.

That night we were kept awake by a school camp, with irritating pop music playing and we were later woken at 2am no less by the first wave of rain heralding the coming typhoon. In fact, we had had warning of this earlier, when, just after throwing up our hammocks, the rain showered down, leaving us scrabbling at knots and eventually giving up and getting soaked. We discoveredwhy our tents were cheap incidentally...not very waterproof.

The next day, after a few pitiful hours of sleep, we missioned off down the coast in search of a better beach and better waves. The train pretty much hugged the coastline, which let us see how the waves were shaping. We've always doubted Taiwan having any swell, but thanks to the coming typhoon, there was heavy storm-generated swell, mostly breaking on jagged, shallow rocks.

We eventually settled on a sandier beach and despite our enthusiasm to catch waves, we were repulsed by a wall of foam and a strong sidewash. Adam caught the only wave of the day, getting a fleeting barrel as the waves formed up cooperatively for him, before closing out and smashing him into the sand. Lucky bugger.

We later befriended some locals with a surf shack on the beach, who made us waffles (a

t a price) and lent Adam a 6 foot surfboard which allowed him to paddle desperately and get tossed about the waves for a while, without catching wave. Unlucky bugger.

We got quite severely burned by the sun, but the mission was well-worth it as we managed to get in some time in the ocean, before the coastal police closed all beaches in anticipation the typhoon. The shouted through a loudhailer and used their siren from the comfort of their air-conditioned car to get the attention of some errant and stubborn beginner surfers who eventually left the

water. Very funny indeed.

Skip forward 4 hours later, after packing up our tents and catching a packed train back to Taipei, before we slept for an hour or so on the bus back to our home town Hsinchu.

On the way back from Taipei on the bus, we learnt that our area was to have a typhoon day, which has meant we have spent today at home eating and watching movies. The typhoon has been a bit of a damp squib. The day has been mostly overcast but distinctly non-rainy and non-windy. The rain has just started up this evening, but it's nothing too awe-inspiring. Work again tomorrow, I suppose. It has been an awesome lazy day.

Big-headed alien spawn

2008-07-23T08:46:00.000-07:00

Well, today I had to observe a kindergarten class for the age group that I'm going to be teaching come next week Friday. The kids are 2 and 3 years old and have barely learnt any Chinese and I will be programming their little brains with English. It looks like I will be singing a lot to get them to do anything. It's going to be like the Matt musical. Those of you who know my character know that this is not in keeping with it. But it will be an excellent learning experience. I might have to wipe a but or two, encourage some children to eat and watch others throw up all over the place. It's going to be a riot! But I'll be getting lots of hugs from big-headed kids who will melt my cold heart.

In other news I watched the new Batman on Friday night and was really blown away. My friend here says he read a review which said the it was "made by god". I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that, but it will take a lot of beating for my favourite movie of the 2008, even though we are only half way through this year.

Typhoon Day please!

2008-07-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

We might be getting a typhoon day - a day where you are not required to go to work because of extreme weather conditions - today. If you follow this link to Wunderground - a forecasting site - you can see flash animation and tracking charts of the typhoon's activity. Typhoon days are awesome. We had two last year and we got to stay home, watch movies and read books and eat pancakes. Genevieve has started a tradition I think of making pancakes when the weather is miserable outside. Silly woman to set such a precedent she will have to maintain.

Above are the covers of some albums I've been listening to lately. The new Shai Hulud, Have Heart and H2O albums are killer. I've also surprisingly been getting into Alkaline Trio, a fact which will please some of my friends.

*As I type this post, the typhoon has intensified outside. Things are looking promising!

**11:05am Typhoon Kalmaegi has been downgraded to a tropical storm.

Batman+Lego=Totally awesome

2008-07-13T20:15:00.000-07:00

Well, Gen and I had a fairly quiet weekend at home. I played some football at the Tsing Hua University with some Vietnamese guys on Saturday and we went to church where their was an adult baptismal service on Sunday. It was really encouraging to hear the testimonies of those being baptised.

On Sunday, we also went for a walk around our neighbourhood in search of a water gun, preferably a Supersoaker for Gen to use for a Kindergarten fun day/ water fight this Thursday. We ended up going into a toy shop, where I discovered this awesome cache of Lego. My attention was particularly drawn to the Batman Lego. If we had had the money for it on us at the time I would almost certainly have bought it.

Batman Lego combines two obsessions, one recent and one from childhood. I don't think I'll ever be too old for Lego and seeing so much of it on offer, I got to thinking about how much fun I used to have building it up. I was particularly interested in the knight series when I was younger. Now to my more recent obsession: Batman. Ever since reading my first Batman comic, Frank Miller's "Dark Knight" and watching the most recent movie, I have been interested in Batman. He is not a lame superhero as he is intelligent, not relying on some experiment-gone-wrong, toxic spill, or nuclear explosion for his powers.

Therefore Batman+Lego=Totally awesome. I might be scraping together some cash to buy the Batmobile some time soon!

Incidentally, I have also downloaded some digital comics and a digital comic reader, so I have been reading through all the classic Batman tales in readiness for the forthcoming movie which screens in Taiwan on July 17. You can rotate the images and turn the Macbook on its side to read the comics, so that it is almost like reading the actual book and is fairly similar in format.

Up on the Roof

2008-07-09T08:51:00.001-07:00

This is view at night from the top of our apartment block. In one direction is a night market and temple and in the other direction is the city hall. The second picture shows the light trail left by a police car. We have a cop shop 400m down the road from our front door and a double-feature cinema just over the road. R20 gets you two movies.

Filthy Creatures

2008-07-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

We drove up into the mountains on our scooters today and spent some time walking up the boulder-strewn river, swimming in the deeper pools, sliding off rocks and jumping off waterfalls. We also happened across some pretty interesting insects. There are two pictures here. One is of a butterfly and some bees which were inexplicably drawn to my slop, where I can only hazard to guess that they were harvesting my toe-jam for honey. Sies! Someone might actually eat that. The other picture is what I like to call "poo with wings", a hideous thumb-sized bug. Fortunately this creature was dead. I hope it didn't reproduce. It's just too ugly.

Summer Swimming

2008-07-03T06:40:00.000-07:00

Today we took a trip to the pool. It is one of the only outdoor pools in the city. Taiwanese people don't like the sun to toast them. We always feel a little strange going for a swim and a suntan, as the Taiwanese people gawk at us as if we're crazy. There's even shade cloth over parts of the pool. One nice thing about this pool is the slides. They're only turned on on Saturdays though and then we race up the stairs alongside little children in fish-shaped swimming caps and goggles. Swimming caps are required for all, so we have to don them too. I normally sport a red one while Gen wears a deep blue.

Nearby the swimming pool is a military base and you can't hear yourself speak as jets take off and land, sometimes leaving cloud trails in their wake.

Finally back online

2008-06-30T20:32:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been quite a palaver getting our apartment hooked up with internet. It becomes pretty difficult when the technician installing can only speak Chinese and Gen and I can only speak English. Fortunately, with holding a phone to the technician's ear while a Chinese speaking friend translated what we were saying, seems to have worked eventually, so now we are up and running again. Our lack of internet explains my lack of posts on this blog, incidentally. Anyway, while I've had some time offline, I managed to find some really cool photos I took of a sunset just as a typhoon was rolling in to our city. It makes for some spectacular colours and an apocalyptic appearance. Note that I haven't tweaked the colours at all. This is what it actually looked like.

Trafalgar and Back

2008-06-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

I went for a drive down the Hibiscus Coast today with Genevieve. We left early and arrived on the beach at 8.30am. Unfortunately we chose sardine run time for our expedition so we couldn't swim. Instead we pottered around, sleeping on the beach on Genevieve's newly-made picnic blanket, and waddling from nap-spot to eating spot. These are the pictures to prove it.

Shongweni Farmers' Market

2008-06-07T00:30:00.000-07:00

I managed to wake up bright and early before the winter sun. Then the family headed off to the farmers' market where we had coffee and perused the wares on display such as flowers and coffee.
I managed to get some colourful shots of fruit and vegetables as well as some pictures of the important women in my life.

Rock Slides and Plugs

2008-05-06T06:39:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd post some pictures of some tunnels and plugs and spirals I ordered recently. Note the wooden plug with the anchor design. The shape of the anchor is actually cut out. Awesome! The red plug is made of silicone.

Apart from that, we went on a scooter trip into the mountains this weekend. It took us about an hour to get there and it was really worth it. The water was clear and this bluish colour. We were able to rock jump and even go sliding down a longer moss-covered rock. Sweet. Check out the videos.

HK HXC

2008-05-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. Life has been pretty frantic since Gen and I got back from Hong Kong on Monday morning, just in time to teach. In the interim a week has flown by and two of my friends, Rich and Roch are now married. I can't wait to hear how the wedding was.

Anyway, I thought I'd upload a couple of photos Gen and I took while we were in Hong Kong. The first few were taken from a viewpoint above Hong Kong city. You are meant to be able to get some good views but unfortunately for us it was a hazy, polluted day. The steep tram ride up to the viewpoint was fun though. The other pictures are of us in transit. We did so much traveling, transferring from high-speed rail to shuttle bus, to aeroplane to subway. Very tiring indeed!

We got to spend a day with my cousin, Russ, which was also pretty cool. He is a financial planner and we went around to his apartment. The place has a clubhouse with an indoor swimming pool, steam rooms, jacuzzis, an outdoor pool, a games room equipped with X-box 360, Wii and PS3, table-tennis rooms, drum-kit and piano for random use as well as restaurant and bar. There are also games rooms where you can play poker or Mah-jhong.

As for Comeback Kid, I could not have asked for a better show. Everyone was so into it. Here are some of the highlights for me from the show.

1. Doing gang vocals on Die Tonight.
2. Swinging from the rafters.
3. Breaking it down to Talk is Cheap
4. Head-walking
5. Swinging onto the stage for the final song, Wake the Dead, grabbing the microphone and singing the last bit with a bunch of Hong Kong hardcore kids.
6. Losing my voice
7. Getting battered and bruised, and dishing out some batterings and bruisings
8. Hearing all my favourite songs including Lorelei.

Music Taste

2008-04-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I amaze myself. I'm sitting here listening to emo pop-punk in the form of Bayside, a Victory Records band. Absolutely disgusting. I really enjoy the singer's voice though. I'm also listening to Pennywise's new album, "Reason to Believe", released on Myspace Records [spits]. It's a real return to form and what's more it's free to download.

Still can't get enough of Crime In Stereo's "Is Dead" and A Wilhelm Scream's "Career Suicide", my joint albums of the year for last year. Check them out if you haven't already.

We're leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow. I'll get to see my cousin, a good mate from university and, wait for it...Comeback Kid...live. Yes, Comeback Kid...live. Take that. I'm ridiculously excited. I'll spend tonight picking out my outfit for the gig. I'm going with some sports shorts (black with copper stripes), my New Balance cross-trainers (black and posi-blue) and my grey Comeback Kid shirt. I might wear my new plugs from Thailand too.

Call Me A Football Nut

2008-04-23T01:26:00.000-07:00

I am realising more and more that I have a bit of a football (soccer for any uncouth charlatan out there) obsession. This morning I woke up at 3am to watch the first leg of Chelsea's UEFA Champion's League semi-final tie against Liverpool. I have spent most of the day in zombie mode as a result and the little kids can smell weakness and predictably have acted up. Anyway, it was all worth it, with Chelsea snatching a late away goal, five minutes into injury time.

Also football related, I have just started playing Pro-Evolution Soccer with a mate of mine, Adam. It's a pretty cool computer game. However, our obsession is such that we went out to buy a gamepad controller for the sole purpose of playing the game. Funny thing is, we have grown so accustomed to cheap technology prices that we were analysing which controller to buy for some time until we realised that it was either R40 or R20 for a controller. Once perspective had been restored, we bought the cheaper one and began our gaming. Gen won't play against me and refused to wake up for the game at 3am this morning. I just can't understand why!

A List

2008-04-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

On the left are two albums I've been listening to a lot lately. Torche is some sludgy stoner grunge which I am really enjoying, but Gen is not. She hates some of the music I listen to. The other album has been out for a while and is Damon Albarn or Blur and Gorillaz fame's latest project. Some good stuff.

On another note, given that I will be back in South Africa in less than a month now, I've decided to compile a list of food that I have been craving while in Taiwan and which I want to gorge myself on when I return:

1. Boerewors
2. Pork sausages
3. Marmite
4. Roast lamb
5. Good gouda cheese
6. A mixed veg roti from Sunrise Chip 'n Ranch (Johnnies)
7. An El Greco pizza (spinach, feta and garlic) from Papparazzi's Pizza
8. Lamb Chops
9. Wholewheat bread
10. Olives
11. Slap chips
12. Doritos Sweet Chili
13. Fish and Chips
14. A hot Durban curry
15. Biltong

This is by no means and exhaustive list. You will note that rice is glaringly absent from this list. I have eaten too much rice here in Asia.

Life is a Rollercoaster

2008-04-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been six or so days since my last post, and since then things have been pretty topsy-turvy. I've been piled with more teaching hours and I've had some sort of food poisoning. Oh, and I've also started taking Fish Oil capsules. Those Omega-3 Fatty Acids are supposed to help arthritis, which, at the tender age of 25, I am sad to say I have.

On another note, Taiwan is an awesome place to get figurines and toys. On a recent trip to Taichung (situated in the middle of the island, for those who are in interested) we stumbled across a pretty awesome toy store. Although we were tempted to buy vintage light sabers and storm trooper masks, we settled for two characters from the Simpsons, "Ragin' Willie" and "Sideshow Bob". The cool thing about these figurines is that if you connect them to a base, they say designated lines. They are currently standing with pride above our Simpsons poster, alongside various other plastic oddities we have picked up while in Taiwan. Orders, anyone?

After the War

2008-04-11T06:48:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, Gen and I went with some friends down to the Kenting National Park in the South of Taiwan. We caught the high speed rail most of the way. The train travels in excess of 300km/h. Anyway, we ended up camping and spent a lot of time in the sun, snorkeling in the blue Pacific ocean, rock-jumping into the clear water and watching bands at night. There was a music festival on while we were there and amidst a lot of clone-pop and bad Taiwanese bands, there were some gems...and they happened to be Japanese.

After The War, were Rancid style punks, and were really energetic while Mimie-Chan, who dressed in strange costumes (see belly-costume spandex suit, ladybird costume, chicken suit and red wig above) played ska, with very few vocals. It was a lot of fun.

Roast Taiwanese Chicken

2008-04-09T09:32:00.000-07:00

Well, Gen finished work earlier than me today, and before I returned home she cooked this fine chicken. I got to see the finished product, minus head and feet after Gen had lopped them off. Gen took these pictures to show how the chicken was giving her the beady eye. It looks rather accusing, doesn't it? She even tried to close it's eyes as you would close the eyes of someone recently deceased. It made for good eating though. On a side note, you can also buy black chickens here. Imagine roasting up a black bird! And by black, I mean the colour of coal.

Comeback Kid! Live! In Hong Kong!

2008-04-07T17:57:00.001-07:00

This won't mean a lot to everyone, but in about two weeks' time I'll be flying over to Hong Kong from Taipei to watch Comeback Kid play. They've been one of my favourite bands for a while now and I never thought I'd get the chance to see them. Well, now I will! Just making sure I know all their lyrics now.

I Got My Head Shaved By a Jumbo Jet

2008-04-03T07:07:00.001-07:00

It's Raining, It's Pouring, The Old Man is Snoring

2008-04-01T20:27:00.000-07:00

Well, there hasn't been much letup in the Spring rains we've been having this week. Everything is grey and rather miserable. Not much to do but stay indoors, eat, sleep and try to keep yourself entertained.

I've been listening to these three albums (see below) a lot lately. They all have a rough, lo-fi sound to them although the styles are different. Career Suicide reminds me of 80's style hardcore like Black Flag "Damaged". Cloak/Dagger is a great jangly punk release out on Jade Tree Records. The Red Dons album is just simple punk rock, with an emphasis on rock. A little understated, but an album that has really grown on me. I suspect these three albums were recorded in a more old-school, perhaps analog way. They sound more honest, not over-compressed like half the stuff coming out recently.

Ignorance Isn't Bliss

2008-03-31T19:02:00.000-07:00

I was teaching a class of older Taiwanese students at the cram-school where I work this past week and one of the exercises for discussion involved deciding which of six fictional characters should be given a heart transplant. The other five were doomed to die. Before I go further, you need to understand that Taiwan is pretty homogenous, and people don't like to stand out. The school system doesn't really encourage individuality either. Anyway, in the discussion on who should get the heart, the students in my class didn't want to give the heart to any of the black characters. The reason they gave was that they thought black people were ugly. "I hate black people!" one girl (15) said with a nervous giggle.

Anyway, I got them to think about what they were saying and pointed out that different people make life more interesting. I also pointed out that saying something like that in South Africa, my motherland, wouldn't fly. In fact, you'd probably end up getting thumped or killed. They still couldn't understand. Seeing a black person is such a rarity for them.

What I took from this situation, was a feeling of gratitude that I have been able to grow up in such a racially sensitized country and in a country that is so culturally and racially diverse. South Africa is such and interesting place!

On another note, I can't wait to return to South Africa for my month's holiday before I fly back to Taiwan for another year of teaching. I intend to make a list of foods I want to eat and braai for a week straight.

Checked shirts and beards

2008-03-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

It's almost been a year since I left South Africa for the shores of the island nation of Taiwan, and sadly this is my first blog post, despite promising myself and others that I would post something regularly. I'm going to start slowly, so for this post I'm showing you the albums I'm listening to. I'm really enjoying honest and and gritty punk rock. Well-written lyrics also help. And don't forget a gruff, hearty voice.