10:49 am greencastle, july 9; 11:49 pm taipei, july 9

so a good few things happened today. it all started around 11 this morning. wait, make that like 10:50, approximately when i was dressing after my shower, and suddenly a (surprisingly large) drop of blood fell onto my hand. wait...it feels like my nose is really runny. aw, dag. stupid nose...well, so after i cleaned that up and got my nose to stop bleeding, i realized that it'd already dripped onto the ground and my foot a few times...and that was pretty upsetting and nasty.

...but on to the actual important stuff. so lunch, (well...i suppose that, now, it's) yesterday. went out with carl, barney, the twins, daisy, her sister, sally, a friend of sally's, and sally's and daisy's father (nine of us) in this pretty cool tea room thing, which was something of a hybrid restaurant, too, but most of their food was actual eastern food with little more asian twist than rice. decent desserts, though; i had some strawberry, cherry, and banana chocolate tart, which was a little too rich, but otherwise pretty good. some kind of mushroom and shrimp stuff over rice for my main meal, though. afterwards...carl, barney, and i took the twins around and to sogo again. carl and i talked at length about skateboarding and other stuff...he's really cool. uhh...oh, so that restaurant was on the lowest floor of a shopping mall, and we walked through it to get up, out, and into the mrt station. then, we entered the mrt station thinking that we could head back, but the twins really, really wanted to go do something, and that's why we ended up going to sogo. hey, funny story, it costs like NT$20 to enter a station and exit the same one...so like 66 cents, but still...between the three of us (under 115 cm free), they made two free us dollars. pssht...

and then we spent like an hour in front of barbies.

well, they looked at some other things, too, but the longest time was in front of some barbies. and it was very boring.

...and just as we were leaving sogo and had entered the mrt station again, my uncle alex called to see if i could meet him at...sogo. of course. well, i told him i had to drop stuff off where i was staying (kinda true, i was the one not holding an infant, so i was the one carrying some left-over cake) first anyways, so...yeh.

so at like 3:30ish or so (very rough; give it a thirty minute margin of error) we met in front of sogo, at the main entrance, where there's this huge weird clock thing, and, today, a performance and people talking about some "khlein" store or something; more designer clothes, i assume, newly opening. some decent dancers, actually, though. decent, but only marginally. then we went and got some drinks over which we could talk for a bit and figure out some movie stuff. oh, right, i forgot to talk about that here; i've already told much of this story to at least three other...well, at at least three other places. so when he first called, it was like, "hey, so, i'm in town, and your mom and i agreed that you and i are going out for food and to watch a movie saturday. kthnxbye." so...i kinda had to cancel whatever potential hanging out was happening with derek (yes, a name!), but it was interesting. oh, had some kind of berry yogurt slush (approximate translation) thing and it was really good. ah...figured out where a movie theatre would be, figured out the time of the movie (war of the worlds; yeah, yeah, i know...), and headed off. made it in time, no worries....movie theatre on seventh floor of huge mall complex. very cool. i need no articles.

oh, hey, you know what else is funny? the way "hollaback girl" was playing when i walked into the theatre...and the way i threw my arms up in exasperation and got a few weird looks. auugh! auuuuuugh!! and i've realized that i've seen that *one* preview for "stealth" at least four times for every movie that i've seen in the past, say, four months. i kid you not, it is *everywhere,* and that's a problem. it plays at every movie and on all the tv's around anywhere, and this is extremely bothering. ah, well...not a lot i can do about that.

then dinner in sogo--chinese food, not especially noteworthy, but it was one of the better meals i've had here. uhh...looked around at more stuff there. i think i'll buy a new messenger bag while i'm around...my present one is coming apart a bit, one of the corners, so...yeh. but almost all of them are around NT$1000, or about $35. *sigh*...we'll see. maybe if i find one that i really like. oh, saw some $60 oakley flip flops. they look comfortable, but not even $40 comfortable...pssht.

hold up. i just realized that i probably never fully explained sogo, what this massive thing is. well, imagine a department store. now, blend it with a shopping mall, so that it has all the stores and whatnot of a mall, including the little vendors of drinks and small snacks everywhere, but tear down the walls between stores and package them up mostly into displays characteristic of a u.s. department store. alright, you've the general idea. now, make it twelve stories tall, with two basement floors. there you go! that's that specific "pacific sogo" or whatever the outlet is called. it's...pretty dang cool, and i definitely wish i could bring a bunch of you along to mess around there; it'd be like target times eight--an approximation, but quasi-realistic. man...so much stuff! well...they wouldn't be quite that lenient with us taking stuff all around the store, but we could definitely point and mess around right there and everything to our little black hearts' content. *sigh.* maybe some time, when we're all like 30 and want to have a good old reunion, it'll be in taipei. but, then again, maybe archer will finally come to his senses. but, once again, maybe i'll actually be optimistic. hah. haha.

ah...which about covers it. real plans tomorrow. real plans next thursday. real plans all next weekend. real plans...what...tuesday? wednesday? tentative plans wheneverelse i have time. yeah! but...it's been way too long since i've played ultimate. the sogo nike place had some of those really cheap discs, and i almost wanted to ask the store guy if he'd back up a bit so i could try it out. it was cheap, too--like $8, i think, but i can't remember for sure. wellp...i should probably go to sleep, seeing as i've got to be somewhere rather far in about...less than eight hours. uh oh...