Thursday, May 04, 2006

Ni hao! Greetings from Taiwan!

Hey y'all..

I'm in a cybercafe right now with Eddie, and we're just checking our mails and stuff. Taiwan's been great, really! The moment we landed, I already enjoyed being in Taiwan! The first words I've heard from a Taiwanese at the airport, I could already understand. Everything around is so.. cozy and comfortable. And a lot of them actually speak English too.. but even if they spoke Chinese, I could generally understand. How cool is that?

Rehearsals and stuff has been great. Jonathan is a cool cat to work with. The band is fairly big, with THREE keyboardists - Mac Chew (on piano as well), Jenny Chin, and Chet Ng; THREE-horn section - me, Eddie on trumpet and Roger on trombone; Ameer on percussions; Gary Gideon on drums; David "Ah Wah" Yee on electric bass; one violin player from Beijing who does back-up vocals with FOUR other back-up vocalists. The guest artistes who will be performing with us are Jeff Chang, Sylvia Chang, and Fish Leung.. and Jonathan of course.

We're staying at the Sheraton Hotel Taipei! Oh man.. that's just so cool! It's the first time I'm actually staying at a 5-star hotel for more than a week! Talk about star treatment.

This concert is basically a showcase, as well as a "flashback" kinda thing, commemorating Jonathan's career as a songwriter as well as a singer.

Anyway, some shorties on our Taiwan escapades...

LOTS OF PRETTY GIRLS!! And I'm not kidding! And I think the people here are a little more globalized (unlike China.. still very backward).

LOTS OF GOOD FOOD... (even for vegetarians)!! The night we landed, we went to this porridge restaurant, where we could pick our dishes, and they'll send us the porridge (teochew-style). They have two sections for meat-eaters and vegetarians!! I was having a ball of a time (while my belly is turning into a ball in itself.. dammit!).

FRIENDLY PEOPLE! Very friendly they are... unlike the Chinese, who are just plain crude and rude flers! Most of the people we've met were very helpful, and the service class in shops are very good!

LOTS OF STUFF TO BUY!! Well, that's nothing new, of course.. but nevertheless, a lot of nice and fairly good quality stuff to get as well. There are a lot of nice computer shops and IT malls in town, all at very good prices. It makes Low Yat plaza and Imbi Plaza look like a small convenience store!

Anyway, that's all I'd like to update for about now. Will upload pictures and write a little more when I get back home.

I'm missing my family at home.. and my friends, of course.

Will see you guys when I get back!

Later.

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