Night View of Taipei 101 on New Years Eve

It was officially New Years Eve and I started the day off right by going to workout with my friend Susan. I hadn’t worked in a while because work was taking up a lot of my time. Any chance I get to work out.. I get pretty excited. I think I ran 3 miles, did a little weight lifting, and then did some kicks in one of the studio rooms.

Working out aside, the main event of the night was New Years Eve celebrations. After working out, eating lunch, and going back to change… I rested a little and before you knew it there was not much time left before the countdown. I got showered and got ready for the new year and head out to meet my friends Elaine and Alan.

Crowds of people in the background

Alan ended up having some work meetings so I had to meet him up a little later. On New Years Eve in Taipei there are tons of people on the streets. Exciting atmosphere.. but still reallly crowded! There was NO PLACE to eat! I tried to find a simple restaurant but there was nothing! We ended up waiting for a bit and finally a spot opened up. Whew! After dinner I met up with Sarah, David.. and the crew!

NYE in Taipei

Lasik Terminator Mode

David’s friend had access to some news or office tower building where you could watch the fireworks. We kicked it there for a while but this would not be our final location for the night! As planned I met up Alan at Marquees. This is where I watched the countdown.

I must admit, this years fireworks were AMAZING. It was Taiwan’s 100th yr celebration and they spent twice the money on fireworks this year. I was in Taiwan last year for the fireworks.. and I can’t even compare.. there’s just nothing to say. Fireworks zigged and zagged up and down the 101 building they shot out of every direction.. they were like missiles blowing up everywhere except they formed hearts and didn’t kill anyone… to my knowledge. Anyways, youtube some Taipei 101 fireworks for this year.. I am sure everyone will agree it was pretty amazing.

ROC 101

After the spectacular firework display this is what lit the sky after the smoke settled. Pretty epic.

So at Marquee, I basically ran into every single possible ABC (American Born Chinese) from LA in Taipei. I felt like I was at a club in LA because so many people flew out to visit and spend new years. For those who have been to Taiwan or have an opinion.. what changes do you see in ABC life in Taiwan in the past decade? How has it affected Taipei and what lies ahead for the future? I ended the night at Primo. Lot’s of friends runnin around and met some new friends as well. Did lots of walkin and runnin around on New Years Eve, but it was all worth it! Had a blast and was happy to have spent my new years in Taiwan. This year was already off to a great start!

The rest of my trip in Taiwan was all quite busy and fun. However, it can basically be summed up in 3 categories: Meet ups, Parties, and Martial Arts.

Meet ups!
It’s nice to follow people on “facebook” or “twitter” to stay in touch… but I MUCH PREFER meeting up my friends face to face and just speaking your mind, hearing what they’ve been up to, and just having a nice cup of tea or coffee or boba! haha!

I met up with my mei Sarah and her fam for dinner. I checked out her new place in Xin Bei Tou – far! but it was a really nice place with like a time travel capable bathroom/shower. haha! Got to meet up with Ngan’s fam as well and take them out for dinner! It was cool that they came to check out Taiwan.

Glad I met up with tha Cool Silly homies Tony, Leeway, and Ray at Primo. They always have concerts and events.. plus every time I’m in Taipei it’s usually for a couple of days only.. so it was good we bumped into each other and said wsup. Too bad for Leeway though.. we didn’t get to go workout this time =P haha next time though! Better start training now. haha!

I had a few Beers with my friends Ryan and Vanessa. Last time I was in Taiwan they hooked me up on an affordable place so it was good catching up with them. My coworker AND roommate Andy was also in Taiwan so of course we met up and then aside from a meetup with some new friends who work at the Golden Horse Film Festival, I also had lunch with my family friends, aunts and uncles.. and that’ssss about it!

Kareoking with Andy

Parties
Luxy.
Primo.
Marquee.
Spark.

Check, check, check….. and check.

Party mode Jess and Tim

Martial Arts + death day workout
Muahhaha! This category is good. Now.. one day.. and I don’t know why.. but for some reason.. I ended up doing A LOT of working out. Sometimes I schedule things and don’t think or care about the physical repercussions as long as it fits with my schedule I’ll just stick it in. So one day I had scheduled to go workout with my friend Susan. Okay… no big deal.. just a workout in the morning. I go workout.. run 3 miles, do some lifting, and do a little light shadow kick boxing and flips in an open studio room. We go and grab lunch.

Behold! I had scheduled to meet up with Ngan to go meet up the Guo Ti wushu team right after lunch… so Ngan meets us up at lunch and straight from lunch I go to Linkou to train wushu! We train for about 1-2 hours.. it was a relatively light workout. We mainly went there to say hi.. but nonetheless, we still ended up doing basic kicks, jump kicks, and short sections.

THEN…. I had made a promise to MYSELF that I would visit Taiwan BJJ – an MMA training place in Taiwan. I had already tried to go once before, but they were closed the day after New Years… so this time I was resolved to check it out. I figured if I didn’t go I might never go this trip.. so riiight after wushu.. I ate 9 pieces of sushi at the train station and went directly to practice.

It’s my first time at Taiwan BJJ and today happens to be a Muay Thai class. Everyone comes in pumped after renewing their new years resolutions. They also all seem pretty serious when it comes to kick boxing.. in other words I think it was a good class.. people weren’t there to do some light cardio kick boxing stuff. The instructor is kind enough to let me sample a class… so we start warming up and doing drills. No one knew or cared that I had come from 2 other workouts already… then to top it off this is no light workout. We started doing jump rope and cardio drills where you go for 3 minutes at a time. I was pretty much dying from the start. Then we switched into doing some Thai clinching drills followed by pad work and finished up by doing some more high intensity conditioning. Whew!

I think if I had been more in shape overall (gettin fat from no working out on the job) and hadn’t run around the whole day working out I would’ve still been tired… but in alright condition. Instead though!!!!…. the next 3 days I pretty much couldn’t walk normally and had a hard time doing anything that required movement. I also had a major pain in my foot so I was limping and sore. (Somehow magically Sarah’s dad had some light device that apparently healed my foot, but that’s another story).

As if that day of 3x workouts wasn’t enough.. I had one last martial arts session in Taiwan. My friend and MMA promoter Holly took me to her friend’s BJJ school near bei tou. We joined in on a more beginner BJJ class.. did some more conditioning and BJJ basics. I still came out learning some good stuff. I was in much pain though still.. haha!

after mma workout at sarahs new house

If only this picture could express how sore I was.. haha! We did do some hot spring therapy and Sarah’s dad used this crazy light to help me heal my gimp foot. I don’t know for certain if it healed my foot, but the next day after I got some rest, I felt significantly better.

Alright.. well stay tuned for the conclusion of Taiwan Adventures III: Ninja Battle

Last week I had the fortune of squeezing in 2.5 days in Taiwan! I essentially had 48 hours in Taiwan because the other half days were occupied by actual commute time. My parents happened to be in town so I asked my boss for a few days off. Fortunately he graciously accepted my request…. and so I was off to Taipei! My mom actually won a free tour to Taiwan from some raffle (she tends to win raffles all the time) so my dad bought a ticket and that’s how they ended up in Taiwan.

Madame Tusades hk wax figure

I had just finished a wax figure opening ceremony at Madame Tusades in HK and then was continuing work on a film in Hubei when I found out that they would be in Taipei at the last leg of their tour. Since we were just about to switch filming locations I squeezed in 2-3 days to see my parents in Taiwan.

When I first got there I met up with my sis – Sarah! We’re wushu “bros” and every time I visit Taiwan I always crash with her and kick it with her whole fam (minus Cheryl who is not in Taiwan) so we always laugh that I’m basically part of the family.. with that said… right when I landed I met her up at this HUGE family dinner of hers. Her dad’s cousins who hadn’t seen each other in 30 some years were there.

schang's family dinner

Then we went back to the pad to regroup and figure out the plan for the night. Even though Schang had work the next day she was down to hang out since I was only in town for 2 days. She is awesome. Another person that was awesome was Ngan – my scwa wushu teammate. So Sarah, her cousin, Tim, and Ngan planned to meet up for some karaoke at cash box! We were thinking it could potentially be more fun if we had more people, but it was kinda last minute so we rolled over.

Jerry Liau, Jack Tu, Jackie Chan

Guess what? As we were waiting outside waiting for Ngan some guy walked by me and quickly said.. “alfred” and i turned my head.. and it happened to be Jerry! It was pure chance that I ran into him. The week before we all met up for dinner. He is part of the New Seven Little Fortunes – a tour group that performs with Jackie Chan. I met him through my friend Jack Tu who is on that team and who was also the winner of the BTV show The Disciple. So Jerry was waiting for a few friends as well and we ended up all sharing a room and having a huge group karaoking the night away. haha. We had only planned to stay out till midnight but since everyone started singing we forgot about time and ended staying out till about 3am.

Lunch with Ngan

Even though we went out until 3am I made plans to get breakfast with Ngan the next day. I had to make the most of my 2 days! I met Ngan at 101… but totally got mixed up that Hua Na Wei Xiu aka the Neo19 place was a little ways off.. so we had a little exercise while meeting up for breakfast. Fortunately Ngan is super chill so didn’t mind the mix up too much. We met up at this breakfast place I like to go to for lounging, surfin wifi, and chatting. We chatted over pancakes and milk tea. We had some really great conversation – talked about random things but also some very insightful things. Within a few short minutes Ngan had a very thorough grasp of what I was doing and where I was heading with my goals. It was pretty amazing how quickly she was able to assess my situation. We also talked about personality types and recognized that understanding yourself helps you understand the best decision to make.

Eating Delicious Rice in Taiwan

Since we chatted for so long it became lunch and I HAD to visit this delicious “lu rou fan” (a taiwanese rice dish) mom and pops Taiwanese hole in the wall by where I used to live last year. After lunch I took a few steps and found a hair salon and got my hair cut.. then was off to meet another friend.

Environment Friendly Chopsticks

I’m starting to go green. On set we’ve decided to use our own chopsticks and bowls instead of using the disposable ones. I think this is awesome because for ONE thing.. if you use your own chopsticks and bowls your meal taste better than eating out of a paper bowl with splintered wood chopsticks. Another thing is that it’s more sanitary to use your own utensils. Most importantly though is – if you think about how many paper cups, plates, plastic spoons, wooden chopsticks are used PER DAY for a cast and crew of a few hundred. You easily go through a thousand spoons and plates per week! This goes back to www.storyofstuff.com – I am strongly against the increased consumption of our consumer society. I think we all need to scale back on consumption and I am happy to start with using my own bowls and plates. I know I went off on a tangent there.. but it’s something I get pretty heated about. So anyways, I went shopping for environmental objects with my friend and then she had to run to go teach a dance class.

I also saw this random pic while shopping.

Darth Vader Party

TW Star Tour Team

For dinner I met up with some colleagues I worked with on a star tour! Sarah and D met us up as well. We ate at a “re chao” place that was also more local and a chill hang out spot. Good for having some down home taiwan style food and beer. We hung out for quite some time and eventually ran into Tim and his friends! It shows how small a place Taiwan is because at night I was planning on meeting up with Tim anyways.

Re Chao in TW

We rolled to Tim’s friend’s house and did a little pre-partying and then headed to Luxy. I had no preference on where we were going that night since I was more down to just hang out with everyone… since Tim promotes at Luxy that’s where we ended up. This time I didn’t have to flip over any lasers to get in.. but they had lasers there anyways.

Luxy Lasers

The next day despite staying out late I woke up super early again (sarah had work too so she was up early).. and I spent a good 4 hours on my business. I was up at 7 and before I knew it.. it was 11. I took a shower and all that and by then started getting pretty hungry. I saw Leeway online so I said ‘yo’ lets get some lunch.. and he was like ‘yo’ i want to go workout. So we did both. After we ate and rested for a bit.. he took me to this community gym near his place. I showed him this HIIT Cardio program I’ve been workin on.. while we were warming up on the bicycle machine I said “hey u wanna try this HIIT cardio program? its pretty crazy but u might die.. im not sure though..” and then he looked at me like “what??” then i said “but hey! itll be fun!” so he said okay. Normally I go through 14 drills. Let’s just say we only got to the 4th drill… haha…

I’ll let Leeway give u his feedback himself.. or u can just look at this pic.

Leeway after A Cardio Session

Aside from his death cardio workout we had a really good chat about where we both are in our careers in entertainment. He updated me on his band Cool Silly and the progress he’s made since I left Taiwan in 09. I look forward to more awesome jams from Cool Silly. I also look forward to more clips of Tony holding a gun.

By the time we finished hanging out it was about time to meet up my parents! I took them to Kan Pai because that’s where I celebrated my birthday last year. I thought we could have some beers and chat.. and we did. The meat tasted fattier than last year… maybe it’s because I’ve been eating healthier or maybe it was just more oily this time.

i-baked

After dinner I hung out with my parents a little more at Tong Ling night market and then parted ways for a bit to go check out my friend Ivy’s new cookie store called i-baked. It was kinda late when I got there, but amidst customer’s coming in and out we talked about a lot of business ideas. She also caught me up on what I had been missing out on since 09. Since I had left she finalized her cookie recipes, set up a physical store, and designed all her logos and flyers, and etc. I was pretty happy for her and her accomplishments. I always like seeing people hustling, using their brains, and moving up! She also added fuel to the fire on this idea I’ve been moving forward on. It’s been taking me quite some time, but I think things are coming together. My goal will be to have it ready to roll by the end of this year. (If you know a patent attorney out there, let me know.)

Ivy's dogs at her Cookie Store

The next day was my last day in Taiwan before flying back to Beijing. I woke up and caught up on a little work before heading to Breeze Center (Wei Feng Guang Chang) to meet my parents, uncle jerry, aunt tan, and sarahs dad for lunch. We ate some good Shanghainese food and I was off to the airport. On the way to the airport we did stop by i-baked again since the cookies were so tasty and also since my uncle wanted to talk to Ivy’s partner who is an animal rescue volunteer.

Well that’s it for my 48 hour taiwan trip. It was awfully action packed just the way I like it. There were tons of other people I wanted to meet up with but simply did not have enough hours in the day! I hope I will be back soon!

We begin this part of the adventure outside of 7 11 where we somehow end up playing a game of truth or dare before heading to the club – Luxy. In this part of the video.. I lost our game so I had to drink a packet of sauce.

Then the girl in the group loses.. and is forced to “holla” at the store clerk and get his number.

The next clip is after the entire night of partying.. we went to eat and I am groggy and stumble to meet up with Kevin.

Later that day .. Sarah, Kevin, David, and I head over to say hi at Annie’s bday party!