Oogway Oogway Cha!

What an awesome Friday night!  You know those nights where you have no plans and then all of a sudden something cool and unexpected happens?  Well that was my night last night :)

The evening started with Johan and Jeff going to the 7-11 just to pick up a few beers for the regular sit-on-the-curb-in-kiddie-chairs-and-chat evening, though when they got back and we had only just opened our beers, Johan received a txt msg from a girl he's interested in so he said "ciaos!" to Jeff and I and he headed up to Taipei to hang out with her.

This left Jeff and I by ourselves.  We had never been by ourselves together and I had spoken almost nothing directly to him since I've known him.  I was afraid it was going to be awkward because his english is very limited.  However, about 30 seconds later, a scooter arrived with a girl and a guy on it.

Jeff is the guy on the left in the rockets jersey

The girl said "Ni hao!" and Jeff told them I didn't speak any chinese.  "OOoooo" was their response.  I asked them "Ni jiao sa ma?" which means "what is your name?".   And they responded just like in the chinese audio lesson!  Unfortunately I don't remember the girls name (because it was a chinese name) but the guy's name was Eric (I thought it weird he chose "Eric" for his english name because his chinese name sounded nearly identical to the name "Ian").  Anyways they sat down and we tried our our limited english and chinese words and phrases in an attempt to chit chat.  Fortunately Jeff and Eric's english was poor, but good enough to communicate so we were really able to have a great time!  I talked about my "Nu Ponyo"  eliza and how she was a halfer like me, and also talked about my family.

As always, drinking games can transcend any language barriers so that was the first thing we did after the initial introductions.  We played the 0,5,10,15 game which I knew well.  They wanted to practice their english so we played in english for most of it, and then I tried playing in chinese which was difficult, but I won a few rounds :P

Next was "Oogway Oogway cha", which means "Turtle Turtle Up" (as in lift your head up).  It's another game involving putting your own hands together and then lifting up different fingers to see if your opponent has also lifted their fingers.

Video of playing Oogway Oogway Cha:
http://picasaweb.google.com/justinliebregts/Taiwan2010Week4#5502504604718900194

We also played 2 other games of which I did not know the names, but they were variations on the 0,5,10,15,20 game and rock paper scissors.  I really sucked at the rock paper scissors games because they're so fast!  And I wasn't used to the additional rules that they have.  I think the most fun part for me was just hanging out with some locals with extremely limited language skills, but still being able to have a great time together.

It was getting late and the girl and Eric went back home.  Jeff and I were still game so we scootered a short distance to Jhong Li.  We stopped off at their local night market for some grub.  I told Jeff I liked everything and that he should order because he knows what's good.

Jeff ordering us food!

We ate this really yummy bowl of noodle soup in a chicken broth type flavour.  And we also ordered a bunch of BBQ stuff like Jee Pai (chicken steak) and chicken hearts, and some veggies and these bacon wrapped things and bbq "tempura" which I still don't know what it was (ps. - just found out it's a sort of fish cake with veggies mixed into it with a rice glutenish chewy texture).  We were also thirsty so Jeff ordered some Shi Gua Nai... Ja or Cha.  I don't remember.  I don't think it was Cha because it wasn't tea.  Anyways Shi Gua means watermelon, and Nai means milk.  So it was pretty much a freshly blended watermelon with milk.  It was so refreshing!  Loved it and I would order that one again :D

"tempura"

We took the food "Da bao" meaning to-go, and scootered off around the corner to Jeff's local pool hall.  The pool hall occupied the entire 17th floor of an apartment building.  We ate the food here and commenced to play some 8-ball, 9-ball, and this other game called "70", where it's basically a race to see who can sink 70 balls the fastest.  I got by butt kicked at 70, but in 8 and 9-ball I held my own :)

"Da bao"

By this time it was 2:30 am and we were getting sleepy!  We went back outside to ride home but it was pouring rain so we went to 7-11 and picked me up a rain poncho.  I love riding on scooters so even though it was raining I was having a blast despite the fact that a car passed us on the road and sent a big wall of water into our faces and down our ponchos. lol.

I thanked Jeff for the fun evening (of which he treated me to everything.  what genuine hospitality) and went home for a good sleep :)

ps - oh yah!  When we were walking through the night market, we passed several stalls that had big snakes in cages.  The snakes must have been 1-2 meters long and were night quite as thick as a pop can, but I think (from Jeff's rough english) that the stalls make snake soup, so you pick the snake and then... it turns into soup.  The thought of picking and killing one of the big snakes to eat was really not appealing to me at all, though it's kinda weird that this killing happens every day to our beef, chicken, and pigs except that we are so far removed from the process that I guess we don't feel any guilt or emotion.  We don't "pick" the animal who dies so it's not our "fault".  Not sure if this is a good thing or not (probably not a good thing actually) but it made me think about it.   I ordered extra veggies with the meal.