Lunar Festival BBQ + Taipei Lounge/Club

Wooah I haven't gotten home past 4am in a long time, which is the time we stepped in the door last night.  I had a great evening and here's what happened:

Around 5:30pm Rebecca, Johan, and I left for Taipei County for a bbq at Rebecca's appartment close to Banciao.  The drive took about 40min because the traffic was a bit backed up in spots, and it was raining.  Sometimes the rain would come down so hard it was hard to see through the windsheild!  The first storm of the rainy season ranked at typhoon level is slated to hit Taiwan tonight so it was to be expected.

Rebecca and I practiced our english throughout most of the ride.  I know the language is difficult for her but I really appreciate her efforts.  She is definitely improving.

Rebecca's Apartment

Ok! So after circling the block trying to find parking for 5 minutes we stepped out of the car and headed towards the courtyard built between Rebecca's two apartment buildings.  Thankfully it had stopped raining.  We could hear a female karaoke singer belting off a chinese song as we approached.  There were lots of people bustling around with steam and smoke rising up from tarp covered areas.

My expectations for tonight were we were going to go to a bbq in Rebecca's house with a few of her friend, but what we ended up going to was a full on traditional moon festival BBQ! (also known as mid-autumn festival)

This coming wednesday is the official moon festival, but the bbq is held on the weekend before the festival if it lands on a weekday.  All over Taiwan families will hold outdoor bbqs out infront of their houses to celebrate!

The bbq at Rebecca's was definitely not a "bbq" in the north american sense.  They had a big karaoke machine with kids and adults singing many different chinese songs.  The sound was turned up so loud that it could be heard thoughout the whole courtyard, and even up in the upper floors of the apartment.  Rebecca's mom asked if I wanted to sing karaoke so I said sure!  I went over to the binders of chinese songs and out of the literally thousands of chinese songs there were 2 pages at the back with english songs. Or at least english named songs(some songs were named "flower" or "sukiyaka" so I'm not even sure if they were really english songs).  Out of the 2 pages I only recognized 2 song titles: "five hundred miles" and "let it be".  I didn't want to sing a slow song so I picked "five hundred miles".  I was a bit nervous but meh I like singing so I knew it would be fun.

Noooooow this story would have a much better ending if I acutally got to go and sing the song but it never came up!  Lol or maybe it got skipped cause they person controlling the machine didn't know the song.  So I never got to sing my song lol but I though the story was worth telling ;P

Beside the karaoke station they had a prize raffle for the kids.  Between each karaoke song, the MC would pull numbers from a plastic container and some kid or adult would run up to grab their prize.

Okay now onto the best part.  The food!  Omg there must have been 30+ different asian bbq dishes of which I hadn't tried many before.

We were given plastic kiddie chairs and sat around newspaper covered coffee tables that were covered in an assortment of different dishes.  So many different smells were coming from the steaming food and the smell of charcoal bbqs would waft our way whenever the wind started blowing.

The eating area was covered with tarps strung out between the buildings and there were open lights hung from the make-shift roof powered by extension cords.  It would rain itermittently so the tarps would keep everyone dry.  At times it would rain lightly and it was a pleasant sensation to sit out in the rain eating and at other times the rain would come down so hard and fat that it would start filling the roof tarps so quickly that one of the guys kept having to go around and lifting the tarp with an umbrella to drain it and stop it from collapsing.  The temperature must have been close to 30 degrees so it was still really hot and humid out despite being late in the evening.

I was introduced to Rebecca's family and some of her neighbours.  One of the neighbours was this older extrovert guy who we nick named DeNiro.  He kept feeding me his homemade sweet red chinese wine.  It was quite strong and he served it from what looked like a white Jerry Can.  We must have "gum bay"'ed (cheers) at least 20 times during the evening.  By the end he was pretty drunk and kept trying to pour beer into my glass even though it was already filled to the brim.  nice guy though :P  He was well proud of himself and telling his friends that him and I were communicating the whole night despite not speaking the same language :)  "Cheers" and wine are pretty universal I think ;D

Me and DeNiro

Johan and Rebecca had gone upstairs to help clean but they told me to just stay outside so I was by myself for a while drinking this sour lemon tea drink.  I saw a group of people bbqing corn on a grill so I went over to ask them if I could take a picture.  Fortunately one of the girls spoke english!  Well only a little english but enough for us to have a 10-15min convo :)  It's always fun meeting someone new here who can speak english.

By the time Johan and Rebecca came downstairs it was time for us to leave for the lounge Barcode.  At the BBQ 3 friends of Rebecca also joined us to go to the lounge: Kenny, Sharon, and Ellie.  I'd already met Sharon a month ago but Kenny and ELlie were new to me.  Fortunately they all spoke pretty good english becuase Kenny went to university in California for 6 years, and Sharon and Ellie went to university in London England for 1 year each.

We packed into Kenny's car and headed for Central Taipei.  It was a good 20min ride and I was thankful when we got there because with 4 of us packed into the back of the car it wasn't a very comfortable ride.  Kenny dropped us off in front of the lounge while he went to find parking.  I recognized right away where we were because I could see the Taipei 101 building lit up against the night sky, and the Viewshow theatre right beside the lounge.

We went inside and to my surprise there was no cover charge (bonus!).  The place was pretty small, but not too over crowded.  There were 2 pool tables, and a long but narrow bar area with little counches and tables.  All the couches were full (and you have to pay a ridiculous amount to reserve it.  Like $100 - $200).  So we just stood at the bar, which ended up being more fun I think because we could dance and move around to talk to different people easier.  (ps - pictures of inside Barcode I'm getting from Rebecca when I see her next.  I didn't bring my camera inside).

The drinks WERE pretty expensive for Taiwan standards.  Johan ordered tequila shots and each shot was $13.  wth!  We ordered cocktails and martinis after which costed about $11-$15 each.

The DJ was playing great music and that's probably why I had such a great time.  I think my favorite song he spun was "Lady" by Tyrese which I haven't heard in years.  Seth and I used to cruise around Chilliwack and Abbostford in our highschool days listening to that song :P

So anyways most of the time zipped by between talking and dancing and taking pictures and before we knew it it was 2:30am and time to leave!

Kenny took Sharon home while Ellie, Rebecca, Johan, and I took a cab back to Rebecca's apartment to get the car.  By the time we got home it must have been close to 4am and I passed out as soon as I hit the mattress :)  Another successful day!