Birdgirl

I was at the Taiwan Birdman rally (http://www.tw-birdman.org/birdman/index.aspx) today. Originally, I had planned to do just a stand-up and then jump in the water, but ended up finding a couple of international competitors, so I got some English soundbytes, which made my day. Now I have a real story, instead of a translated one with my stand-up in the end. Yay!

After all the teams had finished, I did my stand-up, put on a life jacket and a big orange afro, ran up the stairs to the platform, said some stupid things to the show hosts up there in very strange Chinese, because I was nervous and was just speaking English two seconds ago, ran down the 20 meter long ramp and then realizing how crazy I am when I saw how high three meters was right before I plunged in, screamed, lost my wig on the way down, and the next thing I knew, I was being fished out of the canal by the rescue boat.

All in a day's work. The Chinese news, however, ended up not broadcasting my jump, so I think that it may not have been a great idea. My editor thought it was good when we talked about it last night. Well, we'll see if I get called in for a lecture. I'm fine with that as long as they are reasonable and tell me why it's wrong.

On the way back to the news van, though, a little boy on a bicycle slammed into me, leaving a very nasty looking multi-colored bruise the size of Lucky's paw.

After the SNG director showed me how silly I looked, we all headed back to the station. I was still soaking wet by the time we got in and my left ear was feeling a little strange. After drying up and changing, the adrenaline wore off and it started to hurt. For the next few hours, I couldn't hear very well. It's much better now, but I should probably keep an eye (an ear?) on it.

After I wrote my story and left it for my editor to check tomorrow, I met Tinna for dinner. We had some nice Thai food for a reasonable price at New Bangkok. Afterwards, we walked over to the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall to see O-Getsu-Ryu (http://www.o-getsu.com/). It was pretty good, but it helps if you know the story beforehand and the ideologies of Bushido. It seems to be a fusion of chambara with dance and modern theater with some interesting, artistic swordfights. The shoes the performers wore really bothered me, though. I don't understand why they chose to wear trainers. They didn't seem to go with the rest of the costume and they made the performers look like children dressed up in anime characters. I give the show a seven out of ten, and if you like Bushido, kendo and/or dance, I recommend you see it.

I decided to walk the 20 minutes back to my office, where my car was, so I saw Tinna off at the train station, then swung by for a tapioca snack at Dongqu Fenyuan 東區粉圓. I couldn't finish it, but it sure gave me a fix. Now I can stop thinking about tapioca for another month or so.

It was a nice day off. I'm officially on tomorrow, as translator.

Does anyone know where I can find a good tomato-based pasta?