Friday night on the town
Friday night nearly every (American) student at Asia University had plans to go into Taichung for a night of fun at "The Pigpen," billed as a "Traditional British Pub" which offered free admission to foreigners on Friday nights. This sounded a bit too good to be true (as, it turns out, was the case), but Kevin, Michael (from UC San Bernadino) and Manuel (from University of Hawaii at Hilo) gladly accepted a ride into town with David, the new director of our program. (David was heading into the city to visit the batting cages in an amusement complex just across the street from Taichung's main block of expat nightclubs, and offered to drive us in a few hours ahead of everyone else, saving us the bus/taxi fare it would have cost to get there.)
David drove us to the sports complex -- called, like one of the city's biggest shopping malls, "Tiger City" -- bought us all drinks, and chatted for a while before heading upstairs to hit some baseballs. The rest of us, having squared away travel details with the students back at the university, decided to bowl a few frames at the giant bowling alley on the first floor.
(Side note: aren't my shoes snazzy?)
I haven't bowled in ages, and I can definitely report that I haven't improved much since I was twelve (or however old I was when I last went bowling at someone's elementary school birthday party), although I did get a strike and a spare during our second round. Once we had finished, we meandered outside the building and stumbled upon a sort of convention of tiny, fluffly white dogs of identical breeds, with many owners trying to keep their dogs under control. I have no idea what they were all doing there, but Kevin snapped a picture en route to the club.
We arrived at the club and were unpleasantly surprised to learn that, far from being free for foreigners, it was $400 NTD for me to get in, and $500 NTD for the guys. Other people were slightly mollified to learn that this fee covered an "all you can drink" bar, but I never drink much so for me that was small comfort.
However, as it happened, the experience was more than worth the $400 I had to fork over to gain entrance. The bar was fairly empty when we entered, with only one person on the dance floor and a few tables of people smoking and eating bar snacks. Soon, though, the night's entertainment took the stage: a troupe of singer/dancers called "Happy Together," dressed in green pants and white shirts, singing passable versions of popular American dance music (although sometimes the pronunciation was a little odd) and dancing in sync. As the night wore on, a couple of my classmates even took the stage with the dancers!
I had a lot of fun dancing and chatting with my friends at the pub. I was called upon a couple of times to translate for classmates whose desire to talk to the locals was far greater than their capacity to actually communicate in Mandarin, and even made a few Taiwanese acquaintances of my own in the process. However, as the bar filled up and the night wore on, the air grew progressively thicker with cigarette smoke, until my eyes and lungs alike began to burn. Never one to inhale smoke if I can help it, I gathered enough friends for a taxi and we drove directly back to campus. After a quick shower to remove the smell of cigarettes that still clung to my hair and skin, I crawled into bed around 3, with only one thought in my mind: 8 hours until I get my hands on the final Harry Potter!!
posted by Kelly @ 3:37 AM
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