Listening to Sticky Rice, a Taiwanese rock band, that I first heard a couple Sundays ago when James, Galen, and I went down to Fulong for the Gungliao Ho-Hai-Yan Rock Festival. Here's an article about the festival that appeared in the Taipei Times.

I've really reset my body clock. Now that I get up so early on the weekdays, I really can NOT sleep in on the weekends. For example: right now. We spent the night at James' place, after a pleasant evening of hanging out, listening to music, and a trip to the night market for some vittles. We all went to bed at about the same time - 4am. I have been up since 10am, and have now washed the dishes, surfed the internet, replied to every single email on my backlog, and am now updating my blog. Everyone else--James, Galen, Benson, and Melissa--is still sleeping. When will someone wake up and play with me?

Thankfully the condition of my foot has improved considerably. I'm glad I diligently took my round of pills, as Zofia so helpfully pointed out that one of her lab mates had a similar problem and was diagnosed with cellulitis, so my prescribed round of antibiotics was probably warranted.

I've been feeling very worn lately, attributable to the plethora of activities I've participated in. Of course, I take the responsibility--even though I'm tired, there's a part of me that still wants to be part of the action. Take, for example, the night Galen and I went to the Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle premiere courtesy of Angela. Afterwards, some of the girls wanted to have a quick bite to eat. I was tired, but I also wanted to catch-up. Therein lies my weakness.

Speaking of Charlie's Angels, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, which was a lot of light-hearted fun. Also, Angela is an incredible professional, who knows her industry--the movers and the shakers, and what is going on--as well as any highly-regarded equities analyst. She reads the entertainment newspapers like some read the Wall Street Journal. And, she's very creative in promoting her films.

On Saturday Galen and I joined a few of my cousins and their friends for a hike through the Shei-Pa (xue ba, snow mountain) National Park. Galen preferred this to his canyoning experience the week before, as our hike was anchored on either end with a generous lunch and tea time, and there were no steep ravines to scramble out of. I was afraid the whole day might be on of those mountain tours that involved being shipped around from one scenic sight to another on a tour bus, where we dutifully leave the air conditioned bus for the obligatory photo to prove that we were there, but we actually had a quite nice four hour hike. My calves were actually sore the next day--which is a good thing.

The not-so-good-thing is that some insect bit me and now my left ankle is red and swollen. I went to the Taiwan Adventist Hospital to get it checked out last night, and unsuprisingly, the doctor prescribed antibiotics, antihistamines, antiinflammatories, and, to top it all off, an antacid to counteract all the unpleasant effects the other medications would have on my stomach.

My brother Galen is here for the summer to study Chinese through a program sponsored by Taiwan's Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission. I'm thrilled to have him here, as this is the longest time--seven weeks--that we'll have together since I graduated from high school. Still, seven weeks is not much time. Already, my relatives and I are jostling for his time.

Simply too much time has passed since my last post, and I have yet to find the time to sit down and properly organize all of my thoughts. So I am going to put my perfectionist tendencies aside and just briefly mention some my latest adventures.

The weekend after I returned from the States, I went bouldering at HeRen (part of Taroko National Park) with some of the folks at the climbing gym. HeRen was gorgeous: clear skies, blue waters, and dramatic cliffs. After bouldering Saturday afternoon, I played in the water. A collection of photos from the weekend can be seen here.

I'm so happy I've had so many opportunities to see how beautiful Taiwan is. In the time I took off after I quit UMC and started Lehman, I traveled down the eastern coast of Taiwan, saw my great-uncle in his village near Taidong, and visited Felicia in Kaohsiung. A couple of weekends ago, I went river hiking (also known as river tracing or canyoning) through the Nan Shih River in Wulai. I'll have photos up as soon as I can.

The more I explore Taiwan, the more I wish others knew about how many interesting activities there are to do here. I used to wonder why anyone would want to come here, but now I realize ignorance about Taiwan's attributes is really due to poor marketing and underdeveloped infrastracture. The Tourism Ministry could do so much for ilha Formosa.

I went to file and pay my taxes last Friday. Despite that over half the nation had yet to pay their taxes (you pay in person, or online if you're a national), the folks at the National Tax Administration were generally helpful and quick. I completed the filing and payment in about 35 minutes. Amazing! the process required only one sheet of paper to do all the calculations and figure out deductions, which was a huge improvement over the ten or so pages I believe I had to complete for my U.S. taxes.