Breaking Records

I've done a few things since getting my hair cut a month ago...


The biggest jazz fest in Taiwan went on for a couple weeks in Taichung last month. I went both Saturdays that it was going on. The festival kicked off with an attempt to break the world record for largest saxophone ensemble. They just slipped by, beating the previous record of 900 people with a powerful 918. After listening to the crowd of saxamaphone players play some songs, we checked out the rest of the fest. It was a pretty good time; basically every foreigner in the city could be found there. Good food (they had a vegetarian booth), good drinks and good fun hanging out at a table with friends.


On the second day of going to the Jazz Fest, I saw a pretty popular band here called The Money Shot Horns. After that, my group of friends grabbed another table and we hung out for a while again. The Taichung Jazz Fest was a pretty good time. It reminded me of just about any other fest back home, and sometimes it's just fun to go out where there's lots of people and see what happens.

Halloween was lots of fun this year. My friend Wyatt invited me to go to a heavy metal show that a couple of his friends' band was headlining. It was cool to see a different side of young Taiwanese people. The show took place in the basement of Peace Coffee, a really cool fair trade coffee shop not too far from my school. Monster Boogie started it off by rocking some Metallica songs, then Out of Survive played their hardrock/poprock with Flesh Juicer finishing it off.

Flesh Juicer screaming out some songs. The lead singer is a really nice guy and an environmental studies major

After the show, I picked up my Halloween costume and it was off to a bar that was letting people in for free if they were dressed up. Walking through the biggest night market in the city while being dressed as an old Taiwanese woman was a good way to start the fun.

Last Sunday was Tunghai University's Founder's Day Celebration. It was a full day of sporting event competitions between all of the different departments at school. I was on the international students team. We rocked. Not only did we win the 球不是圆的 "ball that is not round" event, we completely dominated about 30 teams in the three legged race. We got plaques! Oh, and I got extremely sunburned too. But it's November, so I'll take it.

For the last month, I've been commuting to Taipei every Thursday for my internship at the advertising agency DraftFCB. I think I'll start writing about my awesome weekly experience tomorrow. 晚安