Le Ble D'Or, Karaoke, Houseware and Typhoon

9-21-13 9:02am Sat. (1)

      Leona and I had dinner last evening at “Le ble d’or” restaurant, the German-style beer house next door to TGI Friday’s on the Westside. I met Jack, Jack’s wife, Boris, Jinny, another of Leona’s college friends whose name I’ve forgotten, and Jenny, the first of her friends I met who was our real estate agent and interior decorator. (Ironically, the beer house was the origin of the beer Teddy gave me and the other teachers as Mid-Autumn Festival gifts Wednesday at American Eagle.) After we drank and ate, Boris drove some of us without scooters to his showroom (he is an interior decorator) on Beitun Road near Wen-Xing Road to sing karaoke. I did a hot version of “Hotel California” along with sweet renditions of “Moonlight Flowers”, “Yesterday” (which went on And on), and some other songs from a short English song list. Everyone had fun singing horrible renditions of Taiwanese and Mandarin songs. Jack got drunk on Heineken beer but I refused any in deference to my two 500 liter mugs earlier and my recent bout with gout. Leona had a wonderful time. We were close enough to walk home the twenty minutes afterwards.

The evening plans were a surprise after a hard sleeping night returning from Taipei. (We had to cancel our plan to join Ellen’s family in a van up to a mountain resort because of the impending typhoon.) At first, I didn’t really want to go but didn’t mention anything. I didn’t ride the bike yesterday I was so tired. I stayed in bed. Later B & Q delivered the items we’d purchased Wednesday evening and I assembled the screw-less Rubbermaid-style Israeli utility cabinet (3000NT-$100us) before we went to have guo-tieh for lunch. After lunch we rode to Shih-Dong’s place to see the ugly bunk bed (with top bed used for storage) that he’d gotten Jia-Hui for her own tiny room; the two boys still share another tiny room in their rapidly-shrinking condo. We went home and I had a two hour nap before we left, by taxi (320NT-$1066us) for the evening party at 5pm.

The typhoon is passing to the south of Taiwan and dumping rain there, in the east, and in the mountains, but here in Taichung, we’ve only had a few drops of rain so far. I’m not going to ride the bike again because of it and to give my left wrist some more rest; it’s still a little sore either from the sprain or the gout. I will assemble the barbeque grill we bought and the little round steel and tile-top patio table. When Leona gets up, I could make breakfast. I think the rain is supposed to get worse later on so maybe I should go to the market for some eat-at-home foods.