in taiwan

this is part of a modern art exhibit in taichung at the museum next to mr. zhangs house. its a bunch of water jugs with orange lights inside. looks amazing at night.

the weather here is nice now. as opposed to the hot and humid summer, the few days i've been in taiwan have been rainy, which is nice and cool. but the sun is peaking out through the curtains here, so i'm guessing it may warm up today. amoung the first things i did here was to eat some of my favorite taiwanese foods. had a mango shave ice, fried chicken with msg seasoning, beef noodles, seaweed rolls, melon tea with milk and papaya milk. Not all at the same time, of course, but over a day. i'm hoping to get to my old stomping ground, the hot dog place today. its good and i'm friends with the owner. i bought my friend bekah some blueberry gum, rachel a pen case, and myself some prayer flags. found a store yesterday during and after dinner stroll that sells all tibetan stuff. i'm going to go back today to check it out. work has been going ok. i've been assigned the project of helping to sell some exotic cars from brunei. pretty stoked on that. we'll see if it works out as well as i hope it does. if anyone wants a bently, let me know. flight home tonight leaves around 8. should be back in the us around 4 in the afternoon. I get 4 hours of my life back. that's always a good feeling. hope to see you at home soon.

taiwaning

I'm in Taiwan now. Got here last night and it was a blast. Luckily, i flew on the flight that my friends wife was stewardessing on. SOOO i got to sit in first class on the top level of a 747. That's always been my dream. And it was so cool because i actually slept on an airplane. That's something that hasn't happend to me in about 23 years and it made me happy. I don't know if i'd ever pay for that seat myself, but for what it cost me, it was worth it. I also was given a VIP gift basket from the airline. That includes 2 bottles of wine. If you'd like one, let meknow. Maybe i can use them to cook.

I also read about half way through my newest Paulo Coelho book, the Pilramage. Like all his other books, its just blowing my mind away. I can't say enough about him or his ability to say profound things that leave me amazed witht the virtual simplicity of everything.

read his books if you haven't.

Taiwan is hot and sticky. Wearing business attire doesn't help that much. I'm heading to HK right now. There we've got some really good meetings set up. All these chinese guys want there money invested elsewhere. Hope i can help them.

I feel like i'm on the cusp of the rest of my life. Fearing that would be a terribly dibilitating thing to do. So I just think about what I want to happen and work to make that happen. My optimism has turned out well so far. I hope that streak continues!!

softball.

So listening to Bob Marley as I woke up this morning I couldn't believe the apostlic nature of some of his lyrics. Here you go.

You running and running and youre running away, but you can't run away from yourself. You must have done something wrong. Why can't you find the place you belong.

Pretty much describes what i have felt like for the last 1.5 years of my life. Got scared of growing up and a huge word that starts with M, so i went to Maui last summer. Then i did the same thing from pressures of school to China for a few months. I think i have nothing to run away from anymore. I've feel like i know what's important and not important now. And I've learned to distinguish the two, and seen people running away from both things.

In China I met a guy that was about 28 from Wales. He passed while we were hiking on the mountain. He was a photographer and had been traveling for 5 years by himself taking pictures all over the world. He was running away from what life had told him he needed. He said that he had few social contacts and mostly met people around in his travels. He had his life on his back and he was running away from his fear of becoming something that he thought everyone else was, normal. His run had left him with stories and a full passport, but running on emotional fumes at 28.

Doing that, isn't in my game plan. So now, back to school to study what interests me. Headed to Asia soon to work on work. Life is a balance, and each persons scale is different, but when we find that medium, we're where we need to be.

great and scary question.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-t-5PLQgcSA

malaria anyone?

still working with lots of smart and amazing people to piece together this malaria thing. look forward to it.

child labor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV1hQSt2hSE

watch this. i've seen this stuff with my own eyes. in the town i lived in there were children who were trafficked in to work at restaruants. They works 27 days a month, 12 hours a day for about $40 a month. Their parents couldn't take care of them and they were forced to work a couple thousand miles from home. Some hadn't seen their families in over 5 years.

I became friends with them because it was a good restaraunt. We'd go out and play computer games at night, they loved beating me at CS. There were about 25 of them at the place, all under the age of 18 as far as i knew.

I knew the scene was repeated elsewhere. I saw it in furniture factories with kids working in there who couldn't be more than 13 or 14.

Just be aware of what this stuff is. I don't know what we can do to stop it. The world has loads of problems right now and i don't think this is going to be at the forefront for a long time.

kudos to radiohead for doing such a cool video.

back now

i'm back from china. have been for a week or so now. its been an interesting time being back. loads of time to reflect on the things i've seen and the experiences that i've had. the last month i spent traveling about with two close friends. we really enjoyed each others company and it was fun to have people to experience those things with. i think that i'll keep the name of this blog, even though i'm not in china.

i'm not really sure what i'm doing next. there is opportunity for me to have a pretty cool experience doing some international business. at first i was worried about the next few years of life, but i got over that in a few days. life will work out, has for 23 years for me, don't know why it would stop tomorrow.