Doris In Wonderland

One of the benefits of living abroad is this idea that reality is suspended and all of a sudden we find ourselves living in this world where who we were and what we would have done no longer matters but we are now somewhere where we can create who we are and what we will become.

John and I are both very independent and head-strong individuals before we got married and we were very clear about what we liked, what we would do and what we would not. However, since moving to Taipei, we found ourselves doing certain things that are a little...how do you say, out of the ordinary.




1. ME-I am a Stella chugging, red wine from the bottle drinking gal who never really like over priced bars with red velvet ropes or covers. But since coming to Taiwan, I've allowed myself to pay $15 for a Makers Mark and go to Bars like this one....where they light your drinks on fire and then you chug it. And it's not even the fact that they are lighting a wooden bar on fire, it's more of a principle that I paid $15 for this concoction and here you go burning all the alcohol content out of it....total drinking faux pas if you ask me.







2. JOHN-If there is one thing you should know about John it's his passionate hatred of all things costumes. I've known him for 12 Halloween's and I have but only seen him dress up once. Usually, the idea of having to spend time, energy and thought to put together a costumes drives him bananas. In fact, I've been begging him to be the John Lennon to my Yoko Ono for years and he has graciously declined every Halloween. However, since we've been to Taiwan he's already attended an Alice in Wonderland party where we went as the Caterpillar and he also just recently attend a Dapper party where he dress as Don Drapper from Mad Men (details from that night to follow) the party was great. We made such a grand entrance that we received a standing ovation from fellow party goers!







3. ME- Linsanity. Most of you that know me know that I am not very athletic nor am I very "into" sports. One of John's requests of me is that I "try" to "learn" just "one" sport so that we might watch it together and have it be a "thing" One of the bonuses of moving to Taiwan was the fact that I may not have to watch so much sports as Taiwan isn't exactly known for it's athletes. However, since moving here and the rise of Jeremey Lin and his linsanely good bball skills I have found myself talking, watching and even listening to all things Basketball for months now. However, on the flip side as there aren't that many sports bars in Taiwan I at least get to combine my forced sports interest with my real interest which is food. Here is a burger joint playing the Knicks on TV with a burger called Burger Lin! Which makes it all the more bearable.


4. JOHN-John is deathly afraid of heights and unless he is riding the ski lift to snowboard he rarely likes going above 5 floors. Well, 2 months after we moved in our elevator was torn out and a new one is being put in. Every day we'd come home from work and see this in our lobby. Yes that would be boxes of nuts, bolts, tools and parts for our new elevator. It made us nervous that this chaotic mess would someone be put together into an elevator that would actually be able to lift us to our 5th floor apartment. John kept saying to me, "we will NOT be the first to test this elevator out" or "we will wait a few days for other people to ride it first" well, after 3 days of taking the stairs we saw a huge spider just chilling on the wall between floors 4 and 3. I had never heard such a high scream come from such a large man. Needless to say night the elevator was completed and being tested out John immediately told us to get in and get moving.

Good news is the elevator is now working and apparently all those boxes filled with parts found it's correct place!