Chinese New Year fading…Onwards into 2021

Yes, Christmas and New Year have slipped by. Me, Kaia and Jody had a great New Year. Drinking and eating every day. This year my Saturday job basically sacked off the whole of Feb and Kid Castle gave us holidays either side of the New Year. This resulted in ten days off. Highlight of the holiday was The Taxas Roadhouse steak house, link : https://www.texasroadhouse.com/

Ace food and atmos. A little pricey, but good portions. Packed, despite the pandemic. In fact most places are still busy despite Covid raging all over the planet. Taiwan is well documented to have avoided the major brunt of the whole thing…but, I never blog or write about it….It seems to tempt fate somewhat. Anyway, the government works hard, as do most of the people here, to keep it at bay.

Reading : Just finished the City of Ember series and I am rereading Club Dumas. A novel that got me reading again. Gripping, atmospheric, and it makes you want to grab a drink during the afternoon….I used to tour the cafes of Nottingham, book in hand, glass of bourbon in the other whilst reading this gem.

Hobbies : Obsessed with Leeds still and this season has been wonderous. I won’t go into it too much. Suffice to say I have watched every game enthralled and nervous in equal measure. We play Wolves at 4am and I am already plotting a way to watch it without ruining our day the next day with tiredness.

Music : Still loving Spotify. Ambient music being the current choice.

Food and Drink : Super Dry is still my beer of choice, although Yebisu has made it to Taiwan now. Oolong tea in the mornings to cope with my intermittent fasting hunger pangs.

Fun : This weekend mem Jody and Kaia will have one night in Dansui at the Golden Tulip hotel : https://www.goldentulip-fabhotel.com.tw/en/

We got discount and it looks amazing. Hope the weather holds out.

Games : Playing the Witcher III on and off after 6 years but in all, not been on much recently, in fact not even resubscribed to Plus. Ps5 on the backburner?…..I don’t need one yet.

TV : Blacklist still a regular watch. Still great. Watch some crime stuff on Netflix. Still watch a lot of GFRED on Youtube despite not playing GTA for ages.

Exercise : Bike to school 5 days a week.

Diet : Still intermittent fasting until weekend, or a holiday gets in the way.

This & That – I recommend : Taipei Expo Park / Yuanshan / Xingsheng Park

Yes, Richard Murfin. Living In Taipei. Near the 101. Working for Kid Castle. With a lovely wife and kid.

I have been guilty of filling my blog with crap. A lot of it was to boost views. Which is ironic. Views for what? Call of duty gun stats? GTA and Skyrim news? Anyway. My blog should be about me, my life and what I am doing and where I am. I love going back thru old blogs from 2005 onwards to see what I was doing. See what I was eating, see what I liked. After all, that is why I started it. I also like the idea that someone could look at my blog and say ‘wow, that is interesting,’. Or ‘I was looking at Taiwan and you helped me do this or that’. For that reason I will try and talk more about life. Things that are useful. Places to go. Things to eat and drink. You know, sort of shoot the breeze. I won’t put down loads of linkers and hash tags to try and snag people by accident either…God what was I thinking. If I had the time, would go back and remove every single Call of duty post listing how fast the mp5 fired and such. Useless…Hehe. I also can’t believe how much this website has changed…so different to the old one in which you felt you were typing on wordpad.

Anyway. First recommended place in Taipei –

https://www.travel.taipei/en/attraction/details/625

That is the link to a place me and the wife go a lot. Great for kids and families.

Has rentable cars for Kaia to play in. Has places to eat. Boy does it have places to eat. Everything from Mexican to Indian to falafel. Boy it is good to have falafel. But Kaia and Jody do not like it. Has a mini area that used to be much larger where you can play pachinko. Has a little 5 a side football pitch. Has places to buy beer and even have a pint at the Three Lions pub. Which we do often – https://thethreelionsinn.com. Maji maji square as the area is called, is never super busy and has a good atmos. Your kids can semi run around freely as there aren’t too many morons on bikes like the city centre nowadays. After you are full, you can grab a beer at the 7-11 over the road in the Zhongshan district, and head over to the Expo Hall Playground.

(https://www.google.com.tw/maps/@25.0687432,121.5240383,3a,75y,344.3h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s14x3M83EFMpyUkmtzbCIXA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D14x3M83EFMpyUkmtzbCIXA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D345.71643%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192)

Here you will find all sorts of things for your kid to do outside. At least in the playground sense. Further along you will find the Xinsheng Park Area of Taipei Expo Park. Which I have do admit, have never been. Sorry about the obscenely large link in there but I couldn’t cut it down. Anyway, that is something we like to do on the weekend.

Need to post more …

As mentioned I sort of regret slowing down on posting. I also regret posting about Skyrim, Call of duty and such. Sure it meant something at the time. But to an interested fellow blogger it was beyond dry…It was tedious. My blog went from stuff about my life and living in Taiwan to sub machine gun rate of fire and map packs.  I could go back thru and delete I guess. Once or twice I was ripped for posting the mundane stuff. But it is the mundane stuff that is so fascinating…at least for me. Looking back at what I ate. What Kaia was doing. Where I went on my 32nd birthday ….Who I went out with. When I was at a specific school. Where I went in between classes and such. Right now, I work at Kid Castle, going on 6 years I reckon. I think I have beaten my Shane record. My ANL job dried up as the company went bust overnight and still technically owes me a months wages. I work in a small school on Saturday as my Kid Castle hours in Wanhua have dwindled to 15.5. I’. not complaining. I still love that job, but I need to build up a base of hours. I also have a private class on Tuesday night in Xinhai which is fun.

Kaia started playgroup and despite my worries, is loving it. Better there learning Chinese than sitting around in an old peoples house surrounded by beer and cigarettes.

Started intermittent fasting. 8 hour window a day. From 10pm to 2pm I can’t eat. It works. Lost 4 kgs in 3 weeks.

Still love stir fry and yakitori. Lol, yakitori, haven’t had it since long before Kaia was born. As for stir fry, I have a little place I go to in Wanhua…actually very close to my old house on Heping West road. It is near the youth park. I love the youth park. Given I spend a lot of time in Wanhua it is a great place to relax before and after the shift – https://www.travel.taipei/en/attraction/details/635. It also runs parallel with the river me and Jody used to cycle by…oh the memories. Being free. Being able to cycle everywhere whenever. I love Kaia but I do miss stuff I took for granted. Drinking any night of the week. My bike. Yong-He ….oh, I miss Taipei county. Going for walks late at night post GTA. Sitting in a backstreet Family Mart with a Super dry at 1.30 am…Knowing I don’t have to wake until lunchtime. Oh, well I am making new messages with my little Kaia.

The stir fry in Wanhua I like –

14 Lane 311, Section 2, Zhonghua Road

Taipei, Taipei City

尚介青鵝肉城熱炒

Not much to look at, but the food is good. The staff are nice. Oh, and it has beer, hehe.

 

 

Back still aches now and again

9 months and counting. It’s better, but by no means 100%. Kaia is 2 now. God, time flies. She can talk some basic sentences and knows quite a few words. Right now she is watching The Wheels on the Bus in my ps4 room . She also likes Pepper Pig and Twinkle Twinkle. We got her a Pepper Pig cake and went to Fridays with the mother in law and brother in law. Half the family didn’t go for various reasons ( family fued). I realise now it is these inocuous posts that my blog has been missing. Stuff I did when Kaia was 1. Or when I first landed in TW. “Oh yeh, I used to eat that, or go there or do that”. I spent a long time posting COD stuff which has no meaning to me years later. Indeed I then had a barren patch in which I didn’t post at all. I need to rectify this.

 

Bullet point notes –

• Tree has been up since mid Nov
• Had thanksgiving in Gies again, much like last year. Me Gareth and Jody. This year Kaia was able to eat the soup, bread and turkey etc.
• Back into whiskey. Jody got me some The Singleton of Dufftown and it has all started again…Hehe.
• Still loving Super Dry.
• The new house is better than the last. Brighter, happier and a bigger balcony. I still miss Yong-He a lot. I really loved that house but we couldn’t live there with Kaia. The rent was almost none existant tho. I saved so much. If I still lived there and hadn’t spent my savings on my back I would have a good nest egg. As it stands I lose money every month and have taken a huge amount from my savings. When Kaia goes to school it will be worse.

 

Ok, that is enough complaining for now. I have an interview at ANL school on Sunday at 11 to see whether I can get weekend tutoring / teaching. Fingers crossed. Weekend drinking tho…..Nope. Jody is having a bike ride on Sat. So now more than 2-3 beers till next weekend….Which is the Xmas weekend. I will miss the snow on GTA on Xmas eve as we will celebrate. It is the first year that Ryan won’t there unfortunately. I genuinely miss that guy. What a hero.

Update 2018

Wow. Long time. I have come off the back of  a serious back injury. Started in March and is juuuuust about better now. Just. I won’t harp on about it.

Back to work after being back in the UK. Had serious jet lag for a few days but got over it. Kaia is STILL getting over it. Going to bed at 2 am and waking at 10 am…..Again I wont go into it.

 

Notes –

 

• Still working at Kid Castle
• Due to being off work I am looking for Saturday work. JOY messaged me could be good. I don’t want to work Saturday but hey. Has to be done.
• Holidays aye……Started with back aches, leading to serious jet lag. Leading to heartache. I hope the wife had a good time despite all the shite and that Kaia can at least take away some positives. ( commenting on my holiday)
• Summer time in Northumberland, it’s cooler and has been raining …but it’s still nice…Kaia walked around the village and she saw real chickens etc..she loves it( yeah that’s what I assume…)..had a MASSIVE home grown cucumber and she still managed it….lol… (Jody’s comments about UK trip )
• Mike Ashley says he is being treated as a ‘pantomime villain’ over his running of Newcastle — and that a parliamentary petition against him led to employees of his companies receiving ‘unprecedented’ levels of abuse, harassment and intimidation.(chatting about Newcastle)

 

That is all for now. I hope I have a fitter better 2019 and that being 41 is better than being 40. On a bright note Kaia and Jody are doing great.

Kaia is one!

Yes, amazing. One year since she was born. She is sitting in the living room right now crawling around at high speed. It is Saturday and the weather is cold and wet. I had to stay in this morn with Kaia as Jody is out bike riding for her companies president.

 

Other things of note –

• Still enjoying eleven sports Premier league
• Set up my ps3 in living room so I can play BOPSII zombies
• Still racing in GTA
• Leeds made a good start to the season but faded
• Had some toothache recently
• GTA are releasing the Doomsday DLC….Is it the swansong for GTA?
• Loving spotify still
• Like this new house but it is much colder than Jong-He
• Rereading Harry Potter again. Just about to finish The Goblet of Fire
• Ordered our turkey again from the Garden hotel

 

That is all!

Just checking in

It is mid November and I haven’t blogged in a while. All is well. Kaia is 11.5 months old and I love her to bits. Still playing GTA 5 and working at Kid Castle. That is all for now 🙂