 Friends         |   1   0  🤗 0  Happy Birthday Axo , I hope its a lovely day for you.....and i wish you many more wonderful years !!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY to My dearest AXO.........a superb combination of wit , intelligence and a heart of gold...  ... Wish you bucketfuls of joy, cartfuls of luck and truckloads of cassowaries and axolotls....Just keep your hands off my Didgeridooo   It must be forty years since Frank Sinatra's masterpiece "Only the Lonely" album and I became acquainted, and I still brings a tear to my eye.   Jeez, we just had a pretty serious earthquake. Thought the apartment building was going down for sure. . Q: How do you make an Irishman laugh on a Tuesday? Ans: Tell him a joke on a Sunday. Q: How do you make a Scotsman smile in 2025? Hold that thought . . . In 1966, Frank Sinatra released an album entitled "Moonlight Sinatra" featuring ten songs related to the moon in one way or another. It must've been thirty years since I bought it, and have been enjoying it ever since . . . . . . but only 𝒕𝒐𝒅𝒂𝒚 did I get the pun.   It's not cheap, but the season ends soon, I promised to spoil myself if I survived the dentist yesterday, and hey, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆.    (What you see is probably half an average sized durian, already cut open at the market, and will set you back about $30 USD - 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒉 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒚!) Wish you were here.  It has a strong smell, yeah, but I don't consider it to be a 𝒃𝒂𝒅 smell. Oh, but that taste . . . The sun has just appeared again for the first time after a week of truly ferocious weather, the worst typhoon Taiwan has experienced in quite some years, and an unprecedented 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦 days emergency holiday for most people. This song, an old fave to begin with, seems particularly appropriate right now.  Oh wow, Cheryl CodeCracker might like this. Look what I found while rummaging through old photos! This is me and Aussie David together when I was living down under (1988). Royally shitfaced, of course.    So....this is where it all began!!! Looks like you were about 22 here? Great pic! David needs to see this one! View all 6 posts I don't remember much about the Beatles breakup either lol. If my memory serves me correct, shortly after we arrived in Nepal, David went off to do the Everest Base Camp trek alone. I did a few days trekking on the Annapurna circuit alone, visited Chitwan national park (saw a rhino! no tigers  ), then flew back to Taiwan.I suppose we were all getting a bit sick of each other lol. It tends to happen when people travel together in close proximity, especially in a high-stress location like China. Of course, you start missing them again about 12 hours later, haha. As for pics, I was never much of a photographer, though it's hard to believe I didn't take a single pic in either Tibet or Nepal. Please share!  Oh wait, I found the Tibet-Nepal pics Not that many, though, and none containing yourself, I'm afraid . Lemme post . . . View all 4 posts Did you notice David's half beard at the Great Wall? It's not so . . . shocking! . . . in the pics because he's in profile. I can't even remember if Golmud had a train station (we arrived by bus, I'm sure you recall). I was a bit hasty in my caption: the sign above us reads "Golmud Station" only. You got any long-forgotten pics to share, pardner?  I added about 10 more pics...but not sure what ether they went to. Were you able to see them? I guess you mean the ones you posted on my feed, right? (click on my name) In 1993, having already lived in Taiwan for four years, I was planning my first trip to China. My travel companion was to be an Aussie mate, David, who I'd first met a few years prior while engaged in a year-long "working holiday" down under, and had kept in touch with. We met up first in Hong Kong, got our visas, then crossed the border into Guangzhou, looking forward to several weeks on the road together. It may have been the very first night, belly up to the bar (surprise surprise!), that we bumped into a pair of delightful young American ladies -- Cheryl and Jeri -- with plans much like our own. Anyway, we all got along well, one thing led to another, and we ended up spending over two months together, all the way through China, down to Tibet from remote Qinghai province in the north, and into Nepal where we finally went our various ways. Gosh, the stories I could bore you with, haha! Short version: awesome companions, wonderful memories. Cheryl, Jeri and I kept in touch for a short period thereafter, exchanging letters, until all communication ended . . . . . . until last night, that is, when Facebook worked another one of its magic tricks. Say hi to Cheryl, folks. codecracker View all 5 posts The more I think, the more sure I am that it was '92. By the way, I have more pics if you wanna see. I'm not sure whether we have all the same pics.  Yes!!! Please post more pics. Some I have, but you've posted some that are new for me!! Also, BTW, definitely '92 since Jeri's writings were being published in the newspaper May '93. Oh, how I love summer in Taiwan Just back from the market. Super-yummy 𝒍𝒚𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒆𝒔 (back) are available here only for a brief three months or so from about mid-May to mid-August. Heavenly 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒐𝒆𝒔 are available for longer, about five months throughout the summer period, in a dazzling array of varieties, peaking around July when the feeding frenzy reaches a crescendo. And then there is -- by far! -- the sexiest of them all, the one and only, 𝘴𝘶𝘪 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘴, king of the fruits itself: 𝒅𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 (middle). Inspiring contempt and disgust in some (it has a strong smell), romantic poetry and rapturous bliss in others, there seems to be no middle ground when it comes to the king of fruits: You either love it or hate it. No prizes for guessing which camp I represent. Durian ought to be on everyone's bucket list. If you haven't tried it, make the effort. Don't even ask me to describe the taste, words fail. Ineffable, extraordinary, unique, divine, what more can I say?  Like many other vices, opium say, a durian obsession is not cheap to indulge. What you see in the pic is probably a quarter of a whole durian, going for TWD$380 (about USD$12), already knocked down by 20% as close of day approaches. We old hands know all the tricks.  Yes, it's all gone in two minutes, but certain pleasures transcend monetary considerations. Forgive the repetition: durian is simply 𝒔𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒆. Pay whatever they're asking! Screw the family fortune, to hell with the kids' college fees! Post-orgy blues are consoled to some degree by every belch for the next six hours or so. This is one taste that does not dissipate fast. Now, would any of you lovely ladies like a kiss? Oh, the boring banana? That's just there for perspective.   Lol, give us a kiss anyway.  But yes Vianna, for hours afterwards, suitors and inamoratos will be in no doubt as to what you've been guzzling. It's a very strong flavor (and smell) hence, I suppose, the manic attraction for some, and disgust for others, not unlike the effect that strong cheese has perhaps. Put durian in your fridge and everything there will be contaminated. I just poured myself a durian coffee Now you know why it's banned by so many hotels in S.E. Asia. I suspect it might be easier to get rid of the smell of a decaying corpse. Ask your Mafia hitmen friends.  Listen 2:10 - 2: 30 "In their 2013 album The Devil Herself, band Megan Jean and the KFB features the song Tobias which features the lyrics "We lived amongst the tribe that ate Rockefeller / Out in Papua New Guinea I’d give you the skinny / Get eaten if I tell ya"." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Rockefeller |
