To Live & Play in Taipei, Part II: The Playing

You better believe that at the end of any given week, we girls were gonna find a way to get out and blow off some steam......although it took us the better part of three weeks to figure out where to go. The agency was certainly not going to condone their girls going out, partaking of libations and earning gorgeous undereye baggage, so we were on our own when it came to finding the nightlife.

Thank God a model named Christy decided to join our ranks after our first three weeks of sitting around stuffing our faces and watching Asian music videos on V-TV (with a sprinkling of The Backstreet Boys and Brittney.....have mercy). She was a model from Seattle who had been to Taipei several times and was ready to show us the ropes. She was also the eldest in the group so we all looked up to her and her word was pretty much gold when it came to having fun in Taipei. Christy also managed to befriend two German college students at a nighmarket and they quickly became the male counterparts to our shenanigans.

Las chicas getting ready for a night on the town (Mia from Canada, Christy from Seattle, me, Kristina from Russia):



This is how we got to become regulars at Roxy, an expatriat bar, and @live, a techno/rave/strobe light paradise a few blocks away from Roxy, which provided free admission to models, and therefore was the obvious choice for booty shakin' after the bar got boring. And seeing as we never bought drinks there, this often happened quickly. See, when you only have your weekly stipend to work with, you learn rapidly that buying a $6 drink at a bar will leave you broke before your buzz sets in. And with three 7-11's across the street from our hotel, we would chip in on some vodka and OJ, prefunk, and then load up into cabs to go mingle with the other English speakers. Taipei was not a market, like others we all know about, where being part of the fashion scene got you a free table & bottle in the VIP. We got in gratis to @live, but that was pretty much it.

Normally, we'd close the disco down and then cab it back home, but not without stopping at a convenience store first for some munchies or waiting up the extra hour for McDonald's to open to get their hotcake breakfast (yeah, they have those there too!) before crashing out. Once we ended up at a 24 hour rave by the river, although we only stayed for a few minutes if I remember correctly. My memories of how & why we got there are fuzzy at best. I just remember being tired and seeing a guy passed out on the grass with potato chips all over his face. Artfully placed...I'm not talking crumbs here. Not that seeing a dude passed out on the floor was an odd sight. On any given weekend night it is normal to see drunk revelers (often times in business suits) passed out in phonebooths, benches and sidewalks in Asia. Asians party. Hard.

Random dude passed out on the sidewalk....and yes, he was drooling:



Other nights would just find us hanging out at the hotel....see, we were pretty good & not out ALL the time! LOL! We'd run around the joint like overgrown versions of "Eloise" raising a ruckus and taking pictures of each other doing stupid things. Memories of our jackassishness saved for posterity. It's a good thing the hotel staff had taken such a liking to us, otherwise we may have ended up sleeping in the park.

Cheerleading camp?



So fun, we certainly had. Although this was just the tip of the iceberg for me and I didn't even know it. But I enjoyed every last second of this Taiwanese playtime since I grew up as cloistered as a Carmelite nun (don't get me started on my sheltered childhood) and college saw me at my nerdiest....I basically had not partied a day in my life until my first trip to Asia. I just really had no idea what I was gonna be in store for.....I mean, really....Milan? Miami? Wheeeeeeeee!