John and I have barely been back for a week since our trip to Japan. Despite spending a rather hectic week re-adjusting to work again, we couldn’t wait to be out the door on Saturday night, this time on our way to Hukou in Hsinchu County for a meet-up with some fellow bloggers.
John and I met fellow co-worker and blogger, David Edwards and his girlfriend, Catherine at the Banciao Train Station late yesterday afternoon. We traveled to Hukou to meet up with MJ Klein aka The New Hampshire Bushman and his wife, Hui-Chen, to enjoy one their special grill parties at Shao hui’s. We arrived just as the food was being started. Andres Yu and his wife, Karen, arrived shortly after us with Andres’ cousin, Becky and their friend, Jerry. Dinner was served and what a meal! We enjoyed bbq’ed pork and vegetables, and several Thai dishes, all washed down with Thai Rum and cold Asahi beer.
This was my first blogger meet-up. John and I always enjoy meeting anyone new and I thought it was really nice to meet the people whose thoughts and commentary I’ve been reading for the last year and a half in Taiwan. Each person’s blog has its own special niche in the Taiwan blogging community and have been an invaluable source of information for John and I since our arrival in Taiwan.
Michael Turton, David Reid, and Todd Alperovitz, MJ Klein and Andres Yu are all well-known bloggers in the Taiwan blogophere. All five men are photography aficionados. There was an impressive range of cameras at the party. You can check any of their blogs for photos from last night.
I also met author of Getting A Leg Up Podcast, Mark Forman. I wasn’t familiar with his blog until last night.
We spent most of the evening sitting outside the restaurant and enjoying some great food. Later in the evening we moved indoors for some karaoke. When the restaurant closed, we went back to MJ and Hui-Chen’s place and had a few drinks on the rooftop. MJ brought his guitar out and treated us to some music. I’m hoping he might consider coming into Taipei some night for an acoustic set at Citizen Cain.
John and I had a terrific time and we want to take this opportunity to say we are really happy to have met all of you. Thanks to MJ and Hui-Chen for providing an excellent evening. It was a terrific way to get together and a nice way to spend the evening. Let’s do it again sometime!
Carrie, when you guys left i had a vision of an EMT crew using the jaws of life to extract John from the taxi upon arrival! how all 5 of you fit in that one taxi is beyond my ability to comprehend! haha! thanks for coming. great to finally meet you guys
Nice to finally meet you and John. Hopefully everyone won’t wait six months between meet-ups again!
Ha! I don’t know how we did it either. I think David and Catherine got the worst of it. Thanks again for everything.
I hope so too. And you as well Todd. I guess we’ll have to work on something in a month or two. I wouldn’t mind a repeat of last night. The food was great.
hey carrie,
what a fun night. we need to do it on a regular basis. i could barely walk after that taxi ride!…lol.
MJ came through big last night…an excellent host.
-david
Hey Carrie nice meeting you and John(poor guy I’d feel his pain even if he was alone in that cab….). Enjoyed your singing and defense of singing Canadians on that windy Bushman rooftop
. It was lot’s of fun. Will enjoy checking out your blog further.
[...] but big thanks for the hookup and driving. The rest I’ll leave to them in their posts here, here, here and [...]
[...] the English-language Taiwan Blogsphere. Full reports are available from Michael Turton, David Reid, Carrie Marshall, and David Edwards. Also in attendance were Mark Forman, Andres Yu along with his lovely wife [...]
it was great to finally meet you and john, altho’ i’m a bit embarrassed at how drunk i got. do forgive me for any dumb shit i said. still, had a great time and hope we can all get together again soon. now, how about basketball this coming sunday john? i will email you guys the details in the coming days.
What a great time! Great meeting you and the ruggedly handsome hubby to be!
Michael
It sounds like it was a great night. Wish I could have been there, but I had already made plans when MJ emailed me about it. I never make plans so I’m not sure how it was that I had 4 different things that I wanted to do on the same weekend, all in different cities/towns.
Mark,
Terrific meeting you too. We didn’t get much of an opportunity to talk. We’ll have to rectify that next time around.
Andres,
Whatevs man! John and I were feeling pretty happy too, if ya know what I mean. I don’t usually go around hugging people I’ve only known for a few hours. It musta been all that darn rum. There wasn’t any dumb talk…only good times. John and I are really happy that you and Karen are so close by. John is playing in a televised tournament this weekend, but send me the details. I know he’s interested in playing with you!
Craig,
Next time for sure! Put your thinking cap on. We need to think of an interesting venue…although I have no problems with heading back to Hukuo.
Michael,
Great talks. Great fun. Can’t wait for the next one. I’ll sing with you any day!
oh, good good. for the past couple days i was feeling pretty bad hoping i hadn’t offended anyone. as for next get-together, we can always go to the cabin in miaoli, but getting there might be a bit of a problem. perhaps we can all rent a big van and share the cost?
where and when is john’s televised games this weekend? is it open to the public? maybe we’ll come watch.
Andres,
John and I are dying to go to Miaoli. We’ll gladly share the bill with anyone who wants to rent a van with us.
John just told me about the game yesterday and he doesn’t have all the details. I’ll give you a call as soon as I get the details. He’s stoked about playing bball with you guys as well.
Count me in for Miaoli! I would be all for shelling out a few bucks to go there. Money is not an object…lol. Let’s do it!
-david
Hi Carrie,
This email is to let you know your site was featured on the latest Blogwatch column on the TrippinTV website.
Cheers,
Tim
Tim Brown
Exec Producer
TrippinTV
http://www.trippintv.com
Hi Tim,
Thanks for letting me know. I’ll be keeping on eye on TrippinTV. Very cool site. Thanks for the mention!