What I'll miss in Taiwan

And what I'm looking forward to in Taiwan

Image: Where would you rather be now? At my home or in Taipei?

My departure to Taiwan is closer day by day and you can imagine that I have many things on my mind. Some of the most essential questions are how will I like it there and what will I miss from here. And by here I mean my home in Slovenia. It's hard to say, really, but since this is not a scientific blog, I'll try to speculate a little. It's my 5th big trip to Asia, so by now I pretty much know what to expect. On the other hand, it's my first trip to Taiwan, so I can only assume some things. So far everybody says it's a great country and that I will have a lot of fun. But we'll see.

Let me tell you first about the things I will definitely miss while going to Taiwan:

1 My mum and my sisters: I'll definitely miss my family, which is small, but we only have each other. I know they'll miss me, too. They're used to me being in Asia, so it's not a new things to them, but it's still not easy to them and to me. I'm happy that my mum just recently got a new boyfriend and I know he'll take good care of her. My sisters are busy with their boyfriends, so they already don't have time for me. I'm totally fine being so far, if everything here is alright.

2 My cat Miša: This little kitty is 5 years old and ever since she was born, I claimed her as my own. I gave her the name and I was the only one who liked her first. She didn't like to cuddle with others, only with me. At that time, we had 5 cats and my mum and sisters had their own favourites. 5 years later we only have 2 cats and my Miša has become everyone's darling. Now she cuddles with everyone, but I must say we have a special bond and she knows that. I know I will break her small heart: Sorry Miša, but there's a girl waiting for me. I need to leave and I know my mum will take good care of you. Soon there will be spring and you can catch mice and birds and enjoy the warm sun. I will think of you and miss you and I know, you will miss me, too.

3 Some food: I generally love Asian food, especially Chinese specialties, so I won't really miss anything from home. Maybe some of my mum's dishes she makes so well. The pizza is better here, the chocolates, too. And we have different kinds of juices here, but well, I miss so many Asian things like soy drink and all kinds of noodles, that's a real compensation for everything I might not be able to eat or drink in Taiwan.

4 German TV: I'm used to watch German TV since I was a little boy (we didn't and still don't have Slovenian TV, because of the weak signal). I know all the things that are going on in Germany, be it politics, sports or entertainment, so I'm used to watch some of those channels daily. Switching to Taiwanese TV won't be so easy. I've watched Taiwanese channels while staying in Malaysia, so I know what they're all about: Drama, talk shows and music shows. Not bad, but I need to improve my Mandarin significantly to be able to enjoy them.

5 My mum's coffee: I almost forgot about the coffee I drink here sometimes three times a day. We cook Turkish coffee at home in Slovenia, which may not taste good to most of you, who are used to Starbucks or Italian coffee with all its variations. So I really need to find a good coffee place in Taipei. If I don't, I'm gonna make my own at home.

6 My car: I inherited my car from my grandpa, who [by the way] died exactly today one year ago. I know how he loved his car, he always washed it and took good care of it. I didn't really use this car a lot, but I really cherish it. It's a Renault Clio 2002. It's small, but cosy and reliable. Recently my little sister is using it much more than me, because she rides to school every day. I think I'm gonna leave it to her, if I really manage to stay in Taiwan permanently. I don't have the heart to sell it, she really needs it and it would be unfair. I hope she keeps it well.

That's about it when it comes to things I may most definitely miss when I'm away. Now let's see some things I definitely look forward to in my upcoming trip to Taiwan:

1 My dear girl: She's really one of a kind. I haven't blogged about her much, so let me tell you few things about her. She's everything I always wanted in a girlfriend: She's intelligent, hardworking, kind, polite, beautiful, funny and sweet. She's flexible and adaptable, open to new things. And she always keeps her word. That's what impressed me most. Ever since we realized that we like each other, which is quite a long while ago, she chatted and still chats with me every day at the same time. Imagine that! If she couldn't make it, she'd apologize. I'm same like her in this regard, so I also always kept my word and always talked with her at the same time, too. And we grew closer and closer, as close as two people can be by meeting only online and living in two different continents. I must say, it wasn't always easy. We had our ups and downs and days, where we were lost. But we faced all our challenges and we always sorted things out. And the past two months were some of the happiest for me in a long time. We're so close now and we're strong and excited. All we can do now is to wait. But luckily time flies. And so will I, soon. And I know that she's really worth every penny I invest in this trip and every second I spend chatting with her. It's a pity that I won't be flying to her on Valentine's day, because then it would be the most romantic thing a guy could ever do on that day, don't you think? ^_~

2 People: I really look forward to meet many awesome people in Taiwan. I hope I can make a lot of friends, be it locals or foreigners. I will be there with an open mind and with the valuable experience of my previous trips. I may need some time to understand all the local customs and rules, but I have my girl to help me out with that. I hope that major blunders won't happen. Oh, and I might add you in this group of 'people'. Yes, I'm talking about so many of you dear bloggers/readers, who said you'll come to Taiwan this year. If I'm there and you have spare time, I'd definitely be happy to meet you. We'll keep in touch and discuss the meetings before you come. Looking forward to that.

3 Food: Everytime I say I will go to Taiwan, people tell me: Oh, you'll love the food! The food is amazing! We'll see, hehe. I wonder how the stinky tofu will taste and other Taiwanese specialties. I wonder, if the food is really that different than what I ate among the Chinese Malaysians in Penang and Batu Pahat. We shall see. But all this food talk makes me very excited, hehe.

4 Nature: Taiwan is a beautiful island with a breathtaking landscape. Ok, lets be romantic and forget the typhoons and earthquakes and focus on the beautiful mountains and beaches. I hope to make some unforgettable memories with my girl there.

5 Climate: Taiwan is hot most of the year. They have a winter now, but there's no snow and it doesn't go below zero Celsius. That's enough for me to make me happy already, hehe. And I expect not to have that horrible hay fever I have here every spring. It will be so much better for my health to skip another spring here, which would have been yet another unpleasant time of sneezing and itchy red eyes.

6 Mandarin: I love Mandarin and I hope I can learn it well. I need to be around Taiwanese and then I'm sure I'll be speaking it well by the end of year. It's my dream to speak Mandarin (besides Slovenian, German, English and a bit of Swedish, Italian, Croatian and Malay), because I'm awesome like that ^_~

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Ok, I'm gonna wrap it up here. I could go on with much more things, but it's ok for now, these are the most important ones and the post is too long already. Before you leave, please check the short video of me and my kitty Miša. You'll see how close we are and how she likes me.

Ok, one last thing before I go. My dear friend Wenny wrote such a touching post about me, if you have some spare time, please check that post, she wrote a brilliant piece about me and my love story with the name: My Bubble: Where is Slovenia? Thank you so much, sis! ^_^

• How do you like my things I'll miss and look forward to?
• What things would you miss or look forward to?

[Photo on top: by MKL 2009, Lily 2009, Miša photo: MKL 2010]

Where is Slovenia?

I found this cute little video made by a fellow [at that time 16 years old] Slovenian girl, who talks about the differences between the two countries Slovenia and Slovakia. It's very common for people to mistake these two countries, because the names are similar. But she's funny and does a great job explaining it for you [in Eng]. Enjoy this 2:41 long video and learn a bit more about my country.

Have a lovely weekend. ;-)

This is just a filler, because I'm on a creative break, hehe. :-)

• Do you know the difference between Slovenia and Slovakia now?

EVA Air, fly me to her!

Rambling about the air ticket and money bills

Guess what? Guess what? I did it! I bought air tickets to Taipei today! Woohoo! :-) I'm so happy. And do you want to know when I will fly to that beautiful East Asian country? Well, I'd rather not share this here with you, I don't think it's good to tell everything on a public blog. Who knows who's spying on me ;-) Well, all you need to know is, I will be there soon, but there's still some weeks to go.
Today was a very cold day, but I had to go to town to take care of many things, but the most important thing was to check the airtickets to Taipei and possibly book them, if there's a good bargain. I was a little sceptical first, but then the price was ok and within my expectations. I asked my dear, if she's alright with the date and when she said she was, I went back to the travel agency and finally booked the air tickets. I didn't have cash with me (I seldom carry so much money with me), so I needed to go to the bank and withraw a big portion of my savings. I was advised that it's better to pay immediately, because the price may change. And so, there it was, a rare sight: A 500 euro bill. I had to snap a photo of it, because it's really a rare occasion to have this bill in my wallet. And please don't think I wanted to show off here, the photo is related to the questions at the end. I don't know why would someone carry such a large amount of money with them [it's worth 725US$ or 1007 SG$ or 2422 Ringgit]. It's only useful, when you pay for big things, but you can't go to the supermarket and buy groceries. They won't accept it. I do prefer cash over credit and debit cards, but I always carry smaller bills. I think when I pay with cash, I can see the money leave my wallet and I can relate to the value better than when it's just deducted from my debit card.
Today was really a cold day in Maribor and I had to walk back and forth on that bridge, where I snapped the top photo from. But it was worth it. I finally bought the air tickets [Yay!] and I have to tell you, it was a very exciting moment. Once the agent said my flight was confirmed and I passed over my money to her, I suddenly everything became so real, I thought: "OMG, I will be in Taiwan soon! Wow! I can't believe it! After so many months of planning, the date is finally set. I'm flying. To her. And she can't wait to welcome me in her arms. Just amazing. Hope everything goes well, no blizzards, no delays, no unexpected surprises. I will really believe it, when I set my foot on that beautiful island." Wish me luck! :-)

• What's the biggest money bill you have in your country?
• Is it common for you to carry it with you?
• Do you like to pay with cash or with credit/debit cards?
  

[Photos: by MKL, 2010]

My resolutions for 2010

Or the things I hope to accomplish in 2010.

Time flies! Wow! I can't believe how fast it goes. Do you also have that weird feeling where you're not really used to the new year? 2010. I can't relate to this number yet. Maybe because 2009 was so eventful and full of changes. And 2010 so far is just boring, cold and full of snow. And that's how I feel these days: Bored, empty, have no particular ideas what to do or what to say [or blog...].

And so I played around with Photoshop in my previous post and asked all of you, how you would interpret that image. Guess what, I had no idea what I was trying to say. I was so random. But I must say you guys were very creative and really inspired me with your interpretations. I liked the one from Adamantixx the most, when he said: Your blog began in a small and quiet way, the ? signifying your beginnings and each new stage sees you getting bigger, bolder and better! I do think that's part of blogging, beginning, growth and improvement! Yay! But if [*huge stress on if] my creation is art, then of course, it can have many interpretations, so all of you are right in your own way and get a big thank you from me. You guys are awesome [*also because such a random post generated comments, hehe].

But one of you seems to know me most. That's my friend Shirley. She totally nailed it, when she said: What I really really see, is a very bored Nino :P or a crazy one. not sure! It's amazing how well your readers can know you :-)

Ok, enough about that. I actually wanted to write my resolutions for 2010, since everyone's doing it. My friend Manju inspired me with her lovely post [here] and since I don't have any ideas, I decided to write about my hopes, dreams and plans for this year. Most of these things will happen, some may not, but that's ok. As many of you may know by now, I've met a wonderful girl last year and we've been chatting and getting to know each other for many months and eventually we fell in love. I plan to meet her next month [*romantic, huh?] in Taiwan, her homecountry, work there and be with her. So it's no surprise, that all my resolutions are related to her and that wonderful Asian country. Here's what I want to do this year:

✰ Fly to Taiwan, stay and work there the whole year.

✰ Do a good job and have a good and interesting life in Taipei.

✰ Have great new relationship with many happy moments.

✰ Make new friends and be accepted by my dear's parents.

✰ Travel across Taiwan, explore many parts of the country.

✰ Spend my 30th birthday on top of Taipei 101.

✰ Buy my own set of mahjong and find people to play with.

✰ Save money every month, even if just a little.

✰ Make my blog grow, keep current readers and attract new ones.

✰ Do a Vlog in Mandarin and also have more Taiwanese followers.

✰ Learn enough Mandarin to be able to have normal conversations.

✰ Try new food in Taiwan [stuff I never tried] and blog about it.

✰ Have a short trip to Tokyo [but that's probably gonna happen in 2011]

✰ One day watch movies all night and eat yummy food with my girl.

✰ Learn from past mistakes and be strong when facing criticism.

✰ Be able to say it was one of the best years of my life on Dec 31.

Wow, will I really be living in this awesome city?

How do you like my resolutions? :-)

[Photo: Source]

How do you interpret this? Let me see how creative you are.

Most random post ever!

This will be pretty random, can you handle it?

The routine is back and I'm really sooooo bored sometimes. I mean, in my head there's nothing except randomness. Ok, it wasn't hard to write my last post, because spammers lit[t]er[ed]ally flooded my blog, so I had to take action and send them a strong message! But guess what? Even that post got a spam comment #FML. I guess deleting is the only way to keep them away, Manju's famous secret army of ninjas and monsters failed miserably. I saw them in a back yard down in Solferino eating cake. Well, what do you expect, right? I guess I need to keep deleting spam manually. If that's the price to pay when you're a tinly little tad more popular... well, so be it. But if this blogmestic violence becomes bigger, I will have to lock my comments again -_-

Speaking of locked, look what I've found:


You can find more of this awesome stuff on Lamebook. Those who need something a bit harder, you can check Fuckbook (found this via @sabyj's blog). Sheesh, there it is, I said it! The "F" word. Now my blog will go down the drain #FML. Speaking of these online-books, I just saw some awesome jokes on Manju's Facebook wall and I will straight out post them here, because I'm bold like that today:

Manju's boyfriend took her to a restaurant. The waiter, for some reason, took boyfriend's order first."I'll have the strip steak, medium rare, please." The waiter asked: "Aren't you worried about the mad cow?" "Nah, she can order for herself." And then the fight started...

Manju is standing nude, looking in the bedroom mirror. She is not happy with what she sees and says to her boyfriend: "I feel horrible! I look old, fat and ugly. I really need you to pay me a compliment." "The boyfriend replies: "Your eyesight's damn near perfect." And then the fight started...

Manju and her boyfriend are watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire while they were in bed. Boyfriend turned to her and said: "Do you want to have sex?" "No," she answered. Boyfriend then said: "Is that your final answer?" Manju didn't even look at him this time, simply saying "Yes." So boyfriend said: "Then I'd like to phone a friend."And that's when the fight started...

The biggest joke for me was: Manju doesn't have a boyfriend [as for 6.1.2009 at 5am in Solferino]. This was all posted by a funny friend of Manju's named GREAT.VIKIUS. I hope he doesn't mind becoming famous because of me. Well, who knows, maybe that's what he intended to become by posting those jokes on Manju's wall.

Speaking of Manju, I recieved her Christmas card two days ago! Hello? Christmas is over like... so long ago! Duh... and OMG, I am not sure whether the Mauritian postmen are lazy or weather the card was stuck in Zimbabwe for a week. Or maybe our postmen here are slobs. No idea, but each of these possibilities would not surprise me... but well, it will forever remain a mystery why this card traveled so long.

[click to enlarge]

Have you seen what Manju wrote? She picked on people (actually mice) who are midgeter than her. That's midgestic violence! I studied this card thoroughly and I figured out that Manju has a split personality: There's a good and a bad Manju [a berry berry bad Manju!]:

• The bad one uses a black pen and taunts midgets, has an evil laugh
  
• The good one uses a blue pen and tries to justify the bad one's evil actions
  

Seriously disturbing, don't you think? I wonder which Manju will comment on my blog today. *trembling, biting nails, sweating...

Speaking of Christmas. What did you have for dinner? I had chicken:

Socks are such a turn-off, don't you think? I prefer it without socks. FTW!

Besides eating chicken with socks (<-double-meaning), I watched TV on Christmas and I saw something that really hurt my Asian feelings. Those damn ang moh can't stop to bully us Asians!


I will be soon in Asia, so you can be sure, that I'm trying to prepare myself well to have a smooth transition. In this case this warning won't apply to me, I don't have any grandmas. If those Asian youngsters don't believe me and still want to kill my grandma [a seriously disturbing thought >_<], I will just tell them:

Leave my grandma alone!

If you want to kill someone...

Alright! I wanna be frank here. The photo above reminded me that I haven't been with a woman for a long while now... Ok, chances are good that I will be with one soon, but I try to be strong, you know. I do my best and most of the time I succeed. But then, I can only deny it soooo much, because the Universe has a weird way to slap me in the face, usually in a very weird way, as it's obvious here, when I was just about to write an untrue comment:


I better stop here, this is going nowhere. I tag Shingo, Manju, Great.Vikius, Nahl, ShAKirA CHOONG, Bananazക and Superman to write a random post with random things and link back to my post because I invented this game. And if you do that you'll get the award Random Blogger from me. Ain't that something? FTW, people, FTW!!!

On a side note: Lily did the 10 honest things about her post, please check that out and get to know her better. And I also did a post on Andhari's blog, check here. Thanks.

Do you have any comments? :P

[Photos: 1 by Lamebook, 2 by Manju and my scanner, 3 Lily, 4 probably on HuffPost, 5 probably on RCA, 6 My magic fingers]

Be alert: Britney.Lohan never sleep!

A post about spammers and weird commentators

Spamming and weird commenting in the blogosphere is out of control recently. Lucky for you, I'm good at spotting these weirdos, because I always subscribe to comments on your blogs. I collected these comments for a while now and I made a list of them, which you will find below. The days of penile enlargement emails are almost gone and most of the Nigeria scam emails have also nearly disappeared from our emails. Britney.Lohan fcuked also have a hard time promoting their sexual adventures on Twitter. However spammers are still out there, but as the anti-spamming measures had some success, they became more and more inventive.

Let me show you some of those spammers I had the pleasure to deal with recently.

1 Using your friend's email address to spam you

I have no idea how they did that, I suppose they phished my friend's password, because I swear the address was exactly the same as my friend's. You don't need to be a professor to realize that something's not right. My Malaysian friend would never greet me with Howdyy.

2 Using your friend's MSN Messenger to spam you

A message like this pops up suddenly, when you're signed in MSN, but your friend is offline. Happened several times to me recently. He he hu hu ha ha, I wonder who would click on such nonsense... Lucky not me. :P

3 Spammer pretending he's a tweeter like you

Those were the weirdest spammers I ever saw. A while ago I allowed them to follow me, not knowing what they're up to. They became less recently, but they're worth to mention. Their nonsense is really a waste of cyberspace, don't you think?

4 Link spammers in comments, who comment nonsense

Just few days ago my sidekick Manju and her sidekick Shirley teased me with spamming. They (+many others) made my last post the most commented one. Thank you and I must say it cracked me up, however, it did attract real spammers: The next day I suddenly got 7 spam comments by two weird names - Xmas gifts and Beaches Resort. The names already tell you, that something's not right. Check the comment here, but don't click on the spammer's link. I left that comment to prove my point here.

Then today I noticed a guy, who didn't really write nonsense. He was flattering, yea, but his sole purpose was to link to his blog. He dropped comments on Shingo's [here], my [here], and Shirley's post [here]. All his comments were sent every 3min. Either he's an extremely fast reader and types fast or he's just a spammer like all the rest. I assume the latter, but make up your own mind.

[Related: My previous post about fake commentators]

[Click to enlarge to see his comments]

5 Link spammers in comments, who comment on topic

Did you notice some commentators always link to their blog in every of their comments? Guess what, they're spammers, too. And they piss me off, too. Yes, they may comment on topic, appear to be just a normal follower, but they're using your blog to increase their Google Pagerank. That's just not right and I decided to delete these comments, too. I may just delete the extra link and republish for now, if it becomes worse, I will delete whole comments.
That's spam, my friends. Even if the comment is cute and flattering, in the end they're trying to make money (by getting more hits and ad-clicks) on your respectful site's expense. It's perfectly ok to link in your user name and I also don't mind, if you link to a website (or a blog post) that relates to your comment. But linking to your blog in just every comment is spam!

6 Not spammers, but WTF anonymous commentators

I've seen this guy commenting on various blogs I follow and he even commented on mine and I have no idea what's the point of this. It's not spam, it's not on topic, it's just random nonsense. I guess he spammed so many times in his life, his brain shrunk and that's the result. Or am I too mean? Well, he does post the same statement over and over again, just altering the words a bit. Sheesh, some people will always be a mystery to me... on- and offline.

How do you handle spammers? What is spam for you and what not?

[Cartoon: Source][Helpful: Google's hard facts about comment spam]