UFC in Tawain (well at least watching it)

My wife sent me a link to a popular "Western" bar called the Brass Monkey. I saw on their web page that they are showing the UFC "live" this weekend. It is on Saturday night in the USA so it is on 11:00am Sunday morning here in Taiwan. I walked over to the restaurant this evening and it was closed. I walked past it to a club that supposedly has a blues jam on Wednesday nights (some white guy at Subway gave me a flyer telling me about it). There actually IS a blues jam every Wednesday night here in Taipei. I've seen a lot of crappy blues jams in the birthplace of blues (the USA) so I'm not too sure what it will be like, but I'll check it out and maybe sit in next week and play a song or two.

Anyway after finding the blues jam bar/restaurant, the Cosmopolitan Grill, I walked back home hoping the Brass Monkey would be open so I could at least ask them about the UFC broadcast. Luckily when I walked past it on my way home it was now open. I walked inside and tried speaking Chinese. "Ni Hao. Xingqi tian, wo yao kan UFC. Duoshao qian?" (Hello, I want to watch the UFC on Sunday. How much does it cost?). The girl didn't speak English (good!) so she said "XXX bu XXX". "Bu" means "no" or "not" in Chinese so I assumed that there was no charge. I then said "Meiyou" (you don't have), she said "Dui" (yes, correct), I said "Xie xie, bye bye" (Thank you, bye bye) and walked out.

Two things: 1) it was cool only speaking Chinese and having the person understand me 2) deducting what the other person said back to me in Chinese was pretty cool. Learning Chinese is not easy, actually it is REALLY hard, even harder than I thought it would be. I'm slowly making progress. Hell, I've only been here 3 weeks, I guess I'm not doing too badly.

Come Sunday morning I'll be a happy camper. A beer or five, the UFC live (Couture vs Lesnar - HOLY SHIT!) and not a worry in the world...until my next test 24 hours later.

The saga continues.

Jim