I am on my 3rd hotel bedroom in 2 nights. Impressive stuff.
I arrived in Taipei on Monday night, and got a good night’s sleep in the hotel. But last night, as I turned the light off, I noticed that there was some classical music coming from somewhere. It was very quiet: I could hardly hear it normally, but when I lay down and tried to go to sleep (i.e. it was quiet) I could here music. And it was crappy Strauss. Not Richard Strauss, whose music I could quite happily listen to, but the peddlar of crappy waltzes and polkas, Johann Strauss.
I hate Johann Strauss- writer of a whole series of the most dull and repetitive crap that you could ever hear. There is an orchestra that bears his name and specialises in his music. Presumably playing in this orchestra is the musical equivalent of hell, or some sort of purgatory where musicians have to serve time until their musical crimes have been absolved. As they are playing the Radetzky March at the Vienna New Year Concert, the musicians must be weeping inside 'What have I done to deserve this...'
I dislike the music so much that I was unable to block it out… It got into my head and was taunting me and driving me mad. At 12:45am I just couldn't take it. I got up, and got the assistant manager to come to the room and listen to the music. It turns out that it is the music that they play on the welcome screen when you turn on the TV in the bedrooms. So someone had had their TV on the welcome screen for 3 or 4 hours… sad beast. The assistant manager and her cronies searched for the room with the TV on, but were unable to work out where it was, so at about 1:30 am, they offered to move me to another room. It was 2:00 before I had packed and moved all my stuff, and by this time I was fully awake, so I couldn’t get back to sleep until 3:30… I spend the intervening time trying to banish memories of the Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka, The Blue Danube and all the other crap I had been forced to listen to for 2 hours by listening to some Chopin piano concertos. Bit of quality.
Anyway, I had to get up at 7:00, so I obviously have felt great all day. The day got off to a poor start when in my tired and not-quite-functioning-yet state, I managed to get the wrong bottle of solution when I put my lenses in, and instead of wetting the lenses with saline, I managed to put hydrogen peroxide in my eye. Stings like a *****
I flew to Tainan today. I spent the whole day with a small education company I have been in touch with. It been a long day…
Back up to Taipei tomorrow morning! It looks like I should get a good night’s sleep- I am tired and there is not boggy music to disturb me!!