Another hectic half-week began in Taoyuan and ended in Tainan, which essentially draws a straight line from Taipei to the south end of Taiwan ("nan" is south).
Day 8: Thurs., 7/3
- Have seen (well, heard) lots of cicadas, but have yet to see a cockroach, despite their infamy.
- Bussed to the 12-story Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store. Lesson learned: Department store shopping is really expensive. We ended up shopping 'round the street vendors outside anyway, though it always pays to ask around or check twice for quality out there. (The Taipei Mall was also a lot cheaper, especially the older downstairs shops.)
- Mom flew in, so now I'm no longer on my own in Taiwan.
- Had a headache most of the day...apparently it's unwise to not blow-dry your hair before shutting yourself in with the air conditioner. Something about getting your scalp cold.
- My (rather young) grandaunt visited, leading to a turntable dinner at "Mama's Kitchen," the big highlight of which was the "ten-ingredient rice." The rice is cooked with a bunch of beans and other grains listed on a big poster. Personally, I liked the soup that had bubbletea 'pearls' with bacon.
- The un-highlight was me unknowingly eating the pig's blood dish.
- It's gross.
- Well, it's kind of like tofu.
Day 9: Fri., 7/4
- Went to the government office thing (right around the corner from my grandparents' Taoyuan residence), and got my Taiwan citizen ID. Woo. It involved waiting around a lot, signing my Chinese name, getting photos taken, and paying a couple hundred Taiwan bucks.
- Currently it's about $1 US = $30.4 TN, you do the division. -A calculator's handy to have when shopping, btw, or know your 30's times table really well. Also remember fractions and percentages are opposite; if the sign says "2 zuh" that means 80% off. 3/4 is said " 4 fen zhi 3.)
- Breakfast was takeout from Countryside, which we've eaten at multiple times. It's a nice little breakfast place, with everything from chocolate sandwiches to healthy (and really good) burgers.
- Juice in Taiwan is awesome.
- Fruit in Taiwan is doubly awesome. There are giant fruit markets - I recommend trying everything. Even the usual stuff, like pineapples. Especially that and mangos, if you're there in summer, since those are in season and really, really sweet.
- Took a whole bunch of free buses back to the Taoyuan downtown area, with the big department stores (Tonlin and Shin Kong). Taipei has the best free bus network. Learn the characters for 'free' and go to any bus sign that has it, and you're all set for transportation around the city.
- Biking is also great. The whole "healthy living" slogan is very much the current thing here, so many train systems work to accommodate people bringing bikes on board.
- Bring an eating buddy, go to Tonlin, floor B2 (food court) and get yourself a fresh mango shaved ice. It's worth it. Then go to a market and buy some green mango popsicles...they're already my favorite popsicles ever. They're very much fruity, mango chunks and all.
- Lunch demonstrated the whole "food is cheap" concept firsthand - for 4 people with a bunch of little dishes and 4 main dishes, the bill came to about US $7. This was the Sheng Jia Noodles Restaurant next to IKEA; ambience was a bit lacking, but the food's decent.
- Dinner (the non-stop food thing becomes a bit much at this point; walking everywhere or standing on the free buses - more like hanging on for dear life while the world swerves and brakes - helps.) again at the 'Da si shi' or 'Big Four Like'. Really good 'jiow' dumpling thingers and the little plate of raw papaya with ba-sheng fruit sauce is a new personal favorite.
-Happy July 4 for the U.S.-ers!
Day 10: Sat., 7/5
- Got dropped off by the Taoyuan train station, and ended up at the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi again. Had a really good lunch at "Off Time"; for a decent price, we took the "shared main course" option which comes with additional individual salad, soup, appetizer, dessert, and drink for an extra $5 U.S.
- The restrooms in the Shin Kong apparently won quite a few "cleanest restroom" awards. They are well worth a visit; we ended up hanging out in the restroom waiting room because it was so nice.
- Went to a mini outdoor late-night festival; a lot of these are always around, and are usually worth checking out for fun. There's just a bunch of vendors and makes me think of a combined flea market venture and late night snacking.
- Last day in Taoyuan until I return in mid-August.
Day 11: Sun., 7/6
- Got dropped off at the THSR: Taiwan High Speed Rail. It's bullet-train-ish (about 300 km/hr), and the fastest but most expensive mode of long-distance transport in Taiwan, barring planes.
- Free busing is provided to and from the HSR to promote its usage.
- This means if you aren't riding it during rush hour, don't get conned into buying a seat ticket, buy the cheaper 'any free spot' ticket, which is farther down in the train but you'll most likely still get a very comfy seat. It still cost about $30 U.S. for Taoyuan to Tainan, the 2nd to last stop.
- Get a window seat, the scenery is wonderful. It also goes by really fast; crossing half of Taiwan took about 20 mins.
Tip: On public transportation, don't lag. Bus drivers, trains, cars - nobody waits for people to slowly get up, drag their luggage out, and leave a bus. If your stop is next, get to the front of the bus asap, or you may end up on a really long ride to nowhere. Even if you're 90 years old with rheumatism, it's not gonna wait. That said, if you do look 90 you're guaranteed a seat as per the courtesy (younger people automatically lend their seat to the ones that look like they need it), unless the bus is already filled with 90-year-olds, which pretty much did happen on the public bus I was on before.
- Arrival in Tainan, 1:30pm ish.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Taiwan: Taoyuan Week
The first week in Taiwan flew by (I'm counting last Thursday 6/26, boarding the plane, as Day 1). Here's a recap:
Day 2: Friday, 6/27
- 6:30pm arrival in Taiwan
- Meeting the family: Two adults, two tirelessly hyper small children.
- Sleep space: a whole bedroom and bathroom...on the 23rd floor.
- Stare at breathtaking cityscape view.
- Stare some more. See the photo links (right).
- Dinner at the "Japan Cookroom" where I learn my first lesson in Taiwan life:
Food portions are reasonable. As in, there's lots of small plates of food, and there's no forced overeating involved. Also, the food's really cheap. And wicked good.
Day 3: Saturday, 6/28
- Lesson the Second: Breakfast is wholesome. The fact that breakfast is the most important meal of the day means the available options include hamburgers and pasta.
- That said, I had the fried egg/Chinese carrot cake thing at a LaGuardia. Twas great.
- Spent the day at a Ceramics Museum Festival. The big highlight was a stamp-each-location map; the full collection of stamps = a mysterious prize.
- The prize was pencils.
- Bought some adorable ceramics, including chopstick holders and a bird whistler thing.
- New discoveries:
Laundry is everyday. Dirty clothes never sits around, and 2 outfits can last a long, long time.
Exchanging presents is a staple.
Gas stations are all full-service. Car washes are also fun.
Showing shoulders is too sexy.
Kids want everything. Parents oblige 90% of the time. Especially since 90% is 30-cent trinkets.
Plug adapters (grounded to not) are essential.
It's all about motorcycles.
Pig's blood is a delicacy. Take that, Spike.
Day 4: Sunday, 6/29
- Went on a bit of a country road drive.
- Saw lots of flowers and leaves.
- Learned that everyone knows every agricultural product by its flowers and leaves. ("This will grow into xkca which tastes like xkcb when you cook it with xkcc and smells really good!")
- Saw an ancient retreat rectangle house thing. Lots of doors and words and wells. (see photos)
- Went shoe-shopping. That was the foreign experience of the day. Got gold sandals.
- Saw a big bridge. Didn't get to walk it.
- Went to an ancient street with ancient street type vendors, where I ate the...
- Best things ever: fried mushrooms and purple yam pancakes.
- Dinner with grandparents at a great place that I very roughly translate as "Big Four Like" with the usual many small plates of very good food. To continue my butchering of rough translations, the "little-grain soup" was excellent.
Day 5: Monday, 6/30
- Went via MRT (mass rapid transit) to the Taipei Mall area. MRT is exactly like it sounds. There's bajillions of people and it waits for no straggler. Taiwan's all about streamlining everything down to the fast-walking. I love train-bus type things.
- The mall was full of really great deals. Shoes for $3, food for half that, trinkets under 50 cents. Suffice to say, much shopping was had. It was almost...enjoyable.
- I never use such positive terms in conjunction with shopping.
- Spaghetti for dinner.
- The diners are all really straightforward. Along the street there's the noodle soup-selling diner, the hamburgers-selling diner, the spaghetti-selling diner. Menus are simple and all have pictures of the few dishes offered. Seating areas fit just enough for a couple families at a time.
Tip: Don't try going on the Taipei gondola / Taipei zoo on a Monday. That's not a work day for them.
More important tip: Buy an umbrella over here if you ever come. Warding off the sun doesn't take sunscreen; everyone (well, the guys less so) carries umbrellas 24/7. It works wonderfully, and is also handy for all the sudden rainstorms.
Day 6: Tuesday, 7/1
- Went shopping (again!) at the "Love to Buy" mall. I really need to start using pinyin.
- Walked the kids to their English class, then to a traditional Chinese drumming class.
- I now know the basics of traditional Chinese drumming. (1 beat/pause = "jump (XO)", two quarter-note beats = "walk (XX) ", two eighth-note beats = "run (XX close together)"
- Now you know what I know.
Day 7: Wednesday, 7/2
- Went to a traditional market, with fresh fish and chickens and squid. Very fresh. They might as well have been alive. They probably just were.
- This is where the "every part of the animal is eaten" becomes a little upfront and personal. Saw all kinds of fun bits that used to make up a happy little pig.
- Took a nice walk 'round a park after a big noodle-soup dinner. Ate really cute junk food and chatted about my high school life.
- Life is a tad bit healthier now than then, I've realized.
Well, today is officially my last day alone in Taiwan, and I think in another 5 minutes I'm going with my aunt...on another shopping trip.
Day 2: Friday, 6/27
- 6:30pm arrival in Taiwan
- Meeting the family: Two adults, two tirelessly hyper small children.
- Sleep space: a whole bedroom and bathroom...on the 23rd floor.
- Stare at breathtaking cityscape view.
- Stare some more. See the photo links (right).
- Dinner at the "Japan Cookroom" where I learn my first lesson in Taiwan life:
Food portions are reasonable. As in, there's lots of small plates of food, and there's no forced overeating involved. Also, the food's really cheap. And wicked good.
Day 3: Saturday, 6/28
- Lesson the Second: Breakfast is wholesome. The fact that breakfast is the most important meal of the day means the available options include hamburgers and pasta.
- That said, I had the fried egg/Chinese carrot cake thing at a LaGuardia. Twas great.
- Spent the day at a Ceramics Museum Festival. The big highlight was a stamp-each-location map; the full collection of stamps = a mysterious prize.
- The prize was pencils.
- Bought some adorable ceramics, including chopstick holders and a bird whistler thing.
- New discoveries:
Laundry is everyday. Dirty clothes never sits around, and 2 outfits can last a long, long time.
Exchanging presents is a staple.
Gas stations are all full-service. Car washes are also fun.
Showing shoulders is too sexy.
Kids want everything. Parents oblige 90% of the time. Especially since 90% is 30-cent trinkets.
Plug adapters (grounded to not) are essential.
It's all about motorcycles.
Pig's blood is a delicacy. Take that, Spike.
Day 4: Sunday, 6/29
- Went on a bit of a country road drive.
- Saw lots of flowers and leaves.
- Learned that everyone knows every agricultural product by its flowers and leaves. ("This will grow into xkca which tastes like xkcb when you cook it with xkcc and smells really good!")
- Saw an ancient retreat rectangle house thing. Lots of doors and words and wells. (see photos)
- Went shoe-shopping. That was the foreign experience of the day. Got gold sandals.
- Saw a big bridge. Didn't get to walk it.
- Went to an ancient street with ancient street type vendors, where I ate the...
- Best things ever: fried mushrooms and purple yam pancakes.
- Dinner with grandparents at a great place that I very roughly translate as "Big Four Like" with the usual many small plates of very good food. To continue my butchering of rough translations, the "little-grain soup" was excellent.
Day 5: Monday, 6/30
- Went via MRT (mass rapid transit) to the Taipei Mall area. MRT is exactly like it sounds. There's bajillions of people and it waits for no straggler. Taiwan's all about streamlining everything down to the fast-walking. I love train-bus type things.
- The mall was full of really great deals. Shoes for $3, food for half that, trinkets under 50 cents. Suffice to say, much shopping was had. It was almost...enjoyable.
- I never use such positive terms in conjunction with shopping.
- Spaghetti for dinner.
- The diners are all really straightforward. Along the street there's the noodle soup-selling diner, the hamburgers-selling diner, the spaghetti-selling diner. Menus are simple and all have pictures of the few dishes offered. Seating areas fit just enough for a couple families at a time.
Tip: Don't try going on the Taipei gondola / Taipei zoo on a Monday. That's not a work day for them.
More important tip: Buy an umbrella over here if you ever come. Warding off the sun doesn't take sunscreen; everyone (well, the guys less so) carries umbrellas 24/7. It works wonderfully, and is also handy for all the sudden rainstorms.
Day 6: Tuesday, 7/1
- Went shopping (again!) at the "Love to Buy" mall. I really need to start using pinyin.
- Walked the kids to their English class, then to a traditional Chinese drumming class.
- I now know the basics of traditional Chinese drumming. (1 beat/pause = "jump (XO)", two quarter-note beats = "walk (XX) ", two eighth-note beats = "run (XX close together)"
- Now you know what I know.
Day 7: Wednesday, 7/2
- Went to a traditional market, with fresh fish and chickens and squid. Very fresh. They might as well have been alive. They probably just were.
- This is where the "every part of the animal is eaten" becomes a little upfront and personal. Saw all kinds of fun bits that used to make up a happy little pig.
- Took a nice walk 'round a park after a big noodle-soup dinner. Ate really cute junk food and chatted about my high school life.
- Life is a tad bit healthier now than then, I've realized.
Well, today is officially my last day alone in Taiwan, and I think in another 5 minutes I'm going with my aunt...on another shopping trip.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Airport Day
First destination: Boston. Or more specifically, Logan Airport. Second destination is the San Francisco Airport, then onto Taiwan, via the Taipei (technically Taoyuan, near Taipei) Airport.
Airport day means clocking 20 hours of flight time, along with the following:
- Reading Jerzy Kosinski's "Being There", all the while realizing I've seen the movie anyway
- Starting Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal Dreams", wondering if I should relate to Codi or Hallie
- In-flight TV:
- "The Office" Episode about making a commercial that I've already seen
- "How I Met Your Mother" Only identified it by the fact that Alyson Hannigan's in it
- "Monk", and "Psych" which I'd never heard of before, but enjoyed a lot more than "Monk"
- In-flight movies:
- Ignored two showings of "The Bucket List"
- Watched the end of "Mad Money" which wasn't the greatest moral, "Definitely, Maybe" with really cute penguins, and "Spiderwick Chronicles", which was freaky when the boy's dad turned into a monster and the boy was going to kill him, but I'm a bit hazy on those details.
- Watched "La Misma Luna" 1.5 times, was great Spanish practice ("Under the Same Moon") and had a really catchy song about how Superman is like an illegal Mexican immigrant
- In-flight food: Everything from ramen-style cup noodles to meatloaf with mashed potatoes and a cheerfully over-salted turkey-swiss cheese sandwich (they ran out of pasta primavera, naturally)
Also, some random person requested a switch to an aisle seat, so on the SanFran to Taipei flight I got a great window seat and happened to sit next to a person who not only lives a city away from my hometown, but has a mutual good friend. Twas a good time, and the best part?
The jetlag never came.
Airport day means clocking 20 hours of flight time, along with the following:
- Reading Jerzy Kosinski's "Being There", all the while realizing I've seen the movie anyway
- Starting Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal Dreams", wondering if I should relate to Codi or Hallie
- In-flight TV:
- "The Office" Episode about making a commercial that I've already seen
- "How I Met Your Mother" Only identified it by the fact that Alyson Hannigan's in it
- "Monk", and "Psych" which I'd never heard of before, but enjoyed a lot more than "Monk"
- In-flight movies:
- Ignored two showings of "The Bucket List"
- Watched the end of "Mad Money" which wasn't the greatest moral, "Definitely, Maybe" with really cute penguins, and "Spiderwick Chronicles", which was freaky when the boy's dad turned into a monster and the boy was going to kill him, but I'm a bit hazy on those details.
- Watched "La Misma Luna" 1.5 times, was great Spanish practice ("Under the Same Moon") and had a really catchy song about how Superman is like an illegal Mexican immigrant
- In-flight food: Everything from ramen-style cup noodles to meatloaf with mashed potatoes and a cheerfully over-salted turkey-swiss cheese sandwich (they ran out of pasta primavera, naturally)
Also, some random person requested a switch to an aisle seat, so on the SanFran to Taipei flight I got a great window seat and happened to sit next to a person who not only lives a city away from my hometown, but has a mutual good friend. Twas a good time, and the best part?
The jetlag never came.
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