Go right to the pictures (note: I didn't have a camera until November 21) |
November 20, 2010 |
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Also, if you can't view Chinese Mandarin characters (they might appear like boxes), then check out this site for Windows XP, this site for Windows Vista, and this site for Mac OS. November 20, 2010 - Saturday night:Touched down about an hour early at the airport (TPE) on Saturday night. Waited about 30 minutes for luggage! I am always amazed how luggage carousels work. What actual authority stops people from grabbing any random bag they want and running off with it?
Before I go further I'd like to point something out (copied from here):
"One of the most interesting things about learning Chinese is learning the various names for members of the family. In Germanic languages (such as English), this is relatively easy. A brother of either of your parents is an Uncle. Simple. Your parents’ mothers are Grandmothers. Simple. In Chinese, it just isn’t so. So to clarify, the extended family that I interacted with on this trip all have specific names. Throughout this page I'll use the phrase "literally translated" (which I'll preface as "l.t." going forward) and the phrase "really means" (which I'll preface as "r.m." going forward), since literal translations don't always make sense.
So with that being said, I was staying at 二姑's apartment in Taipei, close to the "newer" part of the city (essentially, the East side). 姑 and 小姑丈 came to pick me up from the airport. It was 11 pm on a Saturday night and all the traffic was heading out of the city... so going in was pretty smooth sailing...  Taipei is a bright city even at night... While watching TV that night, I saw a news story on a "Gundam bakery" - place was churning out pastries in the shape of Gundam robots.
So, when logging on to Facebook that night, the site recognized that I was logging in from an unfamiliar location and asked me to verify my identify by using 1 of 2 methods:
I picked option 2. After going through a captcha, Facebook showed me 5 sets of 3 photos each. Each photo had a square around the “tagged” person and Facebook gave me 6 names to pick from (multiple choice style) to identify who the person was. I didn’t find it very hard although I noticed some of the photos were not very clear and could see that being an issue for some circumstances. November 21, Sunday:Woke up early (6 am), probably due to jetlag, and couldn’t fall back asleep. 二姑丈 actually walked through the door around 7 am - he and 二姑 actually were coming back from New York during the same time I was - turned out to be good timing for them. 二姑丈 and I went out to get breakfast. On the way, he tells me that 7-11's in Taiwan are run by the same company that runs the Starbucks' in Taiwan (check out Uni-President Enterprises Corporation), and that the coffee is actually the same quality at both 7-11's and Starbucks' in Taipei... except that coffee at a Starbucks' is still about $3.50 US a cup, while it's $1.50 at 7-11. Another thing about 7-11's, and all the other convenience stores as well. They apparently do everything. You can do everything you can at a regular 7-11... and you can also send mail, pay bills or tuition, sit at a counter and read a paper or magazine, buy baked goods for breakfast/lunch or get a full dinner, add money to transit cards, recycle batteries... (believe it) For breakfast I picked up this sushi-esque wrap (about $1.30 US)... cold steamed white rice with bits of salmon wrapped up in seaweed in a triangular package. Not bad for the price... this would become a common theme throughout my trip - really cheap food. 二姑丈 and I also went to a grocery chain store (called Matsusui) to get fruit – guava and oranges. There is something of a "convenience shop" culture in Taipei... beyond 7-11's and Starbucks, I saw a lot of:
After breakfast, I went out to explore Taipei a little bit. I walked to the “Core Pacific Mall” looking for a English-to-Mandarin dictionary but couldn’t find any – in fact, the bookstore on the 7th level was closed. However, the mall itself is worth a look:
The inside of the large, circular-shaped building actually held 8 floors of stores. The "sphere" had escalators going up into the neighboring building, which held more stores and restaurants. Very cool architecture. Saw a store called “Why and 1/2” - can't seem to find it online though. I didn't have a camera at this time, unfortunately! There was a section of "Chuck E. Cheese" games on the 5th floor for the kids. I eventually learned that this was common fare for any mega-mall in Taipei - one floor must be devoted to video arcade games or carnival redemption games. I actually saw the original Street Fighter arcade game, and multiple DDR-style rip-offs. It was like someone had taken all the old video games that had gone out of fashion from the US and moved them over to Taipei. On the first floor, there was a massive food court, and in the center of the court there was a big “stage” with an elevated sound system, with speakers of brand name “NeXt” - never heard of this brand, but they looked like 15” Mackies or JBLs. It was fun wandering but I ended up leaving without buying anything (since the bookstore was under construction). I wandered over to the nearest MRT (subway station). Now, my parents had given me a Taipei transit card (called an "EasyCard" or 悠遊卡) with some money on it already (from their last trip to Taipei). The whole subway system is actually littered with English everywhere. I took a train to Taipei City Hall and wandered for a little bit. I ended up randomly walking into a building that had an Eslite Bookstore (major bookstore chain in Taipei, called 誠品). While I didn't find an electronic dictionary, I had my first chance to talk to a Taiwanese store attendant in Chinese. She told me that certain sections of Taipei specialized in selling random electronic gadgets like dictionaries, and pointed me towards the Guang Hua Digital Plaza (光華商場). In order to get to 阿公's house in 卓蘭, I took the MRT to the Taiwan High Speed Rail system, which could take me from Taipei to 新竹縣 (specifically, the city of 竹北). From there 叔叔 would drive me all the way to 卓蘭. Before I left for the High Speed Rail (HSR) station, 二姑丈 suggested I skip 光華商場 and go to a place called “NOVA” which was next to the MRT Main Station (where I had to go anyways since it was right next to the High Speed Rail station). When I got to NOVA I managed to find a pretty sweet dictionary for about $120 US. NOVA was also my first experience with an "electronic mall" - a building with hundreds of individual vendors who are all specifically oriented towards selling electronics.  The CD-318 from Besta... definitely worth having if you're interested in the language... Got to 竹北 on time, and got picked up by 叔叔. He’s a (typical) feisty, urban-raised Taiwanese driver – honks and swears at slow traffic in front of him... likes to run people off the road and cut them off when they are going too slow, especially on treacherous mountain paths. It was pretty comical at some points. When we stopped for gas, I noticed that 1) the place was all full-service, and 2) the octane rating was higher (92/95/98) than the States. Winding around mountain paths and seeing a valley of fog (heavy humidity) and distant lights... some parts of the drive were amazing... kept the mood very ponderous. When we got to 阿公's house, we had dinner together and I passed out pretty fast after that.
At this point, I started taking a lot of pictures. You can browse through them and read the captions, but this section will probably have most of the important details of the rest of my trip. November 22, Monday:To be honest, jet lag wasn't too bad at this point - I remember getting tired really fast around 9 :30 pm. Instead of drinking regular milk in the mornings, I had soy milk every day with breakfast. So, I wanted to get a haircut because I figured that haircuts in rural areas would be cheaper than in Taipei... well things were not as cheap as I thought, spending $350 NTD (which is about $12 US), which is about average for a haircut in the Bay Area. But... the service was pretty well-rounded; I had an hour-long haircut with an opening massage, massive shampoo+scrub+wash session, then the actual haircut, then another wash+dry. In the afternoon, we walked around 卓蘭 (see below for my take on what path we took), up the mountains to the east. Tons of agriculture... huge fields of oranges, grapes, peppers... even coffee! 
November 23, Tuesday:In the morning, I went to 三義 (Sān-yì) with my grandfather's brother's wife - on the left in this photo. We hiked up to short trail to a community tea field, went to the 三義木雕博物館 (Sān-yì-mù-diāo-bó-wù-guǎn) - Wood Sculpture Museum - managed to sneak in a few photos once inside. Then, we grabbed lunch and went to an old railroad station... touristy stuff. After that, we went to a tea/coffee place along the roadside down the mountains. Apparently earlier in the year, my huge part of my extended family had eaten there before, and the owner and people working there were super-friendly... and the place was beautiful - there were no windows, just a gorgeous view of the valley below. Even more interesting was that the place had speakers playing jazz (heard a few Coltrane tunes)... kind of like a coffee house in the US. November 24, Wednesday:Left 卓蘭 in the morning... and went to 歡迎光臨雪霸國家公園 (Xuě-bà-guó-jiā-gōng-yuán) - a national park. After walking around there, we went to the site of first oil in Taiwan. Apparently, in 苗栗縣 there used to be a good deal of oil reserves in Taiwan although it’s mostly gone now; however, there was a small gas production site nearby. We also took some time to visit the 台灣油礦陳列館 (Taiwan Oil Field Exhibition Hall) - a museum with info on the history of well-drilling/oil production/refining in Taiwan, including displays of production technology and geologic viewpoints of Taiwanese oil reserves. The security guard for the museum actually turned out to be an old student of 舊公 (jiù-gōng) - which I think means my grandfather's younger brother - who had come along for the trip... and so this security guard invited us in and we ate lunch with them in this little security booth, where they poured us tea and everything. It was surprisingly comfy in that security guard’s shack - room for 5 people! After lunch, we left the museum area and went to 大湖 (Dà-hú) to meet up with 小阿姨 and get a ride to 關西鎮, where my mom is from. The big thing at 大湖 seemed to be strawberries - the whole complex we were at had strawberry-related products of all kinds - strawberry bags, strawberry candy, strawberry mugs, strawberry toys, strawberry wine (I had some strawberry wine – very tasty), etc. Anyways, we didn't stay at 大湖 long and I got a ride to 關西 - had a huge dinner with extended family there...大阿姨, 大姨丈, 小阿姨, 小姨丈, and more. 大阿姨 teaches English to little kids, and in her house there was a Chinese zither (along with a non-functinal organ) - had a fun time jamming on that thing. I also got a quick lesson in how to "drink tea" - random things like: before you drink, you have to wave the cup across your noise, back and forth, and when you actually do drink, you have to let the fluid roll on your tongue to get a good sense of the taste of the tea. Also, around the time we came back from dinner, my 大阿姨 had an interesting story about a moth that flew in with me. At night, 小阿姨 and 小姨丈 drove me to Taipei. November 25, Thursday:It was a rainy day when I woke up, and it poured all day long. I went to 國父紀念館 (Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall), spent some time at the malls near 松壽廣場公園 near Taipei 101, walked around the districts of 大安 (Dà'ān) and 忠孝復興 (Zhōng-Xiào-Fù-Xīng).  Evening near the malls at 松壽 During my walk, I kept on breaking down the distribution of business-types on every block of Taipei as such: convenience store at the corner, bank, residential entrance, clothing store, bank, restaurant/auto-repair shop, restaurant, name-brand store, residential entrance, bank, convenience store. At night, I ate at a Japanese restaurant next door to the apartment with 二姑丈 and one of my cousins, who was staying at the same apartment I was staying at. After dinner, I went out to see around 大安 more, although there really wasn't anything in particular noteworthy that I found there... lots of clothes and random trinket shops, plus a healthy dose of food stands/restaurants. November 26, Friday:Started the day off by heading over to 台大 (Tái-dà) - Taiwan National University, the most renowned university in Taiwan, and 公館 (Gōng-guǎn), the neighboring district. I met up with a friend of a friend, a transfer student from the University of Florida who was spending a year at 台大 while studying agricultural economics, and she took me around the campus... later we met with her friends from school - apparently when you are an international student you get some native students to help you out and be your buddy - and we had lunch together. First thing I noticed was that this white girl from Florida had reading skills way beyond mine, after studying Chinese for only 3 or so years... and her speaking wasn't too bad either! For the rest of the day I was pretty humbled at the kind of dedication some people have at learning languages - especially trying to learn Mandarin in a state and city pretty much devoid of strong Asian influence. And while her speaking wasn't perfect, she was conversing just fine with her Taiwanese buddies at lunch, over what I think was Korean hot-pot. I poked around 公館 a bit - saw a new Clavinova on sale for ~$36,000 NTD (~$1240 USD), which is pretty much how much those things cost in the US too. The guys in the Yamaha store let me play on it for a while, which was pretty nice of them. After leaving 公館, I went back to the apartment, and then later went out to a club called Luxy, which was on the 5th floor of what appeared to be a regular shopping mall. Yes, you walk into what appears to be shopping mall, and there is the entrance for the club. Then after you pay, you go into an elevator go the 5th floor, and when it opens up these green lasers and fog billows all around you and a trio of girls welcomes you in. November 27, Saturday:I had SORE feet from the previous night and I didn't really move until about 3 pm. I started to get familiar with the subway system at this point and I have to say that their subways are pretty fancy... but can get crowded! Just to give you an idea:   It gets crowded in there...  See those TVs above the doorways? Those are crisp HD images playing on LCDs. Granted, there were just random advertisements for the most part - but there was a sidebar/ticker on screen which gave relevant information regarding subway arrival estimates, weather, the time... Anyways, I jumped into the subway and went to 台北車站 (Tái-běi-chē-zhàn) - Taipei Main Station, which is in close proximity to two electronics-oriented malls - NOVA and the K-Mall. After poking around the malls, I took the MRT up to 士林 (Shì-lín) and rode the bus to 故宮 (Gù-gōng) - the National Palace Museum. 故宮, crudely, is pretty much a museum that houses lots of precious artifacts of Chinese culture that were moved to Taiwan when the Chinese Nationalists were defeated in the Chinese Civil War. It's an amazing museum and so traditionally "Chinese" I could barely stand it. Too bad you aren't allowed to take pictures of anything inside though. The really cool perk is that the museum is free after 6:30 pm. And a lot of tourists come around that time just to check it out for the hour and a half it stays open after 6:30 pm. I even saw a guy with a “Keep Austin Weird” t-shirt inside.  A day-time view of 故宮 After the museum closed, I took the bus back to 士林 and went to check out the famous 士林夜市 (Shì-lín-yè-shì) - Shilin Night Market. The place was packed: human beings, bumper-to-bumper. The side streets weren’t too bad though... that aspect of it really reminded me of the whole Mardi Gras feel, where Bourbon St. and St. Charles Ave. are jam packed, but nearly a block away, it's almost devoid of people. While wading through the crowd, I did manage to eat a ton of random food (for super-cheap too): random balls of spice, grilled pork, frog eggs, asparagus juice, chocolate covered cherries... Later that night I ended up at a KTV. Downstairs at these things, you’re supposed to buy "a room" and then you go upstairs with a bunch of your friends, jump into a private room, and sing karaoke... for like $600 NTD (~$20 US) per hour per room on a Saturday night. You gotta bring a bunch of your friends along... it's funny how a society that has the perception of being more "unified in thinking" (via similar upbringing) finds pleasure in an activity that can be so withdrawn from other people. November 28, Sunday:I have to say that stinky tofu is a lot less stinky than I remembered, and a lot more tasty. After lunch I was dropped off at 光華數位新天地 (Guāng-Huá-shù-wèi-xīn-tiān-dì) - Guanghua Digital Plaza - which was another electronics mall. I ended finding LEDs and lasers, and helped translate for an Ecuadorian dude who had just flown from Miami trying to get sound equipment for a store owner... what drew me in was that this store was selling a bunch of DJing equipment out front, for a pretty good price. We talked for a while - the store owner's son apparently was a restaurant/food chain owner in 廣州 (Guǎng-zhōu), but used to play piano (while his girlfriend sang) at random bars/restaurants... The other guy (an older guy, maybe late 30's or early 40's, I think he mentioned his wife was from Venezuela) and both of them had done sound engineering for big concerts in the past. The Ecuadorian dude said that the store owner was the best sound guy Taipei and he always did business with him... and he mentioned that he loved Taipei and would love to live there - but his wife didn't want to leave Clearwater, FL. November 29, Monday:Went to the Taiwan International Flower Expo and was there all day long! You really should check out the pictures for this day... There were "pavilions" with specific exhibits, but each exhibit only had a certain number of "tickets" that would let you get in at various times throughout the day. The real problem was that you had to physically go to a specific pavilion to get a ticket, and the distance between the closest exhibit to the entrance and the furthest one was something like a 30 minute walk... so I didn’t go to many of the specific exhibits because the lines were too long, and I didn’t get tickets in time anyways. I did go to one pavilion which was showing a 3D movie about landslides in Taiwan and how they affect rural life. This movie moved me. I don't want to give it away so I'm not going to mention more about it until after the Expo ends (in April 2011). But I will recommend watching it, especially if you know Chinese... (there are subtitles for English/Japanese though) November 30, Tuesday:Gloomy day... after lunch with family, I went to 淡水 (Dàn-shuǐ) - Danshui, north of Taipei. I had somewhat of a stomach ache and actually slept on the subway for a long time. At 淡水, I walked up the coastline and then took a bus back down. The whole walk smelled of fish, and there were lots of little restaurants and random stores along the side. For a Tuesday afternoon, it was actually pretty busy. I did pick up some tiny little trinkets as keepsakes. After 淡水, I took the MRT back into Taipei and went to 西門町 (Xī-mén-dīng), a bustling commercial district geared for young Taiwanese. I was bouncing from store to store, trying to find some Sailor Moon t-shirts for a guy back in the US, and I realized that it was really weird dealing with some of the attendants at stores... these sales people were like 19-25 year olds (I think) and even though we were the same age, I just couldn't vibe with a lot of them. Definitely made for some awkward situations. For example, some salespeople just kind of stare at you when you walk in and don't say a word, while others are all trying to be super friendly and I had to tell them over and over, "I'm just looking around!" It probably didn't help that the products they sold were absurd to me... from scantily-clad action figures to "Engrish" shirts. I did buy some CDs from a local music shop that specialized in Japanese imports - a place called 95music. I have to say that these Japanese albums cost a ton of money, even in Taipei (I paid $25 for a single CD and $45 for a double-album), but at least there wasn't any huge shipping cost! December 1, Wednesday:I spent my morning at the courtyard of 中正紀念堂 (guó-lì-zhōng-zhèng-jì-niàn-táng) - Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. The MRT takes you pretty close to it, and there are also two giant buildings nearby, 國家戲劇院 (guó-jiā-xì-jù-yuàn) - National Theater, and 國家音樂廳 (guó-jiā-yīn-yuè-tīng) - National Concert Hall. Those two buildings are nearly mirror images of each other. 中正紀念堂 reminded me a bit of 國父紀念館 - big, majestic building with a complex inside structure filled with civic services, historical records, and art. 中正紀念堂 was just as traditional as 國父紀念館 in terms of art; however, there was a section devoted to Japanese "characters" (anime), which was fun to walk through. Afterwards, I walked down 和平 (Hé-píng) Street in the 大安 district. This part of the city seemed a little bit older - big corporate-sized buildings were still present, but instead of massive apartment complexes, there were a lot more tiny shacks (some of them only 6 or 7 feet high) on the roadside. I strolled around 大安森林公園 (Dà-ān-sēn-lín-gōng-yuán) - Da'an Forest Park - and watched old folks play croquet. As the sun started to go down, I headed on over to the English-heavy university of 師大 (Shī-Dà) - oddly translated to National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU): jammed in a music school practice room, saw some cheerleaders practicing routines on campus, went to the top of the music school building and enjoyed the views, walked around the entire liberal arts complex... Similar to 台大, there was a lot of English on campus, and on the surrounding streets too. The liberal arts complex had an interesting design - two relative simple rectangular bulidings with upper-level "walkways" separating them, except that one building was 5 stories, and the other was 8... so the crossovers only were built for 5 floors. Not sure how to describe this any better and I can't find any good pictures... sorry!  The Liberal Arts building That night, I was at Roxy Rocker for a few hours, a hip little joint - dark but good accented lighting, black leather booths and dimly lit bar as well. They had a separate side room with maybe 5000+ vinyl on bookshelves, rather unorganized (I'd say almost completely unorganized), and you could go through the stacks and ask a DJ (who was just browsing a laptop next to two turntables) to play anything for you... that was a pretty cool spot. I found some classics, some random tunes... got a beer and hung out in that room for a couple hours. December 2, Thursday:Had a late start... started the afternoon off at 二二八和平紀念公園 (èr-èr-bā-hé-píng-jì-niàn-gōng-yuán) - 228 Peace Memorial Park, a park near Taipei Main Station that is named for the 228 Incident. So apparently, there was a single flower - a bonsai - that survived the Hiroshima nuclear bombing in Japan in 1945, and that same flower was passed on to the 228 Peace Park folks to be grown. Familiarity in tragedy, perhaps. Later, I started combing the immediate areas near 忠孝 (Zhōng-Xiào) Street. Along the way, I found a curious open "lot" - not quite a park, but a plot of land with a huge concrete walkway, random art on oddly placed fences, and (most stunning) no buildings for several blocks, in one of the most crowded districts of Taipei - an uncommon sight. As you walked from west to east, the lot actually became a park (apparently its origins stemmed from an earthquake), but towards the west end of the park there were actually a couple abandoned buildings (spaced far apart) - one of them even looked like it had become a homeless person' hang-out, which was really surprising for me to see in Taipei...  The blue line roughly marks my walking path  While the blue line marks the whole "open" area, the green box had a different feel - just a huge concrete pathway and grass all around - no trees, abandoned buildings - really curious The eastern border of that "green lot" was actually 華山藝文特區 (Huà-shān-yì-wén-tè-qū) - the Hua Shan Cultural and Creative Industry Center - a very hip studio/artists' community space, with a venue called "Legacy" nestled within the buildings, the original location of an American pizza chain called "Alleycats" near one of the entrances, and quite honestly just a really cool vibe all around. Highly recommended if you want to see a Taiwanese take on modern art that's not completely pretentious. On the way home, I stopped by 光華商場 again to buy a couple things (including this laser). While there, I talked to a group of folks from Canada (who were speaking English - that's how they caught my attention), and they confirmed that most electronics are actually NOT cheaper in Taiwan... unfortunately. One last thing about these electronics malls: many of the salespeople really try to grab your attention when you walk by the store. It's funny because I wanted to tell them all, "You guys are just selling the exact same items as your neighbors, for maybe a $200 NTD difference!" At the apartment, one of my cousins' introduced me to NicoNico, a Japanese-version of YouTube except that users add "real-time" comments to videos that scroll on top of the video while it plays... really spastic. Awesome idea. Thing is, it's actually difficult to navigate if you don't know Japanese - fortunately, there is a specific website where it shows you how to register for the site. That night, I went to a small jazz lounge called Sappho de Base. A piano trio was playing standards when I got in. The bartender was super friendly and after talking a little bit he even put my album into the CD player after the trio finished (!). I stayed late, and the bartender even let me jam on the piano later. Guess that's what you get for running such a small gig on a Thursday night. Also, there was a crazy drunk old dude (nick-named "Kimball" I think) who kept babbling on about how "he didn’t give a fuck" and drunkenly talking about how Taiwanese people were the only real people. I think he mentioned he lived in San Francisco in the past too, in broken English... really entertaining dude, a little bit "in-your-face" for what I was expecting in Taiwan! December 3, Friday:Started off a cloudy day at 龍山寺 (Lóng-shān-sì) - Longshan Temple. Had a chance to sit in-between a girl playing saw and a jazz-esque band playing Chinese folk/pop-style songs about 200 feet apart from each other - the music was warping together in a very odd fashion. I found that pretty amusing. The temple itself had a weird touch of "modernization" and walking around inside was like being in a tourist church - maybe two-hundred people walking around taking pictures, while a handful of people were actually performing some kind of daily ritual... After that, I went south through the oldest district of Taipei, 萬華 (Wàn-húa), to 青年公園 (qīng-nián-gōng-yuán) - literally translated to "Youth Park." On the way, I managed to get a shot of a Taipei intersection. At 青年公園, there were a bunch of different groups doing some kind of yoga-ish dance-exercise-thing. Some of it involved hopping on 1 foot and some of it involved flapping your arms like penguins but it seemed to be pretty serious. A lot of groups (ranging in size from 3 to 20 people) had little boomboxes/stereos playing what sounded like ambient or tribal music. I also took time to watch some locals at a basketball court. The game is still pretty much the same in Taipei was it is anywhere else, although the height differences pretty much eliminates "higher-altitude" action. I bounced over to "The Wall" and supposedly was going to hear some local indie music - but I got weird techno from two performers (here and here) a couple hours instead... and then a Swiss rock group. December 4, Saturday:My last day in Taipei and Taiwan... I went to the zoo, had a huge dinner with family. 臺北市立動物園 - the Taipei Zoo was really cheap to get into - like $2 US. It was a pretty big zoo, but I got there somewhat late and didn't get to see all of it... there were also a couple exhibits closed off. I did learn that Taiwan is also know as "Butterfly Kingdom". Kind of cute! I love butterflies. Dinner was huge - a seven course meal with 小阿姨, 小姨丈, and my three of my cousins... I passed out fast when I got back to the apartment... December 5, Sunday:While I spent most of the day packing, I did find time to head over to a nearby town called 三峽 (Sān-xiá) with 小姑 and 小姑丈 for some early evening shopping/late night hotpot... called it an early night again, and the next morning I was off to the airport! |
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The distance from the airport to my aunt's apartment, about 50 km (~31 miles).
