Saturday was the last day for Computex, and the only day they allow general admission. As I didn’t arrange my registration from overseas before we came and I wasn’t sure if the title of CIO would get me into the door (they’re mostly looking for bulk buyers) we waited for general admission day.
It was still raining, but the show is inside buildings surrounding Taipei 101. I’ve commented on the show elsewhere.
It’s a good area to get food – a lot better than what used to be immediately around Comdex Las Vegas – so we ate lunch in the basement of the 101.
In the afternoon, the rain actually stopped for several hours. While my wife and brother-in-law haggled over a discount on getting glasses, I finally got the chance to head off on foot with nothing in mind than to see the sights. While life in Taipei carries on fairly normally in the rain, I couldn’t help noticing that the streets were more active and lively, as people just wanted to get outside. Street food vendors were setting up everywhere they could. Continuous rain downpours couldn’t have been good for outdoor businesses.
Once again dinnertime meant “family time†and we all went out to eat at Ali Baba’s kitchen. Ali Baba’s is a long-standing Taipei restaurant run by Pakistanis with decent food, that they know I like. My mother-in-law, who is the one insisting on the family dinners, hated it. “It’s all too spicy,†she said, without trying a single bite. I think she had a salad and some fruit.
It’s horrible of me but not only did I enjoy the food, I enjoyed my mother-in-law’s dislike of it. It made up a bit for Friday’s dinner, which is what triggered my penguins post in the first place, which I haven’t finished writing yet.
Today it stopped raining for most of the afternoon. Two days in a row where I went outside and didn’t get wet. Could this be a promising trend? Tuesday we’re supposed to take the high speed rail to Chiayi and then the rickety old narrow-gauge, Japanese colonial-era railway into the central mountains. Assuming they haven’t been washed away in a mudslide.