Thursday, October 10, 2024
We could have stayed in the mountains longer or moved to a different location, but history dealt us a problem. On October 10, 1911, the Xinhai Revolution overthrew China’s Qing Dynasty, and with the fall of the last Emperor arose Sun Yat-Sen’s Republic of China.
People can argue all day about the accuracy of the name, the legacy of that government, its legitimacy, its crimes, its accomplishments, and a hundred other things. The simple, undeniable fact is that the R.O.C. is the ruling government of the island of Taiwan, and October 10 (or Double-Ten) is a national holiday, which fell awkwardly on a Thursday this year.
We didn’t want to be anywhere near tourist spots on Thursday, nor did we wish to be traveling outward from Taipei on Wednesday, so our trip outside of Taipei was bookended by Melz’ school schedule on one side and the annals of history on the other.
Because it was a holiday, the family plan was to get together again for lunch at their house, and then later, my brother-in-law, his wife, and the kids would go to the park, rent bikes, and ride around. My plan was that Melz and I would go out on a day excursion, which included finding our own lunch, then meeting up with them to go bike riding.
But where to go?
Before the turn of the century, there was a bridge over Xinsheng Rd (then Hsinsheng Rd.) Actually, I’m unclear if it was a bridge. It was a bridge-like thing, and beneath it lived trolls. Actually, that’s a bit unfair; what was really underneath was the coolest computer market ever to grace the planet. It was a rabbit warren of packed stalls of all the newest and coolest PC tech. Each little shoebox-sized shop was packed from floor to ceiling with tech and exposed electrical wires. You could haggle for anything from CPUs to memory and from hard drives to fancy neon-lighted cases. It was really cool and also, obviously, a death trap waiting to happen. (There was a similar place for books, CDs, and VCDs nearby, too.)
This place has been demolished and replaced by the nearby Guanghua Digital Plaza, a six-story indoor tech market. With no place in particular to go, we decided, “Why not?” and headed to Guanghua.
It was depressing, but probably not for the obvious reasons. Most of the same kinds of things are there, but it’s soulless. Gone are the competing stalls shouting memory prices to draw in customers and the vibrant sense of exploration.
It may be the time. The heyday of the computer nerd building and tweaking their own computers is gone, save for the gamer crowd. Maybe it’s just gone for me. When I was 18, I lived for this shit. I did it for fun, I did it for work, I did it on the side for other people. It was fun, and I made money at it. Life doesn’t hand you too many of those careers.
But it isn’t fun anymore, and if I never have to see a command line or the inside of computers again, I will not be upset. Neither of my kids has any interest in computers apart from having a gaming laptop each, so Melz wasn’t opposed to going to the market, but wasn’t keyed up for it.
What I got was six floors of melancholy.
Next door, however, was an 11-story department store called Syntrend, which had three floors of mostly toys and collectibles. That was much more interesting, except that I’m getting boring there, too. I’m acknowledging that there is coming a time when I need to divest myself of the cool collectibles I’ve bought over the years rather than amass new ones. This also gives me the blues.
Escalators or not, 17 stories of shopping over two buildings was still more than my back could handle. It’s still seriously screwed up, and I’ve been on pain medication all the time since we arrived. It can only do so much.
We decided it was time for lunch, so we decided to check out the basement (most, if not all, department stores in Taiwan have a food court in the basement) for something to eat and a place to sit down. It was noon, and it was a holiday. There was no room in the food court.
We set our sites lower and decided to head to McDonald’s. Unlike American McDonald’s, Asian McDonald’s usually have fried chicken. That’s actual fried whole pieces of chicken, and it’s at least as good as KFC. (Or it used to be. On my last trip, it seemed somewhat lackluster.) McDonald’s Taiwan is currently advertising “K Chicken,” which I’m guessing is Korean fried chicken-inspired.
When we got to McDonald’s, the line was so long that it stretched into the street, and a staff member was letting people into the restaurant one at a time as someone would leave. There would be no McDonald’s for us.
We continued on foot towards the subway station, hoping to find something else. We found the Second Story Cafe. We found it on Apple Maps, and we almost missed it because the curious thing about the Second Story Cafe we visited is that it’s on the ground floor.
Melz’s Chinese is improving daily; however, we were shown to a table, given a spiel that was far beyond her comprehension, and handed a menu that was every bit as big as a Cheesecake Factory Menu and a piece of paper with a QR code on it.
I’m going to write up a more extensive diatribe about QR code ordering later, but, in a nutshell, to order food, you scan the code on your phone and then order like you’re at a fast food kiosk. Except the menu is in Chinese, and the printed version is 20 pages long (and also in Chinese.)
With Melz’s language skills, pictures, Apple Translate, and some luck, I got a ham and cheese sandwich, and Melz got a Caesar salad. It took a long time to order, and it was not a fast-service restaurant, either. Meanwhile, the family went bike riding without us.
While disappointed, it should come as no surprise that they encountered the same issues we did: Everyone had the day off, and everywhere was packed. They had trouble finding parking, renting bikes, and riding with small kids because of how many people were in the park.
Knowing that we’d missed the window, Melz and I ate slowly and headed back to our bases of operation. I needed to rest my back for a few hours.
At 8:00 PM, fireworks were scheduled for Taipei 101. The area around the building would be packed, but one nice thing about having one of the tallest buildings in the world surrounded by nothing even remotely as tall is that it’s easy to get an unobstructed view of it.
Chuwan, Melz, and I headed out for the fireworks an hour or more early, but we very quickly found a great spot near the Sun Yat-Sen MRT station and grabbed a seat on the planters around the station entrance. Chuwan’s friend Nora met us there.
Unlike the massive New Year’s fireworks, the Double-Ten fireworks were only going to be two minutes long, followed by an eight-minute light show on the faces of the building.
There was a technical glitch. I was waiting for the last second to start recording, and they started early… and then they fizzled out. No two-minute display, just a single, initial volley.
The light show began. I wasn’t as interested in it, but then it looked like they put up an interesting picture and I decided to stop recording and take a close-up snap of the display. The fireworks restarted. I quickly fumbled for video mode, and consequently, I missed the beginning of both sets of fireworks.
With the celebrations over, Chuwan and Nora left us.
Abandoned and on our own, we decided, once again, to try a McDonald’s. Different McDonald’s, same result. No seats. Packed.
OK, McDonald’s, it’s game on now. We will eat there before this trip is over!
But in the meantime, we got further away from where the people had gathered for the cheap seats and found ourselves at Yoshinoya, where we both had curry katsu and then returned home.
Another day ended.