October 15, 2024
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that these “daily” blog posts are coming out about six days after the actual date. I won’t lie. I’m back home and finally getting around to “polishing up” my daily notes, which are incoherent to anyone but me. As an exercise in style, I try to retain the author’s point of view at the end of the day about which I’m writing and maintain the mystery of what is to come.
It’s coming down to the wire now, and while it’s been fun, it’s also been a disappointing trip so far.
I cannot express how angry I am at United Airlines. We’ve never flown an American carrier across the Pacific Ocean before, and we never will again. It was horrible. The food was terrible, the leg space was as bad as a domestic cattle car flight, and the seat I was crammed into absolutely wrecked my back.
Not only has this back problem hampered many planned activities, but now, as it finally gets better, the specter of the return flight looms large in my mind. Will I be screwed up for another two weeks upon my return? If spaces were available in Steerage Plus, it would set us back another $600 for the return flight. It’s something to consider, but it feels like highway robbery for another 2 inches of legroom. (Or perhaps, Skyway Robbery? See what I did there?)
While in Taipei, I had expected that my wife would spend a significant amount of time with her parents and nephews, Melz would be in school half the day, and I would be free to explore on my own or with Melz in the afternoons, but I’ve spent at least half each day resting my back, and when not resting, I’m moving more slowly than I typically do and planning jaunts that involve less walking or standing.
In addition to wandering freely, I had a short list of sights to see that, over the years, I’ve somehow missed. Like The Four Four South Village, The Lin House, The Leaning Mailboxes, and Elephant Mountain. None of them are earthshaking, but I had compiled a list and so far managed to see exactly none of them. Elephant Mountain, in particular, galls me because it’s the one I want to see most, and it would be a considerable hike; I cannot see myself possibly feeling well enough to attempt it by tomorrow and convincing either Chuwan or Melz to go with me seems unlikely.
There are also a number of food establishments that I wanted to get to that I had not, including Ichiran Ramen, Mr. Long’s Chicken, and Lao Dong Beef Noodle. Considering that my wife’s plan was to cook for her parents tonight, that meant I had only breakfast and lunch to be a bit adventurous. The language barrier still makes ordering difficult.
Naturally, I wanted to get up early, get breakfast, and get out of the Airbnb. Chuwan, however, just wasn’t feeling it, and it took me till 10 AM to get her out and on the street. I guess jet lag truly is over for us. Just in time to leave.
This morning, I had another must-visit food stand, Mr. Cong You Bing. That’s not his name or the name of his establishment*, and honestly, it isn’t even what he’s famous for. For years, he was just a couple blocks away from my in-laws’ old house. I’d walk there every day and fuck up my order every day. It was my morning humiliation (except when I could convince Chuwan to come along and do the ordering), but the food was so good!
In English, Cong You Bing is alternately called a “green onion pancake” or a “scallion pancake.” It is dough infused with green onions and fried. The name pancake is misleading. The “pancakes” are savory, not sweet. Most are fried on a griddle, but Mr. Cong You Bing deep fries them in oil.
A few years ago, he moved further away from my in-law’s old house, and he’s even further still from the new old house and their current new house. He is, however, fairly close to NTNU, where Melz is attending class.
Since it was so late, we contacted Melz to meet us there, and after a couple of false starts, we got that coordinated.
Mr. Cong You Bing has never been a young man since I’ve been going there, and I was really pleased to see him still making the pancakes this morning.
I decided that today, I needed to knock off a couple of items on the “to-do” list. Based on ease of access, we opted for the Four Four South Village.
Background: In the 1940s, Chiang Kai-Shek’s forces retreated to Taiwan with their tails between their legs after being dragged by Mao Tse-Tung’s People’s Liberation Army. Two million soldiers, plus various other family members/refugees, including my wife’s grandfather, her grandmother, and their infant son, my father-in-law, retreated to the island.
Chiang’s delusion was that he would muster his forces on Taiwan and take back the mainland “real soon now.” Taiwan had just been liberated from being a Japanese colony for the last half century, and the natives weren’t really thrilled with the invasion by Chiang’s army, but that’s a story for another day.
Chiang needed to house 2 million soldiers and their families, so they built “temporary villages” all over the island. These were crude, temporary structures because they were going to take back the mainland “real soon now,” but as “real soon” dragged onto “someday” and finally “never,” these became permanent homes.
They have since been mostly torn down.
I actually got to visit a “real” one, still inhabited, in Hsinchu in about 1999 — the one that my father-in-law grew up in. His mother still lived there, and we went to pick her up. I have never seen a smaller home in my life. It was all cement, and the height of the doorway was as low as my chin. I had to bend over to stand in the house.
The Four Four South Village is one of these military housing projects that has been preserved as a historical site. I was interested to see how they preserved this piece of history.
It wasn’t particularly impressive and didn’t seem nearly as tiny as the one I had seen. If you’re in the area, stop by; it’s free, but I wouldn’t make a special trip for it.
In the interest of full disclosure for things that might be of interest to others (but not to me) they do have a brewery there that sells Taiwan Head beer, and they also have a place that, according to several sources online, sells the “only real bagels” in Taiwan. That’s probably apocryphal, but I did see the bagels, and they looked real.
Four Four South Village wasn’t as interesting as I’d hoped, but it was not very far from Ichiran Ramen, which, like the Din Tai Fung we visited yesterday, was also in Shin Kong Mitsukoshi building A11.
Ichiran is a major Japanese Ramen chain. One of the things that makes them unique is the distinctive dining style they have adopted. In an effort (I guess) to mimic the close-quarters style of eating at a ramen cart, Ichiran restaurants feature everyone sitting side-by-side in small private cubby holes. You are, essentially, dining alone, even with a group, crammed into a small counter.
The three of us were placed side-by-side in our private dining stations. Each station has a water tap for unlimited drinking water and a curtain in front of you. You’re given a form, which you fill out, you press a button, and they take it. The custom ramen is delivered moments later, the curtain closes, and you are left to eat alone. There is a mechanism for ordering additional food, such as more noodles. You never see the face of your server.
Despite never having eaten at Ichiran before, I’ve been a fan for years. You can get Ichiran ramen kits through Amazon in the US for about $6/bowl. I don’t eat a lot of ramen, but it’s my ramen of choice, and compared to the outrageous prices you’d pay for a bowl of ramen in Phoenix at a restaurant, it’s still economical. These are the same kits they sell at the door of Ichiran as you’re leaving. (For just under $5/Bowl.)
But now I can decide if it tastes like the real thing.
The dining experience is more of a novelty than an attraction to bring you back, and the booths aren’t designed for large foreigners. I was a bit hemmed in, with less than comfortable legroom, but it does encourage you to eat and get the hell out quickly.
The ramen itself was delicious but a bit unfair compared to the boxed version. When I ordered mine, I was able to add a chunk of chashu pork, spring onions, and fresh garlic — things you don’t get in the box. Taking those things out of the equation, I’d say the boxed ramen is very close to being the same. That makes it one of the few things I can get in Phoenix that actually tastes “authentic.”
Lest you think Ichiran Ramen in the store is somehow cheap, it isn’t. My bowl and a glass of Coke cost $11.52.
I’m still going to write up my experiences with Holafly eSIM service at some length, but suffice it to say that we’ve been having some issues with sporadic service. That shouldn’t happen in Taiwan, let alone Taipei, which is massively saturated with cell service.
My carrier in the United States, Verizon, offers an international roaming “deal” of $10/day for “unlimited”** calling, texts, and data. Essentially, if you make a call, send a text message, or use cellular data, you’re charged $10, and your 24-hour period begins.
I wanted to test the service compared to Holafly, and also I just wanted to see the novelty of two eSIMs active at the same time on my phone. I’d had the US eSIM turned off completely for the trip, but I slipped it on today while we were at the Four Four South Village.
I noticed no obvious difference in my data speeds or availability; however, when I was in Ichiran, I suddenly got a barrage of text messages from Kamala and Democrats all over the United States begging for money. In theory, I would not be charged for that (apart from the $10 fee that I believed I had incurred but turning the line on.) I tried the data connection again, and there was no apparent difference. I also received notification of a couple of voicemails that had come while I had the line off. I left them unread because they were junk. I was not that impressed with the service so far.
After Ichiran, I returned to the Airbnb to rest my back. Chuwan and Melz went to the in-laws’ house where Chuwan would be making them dinner.
Around 5 PM, I was contemplating how poor my data service from Verizon seemed to be, and then I realized that I still had Data Roaming turned off on the line. The instant I turned it on, two things happened: My data speeds popped up to where they should be, and I got a notice that my 24-hour period had begun.
Aha! I could have had the line turned on the entire trip without incurring charges as long as I’d kept data roaming off and not answered the phone or responded to text messages. It’s a working hypothesis, and when the next bill comes in, I can hopefully confirm that. In the future, that could mean I could always have the availability of my US-based line if I needed it without having to switch it on whenever I thought it was necessary.
Melz slipped out of dinner at the in-laws’, and we met up for one last pizza and Dr. Pepper before I leave Taiwan.
Late at night, when Chuwan returned from her parents’, she stopped by the Mr. Long Chicken stand near the Airbnb and picked up a snack. It was excellent chicken.
There’s been a last-minute change of plan for tomorrow. Taiwan is a large player in the textile/fabric industry, and they have one of the major trade shows in the world starting tomorrow. Chuwan’s friend has direct connections to the industry and has gotten Chuwan and Melz passes to attend the trade show. Melz has recently graduated with a degree in textiles and fabric, and the show seemed too great an opportunity to pass up.
What it means, though, is that I will be completely on my own after breakfast for my last day in Taiwan.
*His actual business name (in English) is Wenzhou Street Radish Pancake, despite the fact that he hasn’t been on Wenzhou Street for years. And his specialty is a big, fat, deep-fried bun (too thick to be characterized as a pancake, but they do nonetheless) stuffed full of shredded radish. If radish is your thing, it’s what he’s famous for, and there’s always a long line. Scallion pancakes are just his sideline.
**Of course, there are actual limits.