Category: Travel

The weatherman got it wrong and it was a busy, busy day because of it.

Today’s forecast called for another cold front to blow in bringing colder temperatures and rain. Yesterday when I was returning from Costco, I was pretty sure he was right. The temperature was dropping, the wind was blowing and ominous dark clouds were beginning to cover the sky.

At least that’s it looked like when I dropped into the hole at Jingan station. When I popped out again at Guting station, the sky was completely blue, no wind and hot. That’s one of the weird things about Taipei and the subways, even though the stations are only a very few miles apart, sometimes it feels like you’re popping out in a different world.

Still, we had anticipated a rainy day schedule and when I got up it was clear that wasn’t the case. The sky was blue with few clouds. Since we’d made no plans for the day I decided to go to Linguan station, which I’d noticed on the way to the zoo, and look around the hills in the area.

It’s a short walk from the station to the “park” which has a formidable sign in front of it that a says a lot of things – in Chinese. At the bottom of at least 3 paragraphs worth of Chinese, there are two English words: “No Entry”

Normally, I would take that to mean something like “do not enter” or “keep out” but in this case, I took it to mean, “Welcome.”

Why? Three reasons

• This is Taiwan, a country that obeys no semblance of traffic laws and virtually every men’s room in the country sits in a thick cloud of smoke, almost too thick to see the “No Smoking” placed right over the full ashtray. (Why do they put the ashtray there? Because when they don’t the toilet paper dispenser is melted and warped out of all recognition with all the cigarette butts that are put out on it.
• The sign was probably a bad translation. For example, in Daan park there’s a “do not” sign at all the entries of the park with pictograms on it and along with all the normal ones like “no campfires”, there’s a clear picture of a dog peeing on a tree with the universal circle with line through it. There’s a long Chinese explanation and the simple words “No Pets” in English. I checked with Irene and the Chinese does indeed prohibit pets peeing in the park, not prohibit pets in the park.
• The locals were totally ignoring it and going in and out of the park

Inside it’s nothing like the city parks, it’s a dense jungle with rough, slippery rock steps and poorly delineated trails. Signs abound warning about the dreaded fire ant which has recently invaded Taiwan and presumably lurks in the park.

The area has a very “lived in” feel. Small shanty like structures stand full of junk, but don’t look like they re inhabited. Clearings and spots along the paths have plastic chairs and tables left there as if the owners will be coming back any minutes. Places where the trail is particularly hazardous have been covered with carpet remnants to make them more safe.

I was just about to plunge deeper into the jungle and see if I could head up to the top of the mountain when Irene called to tell me since the weather was good we were going to Yangmingshan and that I needed to return.

I was to meet them at the Technology Building station and I got there first. As I waited, a line of children, lead by a teacher and surrounded with other adults came trick-or-treating down the street, going from business to business.

Unlike trick-or-treating back home, they marched down the street, parade-fashion, with the teacher banging a drum and the kids all reciting “Trick or Treat…” and then something of similar length in Chinese in time to the drum.

The kids were really cute in their costumes. Halloween is a relatively new concept in Taiwan and Michelle will be participating in one Sunday sponsored by the Disney Channel.

When they arrived to pick me up it was on to Yangmingshan…

(To be continued)

Technorati Tags: Blog, Hiking, Taiwan, Travel

The skies are blue today, and the temperature is beginning to go back up, but the weatherman says a new rainy, cold front arrives tomorrow.

It was too sunny out for Irene to go for a walk, so I decided to try navigating to another Costco in the Taipei area.

There are three, one I’ve already been to and photographed, one that is so far out that it isn’t on my map of Taipei, and finally one out in Yung He that should be reasonable walking distance from the Jingan subway station.

GPS in hand and some Herb Alpert on the iPod, I headed out.

As you can see from the pictures, obviously I made it to the Costco, and there really isn’t much to tell.

It’s a Costco.

Luckily, the girl at the counter was able to figure out I wanted a hot dog for lunch, even though I tried in Chinese. (Irene tells me that “hot dog” is translated literally as the Chinese words for “hot” and “dog.”)

Mercifully, it had western-style sit down toilets.

Full on hot dogs that didn’t taste like Vienna sausages, I headed back to the subway station. This is an area of town that (A) I’d never been to before and (B) was pretty devoid of western influences, but I did run across one interesting thing:

KLG Fried Chicken

I’ve seen signs for these before, usually on the outskirts of Taipei, seen from a car or train window as we’re rushing out of town somewhere. In all my walking in the central part of Taipei, I’ve never once seen one, but today I found myself face-to-face with the Colonel’s chicken avatar.

Actually, the chicken looked pretty good, but I was full. Hopefully I can get back there before I leave and try it.

Michelle absolutely refused to put her shoes on without assitance this evening and therefore lost her chance to go to school tonight.

She was perfectly capable and happy to put her shoes on back home, but since she’s been here she’s playing helpless. Of course, grandma and grandpa always play along with her, but today she lost.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Hiking, Costco, Taiwan, Travel

Last night’s trip to Taipei 101 was completely unprepared, apart from having both the camera and the camcorder. The most important thing we didn’t have was money – at least Irene didn’t have any money. I thought I was fine with $NT1,300 ($US43).

You have to take the subway to the Taipei City Hall station and then take a bus (or, as it is less than 1 mile, just walk). With two kids, we took the special bus, No cash needed there, buses and subways are paid for with smart cards.

When we got to Taipei 101, the first thing I noticed was that it was crawling with foreigners – and not American foreigners, either. When you’re walking through parts of Taipei, you’ll hit areas where there are more foreigners, but when you hear them talking, predominently they’re speaking American English.

At Taipei 101 it was a veritable Tower of Babel. (No pun intended, but the parallel wasn’t lost.) I suppose as the Taipei 101 during planning was called the Taipei World Trade Center, it makes a certain amount of sense. There are many banks and financial institutions located in it, along with fine shopping.

There are also guards everywhere, who, although not visibly armed, have been dressed to the nines to look something reminiscent of Special Forces, or perhaps a crack RAF commando unit from a 1950’s movie.

Michelle and James were both free to get in. In Taiwan, they don’t usually go by age buy by height, and Michelle is already pushing the height cutoff, but it won’t happen this trip.

This is when Irene reveals she has no money at all except change. So, I fork over the $NT700 ($US21) for two to go to the 89th floor.

I already mentioned the upper, outside, observation deck, that was another $NT200 ($US6) total for us to go up, leaving me now with $NT400($US12) for the rest of the evening, including dinner.

My goal was to buy souvenirs for the guys at work from the Taipei 101 gift shop; however, prices started at higher than $NT400 so nothing came of that. (Sorry, guys at work.)

Down in the basement, like most places with shopping, there is a food court. Usually the food courts have a series of stalls that sell a few set items with a theme, although most of the dishes from one place to the next look pretty much the same. In Japanese style, most of them have wooden food models to choose from.

I ate at Singapore Sentosa and had a breaded chicken cutlet and rice, smothered in curry sauce. It was really good. Looking at the wooden model, it appeared to come with chunks of watermelon, also smothered in curry sauce. This is Taiwan, I can believe someone would think that was a good idea. It turns out they were yams and it was just a seriously bad choice for wooden food representation. Without the curry sauce, this is just the type food Michelle would like.

Michelle; however, was being obstreperous this evening and also refusing to eat. I ended up eating her dinner, too. (Luckily we had the currey sauce put on the side.) We used about $NT360 of my remaining $NT400 for dinner, with Irene eating at some place with a pig in their logo.

It was not a good day for a delay, either, as I had a deadline to be back at the house for a teleconference at 10, but I had a good idea how long it would take to get back.

The problem was, combined with Michelle’s intransigence and then discovering that the return bus doesn’t make frequent enough rounds, I had to head out on foot at full speed, on a very full stomach, leaving Irene and the kids behind to wait for the bus.

Normally, with my stride, I can leave anybody in this city far behind, and I pushed off for the 3/4 mile or so walk (through somewhat unknown territory) at full speed. There’s shopping complexes in the area, and once I found a familiar landmark I was off even faster towards the subway.

This is where I was really shocked. A little guy, no more than 5’8″, walked right past me. Although after he passed me, he never got more than 5 feet ahead of me, it was still a shock, but it helped me keep pace, as he was obviously heading to the subway too.

As we came around the last corner, and he was loosing ground to me again, he broke into a run and disappeared into the station. I maintained my pace, and saw the train close it’s doors and disappear as I came to the top of the last escalator. I missed it by seconds!

The gratifying part was that when I did get on the next train, 5 minutes later, they guy I’d been following was on it too.

My stop is still about a mile away from the house, so I text messaged to Irene to get the bus numbers I should take. Buses don’t run straight lines and any given stop can have 15 to 20 different busses that stop there. The routes are all nicely posted at the stop, in Chinese. Sometimes the busses will have them inside in English, but by then, it’s too late to decide if that’s the bus you want to get on.

Irene sent me the list of about 6 busses, but as it was almost 10:00PM, I needed to have my phone available, and wasn’t sure what would happen if a call came while I was reading, so I had to memorize it. Bus stops on Xinsheng Rd. are in the middle of the road, literally traffic flows on either side of islands used as the stops. This gives the buses the ability to stay out of the right turn lanes, which helps speed things up, but that also means that bus stops are very noisy, and I was positive the call would come while I was standing in the midst of 8 lanes of traffic, but it didn’t.

One of my busses finally came and I hopped on, at 9:59PM. Of course, this bus was was the one with the really noisy engine, the PA system turned up full blast, and two old women sitting behind me talking at the top of their lungs. Surely the phone call would come now.

But it didn’t.

10:05, I get to my stop and get to the sidewalk. I’m still 3 blocks from the house, and the call comes in. I answer it and 100+ scooters take off right next to me, screaming down the road. Taipei is a noisy city.

I was able to walk the last 3 blocks while participating in the call but as soon as I got back to my computer (where I’d planned to take the call in the first place) the call got dropped. Irony of Fate.

In case you were wondering, they called me back and we completed our 3-way conference from Taipei, Houston and Phoenix. All at IBM’s expense. I realize teleconferencing isn’t a new technology by any stretch of the imagination, but it was still cool to be able to accomplish something from the other side of the planet. You gotta love working with IBM!

Maybe I should just arrange to work remotely from Taipei all-year ’round? At the rate I’m going, another 6 months here and I’ll be able to speak the language enough to get by.

I’ve attached a short clip of the sound of the Taipei 101 singing here.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Family, Kids, Taiwan, Travel

This has been a busy evening.

Michelle had a late class today and when it was over, we finally got a break on the weather, so we headed to Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building – at least for now.

Buildings in Taipei are rarely over 6-8 stories high, so the 101 story behemoth really stands out. Since we’ve returned from the mountains, it’s been in the clouds most of the time.

The building is really a showcase for a couple pieces of technology, the first is the elevator system like no other. It’s apparently the fastest in the world, it certainly does an impressive job wisking you from the 5th to the 89th floor in about 45 seconds.

The complex digital readout shows how fast you’re moving, but you can’t feel it. The only thing you notice is rapid ear clogging. Even that it being lessened by the pressurized elevator.

It’s a great view from the lower (inside) observation deck on the 89th floor, but being night, and having throw away my crummy tripod, even at 1600 ASA I couldn’t get many good pictures through the windows.

So, we paid the extra $NT100 and walked to the upper (outside) observation deck on the 91st floor.

Few people went to the upper deck, which is ringed by metal guard poles that sing in the constant blasting wind.

After our trip to the top of the world, we headed down to the basement for dinner. I had two, Singaporean curried chicken cutlets… two because Michelle wouldn’t eat hers.

And so it was with a very heavy stomach I set out on my next adventure….

(More on that tomorrow, I’m having trouble posting a file right now, I’ll link to it later. I’ve got some good sound of the singing at the top.)

Technorati Tags: Blog, Family, Kids, Taiwan, Travel

Despite what you might think, the title doesn’t go with this picture of brother-in-law Johnny Austin Huang and Michelle at dinner last night.

At the zoo, I stepped in a 2 inch deep puddle of water yeserday and until my sandals dry, I had to unpack my tennis shoes. They were still in the bag.

I like being able to wear sandals year-round.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Taiwan, Travel

We’ve been promising Michelle a trip to the zoo for weeks, and our schedule had it set for today.

So far, every day since we’ve returned, it’s rained during the night, drizzled in the morning and by 10:30 it’s clear until late afternoon or evening.

Today was no different, except that it never stopped raining.

I promised myself that next time I went to a zoo, I’d take no pictures of the animals, and I didn’t. In fact, most of the time my camera was wrapped in a plastic Walgreen’s bag we’d brought from the States.

I hope the weather clears up soon. The rain is cramping my walk excursions. I’ve got several trails and places I want to walk to and no opportunity to do so.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Family, Kids, Taiwan, Travel

We bussed out to the middle of nowhere to see Miramar, a shopping complex with a giant ferris wheel on the 5th floor.

I had heard it was the second largest in the world, but Johnny insists it is only the second largest in Asia, which makes it much less interesting.

Michelle wouldn’t go on it, so I didn’t get any pictures, but she would ride on this: A mechanised panda, which, for $NT20, you and your mom can ride around the 4th floor (Kids World).

It’s an unusual mechanism, it’s a free-driving “car” but it doesn’t just work on wheels, the legs move independently, giving it a walking motion.

I did at least get a couple pictures of the ferris wheel. I’ll let you know if I figure out where this ferris wheel rates in the grand scheme of the world.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Family, Kids, Taiwan, Travel

We went to the newer Din Tai Fung location today, which is just around the corner from Michelle’s school.

They win, hands down, for most ambitious attempt at a cool bathroom: They actually have electronic Japanese toilets.

The only thing is, I know they’re self cleaning, but I’m a little dicey about the cleanliness of the ones I’ve got in my own home, and I know who’s been using those! I’m not sure I want my rear end washed by a public butt washer.

I like the new Din Tai Fung better than the old one, the restaurant is more spacious, and the observation window to the high-tech dumpling making area is on the inside so you can watch them make the food while you eat, not just before you get into the store as at the other location.

*Incidentally, I was shooting in Black and White today, so don’t adjust the color on your monitor.

There’s not a lot to report today, but that never stopped me before.

The plan for today was to take James to a crawling contest. We didn’t really think he’d win, but we knew he’d really make the other parents jealous.

I went looking for the nearest Family Mart and discovered every one I though was a Family Mart was a Nikko Mart, and therefore wouldn’t have the special milk bread.

Later I went foraging for lunch on my own, with a deadline of returning to the house by 12:45 so we could make it to the contest. I chose MOS, which, unlike McDonald’s, doesn’t make any concessions to non-Chinese speakers. No numbered value meals or international picture menus for them!

My attempt at ordering met with 100% success. The girl at the counter understood everything I said, repeated it back for confirmation, called the order back exactly as I’d placed it. (It’s not just a simple order, I get the cheeseburger, have them make it spicy and then not put tomato on it – more complicated than it sounds.)

Unfortunately, the people in back got it wrong and didn’t make it spicy, but she did call it back spicy, so from my perspective it was completely successful. I suppose if I could have gone farther and sent it back because it wasn’t right, that would have been extra credit.

It was then that I got the call from Irene saying her friend from Kaoshiung, Min-Min had arrived unannounced in Taipei to see her and the kids, and with the car and car seat situation as it is, I had to bow out of going to the contest and let Min-Min go in my place.

I’m told James just sat and cried when the competition got going, but he did make all the parents jealous.

On my way back from MOS, I picked up a 2005 edition map of Taipei and since I had nothing to do for the afternoon, I decided I’d tried navigating somewhere. I choose to try to find either a Carrefour or Tesco. I couldn’t find a website listing Tesco’s locations, but with some work I found Carrefours’ addresses.

It took a while comparing maps to addresses, using romanized Chinese names whose spellings didn’t match from website to map, then comparing that to the Chinese characters, and finally deciding which Carrefour I could try to reach.

With a new set of batteries in the GPS, I set off.

For some reason, I didn’t go to the nearest train station, but went to the next one, this lead me right to a Family Mart with 2 loaves of milk bread. As I was just starting out, I didn’t buy them, hoping at least one might be there when I came back that way.

I took the train to the end of the line at Kunyang, consulted my map and GPS and headed out for about a mile walk to the Carrefour. It’s essentially just like the RT-Mart, but without the membership requirement.

My curiosity satisfied and my quest for adventure sated I headed home. When I got to the Family Mart both loaves of bread were still there – perhaps they aren’t so special after all.

Tried to get out for a Taipei 101 trip this evening, but family dinner and the kids got in the way.

Tomorrow, I’ve isolated the location of a Costco I haven’t been to that is about 1 mile from a subway station and will try to reach it. I’ve got all the information I need to order a hot dog and a soda in Chinese. This time I’ll have to remember to take my iPod with me, that would have made the walk more enjoyable.