Category: Travel

I hate jet lag.

We took off at around 11:00PM in Taiwan, and after dinner, managed to sleep at pretty much the normal time.

By what was 10:00AM for our bodies and time for the day to really get going, we landed at 7:00PM in Los Angeles. There were no sanctioned connecting flights that night and we we’ve been forced to spend the night in a hotel. By the time we got through immigrations, customs and to the hotel, it was 10:00PM and everything in the area was closing.

It’s tough forcing yourself into sleep, but we managed… for a while. It’s just after 2:00AM and there’s no hope of me going back to sleep. My body says it’s 5:00PM and time for dinner. Argh.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Taiwan, Travel

We’re five or so hours into our flight, five or so hours to go. We took off at about 11:00PM local time and it was easy to get to sleep on the flight after dinner.

For some reason, no matter how tired I am, no matter how closely the flight’s “sleep time” matches my body clock, I just can’t sleep for more that a few hours at a stretch and so here I am, trying to clear up several posts I’d started as “place markers” for later completion.

As departures go, it was less sorrowful that some, but Michelle took it really hard. Last time I don’t think she understood the concept of absence, this time she clearly does and broke into fits of hysterical crying when it was time to go. We still hadn’t loaded the cars and Batrina tried to cheer Michelle up by offering to play with her. It broke my heart as Michelle, who just couldn’t stop crying, sobbed out, “I can’t, it’s time for me to go!”

The drive out of Taipei to the airport is a long one and frequently a complicated one.

On my first trip to Taiwan, I was flying out alone as Irene was continuing to visit for a few more weeks. The night before we had “staged” my proposal to Irene in front of her family and friends. I had already asked her and she had accepted before I went to Taiwan, but we were saving the moment till her parents were present – and then we saved it until it was time for me to leave the country to diminish any awkwardness they might feel. It was the moment they had to realize that their daughter wasn’t coming back to live in Taiwan after he schooling ended.

In those days the four of us could easily fit in the family car. (Johnny kept such weird hours that we hardly saw him.)

Nowadays, with two kids, car seats, luggage for four and the need for the whole family (plus Johnny’s girlfriend) to stay together till departure, we have to take two cars and enlist the aide of close family friends. Mr. Huang drove the family car with the kids, while Johnny and Batrina rode with them. (Michelle, in particular, adores them both and doesn’t get to spend as much time with them as anyone else.)

Irene, her mother and I rode with the family friends.

The talk in these situations usually turns to politics on the way out of town and since the conversation is in Chinese, I have time for my thoughts and reflections undisturbed by any need to interact with the others.

What thoughts did I think? Well, that’s the subject of another post, but a couple things immediately came to mind. As someone who pops in and pops out of Taiwan on a semi-regular basis, while I cannot have the perspective of a true denizen, I do have the position of seeing snapshots in time as things change.

There have been lots of changes in Taipei & Taiwan since 1998.

• My in-laws have hot water 24 hours a day
• Taipei traffic has actually improved (but still crazy by western standards)
• The country elected a president from a party not descended from the Chinese invaders of the 1940’s
• The island had a massive earthquake, the impact of which is still being felt today.
• The old, uneven and broken down sidewalks in Taipei were torn out and replaced.
• The new sidewalks are inexorably becoming like the old ones.
• The MRT system was taken from one short line and a LOT of holes and construction to a wonderful system and is now under another phase of major construction. (More holes in the ground.)
• Street signs in Taipei have been mostly standardized.
• You don’t see nearly as much of Chiang Kai-Shek anymore.
• Buildings have been torn down and rebuilt at an amazing rate

There are more, but for now that lays the groundwork of my later post(s)…

Technorati Tags: Blog, Taiwan, Travel

Beef Noodle Soup… it seems like such a simple dish and yet somehow it takes on almost mystic proportions. It bears a superficial resemblance to Japanese ramen soup but really seems to be wholly Chinese. It’s not quite pot roast soup with noodles, but then again, it is.

On our last trip we just missed the Taipei beef noodle contest which disappointed me greatly.

After going to the water park, we decided to eat beef noodle and choose a restaurant not exactly at random, but darned close. By shear chance, it turns out we picked the 2006 winner of the Taipei best beef noodle soup.

It was, without doubt, the best beef noodle soup I’ve ever tasted. I was starving after the water park so I might have been more forgiving than usual. We went back on another day for a second tasting and it was equally as good.

Much though I enjoy beef noodle soup, the others I’ve had have always got a slightly off flavor to them. There’s some spice that doesn’t quite compliment the beef, and more so the broth itself. I’ve had an idealized taste for what I’d do to beef noodle (without the competency to cook it myself) and this was a near as close as I could imagine. Now it’s time to start reverse-engineering.

Excellent! Strongly recommended.

老董牛肉麵
Lau Dong’s Beef Noodle (“Dong” is a surname, can be spelled “Tung”, “Lau” is old, so this is “Old Dong’s Beef Noodle” – it’s best not to think about it no matter how you spell it.)

Technorati Tags: Blog, Food, Restaurant, Review, Taiwan, Travel

It’s been terribly hot in the mornings the last few days. “Sweltering” would be a more accurate word. (One of the Taiwan blogs I regularly read, The View from Taiwan, summed it up beautifully:

That rain last week induced seasonal affective disorder. Glad its gone and we are now in the sit-in-the-house-and-sweat season.

Ah, but he’s in Taichung and I’m in Taipei, where we have the sewage water treatment-cum-water park, The Taipei Water Park! (link takes you to a map of the park)

I couldn’t return home without a day frolicking in the crystal clear, and wonderfully cold, water. It’s a great little park, there are about 4 slides, several water cannons, big buckets dumping water on your head, those little spray things for the kids, all in a pool about the size (I’d estimate) of an olympic swimming pool, but only about 1-1.5 feet deep.

And it’s a screaming deal at NT$ 50 per person for all day! (That’s US$ 1.52 at today’s exchange rate!) If that isn’t enough, you get admission to the Museum of Drinking Water, too!

We went on Friday, thinking that, since school is still in session that it might not be crowded. Wrong. Several school classes were on field trips there. Apparently it was for schools specializing in English, (are there any others in Taipei, anymore?) because several of the teachers were waiguoren.

There’s a story here that’s not about having a lot of fun at the water park on a sunny day.

It has to do with not really grasping the customs of another culture. For example, the kids, who were all kindergarten or maybe first-grade age were dressing next to the pool. More specifically, they were dressing and undressing. That in itself is jarringly out of place to my western perspective. I certainly wouldn’t let my Michelle, at age 5, be stark naked at the water park and don’t expect it from others.

Remember, also that in Taiwan, it’s really not uncommon to see women in the men’s restrooms. They’re in there cleaning, or helping their sons learn to urinate or whatever. Many restrooms aren’t exactly “uni-sex”, but they blur the line considerably. The attitude about what is “permissible” public exposure is hard to grasp. I prefer to stick to my own prudish upbringing.

That said, as we entered the place, the signs for men and women directed everyone to the same room, which looked like what I’d call a locker room. It had lockers, seats, mirrors and hair dryers. It looked all the world like a changing area except for the fact that it was filled with women.

I asked Irene, “surely this isn’t the changing room?”

She replied, “I think you go into the actual bathroom and change.”

The men’s bathroom was a tiny room with one urinal, one sink and a stall. That didn’t seem adequate to a bunch of guys changing their clothes, but what other options did I have? The stall was a squat toilet. What does that mean? It means the floor was awash in urine.

As I attempt to find a way to change into my swimming trunks without soaking my street clothes in someone else’s urine, a crowd of kids arrives in the bathroom. To my surprise, I hear one of the kids say (in quite good English), “I need to use the toilet!”

The other kids are talking English, too, but the first voice repeats himself. Finally, I hear an adult. “What’s the problem?”

“I need to use the toilet.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“There’s someone in there.”

“Who is it?”

Then there’s a bit of a commotion and I begin to see the top of this kid’s head trying to wiggle under the toilet door.

Adult (more amused than aghast): “Don’t stick your head under there! Just ask who’s in there!”

I’m glad that endeavour was stopped quickly, I was at that moment, standing with one foot on my sandal, the other kind of propped on the garbage pail while trying to get my pants off without touching the floor.

Kid: “Who’s in the toilet?”

Me: “No one you know.”

Adult (to kid): “Who’s in there?”

Kid: “I think it’s Teacher Stan.”

Adult: “Oh, you’ll just have to wait.”

Me: “I promise, it’s not Teacher Stan.”

Kid: “Yes, it’s Teacher Stan.”

At this point I’ve finally finished and have to make my exit. I step out and there’s about 8 Taiwanese kids crammed into this 4’X 6′ bathroom and a foreign teacher. His expression was amusing because clearly he was expecting Teacher Stan (who obviously has a sense of humor) and not an unknown foreigner. It’s probably the last thing he expected to see that day.

So, was I supposed to change in the stall? No. There were changing room/showers outside next to the pool, but we couldn’t see them until we were outside. And thereby is the moral of this story. If this had been back home, I would have continued to search until I found changing area because I know there must be one, but in Taiwan, it’s too easy to assume (wrongly)(even my wife did it) that things are done half-assed.

The park itself isn’t half-assed, and, apart from the obvious insurance liability, I don’t understand why we don’t have a lot more water play areas like this back home.

Playing in the water in Taiwan does have a dark side, though.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Kids, Taiwan, Travel

It’s our last full day in Taiwan and Irene and the kids are visiting with friends. I took the opportunity to go walking and catching up on writing blog posts, which are now dangerously backed up.

First order of business was a trip to MOS Burger for lunch.

Ordering went smoothly and I was quite pleased with myself. The place was a bit crowded, and as I was by myself, at sat at the counter staring out into the street. My burger arrived minus my french fries. (I believe I’ve mentioned before, MOS always cooks you fries after you order them, so they always take a while.)

It took an unusually long time for my fries to arrive, although I’m not sure what the disconnect was. I had finished my burger before there was any activity on the fries front. First, a girl came in and (as it was crowded) sat down next to me. They give you little numbers to sit on the table. I was 85, the girl who came and sat next to me was (coincidentally) #58. She hadn’t been sitting there long when the MOS employee arrived with a large order of fries and asked her (this much I understand) “You have a large order of fries?”

She indicated in the negative. The employee looked perplexed. The phrase “I’m supposed to have a large order of fries and it’s been a long time, perhaps you’ve confused her ’58’ with my ’85’ and those are mine? Especially since only waiguoren or large families ever order large fries.” was far beyond my abilities to say in Chinese, and even a simple “I should have fries” stumped me because I’ve never studied the concept of “should” in the language.

I tried to indicate that I might be the owner of the fries, but he looked at his sheet, looked at my number and left. he went from table to table, asking if anyone had a large order of fries. He went upstairs for the tables up there. He came back a few minutes later, still carrying the fries. He took them back behind the counter and threw them away.

I don’t know why I bother with the large order of fries. They may be fresh, but the have no salt on them, which doesn’t make for very good-tasting fries.

Nonetheless, I’d paid for them and positive that those had been my fries, I was formulating how I was going to express that. I got out my receipt and checked it and was preparing to go to the manager, (who had taken my order in the first place) when I heard the employees ask him about the fries. he immediately responded, “They’re for the waiguoren.”

So, they cooked me another batch of fries.

That’s not what this story is about.

It was hot, I had nothing better to do, and all I had left were my fries, so I was eating them slowly, daydreaming, when I noticed a faint glimmer – a shine like a flash in a mirror on a sunny day. It came from my finger. I looked closely, and there, like a tiny crystal dream was a single grain of salt.

I couldn’t believe it. It must have gotten there from the fries. I set about inspecting each and every one. Each fry had exactly 1 to 3 grains of salt. I could only imagine them being placed there, one-by-one, by some amazingly intricate Japanese machine designed just for that purpose.

As I counted each grain of salt, I removed it from the fry. (1 to 3 grains of salt doesn’t alter the flavor of the fry enough to bother with.) I placed each grain in a little spot on the corner of my tray.

When I reached the last fry, I had enough collected to rub the fry in the salt and it tasted delicious!

Technorati Tags: Blog, Taiwan, Travel

So, as part of my Sisyphean task to photograph every Costco in the world, I needed to get to the third Costco in Taipei and the fourth and last remaining Costco for me to photograph in Taiwan.

The problem, as explained in my original post, Costco – The Plan, was that none of the Costcos in Taipei are conveniently located near subway stations.

On my last trip, I was able to locate Costco #3 on my map of Taipei, extrapolate GPS coordinates, and make the 1+ mile trek.

The fourth Costco presented a greater challenge, as it was far enough outside of Taipei that I could not find a map of the area. Freak chance presented with an opening when, returning from Keelung by freeway at night, I saw the Costco lights in the distance and managed to snap a GPS waypoint along the freeway. Using that coordinate and Google Earth, I made my best guess for the location, built a series of waypoints between the nearest subway station and the Costco and waited my chance to make the 4.3km hike through unfamiliar territory.

My plan was to make the trek tomorrow, but, as I had time this morning, I decided I’d time how long it took to get to the subway station, and when I arrived, I decided I’d hike to the first waypoint to determine how accurate my Google Earth-derived coordinates were.

I also had a secondary motive: to see what bus routes were in the area. It seems that something as logical as a bus map is not part of the Taipei bus system, instead they have abstract route charts that only make sense if you know the names of the streets and are already familiar with the area. As it’s been alternating between brutally hot and humid and torrential rain, I hoped to have a backup plan for either getting to or from the Costco. By studying the bus signs and taking notes I hoped my wife or father-in-law could make sense of the bus routes in the area.

The first waypoint was about 1.7km from the station and I’m happy to report that Google Earth and the GPS brought me dead on target.

I plotted the waypoints without paying much attention to the distances, so when I checked to make sure the next waypoint was where where I expected it before returning home, I was surprised to find was only 220m away – too close for me to just turn around and not check before returning. Again, the coordinate was spot on.

The next was only 300m away, and I had found a potential bus route to take me back to the station, so I decided to press on a bit more.

You can probably guess where this is going. The next waypoint was only 200m further on, so I kept going. By now I was positive that busses Blue 15 and Blue 23 would return me to the station, so I decided to commit to the last 2 legs of the journey.

The next leg was only 800m away as the crow flies. (It turned out to be farther because the road curved around a river.) The final leg being only 400m away, and I was on the Costco in no time.

Too bad it was too early in the morning and they were closed.

Still, I got my photo, and then the bus pulled up to the stop, so I hopped on board, hoping my readings of the bus signs wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t.

Mission Accomplished!

Technorati Tags: Blog, Taiwan, Travel

Still catching up half-written posts from Taiwan
With time running out, we had to make a trip to Sogo department store. Grandma had purchased some Disney clothes for Michelle and James, but Michelle’s size skirt wasn’t in stock and had to be sent it. This was the day we had to pick it up.

At the same time, I needed to search through the housewares department for something truly “different” and Asian for a friend’s housewarming present.

Little did I know that, for the first time in my life, I was going to spent 4 and a half hours in a department store.

We arrived at noon, straight up and I was hungry. We headed straight for the food court, but there were no tables to be found. Since it was an easy trip, I opted to wait and eat later.

Picking up the skirt proved to be time-consuming. Although I have no idea why, grandma had to argue or question every little detail in the skirt, meanwhile Irene found some cute clothes for James, and while they did the clothes thing, I took the kids over to the play area and waited (and waited and waited and waited.) After finally finishing arguing with the Disney clothes woman, grandma went over to where Irene was looking at clothes and started “helping” by arguing with that saleswoman about something.

The play area has these little bouncy toys called Rodys that both James and Michelle loved playing on, but I could only take it for so long. It’s like watching kids on bumper cars and Michelle would periodically get aggressive with the other kids. (Usually, they’d provoke it, but Michelle seems to escalate the retaliation. I“m OK with the idea of never starting a fight, but always finishing one, but it’s a little harsh on the playground.)

I took it for as long as I could and it still went on. Finally, finally we got moving, this time up to housewares.

Housewares in Taiwan are fascinating, particularly at the big Japanese department stores. They have exactly the same things we do, minus a few items, and a few items we don’t have. Then the items fall into two categories: Those are are exactly the same thing as here and those that are subtly different because they’re for the Japanese market. Toasters and vacuum cleaners, for example. They’re just different.

If you’re going to go to the trouble of shipping something overseas, you must make sure you can’t buy it back home (for less, no doubt) and so, we an interminable length of time going up and down the aisles. ”Do we have these back home?“ ”Are they exactly the same?“ ”Could someone find filters for it?“ ”Is is even meaningful in the context of back home?“ (Believe you me, we do not need de-humidifiers in Arizona!)

Ultimately, we found something straight from Japan, it cost more than our $100 budget, it’s not as big as we’d have liked, it may or may not be practical, but it is quite nice and I’m reasonably sure there aren’t any places in Arizona to buy one.

However, even this small-sized one, despite having it’s own carrying case, is troublesome to carry, so Sogo shipped arranged to ship it to my in-laws house the next day.

Finally, it was time to eat! We headed to the 11th floor where the fancier restaurants are, and started perusing our options. It had now been hours since we’d arrive and I was starved.

That’s when I saw the rat. Not just any rat. This was the Giant Rat of Sumatra, transplanted to Sogo. He was running, in a panic, rather like a trapped rat, across the tiled 11th floor. It was rather like when you see those pictures of dogs running on slick floors and they try to turn but cannot. This rat had enough mass behind him he couldn’t corner as he tried to run for cover.

There was a bit of a stunned silence among the potential diners who saw him.

Never mind, I chose a restaurant farther away from where he ended up. Taipei has rats, I knew that. I’d seen what could only be called a ”herd“ of rats in Daan Park shortly after our arrival. Still, those were outdoors on the ground, and this was inside on the eleventh floor.

We ate at ”Herbs“ a restaurant that I’m not going to review, suffice to say that it wasn’t very good. I had a steak, covered with cheese and pesto, which actually wasn’t bad. The problem was the service. We ordered three entrees and four drinks. We ultimately got three entrees and four drinks, but they served them one at a time, with a 10 minute gap between them.

First one glass of orange juice came out, later one glass of tea. We asked about the second juice, in a while they brought. (You try ordering two glasses of orange juice for two children and when only one arrived, see what happens. It isn’t pretty.) I drank my tea. Then my steak arrived. After I’d finished eating, grandma’s spaghetti arrived. 10 minutes or so later, Irene’s food arrived. Later my tea arrived. (Turns out my tea was different from Irene’s tea – same, tea but mine was served from a carafe.) By this point, though I’d already drank Irene’s in the mistaken assumption is mine since I ordered tea first, and it was before we found out they apparently only prepare one item at a time, despite a team of about 8 cooks working in the back.

While we were there a massive electrical storm moved in and settled right over the building. As the lightening was quite aggressive, and we had the kids, we were stuck inside until it abated. We went down to the food court for ice cream and finally, after 4:30… 4 and half plus hours after we arrived, we got out of Sogo.

Shortly after we left, Sogo called to say they could deliver this evening. We told them anytime after 8 and left it at that.

We ran some more errands and headed home. We didn’t even really get to go home because of the time, we headed straight to a ”northern style“ Chinese restaurant for whole-family dinner. I’ve eaten there before and it’s usually alright, but this time my food wasn’t very good.

Not that I got a chance to eat much of it. The Sogo people call at 7:15, they’re about to deliver. Since it’s a family dinner and they’re all eating and having so much fun, I get elected to not finish my dinner, rush home on foot to meet the delivery person.

When it was all done, everything worked out except for my dinner. I only hope this thing survives the trip back to Arizona. It’s not going to fit in even our largest piece of luggage like we’d hoped.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Taiwan, Travel

Since my last visit to Taiwan a sad, sad thing happened… the tore down the under-bridge computer market on Xinsheng Rd.

It was such a cool place. Dozens of rabbit-warren like shops selling computer components, MP3 players, cameras, cable bits, videos, books and Japanese pornography. It’s the only place I’ve ever been where you can see a hot girl walking down the street carrying the parts to go home and assemble her own computer!!! (No pictures of that, sadly.)

What a tragedy that the city decided it was unsafe, or in the path of a new subway line or some lame excuse like that, and tore it down. No trace remains of the bridge. (Incidentally, the bridge appeared to serve little logical purpose whatsoever in terms of traffic. My father-in-law tells me that, in the old days, the bridge was to take traffic over the train tracks. Now the trains are underground, but the bridge remained.)

This isn’t a completely sad story, though. They’re building a new, multi-story high-tech computer market nearby to replace it. Just one little problem: They tore the old one down before the new one was built. That seems to sum up project management in Taiwan in two sentences.

Instead of reversing the order, instead they’ve built a third computer market – this one a temporary one made out of prefabricated sheds. And this one is every bit as ramshackle and warren-like as the original.

The new one is supposed to open in 2007, but I can’t see how this multi-story new building is ever going to capture the spirit of the original.

Why is this not the sort of stuff that makes it on DiggNation? Why aren’t Kevin and Alex trying to record an episode where hot asian chicks buy computer parts? (And, there’s porn… it seems a natural.)

Technorati Tags: Blog, Computer, Taiwan, Travel

I mentioned we went to Ilan, which is much more country-like than Taipei. Apparently, they grow food there.

The green onion used in the Cong You Bing I tend to go on about only comes from Ilan, because it’s special. They also sell other vegetable matter and, whenever we’ve passed through Ilan in the past, my father-in-law stops to buy some black lumps in a bag. I really don’t know what they are, but I do know that they are special Ilan black lumps in a bag.

As we rounded the streets looking for that one shop that they always go to, a parking spot along the street became available, which my father-in-law immediately occupied. He waited with the car (and James, who was sleeping) while we went to the store to get the lumps.

We weren’t gone 5 minutes, and when we returned, a woman on a scooter with a PDA was writing up what looked to be a parking ticket for my father-in-law. He appeared to be arguing with her, although the conversation was far beyond my comprehension. There’s was lots of pointing at the white lines painted on the ground, and specifically at the front of my father-in-law’s car which was 2 inches over the white line.

She gave him the ticket and left.

Irene explained to me that it wasn’t a parking violation, but this was how they operate the pay-parking on the street. Why my father-in-law was arguing with her is beyond me.

Meanwhile, the parking woman just ignored this car, since he’s just double-parked, not actually occupying a pay parking-spot.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Taiwan, Travel

Get out your map of Taiwan and you’ll see one of the principal hard realities of the island: It’s really rough terrain.

We once went to Taipingshan, which is near the city of Ilan. I took a GPS reading and was shocked to discover were were only about 50 miles from “home” in Taipei, and yet the drive was hours. Looking at Google Earth, Ilan and Taipei are only 23 miles apart, but they are (or were) 23 impassable miles, you had to go around the coast, which took a long time.

Finally though, after 15 years of construction and 25 lives lost, the Hsuehshan Tunnel has been completed. 12.9km underground and the fifth longest roadway tunnel in the world, it cuts the travel time to Ilan to under an hour.

It’s only been open one year, and my father-in-law apparently needed an excuse to go through it, so we packed up the car and headed to Ilan.

There’s really nothing to say about Ilan, except that it made Taipei seem cool and dry in comparison.

To give some idea of how much a barrier the mountains are, in Ilan it was blue skies and hot, and when we popped out of the tunnel on the Taipei side, it was grey and in a downpour. The clouds just couldn’t get over the mountains.

The tunnel is nifty, though.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Taiwan, Travel