Category: Taiwan

I love the high speed train, and don’t want anything to sound like a negative, that’s why this is a different post. It’s not really about the high speed rail, but it is related.

The High Speed Rail station in Chiayi is ultramodern, efficient and even has both a 7-11 and a MOS Burger. (MOS has really moved into this country whole hog. They even have a concession location at the National Concert Hall.)

Here’s the problem: While the HSR arrives at the Taipei Main Train Station in the center of town, the stops along the way tend to be outside town – way outside town. We arrived “at” Chiayi exactly on time, but we were literally nowhere. We had to take a shuttle bus to the main train station.

It was lunchtime and we hadn’t eaten, not even breakfast. I thought about stopping at the MOS Burger in the station but, when we asked how long till the bus arrived, were told it was “any minute.” As it happens, I know that there is a MOS Burger within 2 blocks of the Chiayi Rail station that we’d be catching the next train at. We decided to wait rather than risk missing the bus. The connection time wasn’t tight, but it wasn’t leisurely, either.

As the bus arrived (after 15 minutes) so did the torrential rains, again. Perhaps it is because Chiayi is in the tropics, but the rain was even worse than in Taipei. The time ticked away and the bus slowly made its way through the rain. This bus driver was apparently the only one in Taiwan who won’t run scooters off the road or fudge through red lights if no one is looking. We hit every red light and at one point were stuck behind a scooter who was literally weaving back in forth (in the torrential downpour) in front of the bus – as if he was trying to slow us down.

When we finally arrived at the station, we only had 2 minutes, and there is only one train up the mountain each day. We started running across the station, which, like most stations in Taiwan, there are tunnels under the tracks, so we had to run up and down the stairs. Irene and I were both packed down with very heavy backpacks, but she had to pick up James (26 lbs) and I had to pick up Michelle (40 lbs) and run at full speed.

We just caught the train. I was so winded I thought I was going to pass out. Fortunately, the train up the mountain is 4 hours, so I had plenty of time to rest. Too bad I was still without food.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Railway, Taiwan, Train, Travel

A second rainless morning in a row, but we didn’t have time to enjoy it. We had to catch the 11:18 High Speed Rail train to Chiayi, so we could catch the 1:30 forest railway to Alishan. The trip to Alishan is one we’ve taken several times before, but this is the first time we’ve been able to use the High Speed Rail to Chiayi, which knocks hours off the total journey.

The High Speed Rail is only recently completed and is based on Japanese Shinkansen technology. (There was a big stink as it was originally bid to the French/German Eurotrain consortium, but then, for some unknown, probably nefarious – or at least political – purpose, they switched the award to Shinkansen.)

Taiwan has been in desperate need of this for a long time. The island is only about 100 miles long, but it takes 6 or more hours by train to travel along the length of the west coast. The HSR cuts the time from top to bottom (and the two largest cities) to only 90 minutes.

At 300Kmh, the towns, cities and rice fields of Taiwan fly by smoothly, making the journey pleasant.

Being from a part of the world that really doesn’t use trains, this really seems a wonderful way to travel to me. I wish the economics were viable to put these between Phoenix and Tucson or Phoenix and Las Vegas, or Sand Diego, Los Angeles… hell, practically anywhere!

I got a chance to check out the front and the back of the train when we disembarked. There was no sign of splattered, rare birds.

(That’s been a concern, once the trains started running, some rare birds were too slow to get out of the way and got plastered, causing those concerned to try to get the whole multi-billion dollar project scrapped right after it got completed. Personally, I see it as applying darwinian forces on the birds, breeding smarter, faster ones for future generations.)

Technorati Tags: Blog, Railway, Shinkansen, Taiwan, Train, Travel

Finally got out for our first pizza in Taipei on this trip. I’ve placed the review over at pizzalocust, and there’s not much call for me to double-post it here.

Instead, I’ll just post this picture of myself, enjoying a glass of water at Sabatini in Taipei.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Pizza, Taiwan, Travel

In the basement of the Taipei 101, like most other shopping complexes in Taiwan is a food court. While they all tend to have similar restaurants, just as food courts in malls back in the States are much he same, there is some slight variation from mall to mall depending on the clientele.

The Taipei 101 appears to attract foreign businessmen and that’s reflected in the food court.

We arrived right at the opening time for lunch and chose the Karen Teppanyaki. My exposure to teppanyaki is fairly limited as the total teppanyaki places in Arizona can probably be counted on 1 hand.

Teppanyaki, for the uninitiated, is a Japanese style of food grilled at specially-designed tables. The chef prepares the food in front of you while you watch. Back in the US, Benihana’s is probably the most widely known name in teppanyaki, but whereas the cooking at Benihana’s is more of a floor show with lots of flourish, knives being flipped and food being tossed around, Karen Teppanyaki was more matter-of-fact.

We placed our orders (I had the filet steak, Irene had the prawn, fish and rib steak) and the cook set about preparing our meat to order. he worked in a no-nonsense, but very efficient and well-practiced manner, and in a matter of minutes we had our food. In addition to the main dish, the meals also include rice, fried vegetables (lettuce, I think), bean sprouts and miso soup.

Without a broad base of comparison, I can say the steak was tasty and cooked as I’d asked it to be. The sauce it was served with was mild, but added something to the steak. Typically, I’m used to a teppanyaki sauce with a stronger ginger flavor, but that wasn’t the case here.

The steak was served topped with slices of crispy-fried garlic which, after a bit of getting used to, is pretty good.

As I’m on vacation, I didn’t actually bother to pay attention to how much it cost, but I’d provisionally recommend it as tasty food and as good as any teppanyaki I’ve had previously.

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

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.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Taiwan, Travel

Once upon a time I’d have killed for the opportunity to go to Comdex in Las Vegas to see the new technology and ogle the showgirls.

Through no planning of our own, Computex, the world’s second largest technology show was in Taipei this week, so I made the effort to visit.

Booth after booth after booth of USB keys and hard drive enclosures and water cooled PC and girls in skimpy outfits and thousands of geeks with cameras taking pictures of the girls and the hardware.

I made a few half-hearted attempts to catch the spirit, but it’s just more of the same, year after year. Ho hum.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Computer, Taiwan, Technology, Travel

I really like Taiwan, and I really like my in-laws, but… there are days when the insanity it too much.

Taiwan exists in such a weird state, as a de facto country, that I think they are desperately trying to assert themselves as a progressive country just to show they can be like the “gown-up” “real” countries. (Never mind that the world’s “real” countries include such lovely places as North Korea, Haiti, Sudan, etc. ad infinitum.)

Case and point, over the last few years, they’ve been progressively banning or trying to ban just about everything that makes life easy and good: plastic bags, wooden chopsticks, nuclear power plants, etc. They’ll jump on any environmentally conscious bandwagon waived in front of them, presumably just to demonstrate they’re in the forefront and not at all like those dirty, grubby, environmentally destructive swine who live over in China.

Still, somehow, they’ve missed the point – all you have to do is look at the grossly polluted air from the factories and cars to know that the emperor has no clothes, or, to mix a metaphor, they can’t see the forest for the trees.

We got a 20 minute lecture this morning on how to sort the garbage. There are four flippin’ different garbage cans in this house.

One for garbage, proper. You know, the icky stuff, like paper you’ve blown your nose with, or greasy paper, non-recyclable plastics or (I kid you not) the paper you’ve wiped your ass with.

The second for all manner of recyclable materials, plastic bottles (washed, if you please), aluminum cans and plastic bags. (Wouldn’t it be better to keep those, since you have pay extra for them at the store?).

A third is for clean paper products. Newspaper, scrap print outs and paper milk cartons (cleaned, dried and pressed, no less.)

Finally, there’s the pig slop bucket. Yes, that’s right, food waste is sent to the farms so the pigs can eat it. Isn’t letting pigs eat food waste how those nasty diseases like BSE pass from one species to another? Presumably because of this very problem, the slop bucket is actually divided into two types. Vegetables, raw meat, potato skins and cooked meat scraps. The cooked stuff goes to the pigs, the other goes for fertilizer.

Considering how unlikely it is for anyone in Taiwan to pay attention to the rules of anything, is there any reason to believe that people really diligently sort their garbage? They don’t pay attention to any other signs, rules or laws, why should this be any different?

Not only am I not inclined to believe they’ll properly sort their meats, I’m not even convinced they’d properly sort the other garbage. From my point of view it’s just as likely the pork I’m eating was fed on the papers that wipe the collective asses of Taiwan. Not only would they be disinclined to pay attention to the rules, there’s a negative incentive for them to do so – for garbage proper, they pay by the bag to dispose of it, but the recyclables are free. Sure, the garbage man spot checks the garbage when it’s handed over, but a good and clever monkey could find a way around getting caught.

Knowing that, I’m not really inclined to eat pork here again.

Apart from Taiwan’s country-envy status, I think this sort of knee-jerk psuedo-environmentalism appeals to the Taiwanese psyche. This is, after all, a country that believes in feng shui, fortune tellers and ghosts.

Taiwan has lots of mosquitoes. It also has malaria and dengue fever, both serious mosquito-borne illnesses that mankind has spent staggering amounts of time and money in order to eradicate, and yet, while watching TV tonight they were advertising new “all-natural” OFF insect repellant. “90% of mothers prefer all-natural OFF.” Yes, frightening isn’t it? 90% of mothers would choose to protect their children from potentially fatal illnesses with insect repellants clinically proven not to work one damn bit.

They might as well strap magnets and copper bands on their wrists for all the good it will do.

It’s true! We have to surreptitiously coat our children in real insect repellant otherwise my mother-in-law freaks out. Never mind that while we were letting her use the all-natural stuff they were being eaten alive. We just let her spritz on the worthless stuff for her peace of mind and go on.

[I’m not done with this thread, but I’ll save some for later.]

Technorati Tags: Blog, Rant, Taiwan, Travel

The new Sogo department store at Zhongxiao Fuxing has put a twist on the idea of a rooftop garden. Their rooftop garden is inside on the 9th floor. The restaurants on the 10th and 11th floors have view overlooking this gorgeous (and enormous) Japanese garden.

I’m not much for gardening, but this is what I want my backyard to look like.

Speaking of Sogo, we arrived there today just at opening time. At precisely 11:00AM, two “elevator girls” came out and gave a speach to the waiting customers, one in Chinese, the other using sign language. Inside the store, the teams dashed to their places at the counters.

About 1 minute later, the doors were opened letting the public in. Every employee we passed was obligated to bow and “good morning” and “welcome” to us. There were 4 to 6 people waiting at each escalator landing, one a floor supervisor, and as we passed each level they also greeted us with a bow. Since we were heading to the 10th floor, we were bowed to and greeted by no less than 60 people.

It was almost embarrassing.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Taiwan, Travel