Category: Taiwan2005

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.

During the night, the rain came, subduing our plans for the day.

We were going to meet up with Irene’s friend Sam at some form of amusement park, but the weather forced a re-think. Instead Sam came here.

As always Sam brought puzzles and games to keep his mind occupied. He’s one of those interesting people you can watch and you can just see that his mind is always turning.

Irene’s brother, Johnny, told her that there was a Taipei city fireworks display this evening, so after a little research, Irene discovered the where and the when.

Speaking of Johnny, he’s working at a school now, but there’s already a “Johnny Huang” working there, so he’s adopted the english name of “Austin Huang”. I can’t bring myself to call him that because a musical 1950’s teenage jingle for “Johnny Austin” runs through my head every time I hear it. It beats the time he was trying to use the name, “Duff.” I don’t think I ever convinced him that’s slang for “ass”.

Anyway, we decided to get caught up in the politics of fireworks.

You see, there is a perception is that the privileged Chinese invaders who came to Taiwan after the communist revolution and their descendants live in Taipei. Meanwhile, the poor, repressed and downtrodden Taiwanese natives live in the southern parts. (my wife is half Chinese oppressor and half Taiwanese downtrodden.)

The current president is firmly of the southern folk, being from Tainan, really the first ever and since coming to power, national celebrations, such as the Lantern Festival and Double-10 are being “shopped around” the country to other cities. In the past, Taipei got everything.

For right or wrong, that means there hasn’t been a fireworks display in Taipei in five years and so the mayor of Taipei (and undoubted Chinese oppressor candidate for president in the next elections) arranged for a fireworks display last night for “Celebrating October.”

The display was slated to start at 9:00 and city busses were running from designated MRT stations starting at 5:00PM.

Michelle didn’t want to go, and as things turned out I was really glad, but we packed up James and headed out about 7:30.

These people love their fireworks, and the city grossly misestimated the load on the busses. Each bus was loaded by two doors and there was a 2 city block long line for each door. We managed to get on the bus at 8:20, it was packed to physical capacity, standing room only, no moving room whatsoever, and then we made another stop to pick up more passengers!

The traffic in the area was horrific, and the busses couldn’t move. At 8:50, 10 minutes early, while we were still on the bus, the fireworks started. And the densely packed crowd on the bus began to get anxious. Most of them were short enough to see the fireworks through the windows, when the buildings permitted it, but I was too tall.

When we finally were let off the bus, at 9:05, 45 minutes after getting on, and having travelled about 1 miles. The drop off point was still out of sight of the fireworks, and the crowd began to rush. The streets were thronging with rushing people, and then the fireworks started in earnest and the crowd started to run. Luckily they could only run 30 yards before they hit a solid wall of people, otherwise I’m sure this would have been on the news worldwide along with the people crushed for $50 iBooks.

I’m not a big fan of fireworks. They’re OK, but not something I’d make much effort to see. Irene has always told me how much more magnificent the fireworks displays in Taiwan are.

They aren’t. At least this one wasn’t, yet still the crowd ooooo’ed and ahhhhh’ed with each new burst. Then, as quickly as it began, and just as early, it ended, and the crowd dispersed.

Rather than brave the busses again, we decided to walk away from the scene before trying to catch a normal bus. Many other people had the same idea and we walked with a large crowd of people and scooters for over a mile before we reached Ximending station.

I hadn’t yet been to Ximending this trip and I was disappointed, but not too surprised, to see that Tower Records is gone although with seemingly all the other landmarks I’ve enjoyed in Taipei.

I’m sure Mayor Ma got himself a few votes tonight.

We stopped at McDonald’s on the way home and I tried the “Chicken Rice Burger” – that’s a chicken sandwich made with two compressed rice circles instead of bread. Irene tells me that it’s been so popular they’ve considered trying it in America.

Based on my experience, I’d say that was wishful thinking of the local press trying to make a “local boy makes it big” story. On the other hand, Ray Kroc supposedly once introduced some form of radish burger at McDonald’s that went over like… well, like you’d expect a radish burger to go over. Maybe it is true.

In this case the problem is that sandwiches in the form we know them have been doing just fine with bread for 250 years, there’s really no reason to use rice. It doesn’t hold together well and has to be served in a special wrapper so it won’t break up in your hands, and to my taster, just isn’t as flavorful as bread, either.

Well, here’s another entry where some spineless knucklehead will send me an anonymous comment calling me an tasteless American imperialist dog for liking western food better than Chinese, but, so be it. I do, and I’m not apologizing for it.

Late last night, I decided to get out of the cabin to do some uninterrupted writing. I had noticed a coffee shop in the lobby of thee resort, and while I didn’t have any desire to go there, coffee shops often have wireless internet access.

There is a picnic area with tables near the lobby, so I sat up shop there. I was immediately rewarded with internet access. It was the same mysterious network identifier as at Sun Moon Lake, CHT. I had assumed it was a hotel, but apparently not. Usually a common name like that means the default name on a particular brand of hardware. I’ve not heard of CHT and equally strange, it followed the same weird pattern as at Sun moon Lake, I could get a connection, but it would only last a few minutes, then disappear for several minutes, then reappear.

Here it disappeared a lot faster and stayed gone a lot longer, so that all I could do was one check of my e-mail to download my spam for the last couple of days. It’s very curious and I wonder what’s up with these connections. If anyone knows anything about CHT, let me know.

There was no milk bread at the Family Mart this morning to my disappointment and the breakfast buffet was the same. In fact, I’m convinced that the bowl of lettuce, now slightly brown, was exactly the same bowl of lettuce they served yesterday.

We checked out and loaded the luggage in the car, then walked into the Shitou Bamboo Forest. At this point, I’m going to stop called it the Shitou bamboo Forest. As soon as we were inside bamboo was still not in evidence.

I thought because we’d packed up the car and Mr. Huang and Irene knew what to expect of this place, Irene was hauling James in the stroller. In most forest places, the stroller isn’t very efficient as the number of stairs is prohibitive. We weren’t far into the park and Michelle spied the first bridge and she was off. It was at the bottom of steps, and the other side had steps rising up from it.

There’s a funny thing about Michelle’s behavior lately: She’s speaking Chinese quite effectively, and she’ll often say something to strangers in Chinese. When she’s with me, they’re amazed she speaks Chinese and then they just have to talk to her, and she clams up completely as they try desperately to get her to talk.

When she’s with her mom, they’re impressed that she speaks English, and she won’t talk to them, either.

Parents here are so desperate for this children to be able to speak English and the results are apparently mediocre. They probably don’t realize that kids are in their own way very practical. Michelle is constantly exposed to Chinese by her mother, but she knows that English communicates more effectively with her and me and everyone else back home. But all the while, she was obviously still learning.

Once she got here, she learned she had speak Chinese to be understood and after she watched 48 hours straight of the Disney channel in Chinese a little bit flipped in her head and she started using it. I suspect that with no matter how much studying these kids do, without a practical application, it just won’t be very effective.

I mention that at this part of the story because the bridge was busy and Michelle was weaving in and out of people’s legs and, at one point, apologized to an elderly gentleman for falling on his feet. She apologized in Chinese and headed off, but he was clearly impressed and followed her the rest of the way across the bridge talking to her, but she treated him as if he didn’t exist.

We went back across the bridge to Irene and I asked why she brought the stroller. Clearly she was more than a little annoyed, apparently her dad insisted that they use the stroller rather than carry him.

Michelle took off across the bridge and I followed. There was a fork in the trail one leading to a “University Pond” the other a “Giant Tree”. I asked Michelle which she wanted and we were off to the giant tree. Irene and grandpa were left far behind. The trail was nothing but steps and the signposts indicated that the giant tree was 2.4 km away.

When we were long out o sight of them, Irene called to tell me that she had gone back to the car to get the carrier and put the stroller away and that grandpa was waiting with James. Meanwhile Michelle and I had finally found some bamboo. She was busy looking for pandas when a panicked call from Irene came in saying her father and James were missing. She said her father had mentioned he wanted to see the University Pond and she was going to look for them there. Michelle and I headed back the way we came to meet her there.

I wasn’t worried at all at this point, but clearly Irene was. Grandpa wasn’t going anywhere without us, and she had the keys to his car. Unfortunately, he is one of the only two people in Taiwan without a cell phone.

Michelle wasn’t happy to leave without seeing a panda but she came. As we left, we passed a group of young teenagers, obviously a school outing. As we approached down the path, one of them said to the others, “Lao Wai!” (a slang term for foreigner) and they all lined up on the side of the trail and sang a song to us as we passed.

Their reaction was a mixture of surprise and embarrassment when were were just about past them all, I turned to Michelle and said to her, “xiao lao wai, lai la” (Little foreigner, come on.) They hadn’t considered the possibility that I might understand a word they said. That was fun.

The trail from the bridge is another .6 km to the University Pond – that’s .6 km of stairs. When we were about 3/4 of the way there, Michelle stopped in her tracks declaring, “It’s too hard, daddy. Carry me, please.”

Carrying her wasn’t an option, but luckily the top was right in sight and Irene, grandpa and James were all there.

The pond has a really interesting bamboo bridge, but it was closed for repairs, so our next destination was the “Sky Walk”. The Sky Walk is a new attraction at the park. According to Irene it’s a walkway high in the bamboo.

We left University Pond along the road. The signpost pointed to the left for the Sky Walk, so Mr. Huang headed right. When questioned, he showed us a map of the area. If we followed the road we were going, we’d come to a trail which would lead us to the Sky Walk. Because it followed a more direct route, it looked (on paper) like a shorter walk.

When we got on the trail, it was immediately obvious this was no shortcut. Unlike the road which sensibly went around the mountains, the trail headed over them. Eventually we sent Mr. Huang and James back by road while the rest of us continued on the trail. Michelle wanted to see the top of the hill, even though we told her it would be tough and no one would carry her.

Although this trail was nothing like the track that I tried yesterday, it was still difficult trail. The floor was mostly roots or muddy rocks and it switch-backed up the hill. We later learned that this trail was classified as the most difficult in the park, a “Category 3” or “Endurance” trail. We were all glad to see the end of it.

The Sky Walk is an interesting construct, it runs about 100 yards in a loop, about 40 feet in the air. It’s among the pines, not bamboo, though. Apart from that one small area Michelle and I went to there was no bamboo anywhere else that we could see in the park. As the Sky Walk looked like a bridge, Michelle was eager to go on it, although at its highest, she was a little nervous. I hate heights, but this thing looked so well built it should withstand a pretty earthquake, so I wasn’t concerned about it.

At the Sky Walk we encountered another group of school kids, this time younger than the last. They were commenting on me and so again as I passed, I spoke in Chinese to Michelle. The impact was equally dramatic. They just couldn’t believe I spoke Chinese. It’s so easy to impress around this place.

Before we left, I took Irene over to the bamboo. This time, Michelle wouldn’t leave and sat down near a “cave” waiting for the pandas to come back. I just didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d never see the pandas.

The trip back to Taipei was uneventful, in fact I slept through most of it.