Lone Locust Productions

Tag: Taiwan

  • How I Fell into a Rabbit Hole

    Sometimes I find it fascinating to think about how I get drawn off into a tangent, and just how far I’m willing to go once I’ve caught the scent.

    I’ve been contemplating what I plan to do with my time in Taiwan. And while I don’t think — for the most part — that there’s anything I’m doing here and now that I cannot do there, but I feel like there are new opportunities, and I should be thinking about it.

    I have another post (coming soon) that discusses that, but, I decided that I need to “re-visit” my memories of Taiwan over the years. Two things are certainly true: Taiwan has changed a lot since 1998, and things that shocked/amused/delighted/bewildred/disgusted me on earlier visits have become “ordinary” to me with familiarization. (Travel broadens the mind, doesn’t it?) Again, that’s for the other post, but I decided to look back at my journals/posts/videos ands perhaps use those memories to give me ideas for later.

    I also have some regrets. I’d been doing a public access TV show for several years when I first went to Taiwan, but that was a very different animal than travel videography, but I had my camera and I wanted to record memories.

    When I came home, I found myself telling the same stories, and I decided I’d try to do something with the video footage. I put together a 20-some minute travelogue that I think conveyed… well, not just Taiwan, but more importantly my reaction to it. In some ways, it’s more about me than Taiwan, but in 1998, Taiwan had pretty much zero mindshare with the people I knew, so everything presented was basically new to the intended audience: my friends and family.

    Even looking back, there are bits that make me cringe, but they are more about changes in me than anything else. Even the name, “Made in Taiwan” which seemed so fucking clever at the time, feels trite now. At the time though, I was pretty damned happy with the video, and it played well with the intended audience. It even later went on to play on local TV.

    There were many instances in original where I’m talking about something that I don’t have footage to cover, or that I don’t have Chu-Wan or myself in the footage to give a sense of narrative, and there are things that I left out because I just didn’t have suitable footage. My written narrative, An American Pizzahound in Taiwan, tells a different story, both true, but in writing I chose a different narrative path.

    But… the ol’ ego gets going and I started thinking, “Next time I’m going to do video so much better! Next time I’m going to cover it all!”

    …and I did, I shot tons of footage on the next trip where were did a huan dao (??) of the island, which I thought would be a perfect way to highlight Taiwan.1

    When I came home, I realized that what I’d shot was not just inadequate to the task I had set for myself, it wasn’t even as good as the footage I shot on my first trip.

    This put me off the whole, “Hey, I should do a video travelogue” on subsequent trips, although I did shoot footage on all my trips and have pushed out a few bits here and there. On our trip in 2015 for my brother-in-law’s wedding, and our 2019 trip, I vlogged the journeys, and those remain my most comprehensively covered visits to date.

    Here are three more things that are true: I have tons of footage from Taiwan, my skills as an editor have improved, and the technology I have available is vastly superior to what I had back then.

    I decided I would inventory my footage. I would see what I have, what its condition is, and what I’ve used previously and how, and then decide if I can salvage anything as part of a retrospective of my relationship with Taiwan. That relationship which has led me to moving to Taiwan this coming summer.

    …and then appeared the rabbit hole from Hell.

    I decided my first step should be to review Made in Taiwan and the source footage.

    And this is where it gets ugly. I cannot find the original final edit.

    Now, I mentioned that it had aired on local TV. I used it as an episode of the Fusion Patrol TV show back in 1999, I believe. And to do that, I made a new copy with Fusion Patrol branding and different music. The original version, never intended for public airing, used copyright music.

    I have a copy of the Fusion Patrol version, but it is of lower quality than the original, and I hate the music selection I chose for the TV version.

    What I do have in my possession are the original 8mm video tapes from the trip, which I have digitized but, like all videotape of that era are technically lower quality than SD television.

    It just so happens that, several months back, I was experimenting with that digitized copy. I was building shell scripts to use ffmpeg to scan the single file produced by digitizing the tape, and splitting it into individual files for each “scene” without re-encodoing it.

    I was doing that to make it possible to use Topaz Video to see if it was possible to upscale and clean up the original clips. Video upscaling relies on the quality of the source material, and, after a certain point, it simply cannot upscale low quality footage. My footage topped out at 720P. Most of the 720P footage looks “OK” without too many bizarre artifacts.

    So, I had a directory with all the individual clips from that trip, upscaled to 720P. I got an idea.

    If I loaded the TV version into Final Cut Pro, inside a 720P project, I could use the upscaled footage to create a clip-by-clip, frame accurate re-edit of the original. I’d just have to find each clip, find a synchronization point and line up the new footage like B-roll right over the top of the original. I would be re-creating the original faithfully with higher resolution video.

    Piece of cake! Right?

    Yes, but, no.

    That process would obscure any titles or graphics. Titles wouldn’t be a problem (I thought) but some of the graphics I created — I don’t even remember how I created them — would be too low-quality to use, so I had to set about recreating them.

    The most difficult was making traveling maps showing a moving progress around the island. Luckily, Apple Motion had me covered on that. With a royalty-free Taiwan map image, a bezier path, and a “write on” behavior, I was able to trace my train journeys on screen. They don’t look the same, but they convey the same concept.

    When I originally edited Made in Taiwan, I was using a PC. I had a no-name video capture card that came with a knock-off of Adobe Premiere. I don’t even remember it’s name, but it came with inbuilt titles, and I chose one that, upon reflection, I hate.

    I used lower thirds, and the titles flies in diagonally from the top to land at the bottom, then a bar of negativity slides in front of it inverting it to negative space.

    Oddly enough, Final Cut Pro doesn’t have that, nor do any of my title plugin packs. I had to choose a different one. In keeping with the spirit of the original, I chose one that’s way too elaborate, but not quite as awful.

    I faithfully went though the footage, I used cuts when there were cuts, and crossfades when there were crossfades — although for the life of me, I can’t figure out what the hell I was thinking when I made some of those choices. The titles and overlays cover the exact same duration on screen.

    But, I had to make some compromises. There’s one scene in the original where a pond full of koi are churning the surface as people above toss them food. There’s also a kid framed in the shot that’s a little close to the fish. In the narration, I commented that the fish would probably be just as happy if the kid fell in.

    I could not find that scene, neither in the upscales nor the original scenes. It seems that a glitch in the video tape caused that scene to be unsuitable for slicing up. I had another scene from a different angle which I just substituted, athough it does make the comment about the child falling in less meaningful.

    My technique for synchronizing the clips was to locate a precise frame in the aired version — for example, when a passing power pole first enters a scene. I would mark it, find the exact same spot on the new footage, mark that, then align the marks.

    About three times I found that glitches in the video caused the scenes to cut out early, and I was forced to “slip” the synchronization one way or the other a few frames to fit in the same time window. In one case, it was a whole second.

    And then there was the narration. Because this was a finished product, the narration, the music, and the background noises (because I chose not to remove them back in the day) are all on one track.

    Well, not problem, I thought. First, I can use my podcasting tools, in this case Auphonic, to take the audio track, strip out the music and the background noises, and enhance the quality of my narration.

    It did an OK job of it, but, parts failed miserably and would be unusable.

    That was a bit of a relief, really, because one of the “cringe” things I told you about was the narration. Somehow, simultaneously, I was trying to channel both my inner Michael Palin and David Attenborough. And failing at both.

    The upscaled footage still has the original audio, so I could include that in the new mix, but perhaps balance it a bit better. I transcribed a script of the video and recorded new narration in my natural voice.

    I did make three minor changes in the script. At one point I referred to a mudskipper as a “mutant.” This was unfair to the mudskipper, and I’m sure he was genetically sound for his species, so I changed that to “monster” in accordance with my reaction at seeing one of these beasties for the first time.

    I also noticed that, rather bizarrely, I had mixed between the use of metric and imperial measurements in the narration. In two places, I standardized the script on metric measurements as part of my personal policy of “Fuck You, Imperial Measurements!”

    All that was left was the music. I remember where I got the music, and, indeed, when I hear those songs in my music library, I can see in my mind where I used them in the video. I could have recreated that, but, it was wrong to use the music back then, and it’s wrong to use it now.

    I also could have reassembled the alternate music, but as I said, I hate it. It was a compromise that I didn’t want to make at the time, and it didn’t convey the “feel” that I was going for.

    Once again, 28 years later, I have more resources. Personally, I subscribe to Envanto, mostly for licensed stock footage, but they also have a collection of music tracks that can be cleared.

    The original music did lean heavily on (arguably cliched) traditionally-Asian-sounding tracks, but they were moody. Keeping with that creative choice I ploughed through dozens of tracks on Envato until a found a few that were of a similar style and feel.

    And having buttoned all the pieces together, I realized that I needed subtitles, so I did that.

    I had Perplexity analyze the subtitles and generate chapter markers, summaries, and SEO-optimized A/B titles. And finally, I gave Nano Banana a few photos from the trip and had it generate a “YouTube Thumbnail optimized for clicks” (And who but the Google AI would know what the Google YouTube algorithm thinks is clickable?)

    They’re definitely both a bit bullshit, but they amuse me at how “Bullshit YouTube” they look and feel.

    I should produce Chinese subtitles because conventional wisdom is Taiwanese like to watch foreigners in Taiwan more than foreigners like watching videos about Taiwan. Chinese subtitles help with that.

    On the flip side, I don’t eat anything in this video, and that, as any YouTuber in Taiwan can tell you, is the kiss of death for a video in Taiwan.

    Maybe on the weekend, I’ll run the English subtitles through a translator, then get Chu-Wan to proofread them. I can always add them later.

    …and that is how I fell into and climbed back out of the rabbit hole.

    Links mentioned in this video:

    1. A “huan dao (??)” means a “round the island trip” and it’s something you hear people talking about, although I don’t know if there’s any cultural significance to the idea ↩︎

  • Taiwan (2024) – Data Only Mode

    My last trip to Taiwan was in 2019, the year before the pandemic. I owned an iPhone X, and the only option I had to get inexpensive local phone/data service was to secure a physical SIM card from a local carrier and swap it out for the one in my phone. That system worked, and had been working for several years, going all the way back to my Motorola RAZR.

    But times, they were a’changing. Back in the early days, you’d pop into any 7-Eleven in Taiwan, and purchase a prepaid SIM off the rack. On later trips, you could still buy them at 7-Eleven, but they were behind the counter, and they recorded your identity information before they could sell you one.

    On yet a later trip, even that option was gone. Too many people bought prepaid cards as burners for criminal activity — and this is why we can’t have nice stuff. Our only choice was to go to a local telco outlet, and this was a pain in the ass. My wife was able to (relatively) easily get signed up, she has a Taiwan identity card, but I don’t, and they weren’t really equipped to deal with foreign passports.

    They suggested the best way was to get a SIM at the airport when you arrive — not much help since we were already in the country, AND the booth that sells SIMs was on the outside of immigration and customs. We got it sorted out, but, we knew what to do next time.

    Unfortunately, as with almost every flight I’ve ever arrived in Taiwan on, it was somewhere in the 1:00AM-4:00AM area, and the booths were closed. It was back to the Telco outlet for an entire morning getting setup.

    When Apple put an eSIM — as a secondary line — in iPhones starting in 2018, I was ecstatic at the possibility of getting a line digitally. Unfortunately, in 2019, I still didn’t have a phone that supported eSIM, and, as it turned out, carriers in Taiwan weren’t yet supporting it anyway — or at least they claimed they weren’t. Adoption of eSIM was a bit slow because carriers really didn’t want to adopt them, it helped overcome some of the sweet, sweet lock-in that they loved so much. Fortunately on that 2019 trip, the booth was open and we got physical SIMs in the airport upon arrival.

    But I was looking forward to the day when I all had to do was scan a QR code.

    All that is prologue to this post. It has been FIVE LONG YEARS till I’ve had the chance to try out eSIMs on foreign travel. Just days prior to the trip I got an iPhone 16 Pro, which supports 8 eSIMs (although only 2 can be active at any given time.) Mine doesn’t even have a physical SIM slot anymore, so I got my first eSIM from Verizon when I got the phone.

    The “good” thing about waiting so long between trips is that eSIM support is now widespread, and there are various services that allow you to purchase them right from your phone before you travel — although that comes with a caveat. We’ll come back to that in a minute.

    My eldest child has “moved” to Taiwan, or at least is on an extended study program for 6 months to a year at NTNU in Taipei. Because they were planning to be there for some time, and because they have family, they got added onto my brother-in-law’s family plan, so they have a local phone number and data plan.

    Now let’s come to that caveat. As far as I can tell, these online travel eSIM sites sell data-only local eSIMs. You will not have a phone number locally.

    Do you need a phone-capable one?

    Nooo…? Maybe?

    Internet wisdom says, “no,” rather decisively.

    Back in the pre-eSIM days, your choices were probably limited. If you wanted to stay connected and have data locally, you had to swap out your SIM, meaning you got a local number and you lost your home country number for the duration. In a case like this, Google Voice would probably be perfect.

    I don’t know if its “perfect” or not. I never get or make phone calls.

    People who know me know not to call me, unless there’s an emergency like, for example, arterial bleeding. In which case, I say, “Fine. That’s a good reason to pick up the phone and call… fucking 911. After that, text me.” So for that reason, I never needed my home country number and I never needed the local country number, either. All I ever got on that were calls in Mandarin for presumably wrong numbers or sales/scam calls.

    For me, “texting” has become Apple iMessage almost exclusively, and as a fall back there’s half a dozen other services that offer Instant Messaging. Plus the fact that my phone supports two active lines, I don’t even have to swap out my US-based Verizon line, I could just temporarily de-activate it, and, in an emergency, turn it back on and let the roaming charges be damned. (If you have Verizon’s travel program activated on your phone, answering or making a call, sending a text message, or using cellular data incurs a $10 charge, but you are then free to use roaming without further charge for 24 hours.)

    The long and short of this is that Internet wisdom says, “no,” and I was 100% onboard with that idea.

    My wife: not so much.

    She felt she needed a phone to keep in touch with family and friends while in Taiwan. I asked her some simple questions:

    Q: “You call your parents every week. How do you call them?”
    A: “Facetime or Line.”

    Q: “When you talk to your child, how do you call them?”
    A: “Facetime.”

    Q: “When you talk to your brother, how do you call him?”
    A: “Line.”

    Q: “What about your friends, Nora, Phoebe, and Judy?”
    A: “Line.”

    Q: “Why do you need a local number?”
    A: “I guess I don’t, I just feel like I should have one. Maybe. Maybe not?”

    At first, we compromised. I would use Holafly (one of the eSIM services, and I’ll come back to why I chose them in a minute) and Chuwan would purchase a local eSIM with local phone service. That isn’t what happened.

    Why Holafly?

    So far as I knew, no one I had personal contact with had used any of the eSIM services, although on various podcasts, I had heard of people with satisfactory experiences with Holafly, Airalo, and Saily. Holafly had one thing going for it that the others did not: Unlimited Data. You know how that goes — actually limited high speed data, falling back on lower speed unlimited, which I felt would be OK given that WiFi is also quite prevalent in Taiwan, but I though that would be better than being stranded high and dry if I exceeded one of the limited plans.

    Just before the trip, Chuwan realized that we’d be arriving during the “cell phone booth closed” window at the airport, and the fact that Holafly had a steep discount for purchasing a second eSIM for a friend or family member, convinced her to go with data-only.

    Install and Setup

    The transaction was painless, and installation was easy, and well-documented.

    A couple caveats that they will warn you about, and I recommend you heed: You must have internet service to install the eSIM. Don’t wait till you need it to try to get it. Install it in advance, and just keep it turned off.

    Holafly’s instructions, which are very clear, documents how to turn off your local carrier’s data, and turn on Holafly’s data service. Following their configuration, you local line is still active. Whether you want that to be the case is up to you. In my case, I just deactivated the Verizon eSIM.

    Note, this actually caused problems with Apple iMessage, which was tied to my phone number, and I had to futz around with that for a while to get it to be primarly email-based. If I’d left the line on, this wouldn’t have happened.

    When our plan took off from San Francisco, we turned off our Verizon eSIMs, and when we arrived in Taipei, we turned on the Holafly eSIMs. It was smooth, except for the iMessage glitch, which didn’t manifest right away.

    Performance

    Chunghwa telecom map of coverage in Taiwan. The western side of the island is coveraged, the central area, not much, and another stretch along the eastern seaboard.

    Everything worked great for the first 2 and a half days in Taipei, but then we headed south into the central part of Taiwan. Holafly used Chunghwa telecom, and this image is Chunghwa’s network coverage. The stars represent where we spent time. Taipei is the capital of Taiwan and, with it’s environs, the largest city. As you would expect, coverage is excellent.

    Taichung is another major city, with excellent coverage, and, per the map, the entire space between the cities has excellent coverage. In fact the western seaboard contains the bulk of coverage.

    For a quick geography lesson on Taiwan: The western coastal plains are the best, most arable land. It’s flat and relatively easy going. it is were most of Taiwan’s population lives. The central mountains, are absolutely brutal, almost uninhabitable, and they plunge straight into the eastern coast. Still, some towns and cities cling to some of the better spots on the east, and there’s a nice rift valley that’s also inhabited. There are only three roads that can get you across the mountains. (There’s a fourth, but it really skits the mountains rather than crosses them.) I’ve traveled across all three. One is no fun. The second was the most frightening road I’ve ever been on. That is, until I was driven across the third, which is the kind of road that probably fills a lot of pants with shit. After that crossing, we all vowed to never travel on that road again. Two of them have been significantly damaged and closed (and, in cases, re-opened, re-closed, etc.) by earthquakes and typhoons. The bottom line is, there’s not much up there except beautiful scenery.

    The one place on the map towards the center of the island is Puli, and nearby Sun Moon Lake, which is in the mountains, but the area isn’t terrible for human habitation.

    Our cellular service was great until we got a ways up the highway to Sun Moon Lake. At the time, I was certain it was spotty coverage, but looking at the coverage map, the roads to Puli and Sun Moon Lake have solid coverage. The behavior was exactly like you’d expect on a moving bus moving in an out of cellular range. Signal-no signal-signal-no signal-signal-no signal, ad nauseam.

    But when we reached Sun Moon Lake, the problem didn’t go away. Yes, it wasn’t as frequent, perhaps just a few times per hour, but it clearly wasn’t because we were moving.

    And this is the way it stayed for the duration of the trip.

    What happened? I don’t know. I can only speculate. Did our problem begin because we were on the bus? Or was that a coincidence? Should we have rebooted our phones once we returned to Taipei? (I wish I’d thought of that at the time!)

    Did we both hit our high-speed data cap at around the same time, and the slow speed data was so pathetic as to be nonexistent at times? I don’t think it’s this one because it wasn’t just a case of the data being slow, the actual signal disappeared — no bars.

    Here’s my best guess: Network traffic shaping. Services like Holafly contract with a local carrier, in this case Chunghwa Telecom, to provide service. In much the same way that Mint Mobile in the US uses T-Mobile’s network. I don’t know what type of service guarantee their contract with Chungwha has, but you can bet that they’re second-class citizens compared to Chunghwa subscribers.

    [Content note: It’s now been months since I wrote the previous portion of this narrative, and it has languished in “Drafts” from that time, forgotten and unloved. I’m picking up the story here in probably much less detail because the details aren’t as fresh in my.]

    Above I stated that it remained this way for the “duration of the trip.” I don’t mean for the duration of the trip to Sun Moon Lake, it remained that way for the entire trip to Taiwan. What had been fantastic service when we started out, degraded into just useable to not-at-all-useable at times.

    It felt as if we had hit some barrier, and we were permanently second-class citizens.

    As we got to the last two or three days, I considered dumping the Holafly eSIM and grabbing one from Airalo or Saily to if the problem went away, but in the end, I opted to activating the data on my Verizon international roaming and pay $10/day for it.

    That worked great, once I remembered to switch the “primary” mobile data designation from Holafly to Verizon.

    Next trip, I’ll try a different eSIM provider, and go with shorter duration service and purchase multiple eSIMs to cover the trip – perhaps even alternating providers to compare them.

    …and, I’ll remember to use my Verizon data when necessary.

  • Taiwan(2024) – Day Twelve – The Elephant in the City

    October 16, 2024

    Last full day in Taiwan!

    Tomorrow, we must leave at 8:00 AM to get to the airport, so there will be nothing but the business of travel.

    An informational kiosk on a street corner

    Chuwan and I got out reasonably early and had breakfast at WMD. Near the restaurant, there’s a little kiosk-like thing at the corner of Jiankang Rd & Baoqing St. If I recall correctly, it’s been there since at least 2019, but I didn’t know what it was. It looks like an informational kiosk in Chinese. (The picture included here is lifted from Apple Street View.)

    Today, I was casually looking at it and realized it had a camera on it, and even though Chuwan reads Chinese, she still wasn’t sure exactly what it was for.

    Nonetheless, we had it take a picture of us, and it gave us a QR code, which allowed us to download this picture of us on the street corner. The picture is superimposed on top of an image of a topiary bear mowing the lawn.

    Us, superimposed over an image of a topiary bear mowing a lawn

    We have absolutely no clue where that bear is — it’s not anywhere in sight of where we took the picture — nor why they would want to superimpose us over that bear. We now have this picture as a memory of the bear we’ve never seen.

    Taiwan is a quirky place.

    Chuwan left to meet with Melz and go to the textile trade show, and I was left contemplating my list of things I wanted to do.

    Although my back hurt yesterday, I didn’t take any pain medicine until bedtime. I hoped my luck would hold out again today, and so I hatched what might be the worst possible plan for the day: To climb Xiangshan.

    Xiangshan means “Elephant Mountain,” and if you’ve ever seen a panoramic skyline view of Taipei, it was probably taken from Xiangshan. It is situated within the city and very near the upscale area that boasts Taipei 101.

    Guidebooks will tell you it’s a short (they sometimes even use the word “easy”) walk to the top, made more “accessible” by stairs. If you are unfamiliar with Taiwan, you might not realize that all the mountains are steep as hell. I knew that, but I still didn’t have any clue what I was letting myself in for.

    I arrived at Xiangshan MRT station, the nearest to the trailhead, at around 11:00 AM, and a new wrinkle was added to the equation — for the first time since we arrived in Taiwan, it was going to be a rainy day. The clouds were moving in, and the sprinkling had begun.

    I don’t know how long the Xiangshan Trail is. Various places give it lengths from 0.7 to 1.5 km and a height of only 183 m. I suspect the length variance depends on if you start at the park near the MRT station or at the first set of steps on the trail as you leave the road.

    “Trail” is a misleading word. It conjures up images of winding paths amongst shady trees and nature’s splendor. In Taiwan, and, indeed, at Xiangshan, “trail” means rock stairs leading up the side of a steep mountain. I counted one flat section of the trail that was longer than 3 m. Any other flat areas were just landings.

    Rock stairs leading up
    Rock stairs leading up
    Rock stairs leading up
    Rock stairs looking down
    Rock stairs leading up
    Rock stairs leading up
    Rock stairs leading up
    Rock stairs leading up

    Narrow, steep, wet, and mossy stairs climb through the jungle, and in most places, it is impossible to see anything except the trees immediately surrounding you. It was dumping down rain now, too.

    AED machine along the trail

    It took 45 minutes to reach the top, and along the way, I passed two AED machines positioned along the trail. I’ve never been on a trail where the managers felt defibrillation was required before. If it’s meant to be reassuring, it isn’t. It’s downright scary.

    By the time I reached the top, my Apple Watch had registered that I had climbed 34 flights of stairs. I felt every one of the steps in both my back and my knees.

    At one point, when I reached the first photography landing, two young Americans came along and asked me to take their picture, which I did. As they continued on up the mountain, I thought to myself, “I did those guys a favor, and in return, they might have to carry me down off this rock.”

    I rested a few more minutes, then started out again. Soon, I caught up with them again, and just about the same time, an Australian woman came down from above.

    Seeing our tired and defeated faces, she said, “Hang in there, guys, you’ve almost made it to the top.”

    It was what I needed at that moment because I was on the verge of admitting defeat. I probably wouldn’t have quit, but it was crossing my mind in that moment.

    Me, at the top of Xiangshan, Taipei 101 can be seen behind me in the clouds.

    The view from the top was good, but the weather wasn’t cooperating. The rain was driving, the wind blowing, and the clouds were obscuring much of the skyline.

    The pictures I took from the lower landing were better because the clouds were only wafting about Taipei 101 then, making for a more dramatic photo.

    The climb down was much worse. My knees were not cooperating at all, and I found myself side-stepping down, one stairstep at a time, while clutching the railing — when there was a railing.

    Stairs looking down

    I witnessed a curious phenomenon twice on the stairs. Whereas most people were taking sensible and cautious steps down the mountain, I saw two different women, at two different times, walking backward down the stairs.

    You couldn’t pay me to walk backward down those stairs. Madness.

    It took another 45 minutes to get down the hill. The going was tougher, but I didn’t have to stop and rest. Also, the rain had stopped, making it a bit easier.

    It was now late for lunch, and I was starving, but I was faced with the daunting (to me) task of trying to navigate the purchase of food. There’s always 7-Eleven, but I have been trying to stretch my Mandarin and get outside my comfort zone.

    That didn’t stop me from contacting Chuwan to see if they were done at the trade show. I thought they might want to meet up for lunch, but they weren’t ready, and I would still have to find my own.

    I’m always happy to take the path of least resistance, so I hatched a plan. Taipei 101 was nearby, is in a more affluent area, and hosts several international companies. It has a shopping mall in the lower levels and, below that, a food court and grocery store that caters to a more global clientele. It’s likely one of the most English-friendly places in town. I was still going to try to use Chinese, but a reliable fallback was appealing.

    The food court was absolutely packed. I circled the entire area several times, and there wasn’t any available seating. Crowds of people with trays of food circled like zombies searching for brains as they looked for a seat, and I hadn’t even negotiated to get food yet.

    I was also a bit embarrassed by my appearance. Typically, I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone thinks, but Taipei 101 was loaded with men and women dressed professionally, down from their offices on their lunch hour. I was dressed down for hiking, drenched in rain and sweat, looked like death warmed over, and I would certainly have to share a table with other diners. Even I thought this was over the line.

    I bailed out and caught the subway back to our home base area, hoping to spy something or try my luck at Yoshinoya or Sukiya.

    Lu•Rou•Fan (braised pork scrapings over rice) is a beloved Taiwanese dish. I’ve nibbled at it a couple of times on past trips and was neither offended nor impressed with it, but it was always served to me as a side dish to something else (like a pork chop or a chicken leg) and in very small quantities — like someone sprinkling a light garnish on rice.

    Although I never wrote it down on my “to-eat” list for this trip, I had decided before we left to go somewhere and try it properly.

    Formosa Chang Logo

    Independent of this decision, a restaurant chain caught my attention over my last few trips. Featuring distinctive artwork of an Asian man with an unusually prominent full beard, I had begun to notice their distinctive signs, which had risen above the noise of all the signs assaulting my senses. In English, the name is Formosa Chang, but I had jokingly started calling it “Beardy Chang.”

    It didn’t appear particularly foreign-accessible, and I’d never really gotten close enough even to know what they sold. There was one near our Airbnb and I asked Chuwan what it was. “They’re famous for their bian dang (That’s “bento” for people more familiar with the Japanese term, or a boxed lunch, usually taken on the train) and their luroufan.”

    “Oh, really?” I thought, and packed that away for future use. Today might be the day.

    Another little tidbit I learned is that in Chinese, their name isn’t “Formosa Chang.” It’s “Bearded Chang.” Since I’d been calling him Beardy Chang in my head for years, this amused me no end. That is good logo design!

    As I passed, there was no one there — no customers, and, more importantly, no obvious employees. Sideling up from the blindside, I approached the posted menu. It was in Chinese, of course, but it was a picture menu.

    Chinese-language picture menu for Formosa Chang

    Nothing was obviously a serving a luroufan, and it seemed to be a boxed meal menu. That wasn’t a problem, I was very hungry, and would have eaten a chicken leg or pork chop, but I was hoping to find a meal that featured, as its main course, luroufan. There were a couple that looked possible, but I don’t know the character for “lu” and I was hesitant.

    …and then the employee spied me.

    She immediately came to the window to help me. Realizing that I was looking at the menu, she pulled out a laminated menu and handed it to me. “Oh, excellent, they’ve got English menus!”

    Nope. It was the same as on the wall. I was committed, and I was going to go for it; I would try to communicate in Chinese. “Nimen you mei you luroufan?” (Do you have luroufan?)

    “You a,” (We have it) she replied, thankfully realizing I was not conversant and keeping her answers simple. I expected her to point out which of the likely meals was the luroufan, but instead, she reached into a drawer and rummaged around for another menu. She took the other menu back, handed me the new one, and then pointed to a picture of a bowl of luroufan.

    OK, let’s do this. “Xie Xie. Wo yao yige wan.” (Thank you. I’d like one bowl.)

    Again, all props to her, she kept it dead simple. “Yao xiao wan haishi da wan ma?” (Do you want a small or large bowl?) (She also pointed at the prices for the large and small bowls as she asked.)

    I had no concept of how big these bowls would be, nor if I would like the food I was buying. Erring on the side of caution, I went small. “Xiao wan.” (Small bowl)

    Me with a bag of food in front of Beady Chang's

    This was the first I felt like I’d made a misstep, because she looked at me oddly for a moment, and then countered with, “Yao dan ma?” (Do you want an egg?) While she pointed at the eggs on the menu. I’m not sure if it was a tea egg or a century egg, but I wasn’t feeling that adventurous.

    “Bu yao, xie xie.” (No, thanks)

    She told me how much it was, which was not much, I paid, and she gave me a bag of food, and off I went back to the Airbnb feeling pretty damned self-satisfied with myself.

    a small bowl of luroufan

    Back at the Airbnb, I figured out what the misstep was: A small luroufan is very small—definitely a side dish item rather than a main dish. I devoured it because I was hungry and also because it was very good. I enjoyed every bite of it except for one weird meat-colored vegetable (seen on the left side of this picture) that was absolutely revolting.

    I would eat luroufan again, but ensure I got a larger portion next time.

    When Chuwan and Melz returned to my in-laws’ place, I was called over. It was time for one last family dinner. In consideration of me, the family would go to a nearby Japanese/Tonkatsu restaurant for dinner.

    That is until I got there and found out that my mother-in-law did not want to go, so they ordered tonkatsu for takeout instead. They don’t actually have enough table space in their house to support nine people, so that was a bit comical.

    Was it good? It was OK. Was it tonkatsu? No. How can it be tonkatsu without tonkatsu sauce? It was yet another Japanese-style pork cutlet, like we had at Sun Moon Lake.

    It’s the thought that counts, right?

    Tomorrow morning will just be a short farewell in the morning before we head off to the airport, so there were lots of tears this evening. These trips always seem to end in tears. I wish there were something I could do or say to ameliorate it, but human emotions are not subject to logic.

  • Taiwan (2024) – Day Eleven – Eating Away at Vacation

    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.

    Cong You Bing (Scallion pancake) with a bite out of it
    Cong You Bing

    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.

    Wenzhou Street Scallion Pancakes storefront

    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.

    Narrow alleyway at Four Four South Village. Two humans stand at a distance for scale.

    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.

    The three of us at Ichiran Ramen

    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.

    a bowl of Ichiran ramen

    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.

  • Taiwan (2024) – Day Ten – Biking for Food

    Monday, October 14, 2024

    I’ve said it before, but I think this one will be a short one!

    Today was a bit of a “down day” after yesterday’s excitement. Melz was back in school, and Chuwan and I had no plans for the day.

    We rented YouBikes and headed out for breakfast. We stopped at Sukiya for breakfast. Now this was a necessary stop. I’m a big fan of Yoshinoya, and I love gyudon. Gyudon is workman’s food. Cheap and filling.

    A bowl of gyudon

    The few places selling gyudon in Phoenix treat it like it’s a rare gourmet dish from Japan and price it accordingly. The one place remotely near me in Phoenix sells it for $14 bowl. A standard bowl in Taiwan equates to $3.40.

    I go to Yoshinoya every time we go to Taiwan, but this is the first trip I’ve noticed Sukiya, which is a competing Japanese chain to Yoshinoya. I’ve never tried them or even heard of them until this trip.

    On Day Three, I went there for the first time, but in a fit of uninhibited craziness, I didn’t try the plain gyudon. I went with gyudon with cheese. It was interesting, good even, but it wasn’t a fair comparison to Yoshinoya. It was absolutely essential that I go to Sukiya and try the plain gyudon before we left.

    Chuwan was happy to go along and have a full Japanese-style breakfast with fish and a variety of small plate items. It was all under $10 between us, and I had a larger portion of gyudon to boot. I put it as neither better nor worse than Yoshinoya, but it was delicious.

    Honkai Starrail artwork on a Pizza Hut in Taiwan

    After we ate, Chuwan had what she called a “crazy idea” (and it was.) She plays a game called Honkai Starrail, and Pizza Hut Taiwan is currently running a cross-promotion with the game. Chuwan proposed that we ride the bikes to the nearest Pizza Hut where she could take pictures of Honkai Starrail decorations on the restaurant.

    Crazy, but harmless, and an excuse to ride the bike more, so I went along.

    After she snapped her pictures, we continued until we came back to Hung Rui Chen (see also Day Three) and bought some more sandwiches to stick in the fridge at our Airbnb. Plus, it gave me an excuse to ride the bike more.

    Me on an eBike

    Aware that we had not yet managed to eat at Din Tai Fung, Chuwan had been monitoring the average wait times at the various locations. She had decided that the Din Tai Fung in the A11 Building of Shin Kong Mitusukoshi was the one that usually had the shortest wait time.

    We contacted Melz to see if they wanted to meet near the restaurant.

    Buses in Taipei are frequent and go pretty much everywhere. Historically (for me, that means in the years I’ve been going to Taiwan), they’ve also been illogically routed, with multiple different buses going to the same place via different routes. The routes are circuitous. There are multiple different bus companies. They drive like maniacs. A single bus stop can have as many as ten or more different bus routes servicing it, and, of course, the signage was entirely in Chinese characters. The buses also don’t seem to run on any meaningful schedule. They follow extended loops but don’t have scheduled times to be at the stops. They just get there when they complete the next loop. Depending on the route’s popularity, there may be more than one bus on the same route, cutting the interval time down.

    It was virtually impenetrable for a visiting foreigner. I avoided buses like the plague unless Chuwan was leading the way.

    But things have changed for the better.

    Many of the bus stops now have digital signs showing how long until the buses on all the routes arrive next. You still need to know which bus routes will get you where you want, but that is now solved by the fact that Apple Maps now has public transit routing info for Taipei (Google Maps does, too, but it’s Google, so fuck ’em!)

    To get to Shin Kong Mitsukoshi A11 we decided to take the bus because the subway would require three trains and two transfers. One of those transfers would have been at a bitch of a station, where you get off the train two or three stories underground, then transfer to a train that requires you to go three stories above ground, and then back down underground on the next transfer.

    I decided today was the day I would figure out which bus to take!

    Apple Maps also had the bus arrival times, presumably fed by the same data feed that updates the digital signs at the bus stops. Because the bus routes are so plentiful and follow many different routes but cross over many of the same destinations, this leads to the weird situation where if you ask Apple Maps for a route now, it may walk you to bus stop A and then tell you to grab bus X, but if you wait a minute or two, it may tell you to walk to bus stop B and catch bus Y. A minute later, it will be different again.

    That lead to more than a little anxiety on my part because, there is one thing certain about Apple Maps routing directions: If they tell you it’s a 9-minute walk somewhere, it most certainly is not a 9-minute walk. But if the best route is so contingent on timing down to a minute or two, will you be catching the best bus?

    I decided to wait till we got to the bus stop before asking what the best route was. That worked perfectly. The buses have also upped their automated “announcements” of stops game, often including English when appropriate.

    I knew which bus to get on, and I knew when to get off, and I could double-check it by following along on my phone. Perfect.

    Note to visitors to Taiwan: I just watched a YouTube video where a family tried to catch a bus, and they were mystified as to why the bus just drove past them when they were at the stop. They speculated that the bus was out of service. They probably did not know that the buses won’t stop unless they’re letting someone off or you flag them down.

    All hail the bus!

    There was a wait at the door of Din Tai Fung, even though we arrived as they opened, but it was only about 5 minutes, and the food was excellent, as always. I really could eat here every day, but they’re not cheap. There’s one opening in Phoenix next year, and I fear what it will do to my budget.

    Honeybee the robot

    This location had a little robot that showed us to our table. This is the same type of robot used by Kura Sushi to serve drinks. One wonders why Din Tai Fung uses it for a different purpose than what it has clearly been designed to do. (In the picture, you can see the “I’m Honeybee, please follow me” sign on the tray where you place food or drinks for delivery.)

    After lunch, there was a temporary(?) Pokémon store in the complex, so we went there at my wife’s and child’s insistence.

    I had a bit of a sad moment while wandering the Pokémon store. I overheard a man explaining to a woman that these Pokémon they were looking at were Taiwan-exclusive products.

    It was a sad moment because I have been working very hard on learning my Mandarin lately, and I have been trying to listen to people on the streets and the trains and pay attention when my in-laws are talking, and I am making some progress; however, this man wasn’t speaking Chinese. He was obviously Taiwanese but spoke rudimentary Japanese to the woman. I picked up more Japanese than Chinese.

    For 26 years, I’ve been exposed to Chinese and have been trying to learn it (admittedly, most of that time, not aggressively). I haven’t taken a Japanese course in over 27 years, but I still picked up more Japanese in that one conversation that I can after several hours of listening to the Taiwanese people. Disheartening. My brain has clearly ossified.

    We took a break for the afternoon.

    My dinner plan in a nutshell was: God dammit, I’m going to eat at a fucking McDonald’s, and they’re not going to stop me.

    I’m not even a big fan of McDonald’s; it’s just been shitting me that every time I try to go, they’re too packed to have a seat.

    McDonald's restaurant at night

    Melz was up for it, and Chuwan suggested a plan. We rented YouBikes and rode to McDonald’s near her parents’ old new house. It was a two-story restaurant that we used to go to for breakfast with some regularity. It was neither near a subway line nor any major urban nexus points.

    When we got there, they had eliminated the second story and converted the location to take-out only. The pandemic has much to answer for.

    Melz located the next-nearest McDonald’s, and we continued riding into the night.

    The next one was about 1.8 km away along a major road, but when we got there… it was 9:00 PM and packed but, by sharing a table (common), we were able to get three seats to eat.

    My aim has been to have the fried chicken at McDonald’s. On previous trips, it was pretty damned good, although, on our last trip, everyone felt the quality had significantly declined. Hoping that was just an anomaly, I wanted to try again.

    Me, wearing plastic gloves, eating messy fried chicken in a McDonald's

    And then my brain went haywire when I saw they were selling “K Chicken,” which was Korean-style fried chicken. I ordered that instead. You know you are in trouble when they serve you your food with a pair of complimentary plastic food service gloves.

    It was messy and it wasn’t good, and it seemed that the underlying chicken wasn’t very good either. It was a lot of effort for a very disappointing meal. If there’s one thing you can say about McDonald’s, it’s that it’s not supposed to be a lot of effort.

    We ended the evening walking to the nearest subway station and returning home, sadder and a little wiser.

    Only two more full days are left in Taiwan, and we have no plans for either day.

    *Google Maps is far more prevalent in Taiwan than Apple Maps, and you’ll end up using it from time to time whether you like it or not. Google Maps also has one obvious and very helpful advantage over Apple Maps. Google and Apple will both show you where the YouBike stations are, but Google Maps will tell you how many bikes are available and if there are any open spaces to dock your already-rented bike.

  • Taiwan (2024) – Day Seven – A Day

    Friday, October 11, 2024

    Sometimes, I look over my notes for a day, and I think, “This was a nothing day. I can bang out this narrative in 500 words or less.”

    Let’s see how that goes, shall we?

    Double-Ten may have fallen on a Thursday, but that doesn’t mean everyone gets a four-day weekend, at least not government workers and students. Melz was back in class from 8 – 11 AM, so Chuwan and I were on our own for breakfast.

    There were several breakfast places right around the corner from the in-laws’ old house with some decent breakfasts, and I suggested we go there. One place, in particular, had a good spaghetti breakfast. (I can get behind any place that serves spaghetti for breakfast. I do not believe that your stomach can tell time, and chafe at the notion of restaurants having a special limited breakfast menu.)

    Chuwan knew which restaurant I was talking about and led the way… right past the restaurant I was talking about. Chuwan tells me I’m confused. We got the spaghetti breakfast at Lane Toast, which is two or three doors down from My Warm Day – two restaurants with such generically unmemorable names that I honestly could not remember either’s name. What I could remember was the very distinct corner building in which we had spaghetti.

    Chuwan seems to think they swapped locations. Who knows? Maybe they did. It seems a little strange, but maybe they did. We went to Lane Toast.

    And all they had was fucking QR code ordering, and we couldn’t get internet that was fast enough to open the menu. We got up and left in disgust.

    Now, my guess is that if you asked, you could probably order the old-fashioned way, which is to write your order on a pre-printed order sheet, but I wasn’t up to asking a question like that, and Chuwan wasn’t having it. I’m not sure if she’s more fed up with QR code menus or the somewhat questionable internet we’ve been experiencing since we returned to Taipei.

    Hash browns, a wrapped sandwich, two cups of tea, some soup and lumps of something.

    We went to Weapons of Mass Destruction—er, sorry, My Warm Day, or “WMD” as it’s branded all over the place. They also had QR code ordering, but they also had the obvious ordering menus as you walked in the door. Chuwan grabbed one on the way in. They also had free Wi-Fi, which, if you think about if you’re going to use QR code ordering, you should ensure the infrastructure is guaranteed for your customers to use.

    So, they had spaghetti, but neither what I remembered, nor what I wanted, so I had a chicken croissant, and some decently-made hash browns that would have been great if they’d had any salt in the place.

    Apart from breakfast, it was a slow morning where we did nothing.

    At lunch, the plan was to meet up with Melz after school and have lunch (because, yes, apparently all one does in Taiwan is bounce around from one meal to the next) at Din Tai Fung.

    We met Melz at the National Taiwan Normal University and grabbed YouBikes. I’d armed myself with the necessary info (and preparation work) on YouBike rental that I was able to use my US credit card and check out a bike.

    We rode to Din Tai Fung, which had an hour’s wait for a table. Melz and I both said, “fuck that. We went nearby for an Emperor’s Happy Pork Chop, which was delicious, as always.

    Not to complicate things, as I’ve already given you my in-laws home arrangement, but prior to their old home they actually had another home which was supplied (more or less) to them by the Catholic Church because of the charitable organization they ran. This is actually where my wife grew up, and where I’ve spent most of my trips to Taiwan, also.

    This was an opportunity to wander down familiar streets, and one of those was Yongkang Street, which is a famous tourist destination for (you guessed it) food.

    Sign saying Yong Kang

    I had noticed this trend last time, but it was much worse this time. They whole area has been overrun with businesses selling crap, and many restaurants have been pushed out and moved. Honestly, you know you’re in trouble when you have to start with the branding. This Yong Kang Street sign is new.

    I think everyone experiences that feeling when you return somewhere that you thought of as home, and it just doesn’t (can not) feel the same because it’s changed. Taiwan has never been my home, but I’m getting that feeling in spades. I can only image how it’s hitting my wife.

    (As an aside, the other day when we were doing something that made no sense to me, she turned to me and said, “I’m as much a foreigner here as you are.”)

    Chuwan then suggested we go to an area where she’d seen a bunch of toy stores. Melz was up for that, and I always love a good toy store, so we headed off.

    Taipei has, or had, a habit of clustering similar businesses along certain streets. There were obvious things like restaurants, camera shops, wedding photography places, and computer things, and then there were the less obvious ones like tool vendors, bed makers, screw and fastener shops, and miscellaneous plastic items.

    Three people at a table

    Chuwan lead us into an area that seemed like one of those themed streets, but much less coherent, and amongst the illogical assembly were several toy stores. I broke down and bought one one souvenir: a complete box of Ultraman cards. I’m saving them till I get home.

    My back was reaching its limit, again, and so we sought out a place to sit down and relax. We found the Q 21 Cafe. Interesting place, but they had a chocolate smoothie for me, and a comfy chair for a while.

    Chocolate smoothie

    I returned to the Airbnb and slept, while Chuwan and Melz spent the evening with the family.

    Much later, Chuwan and I went out to McDonald’s and… dammit… they were packed, with no room. WTF, McDonald’s?!? We went to a nearby KFC instead.

    They appeared to be taking orders via kiosk only, but you cannot complete the transaction without entering a phone number. Chuwan just go snarky and entered our landline number in Arizona. A number that’s been disconnected for over a decade.

    The reason they want your number? They put the food in little locked cubby holes and text you that the food is ready and the code to open it. When it became obvious that our food was waiting, Chuwan asked and they gave her the food.

    So far as I know, back home KFC doesn’t have “spicy” chicken, so I tried that. It was not good. McDonald’s has much to answer for. And I shall defeat them and eat in their restaurant!

  • Taiwan (2024) – Day Five – Heading North

    Wednesday, October 9, 2024

    Up at 2:30 AM again.

    This time I managed to go back to bed until 5:30 AM.

    One of the quirky things about the Taiwanese is an obsession with sunrises. Hotels in the mountains often arrange excursions at insane hours of the day to reach some “famous” vantage point to see the sunrise.

    Admittedly, some of them can be stunning. At its peak, the mountain range down the center of Taiwan tops out at nearly 4,000 m, and they rise rapidly out of the Pacific. This presents interesting cloud formations. For example, near Alishan, on some mornings, the mountains rise above a sea of clouds, and, as you’re above the clouds, too, the sunrise is spectacular.

    I’m not really motivated to get up for sunrise pictures, and we were nowhere near these epic locations; however, I was awake and realized that we were on west side of the lake, facing eastward. There were low clouds in the air, below the line of mountains, and I thought I might just manage to get an interesting sunrise shot.

    I checked the internet for the time of sunrise at our location (5:51 AM), got dressed, lacquered myself with mosquito repellant, and headed down to the lake, camera in hand.

    Internet sunrise calculators lie… or at least, they don’t know how to take into account mountains.

    A sliver of the sun, behind clouds, popping out from behind a mountain, shining down on a lake

    At 6:25 AM, the clouds had started to rise, covering the mountains, and the sun popped its desultory face out from behind a mountain. I got a few decent pics.

    I failed to mention breakfast yesterday morning. It was a buffet supplied by the hotel but was far more extensive than at our hotel in Taipei. Yesterday, I ate salad, croissants, and quite a few chicken nuggets. This morning, it was croissants and bowls of frosted flakes.

    We caught our bus down the mountain at around 11:30 AM. The bus makes a handful of “local” stops for the communities near the top of the route, then makes an uninterrupted trip down through the town of Puli (the epicenter of that 1999 earthquake) and down into the city of Taichung. In Taichung it stops at the High Speed Rail station and then ends at the Low Speed Rail station.

    Our train to Taipei wasn’t until after 5:00 PM, and Chuwan wanted to visit the National Taiwan Comics Museum, which is near the old rail station, so we took the bus all the way to the last stop. The museum was 1.7 km away, on foot, but the first order of business was lunch.

    curry katsu on a plate with so

    The nearby Taroko Mall contained a Saboten Tonkatsu restaurant, and I had an excellent curry katsu for lunch.

    YouBike, the bike share system in Taipei has now expanded to many cities in Taiwan, including Taichung. Chuwan wanted to ride from the train station to the museum, which was about 1.7 km.

    Up to this point, I hadn’t really given much thought to renting a YouBike. The system has changed since last I was in Taiwan and I hadn’t checked what was needed.

    It used to be as simple as tapping your stored value EasyCard (The same card used for buses and subways) on the bike to unlock it and then tapping again once you drop it off.

    Chuwan’s EasyCard effortlessly unlocked a bike. Mine was rejected as “unregistered.”

    To register an EasyCard, you have to associate it was (you guessed it) a Taiwan phone number. The EasyCard Chuwan was borrowing from her parents had apparently been registered. The card I was borrowing was not. Chuwan returned her bike to the dock, and we set off on foot. (Fear not, intrepid foreign travelers; there is a way to rent YouBikes without a Taiwan phone number. I’ll be sure to document that for you later.)

    My wife striking a pose in front of the National Taiwan Museum of Comics

    The National Taiwan Comics Museum looks very Japanese, and it was the grounds that Chuwan was most interested in. Spread over several small Japanese-style houses, the museum is primarily a library of comics that visitors can sit and read. Chuwan checked out a few of the building insides, but they held little interest to me, save for the air conditioning. Taichung is further south than Taipei and right on the coast. It was hotter and more humid, and it was a cloudless, sunny day. I found a shady tree and rested my back.

    Satisfied with her visit to the museum, Chuwan and I returned to the train station, caught a local express train to the HSR, and returned to Taipei.

    The remainder of our trip will be in Taipei. Rather than check into a hotel, we opted to stay in an Airbnb, which is not “legal” in Taiwan, but they’re all over the place nonetheless. We chose one that was very near Chuwan’s parents (although it’s actually closer to their old home*)

    Why are Airbnbs not legal? Well, as we were told, there is no quarter given in Taiwan’s rental laws. If you rent your place to someone else, it must be up to commercial code standards for hotels. How do I feel about that? I don’t know. I can see the point. Rental code notwithstanding, the place we’re renting is awesome.

    A Studio apartment

    It’s essentially a studio apartment with room for a bed, sofa, dining room table, and functional kitchenette. It’s also the entire floor of the building. I’m not 100% certain, but I think all six floors are Airbnbs owned by the same person. Access is controlled by a key fob, plus we have a physical key for our room. He’s really gone out of his way to make this nice for travelers.

    Since we’d been gone for a couple of days, there was no avoiding dinner with the in-laws; however, they went with a favorite of both Melz and mine: The Emperor’s Happy Pork Chop (Technically, the restaurant is called “Emperor Foods” in English, and they specialize in pork chops. I couldn’t find their website – if they even have one – but I found this review. The place has been there for as long as I’ve been coming to Taiwan.)

    It was good, but we were exhausted and soon returned to our Airbnb and slept.

    *I mentioned my in-laws “old home.” I should explain. My in-laws own an apartment home in the Songshan district. It was one of several units in a must-story building, but it was aging and housing is at a premium in Taipei.

    A new Muti-story building under construction. It is basically a scaffolding of girders at this point.

    I don’t know the exact details, but essentially, they got 95% of the people in the building to agree to a deal. A developer tears down their building and replaces it with a newer, better one. Each owner from the original building gets an equal or larger home in the new building. The developer gets to sell the new homes because the new building is several stories taller. Construction, however, will take until 2028. In the interim, my in-laws are given a monthly allowance from the developer to pay for rent elsewhere. This rental place is also close to their old place. It’s all very confusing.

    What happened to the 5% who didn’t agree? I think they were forced to agree whether they liked it or not.

  • Taiwan (2024) – Day One – The Day We Fought Jet Lag (and Ate.)

    Saturday, October 5, 2024

    Stay positive.

    Don’t talk about food.

    Stay positive.

    Don’t talk about food.

    Fuck it. The food on the flight was terrible, and our first order of business was eating.

    We got to my in-laws’ at around 5:00 AM, and they were up and waiting for us. (My eldest child couldn’t be bothered to wake up for our arrival.)

    After killing a bit of time, Chuwan and I went walking, where I managed to find some early-morning green onion pancakes and garlic bread.

    Side Note: I fucking love the fact that bakeries in Taiwan sell different types of bread rather than exclusively selling pastries and cakes like back in Phoenix. I hate cake bakeries. I love bread bakeries.

    More from the “a certain amount of negativity is inevitable” department: That miserable seat on the plane for 12 hours has fucked up my lower back. My maximum walking distance was minimal today.

    After a couple of kilometers, I was done for. If I can’t get past this quickly, it will be a problem. Here, you walk.

    While Chuwan and her parents chatted, I slept for three hours on their sofa. That saved me from listening to but not participating in their discussions, which I cannot understand.

    True story: When I can understand what they’re talking about, they’re talking about eating.

    My eldest was finally awake, and the three of us went out, on foot, to — you guessed it — eat. It was my kid’s idea, not mine, but we went to a Taiwanese steakhouse. They’re cheap, they come with an egg, noodles, and all-you-can eat soup, ice cream and soda.

    The presentation is always fun, too, as the food comes out sizzling on the plate.

    Look out! Hot plate.

    Just walking to the steakhouse, I could tell my back hadn’t recovered yet, and it was still too early to check into the hotel. Returning to the in-laws, I spent time “fixing” my time.

    You lose a day traveling from the USA to Taiwan, and while it’s just an arbitrary thing to a human, your tech doesn’t think so. One year, I lost a really long Apple Watch daily exercise streak when I jumped the International Dateline. I had time to complete the daily workout in my 24-hour day, even with the long flight, but when my phone and watch updated automatically to the new day, poof, my 400+ day streak was ended.

    I’m still bitter.

    So now, I make sure one of my devices is set not to update the date and time automatically, so I’ve got something to work with until I straighten it all out. I had no activity challenge going on this time. However, I still needed to complete my NYT Crossword and Duolingo exercises before I lept my iPad into the future like all my other devices.

    We checked into our hotel room, which is within walking distance from my in-laws’ and after getting settled in… my wife and child decided to go to the Raohe night market to… you guessed it: eat.

    I was game. My back was not. I bailed out at a nearby MOS Burger for dinner, and they continued without me.

    That three-hour nap earlier in the day, and shower immediately afterwards, really seemed to help with the jet lag, if not with my back, but by the time I was back to the hotel, it was still early evening and I could feel the inevitable call of the circadian rhythm fighting back.

    I decided if one shower earlier in the day helped, maybe another would help now. Then I realized the hotel had a tub, and I could soak my aching back.

    Do you see where this is going? I fell asleep in the bath. I don’t know for how long. Luckily, I’m just too big to slide under the water and drown.

    I didn’t actually spend the night in the tub and even managed to stay awake until about 9:00 PM before, inevitably, succumbing to sleep.

    As I went to bed, I hoped I’d sleep till 6:00 AM.

  • Taiwan (2024) – Day Zero

    Thursday & Friday, October 3 & 4, 2024

    In the past month or so, in the run-up to this trip, I’ve been watching tourists in Taiwan on YouTube. What I saw depressed me.

    I am not a “newbie” to Taiwan. I first visited in 1998. In chunks, I’ve spent the better part of a year here. In all that time, I’ve rarely been based in hotels but have lived with my in-laws, meaning that, rather than getting strictly the hotel-based view of Taiwan, I’ve seen how people actually live.

    My in-laws aren’t necessarily typical. Both are in their 80s. As a small child, one fled to Taiwan from China along with Chiang Kai-Shek’s forces as they retreated from China. The other was born in central Taiwan to “native” parents. (Native, in this case, refers to coming from an earlier wave of immigrants to the island, not the indigenous peoples.)

    Both were raised very, very Catholic.

    They are as authentically Taiwanese as it gets, yet I’m aware that their Catholicism wiped away many of the traditions I might have experienced in other Taiwanese homes. (Let’s call that a byproduct of Christian imperialism; stick a pin in it, and move on.)

    I mention all this to temper my claims that I’ve lived in a “typical” Taiwanese household if such a thing exists, but I have experienced day-to-day life here. Watching tourists misinterpret what they see can be painful.

    But, honestly, I’m a tourist, too. My hubris hasn’t extended so far that I don’t realize that.

    I’ve committed the same mistakes they’ve done, and I’m certain to do them again. Probably even today.

    I’m sorry in advance. My experiences are my own, and I cannot disassociate them from my frame of reference.

    That said, for this trip, I’ve set some “goals” which I shall try to strive for.

    • Try to post (at least) one “interesting” picture, daily. By this, I’ll try to compose and take one image that I find visually interesting, not necessarily part of the narrative, just that I’m trying to keep my eye open for something… interesting.
    • Write at least one blog entry per day. I got a hair up my butt the other day and decided that I was bringing a paper journal just like I did on my first trips to Taiwan and I was going to write in it; however, while I did bring the journal, I can see that the “ease” of jotting stuff down electronically on my phone as the moment hits me is going to preclude most use of the paper journal. This depresses me, but which is more important, logging my thoughts, or recording my chicken scratches?
    • Shoot a vlog entry at least every three days. I haven’t done that in a while; those will be on the Tedium Unlimited YouTube channel.
    • Stay positive. My personality is absolutely rooted in the need to point out the negative, usually because I find it absurd (or annoying). I will not succeed at this, but I’ll try to keep this in mind. I genuinely love Taiwan, but I can pick out the faults in anything. (Anything except my wife, she’s perfect.)
    • Try to avoid talking about the food. Everybody talks about the food in Taiwan. Everybody. Always. All the time. There’s a reason for that — food seems to dominate the Taiwanese identity, and there is a staggering amount of food here. Everyone seems to base their activities around food, and eating is what you do here. It doesn’t matter how remote or incredibly beautiful any part of Taiwan is; there will be food, and it will be a big deal. They love regionalizing and discussing the local “famous” crop or dish. (And they will line up or go a long way for it.) Before they opened the tunnel between Taipei and Ilan, I’ve been on a the multi-hour drive just to buy Ilan’s “famous” green onions to take back home to Taipei.

      WTF, but true.

      I can tell you this goal will fail, too. We all eat, and eating is what you do here. I will try to be mindful, though, or try not to follow the most obvious paths. (No Stinky Tofu ever!)
    • I will not pronounce Kaohsiung as “Cow-Shung.” That’s a rookie mistake I won’t make. Taiwan still, in places, uses the worst Romanization system, Wade-Giles, to convert Hanzi into the Roman alphabet. The first character in Kaohsiung (?) is the best example I can think of. Spelled “kaoh” in Wade-Giles, in Pinyin (the newer Romanization system from across the great divide that is the Taiwan Strait,) it’s spelled “Gao,” and I can tell you to Western ears, it’s pronounced much closer to a “G” than a “K.”

      The point of a Romanization system is to make it possible for foreigners to interpret words they see phonetically, and there may not be a clear winner, but there is a clear loser: Wade-Giles.

      Fun fact: For my Chinese name, with use ? (meaning “tall”) for my family name.

    So, with that lengthy prelude out of the way, let’s begin with the flight, of Day Zero as I usually call it. (You lose a day from the USA to Taiwan on the flight.)

    Trying to stay positive. We arrived ahead of schedule.

    I can’t say anything else positive about it. Nada. Zip. Zilch. After our return flight in two weeks, we will never fly United Airlines internationally again.

    And, for wife’s friend who recommended United as her favorite airline to fly, we’re going to recommend either an intervention or counseling.

    We arrived around 4:00 AM and were shuttled by a professional driver in an excellent Mercedes, hired by my brother-in-law, to my in-laws’ home., since it was still 11 hours too early to check into our hotel

    Being driven to Taipei

    Oh, did I forget to mention it? On this trip, we will be staying in hotels and Airbnb. This is because my eldest is living with the in-laws while studying at NTNU, and there is no room for us.

  • The Things They’ll Do to Children

    Michelle Singing from Lone Locust Productions on Vimeo.

    Kids and Karaoke don’t mix!

    Apparently this is what they get up to in Taiwan when I’m not around. Well, better while I’m not around.