Well, thanks to Korea's big family holiday of Chuseok, where everybody has to go home and suffer the relatives, I got a long 6 day holiday, from Tuesday through Sunday. For all my wrangling over tickets, I was unable to find one that could get me into Taiwan early Tuesday, thereby giving me time to peruse the town before heading out for nature stuff on Wednesday. But with a 5pm flight you'll be sure to get to the airport on time and be in no rush to prep for the trip, right? Ummm, not really.
For starters, I got a really late start on account of spending the previous night out drinking. And really, could I have said no? The Korean class folks invited me out to a bar that shows NFL games. Exactly, I had to go. It's been a while since I've seen the games. Hell, last time I was watching the Packers, Favre was still the quarterback. Yeah. Nothing too special other than the male students ignoring the girls and watching the game instead. In our defense, the girls consisted of some of our teachers, meaning we would have had to talk to them in Korean. And there is no way I'm passing up football for korean practice. I'm pretty sure I would choose a curling broadcast over Korean practice, though. The teachers were very surprised to find how talkative I am in English. Like I'm gonna be a near mute, stuttering and stammering idiot in my native tongue? Yeesh, give me a little credit.
So I got up a bit late on my travel day. No big deal, still plenty of time to get to the airport. Well, not content on waiting till I got to Taiwan to be an idiot, I soon realized that: 1) I had forgotten to print off my e-ticket at school the day before and I have no printer at home 2) I had forgotten my umbrella at school. Now, the umbrella issue wouldn't usually be a thing, except this particular day happened to have the heavens throwing bucket after bucket down on poor Korea. And given I'll be carrying some delicate and important materials with me in a terribly un-waterproof backpack (passport, money, camera, etc), the umbrella was a must. So out I ran for a umbrella. Sure, the convenience store was only 10 feet away, but I was already soaked by the time I got there. Or at least my shoes were, meaning I would be in wet, cold shoes for the remainder of the day. Obviously not very pleasant or healthy.
With an umbrella, I was now ready to go and try to print off my e-ticket. The nearby PC room had a printer but it was working so well and my printout makes it look like I have double vision. Wonderful, but it will have to do. Load up, get on the bus, go. Now, the rain was certainly heavy, but at this point I was indoors and was pretty sure it couldn't thwart me any more....I was wrong.
Ahhhh, this is getting biblical!!! Where's my ark???
To be honest, I only chose the second pic cuz I find the man struggling futilely to pedal against the water to be very very funny.
But yeah, Seoul was flooding a little bit. And that first pic? That's the exact road my airport shuttle had to drive through. So traffic was a little backed up. Meaning I wouldn't be getting to the airport so quickly. Although, understandly, I wasn't so optimistic that the flights would even be running through this nasty of weather.
Luckily for me, the flights were all running and since everybody was tied up in family obligations and not traveling abroad over the vacation, the airport was empty. Eerily so. I got through the ticket line, got my ticket, got through security and immigration in less than 20 minutes. That is how its done.
With a quick 2 hour flight to Taiwan, then a shuttle ride that felt like it took just as long to downtown Taipei, and a brief walk to my hostel, I was finally here. And let me say right away, Taipei I'm a big fan. Seoul, if you are eavesdropping, you should be taking notes, for this is how you can go from my least favorite major Asian city I've been to to my favorite (and yes, I do rank Manila ahead of Seoul if for nothing else then being less than an hour away from some of the most beautiful places on Earth. Seoul is probably a couple of hours away from the places, maybe even a few countries away).
Taipei is/has:
1) Way less people than Tokyo or Seoul. How does 2.7 million to 15 million grab you? I never got the feeling that I could at any moment be buried under a landslide of people, like I do in Seoul.
2) Much better city planning. This one is big. The city's streets and roads are wide enough and have enough lanes to accommodate the traffic. City parking, even street side parking? Yeah, they thought of that. Lots of parks, trees and green space placed all over town? I approve.
3) Streets with names. I had completely forgotten that when looking for something, you can use the address for that establishment then follow maps to the exact location. Clear, logical and well marked major roads, set up on a grid with well marked and labeled back streets and alleys as well. Beautiful.
4) a much more relaxed populace. From the way they dress (much more casual and not as many shiny suits) to the way they behave on the subway and streets (they actually queue up for a subway and don't push over old ladies getting off the train in order to be the first one on and get a seat!!!!!! Manners!!!!), the people seemed to be less inclined to running themselves into the ground with stress and work and everything else.
5) great stuff to do within spitting distance. Taipei itself is much more navigable than Seoul due to the much smaller size, but it also has great stuff to do within an hour by subway from the city center. Beaches? Forests? National Parks? Mountains? Yeah, they got all that.
Anyways, with my shit finally settled, I headed out on the town to catch some sights and grab some dinner. Right away, Taipei caught my interest.
For whatever reason, the subway's tokens being actual tokens really excited me.
But having heard it was THE night market, I set off for Shilin Night Market for some people watching and some food. And amazingly, I was able to find the location without any trouble. Wait, that's right I'm not in Korea, of course finding the location would be easy and the maps would be very clear and well, correct.
And if you still can't find it with the maps, just follow the throngs of kids. I was able to blend in and move amongst them with little difficulty, given how Asian looking and short I am.....
Having little interest in buying clothes, which the majority of vendors were dedicated to, I set out looking to fill my stomach. Now, this wasn't terribly easy, as this was the first time really flying blind when it comes to food. When I came to Korea, I already could read the alphabet and most restaurants have pictures of their wares, so you can get a good idea of what you are eating. In the Philippines, they all spoke English and in Japan, I had Collin or some Japanese speaker to help me out. But here in Taiwan? I'm on my own. I can't speak Mandarin and I certainly can't read it. Hell, I didn't even bother to learn what "Hello", "goodbye", "yes", "no", or "thank you" were in Chinese. The restaurants, I quickly found, also don't usually have pictures. So unless I was sticking my head in the pot, I was flying blind. I eventually stopped at one place that looked good. It smelled awful around the vendor, but I'm still not convinced that that wasn't because some manner of animal had taken a dump nearby and no one had picked it up. Or it could have been the smell of whatever was cooking at one of the vendors in the area. Really don't know. But the waitress was able to convey that the food was "chicken". At least, that's what I think she said. Regardless, I sat down and was soon presented with the following:
Looked good enough, smelled good enough and tasted good enough for me. It appeared to be pieces of chicken, still on the bone, floating in a soup that also featured some noodles and veggies. Pretty tasty and satisfying for 2 or 3 dollars.
From there it was back to the hostel and into bed to rest up for a busy day tomorrow of hiking. But before that, I made a startling discovery about the nature of the universe. It now appears there are two forces in existence which one cannot escape from, no matter where they may hide. The first, unsurprisingly, is Jesus and the Christians. Obvious I know. The second, at least in Asia, is K-pop and Korean pop culture. Groan. Yes in just 5 hours in Taiwan, I saw several buses advertising the newest lousy Korean drama, a middle aged man with a super cheesy K-pop girl group song as his ringtone, and most of the songs playing in the Night Market were old, out of date K-pop songs which brought back wonderful memories of my ears bleeding and having to listen to my students sing them all the time about a year ago.
Well, I didn't get nearly as much done on this post as I would have liked, but I've gotta get some other stuff done tonight, so I might as well end this post right here. Stay tuned.
Pics: for more pics, see the facebook albums
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