Asia 2006: Jun 11 - Jun 17

I'm back in Hawaii now, but I've got tons of stuff written down about my Taipei trip. I'll be posting entries about once a day until I run out.

The tour bus picked me up 20 minutes late, the bus was kind of run down, and the microphone that the tour guide used kept cutting out, but hey, it only cost $1200. First we had to make the rounds to pick up the rest of the people. The crowd ended up being me, an elderly Vietnamese woman that lives in Washington D.C., a Japanese woman and her mother, and 4 Korean guys here for the tech show. Our first stop was Hwahsi Tourist Night Market. This place was pretty neat, basically a bunch of stands selling food, bobbles, clothes, but it had kind of an underworld feel to it. There was a place that sells drinks with snake blood in it, and I got quite the show there…

A man with a microphone taped around his neck spoke in Chinese and stood up on a platform. To his right were two dead snakes hanging from little rope nooses, to his left was a sign that said “No taking pictures.” He continued talking while he crouched down to pull a live snake out from a cage. He held the snake right behind the head and showed it around a bit. This snake was definitely alive… and then within a blink of an eye, he shifted his grip toward the back of the snake and swung his arm downward as fast as he could. SMACK! It was such a sickening sound and I wasn’t fully aware yet what it was… It was the snake’s head smacking down onto the floor. He quickly brought the snake back up and hung it from an empty noose. The tail end of the snake coiled up on itself, still somewhat alive. The man grabbed some scissors and cut into the underside of the snake. He peeled back the skin and gently pulled out a giant vein. While pinching the vein, he snipped it in half, then pointed the open vein into a glass. The glass filled with blood as he raised the tail end of the snake above the glass. So gross… I feel kinda sick right now just typing about it.

After we walked through the market, we walked over to the Lungshan Temple. The temple was beautiful, and it felt kind of wrong going inside. There were so many people inside meditating and burning incense; this was their place of worship and I was going to walk around gawking and taking pictures? But there were lots of tourists in there, so I went in and tried to be as respectful as I could while intruding. As I entered, it felt like I was being transported to a different time and place. The air was thick with incense and it smelled so good, there was chanting music playing softly, I started feeling drowsy as the environment lulled me into a relaxed state. Periodically I’d hear a CRACK sound, and I noticed that people were throwing pieces of wood at the ground.

The left the group for a while to wander on my own, but when I returned I asked the guide what deal was with people throwing wood pieces at the ground. He grabbed two pieces (they looked like orange wedges, curved on one side and flat on the other) and showed them to me. He said you make a request to the appropriate god and throw the pieces of wood to the floor. The god communicates an affirmative message if the two pieces don’t match (one curved side up, one flat side up). He handed them to me and told me to try. I threw the pieces down, and both flat sides came up. He said try again, you get 3 attempts. I threw them down again, and got the preferable mismatch. He then passed them around and everyone in the group also got mismatched results. Now, I’m no statistician, but I’m pretty sure the odds of seeing a mismatch on one throw is 50%. And if you get 3 attempts, the probability of an affirmative result is .5 + (.5*.5) + (.5*.5*.5) = 87.5%. Those are pretty good odds at getting your wished fulfilled!! (If my math is wrong, let me know… I really don’t remember much probability math any more).

After the temple, we all loaded back into the bus and the driver took us to a Mongolian BBQ restaurant. The buffet was exactly like Chang’s Mongolian Grill, but with less selection (though they did have venison). There was also a boiler thingy on our table that we could dump food into and then pull out what we wanted when it was cooked. Both the boiler and the big cooking surface were heated with burning wood, so the restaurant smelled really good! At the restaurant, I really hit it off with the Korean guys. We talked tech for a little while, and then their boss pulled out a bottle of vodka (I think). They poured me a glass and said “be careful.” I think they thought it might be too strong, but it’s strength and taste was like vodka, so no big. Now I don’t enjoy hard liquor, I’m a beer guy all the way, but I sacrifice in social situations.

We joked around a bit while we ate, and some of the guys were really hitting the sauce hard. Then, one of the guys went to the bar and bought another bottle. They poured me some of that and said “58, be careful.” Ok, now THIS stuff was strong! I’m guessing that 58 meant 58%, but I honestly don’t know if that’s very strong or not. But MAN, this stuff burned! Like Bacardi 151 burned, and they poured me a bunch. My first thought after I tasted it was, “there is no way I can drink this.” But, I downed it little by little, and they were all happy and impressed. The other guys finished the bottle, I can’t imagine how they did it! They weren’t mixing it, just drinking it straight. One of the guys chugged like 2-3 shots worth and I said “Man, you are CRAZY!” and they all laughed and laughed. It was a really fun time!

After dinner, we got back in the bus and headed to Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world! I was really looking forward to this, I mean going to the top of the single tallest building in the whole wide world! Wow! And the elevators are the world’s fastest, going 37.5 mph to get you to the top in less than 40 seconds! But when we got there… it was closed. The tour guide said it was because it was too cloudy, I suspect that we got there too late… I was bummed out, but determined to make it to the top before I left Taiwan.

So, we got back in the bus and the driver dropped us off at our hotels. Antonio (the Korean guy I talked to the most) asked me if I had a business card. I didn’t and he didn’t, so we were a little sad because it would have been cool to stay in touch. I got dropped off before the Koreans did, so I waved and said goodbye. Took the train back to my hotel and realized that I just had one of those days that will stand out forever in my mind. This was an 11 out of 10 kind of day, easily finding itself in the ‘Top 10 Jake’s Vacation Days List.’ I love Taipei.

Sunday morning came and I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do. I thought it would be neat to go to a museum to learn the history of my new favorite country. The Taipei National Museum in 228 Peace Park looked like it might be my best bet, so I took the train back out there after I had breakfast at the hotel. When I got back to the park, I wasn’t quite sure where the museum was, so I walked around hoping to find it. I ended up in the north side where I sat on a bench for a while and watched some people practice Tai Chi. When I got up to walk around some more, I saw a sign for the museum that pointed south. So I started backtracking when I saw a Chinese family with two little girls feeding the fat squirrels. I noticed these squirrels the day before during my visit to the park, they were really big and so dark that they were almost completely black. These girls were sticking bread on the end of a single chopstick and holding it out for the squirrels to take. I recorded a bit of it, it’s kind of a large file, but it’s pretty cute!

I eventually found the museum but I wondered if there would actually be any English on the exhibits. I asked the ticket lady “Is there English?” and she said “Yes” and handed me a pamphlet. I paid the $20 entrance fee (remember, divide by 100, multiply by 3) and walked inside. The first exhibit was the skeleton of a wooly mammoth, and the description was in Chinese. I thought “uh-oh” but then a lady said “there is English on this side.” I thanked her and asked if the museum has any exhibits about the history of Taiwan, but she said no… So they didn’t have what I wanted, but I figured I’d look around anyway. I quickly discovered that the wooly mammoth exhibit was the only exhibit in English. Oh well again…

It took about 30 minutes to look at everything in the museum. Once I was finished, I headed back outside to the 228 Peace Park. I noticed a Taiwanese man sitting in front of the museum painting with watercolors, so I walked over to watch. He was very friendly and wanted to show me all of his paintings. The paintings were mostly of animals, and they looked very nice. I saw a cute painting of the Park squirrels, so I told him that I would like to buy it. He said it cost $50, and I said ok. I was still pretty fresh to the Taiwanese dollar at the time, so I thought I was paying 15 US dollars... I thought, a little expensive, but it’ll be a nice souvenir. It was later in the day when I realized that I only paid $1.50 US!!! What a deal!

As I was paying the man for the painting, the first raindrops of the day started coming down. I wanted to keep my newly acquired painting dry so I ran to the nearest train station. Once there I bought a ticket and started my journey to the zoo. I hoped it wouldn’t be raining over there, but if it was I figured I’d buy another umbrella. When I finally arrived (2 transfers and 3 trains later) it was raining VERY hard. There was a woman standing right outside the station selling umbrellas for $100. I bought one and walked to the zoo ticket stand.

This was the best zoo I’ve ever seen. They had every animal that you can imagine and they had many of each kind! Not just one or two of each animal, they had like 15 zebras! Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

White rhino covered in red mud
Close-up of chimp
Gorilla eating
Formosan black bear
Lotsa monkeys!!!

It rained hard all day, but the air was very warm. The air was SO humid, and there were many stairs and ramps to climb, so by the time I had reached the back of this giant zoo, I was really exhausted. I tried to find the shuttle bus to get me back to the entrance, but I couldn’t find it so I walked all the way back. I missed the camels on the way in anyway, so I got to see them on the way out. This was really quite an amazing zoo, if you like animals at all I’d say this is a must-see while in Taipei.

After the zoo, I took the trains back to Taipei Main Station and walked around a bit. I ended up back on the 8th floor of the department store to watch more Mushi King and this time I had enough time to figure it out. It’s essentially a game of rock, paper, scissors… Before you start, you swipe one of your cards to determine which beetle you are going to be. Then you get to swipe up to 3 more cards to determine which move will be assigned to which button. Your opponent does the same, and then your attack strengths for each move are displayed (I assume that certain moves are stronger with certain beetles, etc). Then the kids simply play rock, paper, scissors and the winning attack knocks off a certain amount of health (determined by the strength of the attack). It was kind of funny because after I watched for a while it finally dawned on me that they were playing rock, paper, scissors. And then not more than 15 seconds later, I noticed that on the buttons were pictures of hands in the shape of rock, paper, scissors… At that point the game became completely disinteresting. Not only because I figured it out, but that it turned out to be such a banal game underneath… The card reader/dispenser thing is pretty neat though.

I was pretty exhausted from a day of walking, so I headed back to my hotel and took it easy for the rest of the evening.

Monday was my first day of work in Taipei. I worked from my hotel for the first part of the day, and then headed to the show grounds in the afternoon to set up the demo. After I finished setting up, I headed back to the Taipei 101 building to see if I could catch a ride on the world’s fastest elevators. They were open for business, so I bought a ticket and got in line.

It didn’t take long until I was on an elevator for the short ride up. While we ascended the 89 floors in less than 40 seconds, the ceiling of the elevator displayed a light show. I was a little disappointed by the almost nonexistent sensation of acceleration… I don’t know how they did it, the elevators feel like they are traveling normal speed. Once at the top, we filed out and were free to walk around the observation deck. The views were spectacular as you could walk completely around the deck and see the city of Taipei stretch out in all directions. I was about halfway around the deck when I saw a familiar face! It was Antonio, one of the Korean guys from the tour two nights before!!

We talked a bit, he told me where he went on Sunday and showed me some pictures on his camera. We took some pictures together, and then he told me where his booth would be at the show. He said that I must come to their booth and we could exchange business cards. So we said goodbye, and I continued my circuit back to the elevators. A quick ride down the elevator, a not so quick bus ride to the train station, and an even longer train ride back to the hotel.

Tomo and I had planned on eating dinner together so I let him know when I got back. He asked me what kind of food I would like, and I said anything is fine. So he took me to a Japanese buffet where you get raw food and cook it on a grill in front of you or in a boiler like the one at the Mongolian BBQ restaurant on Saturday. I ate a bunch of weird stuff and had no idea what I was eating. Sometimes I would ask Tomo what something was and he would just say “You eat, I’ll tell you later.” I figured “what the hell, if it doesn’t taste bad, it can’t hurt me.” After dinner he said “Do you remember that soft dark tofu-like thing you ate? That was duck blood pudding.” I thought “Wow, that’s kind of gross, but it didn’t taste bad, so no big, right?” Then he said “And you know that stick of dark rice? That had pig blood in it.”

Now I have to admit that I started feeling a little disturbed… It was really quite a strange sensation, because every time I would start thinking about it, my stomach would start feeling really upset. But, that seemed odd since it didn’t taste gross or anything. For the rest of the night, I had to actively keep my mind off the blood food or I would start feeling really sick. At the same time, it seemed that my mind wanted only to fixate on the blood! I went to bed that night trying not to obsess on my plasma infused meal.