Another day of exploring and another short video. I learned the Taipei MRT system a bit today. Very efficient. It's amazing how "powerful" you feel when you get over the initial hesitation of walking into a subway station, making a transfer, taking a shuttle without speaking a stitch of the language, navigating the pay machines, the turnstiles, deciphering which platform to use all without the real ability to ask someone for help. It's a pretty fun accomplishment. OK - so I've given my all to diving deep into the culture: eating the food, walking around, using the subway instead of safe hotel cabs, etc, etc. But when I saw a Gordon Biersch just outside of Taipei 101 I treated myself to beer, ribs and garlic fries!!!
The trip to the 88th floor of Taipei 101 was a bit ho-hum. I guess if you've seen the view from one skyscraper, you've seen them all. I had a much more enriching experience at the museum and even the night market AND EVEN the provincial towns of Taoyuan. Taipei 101 seemed identical to top of Eiffel Tower, Sears Tower, Generic Tower, etc, etc. Overpriced gifts at the top and haze and pollution blocking the view :-)
Now that it's Sunday night and I'm back to work tomorrow the rest of my week will be limited in terms of exploration. I may do some stuff after work but my guess is that ambition will decrease proportionately with my energy level after work. Anyway - here's a video and just a few pics.
OK - just a few quick videos to get a quick view of a Taipei night market. This is quite a scene. From what I can tell, there's about a half dozen of these around the city and the Shilin market is the biggest. I though it was only an American style "taste fest" - which maybe it is, but this has a total different feel. This market really did feel imbedded into the culture as opposed to a taste fest which feels fabricated. I've been in Taipei for 6 nights now and feel like I've experienced a lot of the culture. My first hotel, near the Taoyuan airport, was far more provincial than Taipei city. For lunch, we ventured out into the small town (where little English was spoken) to partake in beef noodles, shrimp noodles and a japanese place. I had asked my hosts if I came alone to the restaurant where I got the beef noodles, would I have been able to get what I wanted without speaking the language, they basically answered "no way, no how". That's also the dish, I am blaming for my gastric distress that had me in the airport medical center Thursday night and vomiting on Friday night! Saturday had me in Taipei city where I walked around on my own for about 2 hours before Ivan came to pick me up to go to the National Palace Museum. While I did venture out into the city, I readily, readily admit that traveling through Asia is logarithmically more difficult than Paris, London, Germany, Mexico or any other place I've ever been. It's not so much the language since I know very little French either, but it's the signage with the Chinese characters - and no translating letters. It does make it very adventuresome. The money conversion is fairly easy - divide everything by roughly 30. At the National Palace Museum, I was surprised how interested I had become in the artifacts and history. I'm the first to admit that I'm usually marginally interested in ANY museum (including the Louvre) and lose interest after about 40 minutes. This one genuinely kept my interest - the bronze arts, the jade arts, the calligraphy gallery - pretty fascinating. I wish I could have take some pictures (I couldn't) but I did get some on the outside (see my Facebook page for those - hey, I have to vary the content of these 2 pages somehow!). Tomorrow is off to Taipei 101 and more sight seeing around.
I am getting a little homesick though. I do miss my pregnant wife and everytime I hear little children running around, laughing and switching between Mandarin and English I think of my boy! Only a few days left though!
OK all - enjoy the videos. If anything else interesting comes up I'll try to blog again.
Some "home cooking" in Taipei :-).
