Taipei Shanghai Zürich day 5 - lunch

The weather here is swelteringly sunny humid hot like Savannah Georgia summer hot.

I arrived early, am waiting in the big cafeteria lounge.

Taipei, Shanghai, Zurich Day 5 - Working

By pointing and hand signals I was able to get that awesome $1.50 chili Eggs with sweet tofu drink from the restaurant 3 doors down from my apartment.

They do a brisk business.

I spent the morning online doing work.  There was some FUD about the typhoon situation in Taipei and Shanghai.  However it moved quickly in-land so the winds are dying.  Now it’s just dumping too much water.  The local weather here in Taipei is sunny this (Monday) morning.

Because my Microsoft Lync system is still broken at work I have been using Google Voice (GV).  Despite GV’s recent switch to the clunky “Hangouts” for dialing out from a computer, it has become even more awesome.  And the Internet here in Taiwan is extremely low-latency, high-bandwidth, and clean.

All of the apps and services in GV are free except international calling; the cost per-minute for international calls is much less expensive than anything I have seen.  GV’s speech to text-into-email for voice mail and the whole bidirectional text message (SMS) to email gateway thingy are very cool.  If Lync continues to be so flakey I may start using it more when I am back.

If you are inside eBay corp, here is the current draft of a document I was editing.  Please let me know what I missed or what is unclear.

If you are not on corp you will see a sad face in the iframe.

This afternoon I am meeting my daughter on campus for lunch.

Taipei, Shanghai, Zurich Day 4 -- Taipei Sunday

The Typhoon winds have picked up in preparation for their crescendo on Monday. And the intensity (volume) of rain is higher. We had a local "diner" style breakfast at a place close to the apartment and I really loved the chile, eggs, and sweet tofu drink. It was about US$2. I don't know if I could order it without my daughter whose halting Mandarin enabled us to get what we wanted.
After breakfast we went to the University where my daughter does her homework away from her disrupting roommates.  We had coffee and discussed her career options.  She is still quite passionate and dedicated about becoming a Chinese history professor.

Then I headed out for a walking tour in the high winds and heavy rains while my daughter did her homework. Late in the afternoon when we were both hungry, we ate sandwiches at a charming punk rock themed cafe. After lunch we tried (and failed) to book my taxi back to the airport online (very frustrating).  We ate dinner at a health food restaurant.  I did not enjoy all the ginseng and herbal remedies they put in the vegetable soup I ordered but the sesame cabbage was great.

Then we came back to my apartment and drank beer, talking until late about life, the universe, and everything.  It's great to spend time with my daughter.  I miss her dearly.

More photos here.

Taipei, Shanghai, Zurich Day 3 - some videos

Here are some videos of our tourist adventures in Taipei

Taipei, Shanghai, Zurich Day 3 – Night Shopping

The typhoon hit a little harder last night with higher winds and more rain.  Undaunted we went first to the Sababa Pita bar for an inexpensive but extremely high-quality mid-eastern dinner.

Does anyone notice the double-meaning of the logo (Chinese / Hebrew)?  Great food, deserves the 5-star rating.

Then we hit the “night shopping” area near-by.  The winds destroyed Elisheva’s umbrella so we bought her a new one for NTD 70 (US$2.25).  There are huge areas and alley ways filled with booths, shops, and street food.  There are no performing artists, beggars, or solicitors, other than hand-bills at street corners (Japanese style).

We didn’t really need anything else and neither of us is much enamored by shopping so we went to Elisheva’s apartment to escape the rain and winds.

Mash-Up Experiment with Google Street View

Here is an interactive streetview experiment:

Taipei, Shanghai, Zurich Day 3 – Site Seeing

“Taiwan is the bastard rape child of China and Japan.”

On Saturday I was up very early and worked online until my daughter woke up around 9:30.  I walked over to pick her up and saw her apartment, where she lives with four other students, including their Italian landlord.

 

 

We went out for breakfast at the “Dante Coffee” restaurant that serves Western style brunch and coffee.  I had eggs and salad; Elisheva ate carbs.

 

 

 

Then we headed towards the tourist attractions down town, including

• the Taiwan city hall,
• the convention center,
• Sun Yat-Sen memorial,
• Taipai-101 building, and
• The parks / gardens

Rain from the typhoon was quite heavy all day long but at the same time it was warm and muggy so I was constantly putting on and taking off my rain poncho.  Elisheva and the locals carry big umbrellas.  We took the subway, which was quite crowded in the afternoon but was relatively light on commuters in the morning as we set out.

There is a nice mall below the Sun Yat-Sen memorial complex where we went shopping to avoid the rain and walk indoors.

 

The shops had very interesting wares that reflect the tastes, sensibilities, and culture of the locals.  There are many Japanese elements and influences in the fashion and culture.  There are also, of course, mainland Chinese themes.  And Taiwan maintains its unique elements of Western (Dutch/European/US) culture as well.  The mixture of cultures, moirés, customs, attitudes, art, style, fashion is fascinating.  I am very happy I came.

 

They had cool golf-umbrellas that have Japanese Katana handles and I was very tempted to get the “Tanto” style (smaller) one; however they are expensive and poor quality so I decided to order one online instead.

 

Eventually we left the mall and went to the Sun Yat-Sen memorial and gardens.  We walked the grounds outside first since it was not raining as badly, then went inside to see the exhibits.

More pictures here.

Then we headed over to the the Taiwan-101 tower, which was the tallest building in the world in 1985 and had the fastest elevator in the world until recently.

We took the tour, which is disappointing because they hype, market, and hard-sell to the tourists so much.  But the views were pretty good.  See photos here.

Then we had a “hot pot” (spicy!) big vegan lunch, after which we strolled around a little and then headed home.

Next up: Dinner and the Taipei night life.

Taipei, Shanghai, Zurich Day 2 – The apartment

The apartment has this odd combination of an open shower where the bathroom itself is a shower stall.  So everything (sink, bidet) get all wet when you shower.  I think you’re supposed to use a bucket of soapy water, sponge, and use the shower only to rinse.  Still a curtain would be useful.  The worst part of the apartment is that he plumbing stops up from toilet paper so one must use the shower as a bidet each time, which is cleaner but inconvenient.

The apartment is a single room studio with tiny kitchen area including cooker, microwave, big fridge, two huge dressers and drawers, and a big bed.  The apartment is completely empty.  There are no cups, glasses, dishes, pans.  I bought some prepared food and am re-using their containers.

My flat is less than two blocks from my daughter’s place.  It could not be more convenient!

Here is an interactive map of my daughter's apartment (map mash-ups are surprisingly easy!):

Taipei, Shanghai, Zurich Day 2

Tokyo Narita has awesome Internet and great facilities.  It is one of the most comfortable airports through which to transit.

Buddhist monk in saffron robes, Goth, suit-and-tie, tourists al shopping duty free at Tokyo Narita Airport 10/3/2013.  I have added the 6-mile back-alley all-day walking tour of Kyoto with a private docent to my “bucket list” of things I want to see before I die.

The weather flying into Taipei was very bumpy since there is another “typhoon” (hurricane) system hitting South Asia.  The food was not as good as the trans-pacific fare but not bad. 

The word “serviceable” keeps coming to mind for this Taipei chapter.  The food was serviceable.  Taiwan natives’ English is “serviceable.”  The transportation is “serviceable.”  The airport terminal is Spartan but serviceable.  My apartment is inconvenient but serviceable.  The toilet+shower bathroom is odd but serviceable.

At the Taipei airport, I:

• took local Taiwan money out of a cash machine,
• bought a “far east-tone” pre-paid SIM card for my phone,
• called / texted my daughter,
• called my airbnb landlord to meet me at the Tai-Power metro stop, and
• hopped in a taxi

 

Everything went as smoothly as I had planned and hoped!  Fortune favors the prepared. 

It took about an hour; the area where my daughter lives is very far from the Airport.  The taxi driver and my airbnb landlord were most helpful.  I checked into my room and called my daughter.  Again:  Everything went swimmingly!

My daughter and I met at the metro stop, went shopping for essentials for my apartment, ate, chatted, then I had to bathe and sleep!

Next up – my airbnb apartment in Taipei

Taipei, Shanghai, Zurich day 1

East side for hire taxi was perfectly on time.  Great deal from a great service.

 

The government shutdown did not cause a labor shortage at TSA and the lines moved quickly.  The flight to Taipei was also smooth and uneventful.  I read the papers, then watched some movies.

• “At Any Price:” a powerful US heartland farm story.  Lots of drama, a little suspense, not bad *** (3 out of 5 stars).
• “Before Midnight,” the third installment of the “Midnight” trilogy.  The film has many long shots, lengthy, talky, intellectual conversations, and Woody Allen style intellectual, whiney dialog.  The mediocre acting could not carry the well-written script.  Miss it  **.
• “Man of Steel:” Big budget, big stars, great special effects, powerful cinematography, huge heart.  It’s a little formulaic and unoriginal. Rent or stream this one, ***.
• “Monsters University” Not good, *.

It is very warm, windy, and humid here in Tokyo. The food was pretty good on the United flight.