My 0-Dark hundred (5:00am) taxi was early; the sun came up during our very fast drive to the airport.
The ticket counter for ANA was closed when I arrived. It opens at 06:30. Coffee!
Taipei, "the bastard rape child of China and Japan" is well worth the visit. I'm glad I came.
The vegan buffet lunch was quite good (a bit greasy but fresh) with large quantities for $1.50. We ate outside in the sweltering heat, with sweat dripping down our faces and clothes sticking to our bodies. My hair frizzed up in the wet heat.
After lunch, my daughter showed me around the huge library where she goes to study. They have a large archive of physical maps and charts that patrons can unroll and examine. Some of them are very old. Many are from Japan. This one is pre-WW2 era, Japanese.
The library also has a large “media room” with dozens of stations equipped with vinyl LP record players, cassette players, DVD players / burners, and other hi-fi equipment. They post a large poster weekly of which movie DVDs are most-checked-out of the library by the students.
Then my daughter had to get back to her afternoon classes so I headed back.
I finally found a taxi to take me to the airport. Enterprising drivers post their contact information online and I was able to email a few of them with Google Translate. In Taipei it appears impossible to book a Taxi in advance – everyone calls at the moment they need a cab, never sooner. No driver or dispatch operator speaks anything but heavily-accented Mandarin; I find this situation odd, since there are so many of us foreigners running around. I hope I make my flight.
The weather here is swelteringly sunny humid hot like Savannah Georgia summer hot.
I arrived early, am waiting in the big cafeteria lounge.
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.
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.
Here are some videos of our tourist adventures in Taipei
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.
“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
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.
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.
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!):
