2.17.2008 logic defying sighting

I exited 7/11 one morning this week and started on my way to work. As I was walking I noticed a blind woman walking in front of me. From what I could tell she was completely blind. She was walking slowly but efficiently with a cane like the one pictured above. Something was puzzling me and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Then the fog lifted and I noticed she was wearing high heels.

First of all high heels aren't easy to walk in. I can imagine being blind, and especially in Taiwan, where the roads are bad, people are pushy, and people are stupid enough to drive their scooters at high speed on the sidewalks that you would want to at all times ensure your physical safety and prevent yourself from falling however possible. Secondly, no matter what anyone says heels are NOT comfortable and there is absolutely no reason to wear them except for aesthetics.

I'm not trying to be politically incorrect here, I have a deaf sister and I'm sensitive about these things but I still found it baffling.

I told one of my co-workers the story and he chuckled with an "only in Taiwan" response and shared with me how when he was in the Philippines over the (lunar) New Year holidays he saw a Chinese girl walking down the beach with an umbrella and wearing stilettos on the sandy sandy beach.

My only guess is she wasn't completely blind but the way she was using the cane makes me she think she was, or it's just a simple desire of normalcy in someway?

Labels: Only in Asia, taipei, taiwan

2.05.2008 Shrimp fishing, one more thing I'm not good at...

... but at least I'm better than Han.

Unlike Andres shrimp fishing experience, Bubba would not be proud. Two hours spent shrimp fishing and all I caught were two shrimp... but the upside is that I caught two more shrimp than Han.

This Chinese New Year holiday has really stunk for me. First of all I'm not sitting on a beach getting a tan and a massage, second the weather is AWFUL... cold cold cold and rain rain rain. Even the mini heater isn't cutting it (there's no indoor heating in Taiwan for those of you who don't know). Lastly, this is the SHORTEST Chinese New Year holiday I've had in Taiwan and the first unpaid one. Typically I've gotten two weeks off but this one is a week and a few days. It's unpaid because now I work hourly instead of salary so that = no pay.

As if all of these things combined aren't reason enough to make someone feel sorry for themselves just when I was coming out of my last illness, the one I wrote about in the previous post, on the eve before my last half day of work before the holidays my body decided to explode on both ends. I got food poisoning. Without getting into the gory details I'll sum it up by saying it was volcanic food poisoning... I didn't know how I was going to make it to the hospital without a bag taped to my head and a diaper on my butt but thankfully I made it and spent the next 24 hours hooked up to an IV being stabbed by nurses whenever I started to make a retching noise... and needless to say missing my last day of work before the holiday. sigh.

So understandably (at least I hope) I've been miserable and kind of a princess. It's like I'm relapsing into culture shock because everything is annoying me and I find myself complaining about "Taiwan things" more than I usually do. Somewhere between me saying that this is the worst New Year holiday ever for me and me crying over my BBQ salmon last night Han caught on why I'm so miserable this week. So he launched his own mission to entertain me. Being the good boyfriend that he is and knowing how to keep me happy he made me try some things I've never tried before.

The first was snooker, which he's been dying to try. It took me about 5 minutes to hate it. As if it wasn't bad enough to instantly be the world's worst snooker player, we had to be surrounded by people who look like they've been playing since they were in diapers. I have no idea how long our one game took but if it's any gage one of the tables next to us was able to finish 4 sets in our 1. Oh well the good news is after playing snooker last night I was actually pretty good at pool tonight and didn't get bored of it as fast as I usually do (note: I'm convinced the only reason we played pool after fishing is so that Han could beat me at something again, because that's what he's used to)... regardless Han is going to have to find a new snooker partner because his pleas to play again aren't going to work on me.

Today was another miserable wet day and despite the weather Han took me out for a drive up a mountain close to the National Palace Museum. On our way up we noticed an indoor shrimp fishing place. I'd seen these before, both in passing, on tv, and mentioned on Andres blog last week but I'd never tried. Han asked if I'd be up for trying it on our way back down. Seeing as it was so wet and cold outside it seemed like a great idea.

I'm not sure what Han aspired to when we walked in but neither of us have fished for shrimp before, I'm pretty sure Han has never fished at all. We were geared up by the old men who worked there and away we went. I'm still blaming our lack of eye wear. We're both pretty blind but don't do anything about it. I wear contacts occasionally and Han wears nothing ever. I'm pretty sure if we'd been able to see our bob floaty thing we'd have had more success. In total I caught 2. It would've been 4 if 2 hadn't slipped off when I was swinging them in. Han had 2 or 3 that got away. The old guys tried to coach us but it didn't help. One of the men who refills the pool with shrimp threw a couple of live ones into my catch bag shaking his head. Sympathy shrimps.

When you finish fishing the fun doesn't stop there. You actually get to cook & eat what you catch. Seeing our poor catch of 2 fished out + 2 sympathy shrimps one of the men who worked at the place gave us 4 more sympathy shrimps to cook and helped us impale them, alive :(. Next we rolled them around in sea salt and put them in the BBQ. Han thought he beat me because he was able to get more sympathy shrimps than I did.

I never really found a big difference in sea salt and regular salt when I lived in Canada the way I did with freshly ground pepper vs regular but duuuude that salt was good and those shrimp were good!!!

I'm thoroughly convinced that if I wear my contacts next time I could be a shrimp fishing grand master like the young guy sitting next to me who caught 20!!!!! His line was on fire! To be truthful the ones I did catch, and almost caught, I didn't even realize were on the line until I pulled it in to check if the bait was still there. I fed more shrimps than I hooked :(

Oh well, it was surprisingly fun and way better than sitting around feeling sorry for myself.

I still can't believe that this place is open 24 hours. Seriously, who needs to catch shrimp at 4am???!!! and who would want to eat it then??!

Oh and for the record... getting back to the food poisoning. I wish I could chalk it up to some big gastronomical adventure in Taiwan like duck feet, or chicken hearts or something exciting but the truth of the matter is all I'd eaten all day was a sub from SUBWAY!!! To anyone living in Taipei I STRONGLY recommend that you don't eat at the Subway on Roosevelt Road Section 3 close to the intersection of Roosevelt & Xinhai. I've gotten a tiny bit sick there and I thought it was by chance and avoided the chicken after that. This time it wasn't even chicken. I'm suspecting the caesar sauce but I was SICK. Like I was sure I was going to die and if I didn't get help I was ready to jump out a window it was so bad. So yea... subway good, subway on roosevelt bad. Be careful. Go to Haas down the road close to Shida. Much safer bet.

Labels: gastronomical adventures, shrimp fishing, taipei, taiwan

1.12.2008 A blogless 2007, 2008 baby I'm back

2007 proved to be a real test of character for all aspects of my life. My love life, work life, Taiwan life all suffered some major ups and downs. And somewhere in the midst of it I stopped typing. It's really sad because of how much I really got out of my site, how it really kept me moving artistically, and how it kept Taiwan forever new and fresh for me.

At some point this site had regular traffic that scared me, a modest number of visits by some people's standards but much more than I ever expected to get and then I started hearing more and more about how people in Taiwan and their friends were looking at my site. That kind of ruined things for me. As cool as it was the original intent of writing about Taiwan at all was to amuse my family and friends back home as well as other Westerners. I hadn't really thought or dreamed that people living in Taiwan and seeing the same things I was seeing would be spending any time at my site. So I started to worry about everything I wanted to write about. "Too many people in Taiwan have written about this, why blog about something everyone else already has??", "Everyone has already seen this, why put a picture up of this, it'll be boring!!". bla bla bla



Aside from that working 44 hours a week before I went home this summer didn't even leave me with time to check my e-mail.

Now I'm a lot less busy and don't care so much about who's reading or why. I'm grateful for anyone who gives me their time. It's cool to know that people are there. First and foremost I write for myself and for my family. A kind of visual scrapbook since I'm so bad at keeping a written diary or photo album, and why bother?



So where have I been? I spent the summer home in Canada. It wasn't what it should have been, I suffered a major betrayal before heading home and it soured the whole visit for me. I spent way too much time alone and miserable. I'm sorry for the family and friends I didn't see and grateful to the ones who I did see and were able to put up with me.

Since I've been back in Taiwan I FINALLY started taking Chinese classes. It's incredibly embarrassing that I've been living in Taiwan more than 2 years and hadn't studied at all. According to another ex-pat I met this is a very "Canadian" thing to do. It made me cringe but at the same time I can't feel offended. It seems in Taiwan Canadians are at the butt end of the joke and are criticized and joked about for the same things we are guilty of joking and criticizing Americans for back home. There are some nice, wonderful, talented, and motivated Canadians in Taiwan but there are unfortunately a good number of thoughtless, drunk, greedy, horny jerks (male and female) too. I used to feel proud to tell people I was from Canada when I first came to Taiwan until I started meeting the kind of Canadians who will head to work to teach kindergarten kids still drunk from the night before. argh.



Unfortunately my work hours have picked up again so I haven't had as much time as I've wanted to again and I've had to drop the Chinese classes but I intend to start some 1 on 1 classes soon. Having Han has helped me "cheat" a lot and live a much richer life in Taiwan that I could've without him but I'm an independent girl and always have been so it's really important to me.

I'm sneaking up on my 3 year anniversary in Taiwan and with that I seem to have hit a new milestone which involves everyone I never thought would ever leave Taiwan leaving. It's been heartbreaking. Sure I've heard them say they were planning on leaving at some point but denial kicked in and I didn't believe it. It's another reason I've resolved to study Chinese harder. It's great to have other ex-pat friends but in a way I don't want to make anymore friends in the ex-pat community. It becomes too heartbreaking. Meanwhile, I feel like the only thing that's changed about me in 3 years is my hair and everyone back home is having babies, buying houses and cars, and getting married. Thankfully I still have a few friends and a big sister who is content to live outside the norm so I don't feel so weird.



So how about the new year? Han and I decided to brave the fireworks since we've heard this year will be the last year they do them off of 101. I've moved to the Xinhai area and there is a little field of grass we pass sometimes when we are driving towards 101. We decided to try to make it there on the scooter on new year night because it has the most clear and perfect view of 101. Seriously, anyone wanting to get a good shot of 101 should setup their tripod here. If I can figure out where it is on the map I'll post the google map location. I have no idea what the place is called. I'm sure it's called a park even though there is seriously nothing there but a big triangle of grass but even a 6 ping square of grass with a rock on it is a park with an official name in Taipei :).



We never ended up making it to the field. We were so deadlocked in traffic we couldn't move for almost 2 hours. We ended up about 10 meters away from it with the most clear and perfect view of 101 imaginable. I'm glad we didn't make it because if we had we'd be standing with a bunch of people with their arms raised in the air trying to capture the fireworks on their cellphones or digital cameras but elevated on the scooter there was nothing to block our view. I didn't bother bringing a camera because I was lazy and didn't feel like lugging it along and because I knew there would be at least a dozen videos posted to youtube. Here's one for anyone who missed out:



This month also marked or 2 year anniversary together! We had a quiet night and celebrated with our tradition of returning to the spot of or first date (the giant ferris wheel in Neihu). We got in one of the two new ferris wheel cars that have glass bottoms. The glass was so scuffed up it was hard to see through but thankfully the seats were clear too (unnerving when you're in a skirt). It was pretty neat. Worth the wait since it was a special night.



I have some things to write about now and Rafael has helped me modify the template so it's more photo post friendly so I'm hoping to be putting up posts or photos at least twice a week. Kick my butt if I don't, please!

Labels: New Brunswick, relationships, taipei, taiwan

1.09.2007 Happy Anniversary! to us! ya

Han and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary on Wednesday (Jan 3rd). We returned to the site of our first date. The biiiiiiig ferris wheel in Neihu. It's a pretty exciting milestone for me since this is officially now my longest relationship ever and I'm not even a little bit sick and tired of him yet. :)



He puts up and tolerates with me in a way that only a family member would and he really is my family now... not to mention he's super thoughtful and helpful all the time. Western girls, I'm telling you... find a Taiwan guy!



And there was a dorky photo booth, how could we resist?

Labels: relationships, taipei, taiwan

1.02.2007 Forgive me Wally Gator!

Well it's extremely embarrassing that I haven't posted anything in nearly two months. I guess for the most part I've been so busy with work and life that the site has fallen by the wayside. For awhile I was getting tired of all the work I was putting in here as a means of communicating with loved ones and getting little to nothing back in return... ie one way communication... but the site has taken on a life of its own and even with my sporadic posting I am still managing an average of 50+ unique visitors a day. With all the people out there in the world doing this I'm really happy that there are that many people finding me.

Anyway... new years eve in Taipei. We decided to lay low. Last year I saw the fireworks from a friend's rooftop apartment which was great... this time I didn't have a friend with a rooftop apartment that had a good view, or who wasn't going down into the trenches. The fireworks, for those outside Taiwan, are set off from Taipei 101 (the tallest building in the world). It's usually a pretty good show and my sources touted that this one was going to be "LIKE SIX TIMES BETTER THAN LAST YEAR!!!". Last year was pretty cool, so I figured it was still worth the trip out. I really didn't want to go down into the heart of the madness so I figured we could find a place to see the fireworks from a safe distance since you can see 101 from soooo many places in Taipei.

Before our adventure to find our prime fireworks viewing spot Han and I stopped for some BBQ on Minsheng East Road. Alligator was on the menu so we did it! I'm sorry Wally Gator. Forgive me. There were the typical Taiwan entries like chicken heart, pig intestines, pig face meat (not sure the tech term for that one), shaved rib bones, and cow tongue. The biggest surprise is cow tongue is amazing. Alligator tasted a lot like flounder but obviously more chewy and thicker but it was pretty tasty. It's been a long while since I've "tried something new".



Anyway I didn't bother taking video of the fireworks since I knew there'd be 50 kazillion videos of them on youtube but we did manage to get a good view, unfortunately we still got way too far into the mess of people and didn't even manage to get in the door until after 3:00 am even though we left right after the fireworks. The MRT (subway) was a nightmare with the security guards only letting small streams of people in meanwhile the "waiting area" was like a mosh pit with heavy winter jackets, and no air conditioning.

When we finally got down to the train they were pulling people out of the cars who'd fainted inside because of how many people they were packing in each car. If it hadn't been for Han creating a barrier around me I'm sure I'd have a collapsed lung. I can't believe how many people live in this city.

Labels: gastronomical adventures, taipei, taiwan

11.06.2006 I hacked my hair off

Ok so this is incredibly old news for anyone who keeps in touch with me but my hair is gone. I pretty much hadn't cut my hair, except for trims, in 10 years (I'm getting old) but during emotional lows in the summer I kept getting the temptation to hack it all off on a whim.

So one night with Meg...before she left, after sushi I think, the urge hit me again. Except it was late at night... and I was sure no place would be open.... but we got home and Meg agreed to go back out with me and check. We tried a couple places but most of them were closing up. We found one that had a great book outside showcasing hairstyles so we decided to try it out. Ironically it's one that Han suggested that I turned my nose up at because the recommendation came from his uncle. No offense to any uncles reading this (including my own) but who is going to take hair advice from an uncle?



The place was pretty much empty when we got in there which lead to another anxiety, do people really give good haircuts at the end of their shifts? I was treated like a princess regardless. The place had individual flat screen tvs at each of the hair cutting chairs and I got the longest shampoo of my life...I think 3 shampoo applications that were followed by a 5 minute scalp massage each. My next anxiety came when I assessed my hairdresser. I was kind of hoping to get one that had some funk to them... typically Taiwanese hairdressers are pretty funky... but she was just a little to GAP or NET for my taste...even if she was the sweetest thing ever! ... but the more I looked at her I realized she had a perfectly balanced look that suited her personality, so if she's able to create that for herself then maybe I would be ok.



The next snag was the complete language barrier. I was trying to use body language and hand motions to give her free reign over my hair and to let her know I was bored with it. She seemed to get the hint and then a lovely stranger... a handsome middle-aged Taiwanese man sitting beside me... translated and filled in the blanks.



So of course the first thing I did when I got home was snap a bunch of photos. Of course I can never get it this perfect on my own but I don't own a hairdryer which is one big problem but even on my hair's worse day it still is looking pretty great I think. It's kind of got the Taiwanese style mullet factor with the long pieces in the back and much shorter layers in the front, with the fro of curls (since my hair isn't so heavy anymore my natural curls have been unleashed).



Also, a before and after shot from Thailand in Feb and when I got my hair cut in August. Amazingly I didn't cry and haven't cried... and I haven't mourned my hair at all like the last time I hacked it off (grade 10??). My hair had become such a part of my identity I didn't know how devastating it was going to be to loose it. I have no heart break when I look at pictures of how long my hair was. Plus my hair grows incredibly fast so I have that security.

Labels: taipei, taiwan

10.11.2006 The walking gods video (repost with story)

I posted the video awhile back but forgot that I'd typed up the story related to it. So here it is again:



Kelly (from Tainan) came up for a visit to Taipei the second to last weekend in April. Wu fen pu was on the list of places to go. Wu fen pu is 100s or 1000s of outdoor and partly indoor clothing stores. Really cheap, really fun stuff. One-of-a-kind stuff.

After a long day of gallivanting about we decided to stop for a beer on the patio of a Hilife convenience store before tackling the monster that is wu fen pu.

While we were sitting there we heard an explosion of fire crackers around the corner. We peaked around to see what all the chaos was and saw a big procession marching by. More fireworks were put down on the road directly in front of us. Me, taking after the crazy man who was my father, leaned over the railing as far as I could to get some video of the firecrackers, drummers and the gods.

Meanwhile, Han being the doting Taiwanese boyfriend that he is was trying to cover my ears while leaning back as far as possible away from the smoke and exploding firecrackers and shielding his own ears with his shoulders.

I asked Han why all this? He said it must be someone's birthday. Me, being the ditz (sanba) that I am said "They do this for peoples' birthdays?????" no sooner had it come out of my mouth than I realized "Oh, you mean for a god's birthday".

He just smiled and said "yea".

Labels: I'm a ditz, taiwan, Taiwan day trips, Video, Wu fen pu

Moon Festival BBQ for Two (video)

Labels: relationships, taipei, taiwan, Video

10.05.2006 From the mouths of babes.... fire safety

I primarly teach pre-school kids now with no previous English exposure but one class per day I teach our K2 class (4 year olds). One of the classes I have to teach is "Manners/Safety". So this week I decided to talk about fire safety.

I have one little guy in the class who everyone loves but who is extremely slow. He definitely has some learning disabilities but he's still really happy in class. He's learning how to write and when he writes his name he actually writes it completely mirrored. Like backwards, with all the letters backwards. Questions he's asked every day like "What's the weather like today?" will take him a few minutes to answer "uhhhh ummmm uhhhhh". He's just who he is, and we love him.

On Wednesday I was introducing the fire safety topic and quizzing the kids to find out what they knew about fire safety. So I threw the question out to the group: "What should we do if there's a fire at school?". Not even 10 seconds later my slow little guy shouted out "Stay at home!"

I literally fell off my chair laughing. I had to give him a high five so he knew he said something that was "good" funny... although I'm still not sure he got why it was funny :)

Labels: ESL teaching, taiwan

9.11.2006 Wow an update! (plus Dashi beach)

This is one of those posts where I try to make up some reasonable excuse to why I've fallen off the face of the earth.

I guess it was kind of cruel to do that post about those big typhoons coming and then never write again. Well the typhoons were a whole lot of nothing (until they hit mainland China).

What's been up?

- I had two weeks vacation in August
- I'm a preschool teacher now (vs a kindergarden or elementary teacher)
- My school *told* me (vs asked) that I have a new class to teach. So now I don't get out with the sunshine anymore.
- my partner-in-crime (Meg) aka my bestfriend on the beautiful island of Taiwan has left me
- Meg is pregnant! And happy!
- I hacked off my hair after about 8 years of having it long (I didn't even cry).

I will let the suspense build. I have an incredible backlog of things to write about but for now have some photos of Dashi that I have nothing meaningful to write about. You kind of get an ocean-watered sneak peak at the hair but it doesn't do it justice.

Taken 12/08

Labels: Dashi, taiwan, Taiwan day trips

8.08.2006 Bopha, Maria, and Saomai, oh my!

I remember as a kid going to bed the night before a big snow storm and just waiting for my mom to come into my room in the morning to tell me what the radio said. If there was no school I would do a dance on my bed and then go back to sleep for a few hours.

If there was school my heart was broken and I was sure it was all my teachers' fault somehow. I never dreamt that they were probably waiting as anxiously to find out whether or not they would have the day off.

Now I'm a teacher but still that little girl.... I have been checking the net obsessively trying to find out whether or not I'll get a day off school. This year has been pretty tame for Taiwan as far as typhoons. Last year I remember having 3 or 4 days off school.

Now we have a triple threat coming. The odds are good! My co-teachers have been saying we may get a few days off school. Do you think I can teach art this afternoon with my fingers crossed?

Labels: taipei, taiwan

8.07.2006 I have a Guandu problem

You'd think with hundreds of thousands of temples covering Taiwan that I'd never see the same one twice. It should be a mission to see as many as possible... but I keep getting pulled back to Guandu temple. I love this place. A couple of Sundays ago (07/30) Han and I went to Guandu. He'd never seen it before. Unfortunately, as usual, even this temple didn't seem to impress him.





















We hit the bike trail for a hike afterwards now I am convinced I need a bike. The trail is great and well organized with an actual sidewalk for pedestrians so you don't have to worry about getting mowed down by bikes. The trail itself is elevated and is beside a small road that has access to birdwatching stations. We stopped at one place and laid in the grass. Even though it was spiky and filled with bugs it was such a nice luxury to lay in grass.









The sidewalk isn't as long as the bike trail so we never got to see where the bike trail ends up but it's a decent hike.

Labels: Guandu, Guanyin, taipei, taiwan, Taiwan day trips

8.01.2006 war gods, dog whispering, and getting lost

I was browsing around my new roster of Taiwan blogs and fell across a photoblog done by Andres (of "andres : in : taiwan" and "bloggers in taiwan" fame). On his photo blog he has some incredible pictures of a temple called "Shingshiou". The temple is dedicated to the war god "Guan Gung" or "Guan Yu". I could tell from his photos (1,2)that the temple was somewhere out of town and fell in love right away. Sure enough the temple is located on a small mountain named Baiji (literally white chicken in Mandarin) in the small town of Sanshia. There are quite a few ways to get to Sanshia, at the end of this entry I'll post the various ways to get there.





The bad part is once you get into Sanshia it's really difficult to find your way up Baiji mountain if you don't speak any Mandarin. We got dropped off by our bus at the bus terminal and we had to take another bus up the mountain but the bus didn't have a bus number or an english translation of the destination on it. It only had the chinese written on it.







The ride up the mountain was fairly short. We got dropped off just below the temple and had to walk up a steep road to get to the entrance. It is such a luxury to get fresh air. Unfortunately Taipei has poor air quality.... it's one of those things that you get used to after awhile but then when you go somewhere that actually has clean air you almost feel faint from the increase of actual oxygen. Ok, I exaggerate but I can honestly say I find myself in a much better mood.







Han being born and raised in Taiwan has little interest in the temples but he endures my slow pace through them and endless photo taking... but at the same time we still go through them much more quickly than I'd like most of the time. I think it was the fresh air that made me feel a little restless too and we decided to brave the steep hiking trail behind the temple. There were signs pointing to another temple as well as some kind of private garden.





As we walked along the way the markers for the other temple changed erratically.... it was almost like a practical joke... the first marker we saw claimed we had a 90 minute walk to the next temple..... as we went further along the next one said 60 minutes..... then we went further along and the next one said 70 minutes.... then the next one said 40, and one after said 90 ...after awhile we just gave up paying attention to them. We walked in the direction they pointed but we had no idea how far this other temple would be or if we'd ever find it. I almost expected to turn a corner and find that we had landed back at the original temple.



Along the way we met a dog. Now I like animals a lot. I like to acknowledge their existence and talk to them. Call me a freak, I can handle it. At home, if a dog walks by me, I'm in the habit of saying "Hi dog!". Unfortunately I've carried this habit over to Taiwan but with stressful consequences..... because everytime, and I SWEAR I am not exaggerating, everytime I've said "hi" to a dog it has followed me like an obsessed stalker. The hiking trail was the third occurrence of said phenomena.



The very first time I had a dog follow me for hours was after tutoring a private near Nanjing. This dog was walking across the sidewalk so I said "hey dog".... next thing I look back and he's following me. "awww" I think, feeling all flattered and being smitten by his cuteness. I had a long walk back to the MRT. This was on purpose. I liked getting the exercise and was never in a hurry on Thursday nights. So I continued to walk, and pup continued to follow. As he followed he got bolder and bolder. When I'd stop to wait for a crosswalk he'd actually lean on my leg and look up at me lovingly. It didn't take long for my feelings of "awww" to turn to "ok... how long is this going to last???". I walked for a good 15 minutes and started to feel stressed out. People were starting to look at me as if this was my dog. What if he attacked someone's dog, or kid, and someone starts yelling at me??? So I had a plan... I was thinking about hopping in a taxi but then I thought what if he jumps in quickly with me and the taxi driver starts yelling at me and the dog starts biting me??? So I jumped into a hilife (convenience store) hoping that the bright lights as well as the automatic door would scare the dog away. No such luck. He follows me right in the door and over to the fridge. I use body language and the one or two chinese words I knew at the time to explain to the guy that it was NOT my dog. He understood and with another worker shooed the dog out. Phew, I thought... and decided to wait in the store for awhile. Just to make sure I'd lost him. After awhile the dog wasn't standing staring through the window. I thought it was safe. Maybe he was following someone else now. So I stepped out the door and guess who comes running around the corner???



I'm really far from amused now. I try unsuccessfully to shoo the dog away with people looking at me like I was nuts. After awhile I walked by these two big tall burly Russian guys. I pleaded for their assistance hoping they could scare the dog off or something. They said the MRT (subway) was close and I should just run up the escalator. There's no way a dog would follow me up an escalator. Ha WRONG! Not only did he follow me up the escalator but right into the station. Once I got in I just dove into the crowd and quickly walked through the turnstile. Thankfully this was the end of the following. I think the MRT staff probably scared the dog away.



So you think such an experience would maybe be a good omen.... maybe because I was so focused on the dog it prevented me from getting hit by a scooter since I was being extra careful when I was diving through traffic... or maybe it just says something about my aura??? I don't know but I found the whole experience really unsettling. Either way it would never happen again right? WRONG! Meg, Han and I went to see "the Omen" on 06/06/06 because I'm a cheesy cornball. Walking home I made the same mistake of saying "hey dog" to a dog passing by. Maybe I thought since I was with two other people that the new stray pooch wouldn't have the nerve... but ohhhh no... here comes mr.fluffy paws following us down the road like he's being taken out for a walk. He even followed us up the stairway to our apartment and sat outside for a long time.



It actually makes me sad. These dogs act NOTHING like stray dogs back home. No hint of nervousness or abuse and complete comfort around people. This says to me that these dogs were probably pets and were kicked out or driven to an unfamiliar location and booted out of a car. They interact like pets and the way they act is like they're trying to fool me into believing they're my dog and I'm the stupid one who doesn't remember.



Anyway.... Han and I are walking and two really beautiful dogs come walking towards us... there was a group of people behind them so I logically assume that these well breed well behaved dogs must belong to them. No harm in saying "hello" to these dogs right????? WRONG! One of the dogs was too shy and just went on it's way. The other followed us our whole excruciatingly long trip through the trail.



I have no idea how long it took us to get to the "temple" but I'm sure it was over an hour and a half... this dog was a fan of stepping on my heels as I walked.... when we got to the "temple" we found that our efforts were ridiculously in vain. The "temple" was little more than a tin shack with the usual incense burner and deity on a table. We were so exhausted and dehydrated that it was actually hilarious but I didn't manage to laugh. I should've taken a picture but I didn't feel like honouring the temple because I felt like it'd tricked us with it's deceptive path signs, never ending trail, and dog with poor manners (it's rude to walk on peoples' heels!).



The good part of the temple was that there were three rowdy dogs who did not frighten us but frightened our hiking companion away. We got some directions from the lady at the temple and painfully marched on down the mountain to some other little township where we could get something to drink and maybe just maybe catch a bus that would take us to an MRT station. We managed to find a place to catch a bus and after a wait we were zoomed away from our hiking extravaganza. We somehow ended up entering a completely different part of Taipei from where we exited but overall it was my kind of adventure.

Here is what I found out about how to get to Sanshia. We opted for the orange mrt/908 bus method since I live the closest to this MRT stop:

By Bus: catch a big bus from Taipei Main

By MRT
(1) Take the orange line to Zhonghe and transfer to bus 908 from the Jingan Station This is the one I did
(2) Take Bannan Line and transfer to bus 910, 702 or Blue 19 from Xinpu Station.

By Train
(1) Get off at Yingge Railway Station, and then transfer by the shuttle or buses to Sansia; or get off at Shulin Station or Shanchia Station, and then transfer to Sansia by Bus 802 or Shoudu (Capital) Bus Company.

By Car
(1) Take the Jhongshan Highway, get off at the Nankan Exit, and then drive past Taoyuan and Yingge to Sansia.
(2) Take the Second North Highway (North Highway No. 3), get off at the Sanying Exit, and then follow the road guideboard to Sansia.

There are additional methods here on the Sanshia tourism site.





Next week Changhua to check out the giant black buddha!

Labels: Sanshia, taiwan, Taiwan day trips

7.23.2006 Do youtube?

Well I like to jump on bandwagons now and then. At my current host I have the ability to stream video but I haven't had much success getting it to work yet so I've started uploading a few of the videos I have onto youtube.

It's great because it gives everyone access to my videos plus it uses their bandwidth instead of mine!

Also, it's inspiring me... I have some ideas.... hopefully I can get off my butt and work on them.

Of course the videos look a lot better on my computer since they're not compressed but I think you still can get the idea.

Let me know what you think. Check out the videos [here]

It's really interesting. Originally my intent with this website was to stay in touch and to amuse my family and friends back home and also to offer a window for people who were thinking about coming to Taiwan into Taiwan. Lately though my audience has been growing more and more and I seem to have more and more visitors from Taiwan. This is in part thanks to me being featured on Bloggers in Taiwan (thanks Andres!), to the new Taiwanfeed site, and thanks to google search + google image search. It makes me think I'm going to have to work a little harder to make my site appealing to my whole audience, and not just the one I've been thinking of so that I can keep everyone coming back.

step one: less laziness.
step two: more road trips and random bus hopping with lots of video.
step three: re-opening my eyes to the wonders around me.
step four: write, write, write, publish, publish, publish.

Labels: taipei, taiwan, Video, Wu fen pu

7.12.2006 Tai ping temple album (photography update)

My photos from Tai ping temple (see previous post) are uploaded. Here are a few teasers:

Click here to check out the gallery.

Labels: Photography, taiwan, Taiwan day trips, Xindian

7.10.2006 Xindian and Tai ping temple

If I could live anywhere else in Taipei it would be Xindian... but right now I'm wedged between Gongguan market and Shida market.... and I'm a 5 minute walk away from work so I'm too lazy to move.



Xindian is just far enough out of Taipei to have clean air and close enough to be convenient. The air is clean, there are mountains, a beautiful river, lots of nice places to eat... just a totally different vibe.



There have been a couple of temples I've been wanting to explore. Han was a bit maimed so we took it easy but we explored Tai ping temple. I'm amazed how individual each temple I explore is. Especially since I choose them so randomly and there are 100s of 1000s all over the island. Han is really unimpressed by all of them since he's grown up here and they don't have the same allure but I'm on a mission to make him see the beauty. I can't complain because he endures my slow pace through them and endless requests to see more of them.

Tai ping was actually the first temple I saw a yin yang in. At least the first one that I've noticed. I ended up with way too many pictures I liked too much so I've decided to put them in an album in my photography section. They'll be added in a separate post.



Once we were done we headed back down to the heart of Xindian by the water.



I've only been there a few times but I'm smitten. The last time I was there previous to this time Meg and I saw this teahouse way out on the ledge of a cliff overlooking the river. Unfortunately it was waaaay Taiwanese (ie not a drop of English) and we didn't have enough chinese to order. So I made Han take me. We had some deluxe cold fruit tea, and hot flower tea. We tend to eat and run most places we go but we spent a few hours there just chilling out and watching the people below in the river.