Moving on to our 2nd installment of this 3 part series we’ll start on another island: Taiwan. One of the best things about living in Asia is the easy accessibility you have to so many different places to visit. It was a short 3 hour flight to Taipei. After Taiwan I’ll show what happens to a completely American celebration when placed in the Japanese hands. And finally I climb another small Japanese mountain called Takao san.
Taiwan
Our trip to Taiwan was short and sweet. Just one short weekend plus a Monday. I had 2 contacts in Taiwan and we eventually met with both of them. Most of our time was spent in Taipei but we took a short trip to the center of the country to “The heart of Taiwan” called Sun Moon Lake. What I thought would be interesting is whether we would be able to use either English or our terrible Japanese to communicate. Because Taiwan and Japan are so close to each other, I was told, there was a chance we might have luck with Japanese. Ultimately we ended up pointing and gesturing at maps and directions to get where we needed to go because neither languages were helpful. After dropping stuff of at the hostel, we went to Tamsui which is an area right of the Taiwan Subway that features a really nice boardwalk and some shops. We walked by (but didn’t try) something called Pig’s Blood Cake. Traveled into a french bakery where the shop keeper is mic’d up and was singing some Spanish tunes – after learning Guillaume was French the two of them sang karaoke together in this bread shop (pictures included). Don’t ask me why he wanted to sing Spanish. What I really liked about this trip was we could directly compare the Taiwanese and Japanese cultures. Immediately I was struck by the unrestrained curiosity of some of the strangers we met. Guillaume and I would be looking at a map and somebody would walk by and ask “what are you doing today” and they would respond with “ok that sounds nice, but what you really should do is X, Y, and Z – let me show you how to get there”. We arrived with only a general outline of what we wanted to do, but after just a few hours of arriving we had each day planned by the hour. Coming from Japan where people are very reserved and polite I was honestly “culture shocked” from Japan to Taiwan. Kind of fun.
The first night we found a bar which apparently is frequented by friends of the owners. One of the friends came over and offered us a drink at one point. Before we knew it we were singing karaoke together and coordinating our plans even more for the next days. One of the mandatory things to do in Taipei is to go to the night market. It features all kinds of food and clothes and trinkettes and whatever. We ordered a bucket of snails and ate maybe 3 or 4 of them before getting tired of them. The next day we traveled to sun moon lake with a friend who we worked with in the states. It’s a lake right in the middle of Taiwan. His wife had a little baby boy while they were living in the U.S. and we finally got to visit him about a year later. He had such a big personality already we enjoyed using him as our entertainment for the day. We visited what used to be the tallest tower in the world from 2004-2010: Taipei 101. The unique architecture and enormity of it was really incredible. In the pictures you’ll see a big gold ball looking thing. They call it “Damper Baby”. Because Taiwan has so many earthquakes this huge sky scraper needs some counterbalance weight to keep it from swaying. The sheer size of the things makes it a fairly popular tourist attraction. One last thing I have to mention about Taiwan is the stinky tofu. As we were walking around the night market, Guillaume and I kept smelling some terrible smell. We blamed it on some cattle that must have gone through for some reason. Well the next day after sun moon lake our friend with the kid said we had to try stinky tofu. A guy in a truck with a greasy fryer attached to it drives up to us and we dig in. NEVER AGAIN. I strongly recommend that you try stinky tofu when you have a chance so that you may now appreciate any other food you ever eat.
Halloween
Alright so this one is kind of silly. I don’t know what I am. My buddy Jero went as the character from Clockwork Orange. One night we went to a Japanese Halloween party that was located in some room of a high rise. In true Japanese style this party was super organized! We were served drinks and dinner by buffet. Then after eating and drinking a little we stand in a circle and introduce our costume. After which we begin a jan/ken/pon tournament. AKA: Rock, paper scissors. After each round the winner is given 100Yen from the loser and this continues until there is one champion. The next weekend we went to an area in Tokyo famous for foreigners called Roppongi. It was kind of madness in the streets there. Everybody, I mean everybody was dressed up in some excellent costumes. It was so much fun to simply walk around and check out all the people. I don’t have anything intelligent to say about this night. But we did see 4 or 5 people drive by in go-karts dressed up as Mario Kart characters. Awesome!
Takao
Jero and I went to Mt.Takao with some of our friends from the Japanese party. It’s located about an hour or so from Tokyo and is smaller than Tsukuba-san. I think given how small living spaces are its really nice to finally get outside and get some exercise. At this part I’m starting to realize my Japanese adventure is getting closer to the end. It is not possible to decline invitations to any activity and of course I don’t think I could have enjoyed the final month or two any more. Life of course is filled with so many surprises and to this I devote one more post
Back to Part 1 Part 3 (coming)
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