Taiwan, Part 1: Days 1, 2 and 3

Days 1, 2, and 3

It’s strange to think that I left home almost three days ago – I’m not quite sure what has happened in the interim. We left Buffalo on Saturday afternoon and after a brief chain-smoke in the Cleveland airport, hopped a flight to Los Angeles. In LA we had a 6 hour layover, the majority of which we spent in the food court staring at the departures screen, on which our flight was not yet posted because it was still far too far away, and in the horrifying lines at the ticket counter and the security checkpoints. We were two of maybe 10 non-Asian people in a sea of oh, maybe eight billion travelers at 1:00 on a Sunday morning. Once at the gate, I hungrily removed the bagel I’d purchased for 4 dollars from my bag, only to discard it due to moldiness, and instead took a sedative and waited to board the plane.

Our Malaysia Air flight to Taipei was pleasant – mostly because the Ativan helped me sleep for about 10 of the 14-hour flight, and because Rachel and I had a row to ourselves, facilitating as comfortable a sleep as one can muster on a trans-Pacific flight. At one point some rocky turbulence rose me from my slumber, which would normally evoke severe panic, but I was so doped up that all I could do was lift my head and then put it down again – what will be, will be, I figured. God bless that pill.

We arrived in Taipei at 6:30 am local time. Less than a third of the people on our flight had reached their final destination – the plane was going on to Kuala Lampur. Unfortunately, it seems as if Rachel’s backpack may also have continued on to Kuala Lampur, or was left behind at one of our many U.S. destinations. We’re not quite sure how to use the phones here, and furthermore, when we actually got it to work, the number that the airport people gave us doesn’t seem to be right.

We were met at the airport by a woman sent by Kojen to pick us up who, after not introducing herself to us, ushered us to the car and drove us into Taipei to our temporary apartment on something something lane. The apartment is owned by Kojen, and a Canadian named Brett lives here permanently. Another new teacher, Ben, was sitting in the living room watching TV, and he kindly took us for breakfast after we’d cleaned up. We ate at a little restaurant around the corner where Ben had befriended the staff during the course of his three day stay in Taipei, and we enjoyed some dumplings and iced soy milk, and upon request I armwrestled one of the guys who worked there. Or at least I think he worked there. While I was happy and quite relieved to be on solid land, I was still quite overwhelmed at the fact that I was in Asia. And was going to be for a year.

We were exhausted but knew we had to make it through the day in order to minimize the effects of jet lag. We decided that we would brave the MRT (massive rapid transit, I think, subway, in laymen’s terms) and visit Taipei 101, formerly the world’s tallest building, officially beat out only last week by some newly constructed monster building in Dubai. The bottom floors of the building are full of designer stores of the likes of Versace, Prada, Luis Vuitton…I was first given the impression that Taiwanese people must be really wealthy, but Rachel tells me that apparently they like to buy these expensive things, but can’t really afford them. Unfortunately, after we paid our $14 to ride the world’s fastest elevator up the 89 floors to the top, it was too foggy out for us to see any of the “most spectacular view of Taipei.” We saw what we could, had some ice cream and hot chocolate, gossiped about home for a while, which made us laugh – something we were greatly in need of doing. We headed back to the apartment, stopping at the 7/11 to get some noodles, which was more trying than it should have been, for me at least who doesn’t a) eat meat or b) read Chinese, and tried to stay awake as long as we could. We were both asleep by 7:30.

Observations about Taiwan so far:

-There is an overwhelming abundance of 7/11s here. We counted 8 on the way home from Taipei 101, and know that there is another one around the corner in the other direction.
-The crosswalks have counters, just like at home, but here they have little green men that run faster as your time to cross runs out. Also, some crosswalks allow you up to 90 seconds to cross while others only give you 21.
-There is an absence of obvious pet-owners in Taipei; perhaps, as in Vanuatu, people here think it is strange to keep dogs and cats as pets?
-There is meat in absolutely everything here – maybe there is a correlation between this and above?