adrian is rad

dark, quiet, sparsely populated, wasteful, English-speaking, diverse, casual, expensive

filled with…
people who drive everywhere, giant cars, giant portions of food, giant supermarkets, giant stores, giant napkins, whites, blacks, latinos/as, smiling people

People said a lot of things before I came.

“With how long you’re there, you’ll be pretty good at the language by the time you come back.”
After quite a bit of effort, I have mastered a couple dozen words.

“There are a lot of scooters.”
Yes. They are everywhere.

“It’s really polluted there.”
Some days I think so and others it’s quite nice. It’s certainly much better than Zhuhai, Bangkok or Jakarta. There are some smoggy days and then there are some days I’m pretty sure are just overcast. (And others with a blue sky.) Overcast isn’t usually in a Californian’s vocabulary so there could have been some confusion with that.

“The people there are really nice.”
People are pretty-to-very friendly overall. I did find some things that I saw pretty frequently inconsiderate, like some of the driving maneuvers, or walking patterns on sidewalks.

“You’ll be great.”
I’d rate my performance as “fair” or “good” at best.

“The girls will love you there.”
I have found no evidence of this.

“You’ll meet a girl.”/ “You’ll come back with a girlfriend.”
See above.

“You’ll be tall there.”
I may be a bit above average but not any amount that I notice constantly.

“You’ll love it there.”
It took a while but I grew to like it. I don’t love it, certainly.

“Everything is cheap there.”
Sometimes. Food is cheap. Brand name electronics isn’t (generic stuff is). Clothing is cheap. Housing isn’t.

various preconceptions about it being unsafe/ corrupt
It’s really safe. Very safe–most parts of Taipei that I was in felt safer than San Francisco. It’s also pretty law-abiding and not (obviously, at least) corrupt.

This NY Times article reminded me how much I love Walter Lewin. I loved his classes and I remember a lot of the examples and demonstrations they talk about in the article.

My good friend gumbeaux did his PhD with Lewin so I’ve been getting odd and hilarious Lewin stories on the side for a few years as well.

I’m back in the ol US of A. The flight was surprisingly smooth and went by relatively quickly. It’s yet to be seen how I’m doing with jet lag but early signs are promising.

More later!

These blazing white sheets will see me on them for only 8 hours more.

Surprise of the day: I may be missing things–this is entirely possible–but it appears that my two to-be-checked bags are in the following states: 1) slightly below weight, at capacity. 2) well below weight and approximately as much space left as I have things left to put in. Tomorrow night I’ll finish packing it (save my alarm clock, tooth brush, deodorant) and make sure, but this might be okay.

I spent last weekend in Jinmen (historical and common English names: Kinmen or Quemoy).

The history here is important: it was historically fairly isolated but also had some rich residents that had traveled to SE Asia. Basically this produced some of the best examples of classical Fujianese architecture and South-east Asian Colonial architecture, patterned after British colonial houses in Singapore and Malaysia but with Chinese influence as well.

On the other hand, it was the front line, literally, for the war between Chinese capitalists (the Nationalists, the Republic of China) and communists (the People’s Republic of China), for many years, with it situated 2km from Mainland. It was bombed, invaded, shelled with propaganda fliers for over two decades.

So it ends up being a really interesting place–old buildings, old buildings in a semi-Western style, bombed out buildings, fields of sorghum with spike-topped anti-parachute landing spikes, beautiful beaches with anti-amphibious landing spikes, military bases, fishing vessels, and quaint villages.

I found it very interesting and photogenic. I took a lot of photos but they’re all on film, so I’ll scan them when I back in the U.S.

It was easily the hardest place I’ve been this trip or this year–possibly even ever–in terms of getting around and not knowing the language. (Scratch that–Tanzania in 2004 would have been harder but I had a friend that spoke KiSwahili.) It started out fine–all the announcements at the airports and on the flight were also in English, despite the fact that I appeared to be the only westerner at either the airport or on the plane. But then I was picked up at the airport by someone who didn’t speak English (identifying each other by the other person with the cell phone up to their ear looking very confused), and brought to a scooter rental shop that didn’t speak any English. It wasn’t until I got to my guesthouse that someone spoke some English. For dinner at a seafood restaurant, I ordered “fish” because that was all that was mutually understood. It ended up being steamed and in a sauce and marginally undercooked. I ate it; I didn’t have the ability to complain. In the end, I saw things I wanted to see; I ate food; I was able to get there and return; I didn’t die. I consider it a success.

Perhaps seeing that I was in a little over my head, a couple people did some really nice things for me (not to get into the overly sappy I-love-everyone blogosphere realm). I went to a restaurant the first day for lunch that served Kinmen’s signature handmade noodles. All the tables were taken so I was just hovering near the entrance. I indicated to the woman working the food area that I wanted one of what she was making, so when she pointed to one bowl on a tray and brought it to a table, I followed her. Turns out I had just invited myself to sit at someone else’s table. (That’s fine in Asia from what I’ve found–in fact this table already had two groups–two guys and an older woman at it.) When I got my food, one of the two guys pushed over the spicey sauce: “good.” I added some. When they got some fried chicken, squid and tofu, he added while making a circling motion with his hand “together.” So I had a few pieces. When they paid, the proprietress gave me an odd look. Turns out the guy paid for my lunch.

The next day, I wasn’t sure how to get back to the scooter rental shop, so the other guest at the guest house let me follow them there. They hadn’t been planning to go out; they got in their car solely to show me how to get to the shop and then they headed back to the guest house.

I was in a store the other day and ended up talking to a guy from Bradford North England (which, he said, is know for three things, two of which are Indian food and riots). Accents from Bradford, are apparently quite heavy–I could understand him but not without a bit of effort on my part.

It turns out this guy has been teaching English in Taiwan for 7.5 years. Anyone else see a problem with teaching an accent that’s not very well understood by many English speakers?

I just wrote a poem:

I was all excited because I saw I’d gotten an email
but it was from me
the one I just sent
sad

This is how much that will help filter out exhaust or really anything at all: 0.

The R3 has a bus stop name called

Keelung River Second Term Housing Project I

There are also Keelung River Second Term Housing Project II and Keelung River Second Term Housing Project III.

when people you know turn up in google news:

Most of the pressure seems to be on Pandit however.

So I have one week left here. It doesn’t seem that soon and though intellectually I know I’m excited to go back, I don’t particularly feel that way right now. Does that make sense?

This week has turned a bit hectic as my number of days is numbered and the number of things-I-meant-to-do-but-haven’t is still rather substantial. Last night I went to a night market and then shopping for some souvenir sort of things for friends. One great thing about living somewhere with a funny script–everything looks cool, so I could probably give friends a piece of paper with some chinese characters on it and they’d think it was cool. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping because that’s what they’re getting…

It’s rather suddenly gotten warm again, starting around Sunday. The last few weeks it has solidly been jacket weather, with highs in the low-to-mid 60s. It was raining a lot a couple weeks ago (another typhoon) but it was pretty nice last week. Both Monday and yesterday I was walking around outside at night in a rather average way–not quickly or uphill or strenuously at all–with a hoodie or jacket (respectively) on and I had to take them off because I was sweating. At night! In December! I didn’t even wear/ bring my jacket to work today.

In other weather news, it’s supposed to rain every day until I leave. Looks like I’ll be holding onto my crappy umbrella.

I sold my speakers on Monday. The rice cooker and bicycle are not going as fast. I’ve probably gotten ~$22 of use out of each of them (what I paid) over the last few months so if I have to just give them away, I won’t be too distressed. But it’s still better for them to be used by someone else.

With my no-earbuds-on-transportation rule and my battery appearing to be kaput on my laptop and a good likelihood that I’ll finish my fast-reading book before the flight only to start one that doesn’t look as exciting, I’m not sure how painful the flight home will be. Oh and I’m going to try to stay awake the whole time because to stay in the right time zone the whole flight home, that’s what I should do. For some people, trying to sleep on a plane is the problem. That is not my problem.

than half ignorance.

The cab driver last night took me on a pretty circuitous route (though, I think it was because he was a bad–rather than a malice–cab driver) and then short-changed me when I paid him. What did I do? Get out the cab and go to my apartment because that’s all I could do. Because I don’t speak Chinese.

It would have been easier if I just thought he was giving me a fair deal. Oh well.

So people hand out leaflets and fliers for stores on the street here. Normally they see me and don’t shove it quite as far under my nose as most people. Today I had a new experience: the guy actually pulled it away from the path I was walking. Yeah, you may not want to take this, but it doesn’t matter because I won’t let you even if you did. Thanks, buddy.

This is a really good interview with Dave Eggers by the Montreal Gazette. It’s largely about What is the What, which I enjoyed and we all know I’m a big Dave Eggers fan.

Glasses in Taiwan are cheap, cheap enough that even though my company just introduced a vision plan, decent frames here might well still be cheaper taking in consideration the co-pay and price limit on the vision plan glasses.

So I went out last night and walked through a few spectacle stores.

But, like I said before so many glasses just suck. Oh well.

I remember discussing differences in traffic density with with Colin a few years ago. Apparently not a lot of difference in number of cars can make a big difference in traffic and congestion. Basically, it’s a pretty non-linear scale, Colin was saying.

It seems that people-density on buses wouldn’t be this–on a bus with a 100 person limit, 20 less people would be quite a bit less crowded.

This week on #902 was very odd, however. Monday I literally couldn’t get on the bus it was so crowded. Tuesday I was scrunching in every time the doors opened to not be hit by them. Yesterday was quite comfortable and today I got a seat from the beginning–something that has literally never happened in over three months of riding this bus. What can make such a difference? For your reference, there aren’t any holidays right now, nor coming up; the weather was approximately similar all days this week and I got on the bus close to the same time every day. It seems odd that the bus can have a 50+ person swing based on, apparently, nothing.

This is the November 2007 mixtape. Yup, it’s December. I’m a bit late with it.

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007oct playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. It’s a pretty good ones. Some indie pop, some acoustic stuff, some post rock, some glitchy stuff. I’ve been listening to a lot of these songs a lot.

Adrian’s November 2007 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”

the Faroe Islands, which is a region of Denmark but is almost 200 miles from the nearest inhabited islands, which are Shetland (and are quite a bit farther from Denmark). There’s a ferry there from Iceland, so maybe I’ll have to add this on to my future Iceland trip.

I forgot to post last week’s weird autonomous region of the week the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of China.

More lessons from Adrian. Former/ latter is comparative between two objects. For example:

I like apples and grapes. I like the former because of the crispness while I like the latter because of the sweetness.

(I’m just making stuff here.)

First/ last point to the ends of a string of things. If you have three or more objects, you may think you sound smart using former/ latter, but it’s not right.

For example:

I like ladybugs, lightning bugs and butterflies. I have fond memories of the first [not former] from my younger days.

That makes for an a bit of an awkward sentence so perhaps “first of those” would be most appropriate.

Basically just a caribeann-style sound system but on bikes. Pretty good photo essay.

my newest joke: “I came back into town after being away for a while and I had to get my affairs back in order. But it was hard, let me tell you. Those women did not like organization.”

also.

I’m just going to say it: the lady at the 7-11 in my work’s building freaks me out. She’s a short Taiwanese woman who says “welcome!” (in Chinese) like the rest of the employees do when someone enters, but she looks at me with these crazy eyes. I don’t like those crazy eyes.

I have two weekends left and I’ll be heading to Kinmen for the first of them. It seems like a pretty unique place.

Also, I’ll be able to walk to the airport (I live dead-center in that link. You can see the Songshan domestic airport near the top right).

I spent the weekend in Taroko (pronounced “Ta-loo-ga”) Gorge.

Basically, on the east side of the island, there’s a mountain range made up of marble and limestone. Into it are a number of steep gorges cut by many rivers. So what you have is very steep lush green and marble and limestone walls and gorgeous, often-crystalline rivers at the bottom, often with large marble boulders in them. It’s really magnificent. I’d recommend a visit.

I left early Saturday and took the train down. It goes up north and east till it hits the coast and then south along the east coast. Often it is just about the only thing between a range of mountains and the ocean. The ride itself is pretty amazing.

I got to Hualien and sort of wandering around a little bit until I found the scooter rental shops. I could confidently answer their first question, about whether I’d ridden a scooter in Taipei before [1], but the first few still didn’t want to rent me a scooter without a local drivers license. (To their credit, this may or may not be what the law specifies–I’m really not sure.) The third place rented me a scooter without much problem: a Kymco 125cc.

So I set off out of town and onto the highway toward Taroko…or at least I thought so. I realized it was getting more built up instead of less. I asked someone at the next light: “Taroko??” He did not point the direction we were going.

So now going in the right direction, I discovered the joys of trucks passing me and kicking up stuff in my face and fun like that. After an hour or so I hit the park gates, stopped to get some maps at the visitor center, I headed off to Tiansiang, some 18km from the park entrance and the one small town with a couple hotels, a hostel and a couple restaurants. Up the mountain passes I went on my scooter, gradually growing more comfortable at every turn.

Once in Tiansiang, I went around for a while trying to find my hostel, and eventually found it, the Catholic Hostel, where I had a reservation[2]. No one was around and the desk bell wasn’t bringing anyone rushing. Eventually, someone came around the reception area and I paid and got my key and whatnot.

The first place I tried to go was the Baiyang Waterfall Trail, but it was closed, so I made my way to the Lotus Pond trail. Lotus Pond’s a mountain pond hidden up in the mountains of Taroko. 3km or so each way–should have been easy to do in the 3 hours I had. After a nice easy walk for half an hour, I crossed a single person suspension bridge. It was the first of many of these that I cross in the park–they were sort of like the ones you seen in Indiana Jones, but just a little less rickety.

Then the trail got hard–steep steps for nearly 2.1km. Or I presume so. After a while I realized I wasn’t going to make it up and back before dark and I was alone, without a flashlight, on steep stairs and without cell phone reception. Not exactly worth the risk. I made it almost to the top of the hill when I turned around and the views from there left me wondering how places like that exist. Pretty magnificent. I first heard, then saw, wild monkeys in a tree across a small ravine from the hiking trail as I neared the top.

Soaked in sweat, even though it was about 60 degrees out, I headed back to the hostel to cool down and relax a bit. I read a bit of my book, Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet [3], the only book I’d brought on the trip and after reading for a while, I realized I was about to finish it. With my no music on transportation rule, I would be left without a book and without music for the train ride home. Great…

It was dark when I put the book down and I decided to get some food and then have an early night so I could see everything I wanted to see the next morning. My dinner wasn’t very good and was only notable because at one point I felt something crawling on my hand and looked down to see the single biggest wasp/ hornet I’d ever seen crawling on my jacket–easily 3 inches long and uniform brown. I can’t find any pictures online or a description of what it was exactly but it seemed to be injured–it wouldn’t fly away, so I brushed it onto the floor and kept an eye on it.

I woke up at 6am and showered in the shared and open-to-the-outdoors showers at the hostel. It was chilly, even with hot water. I wanted to go to the Wenshan Hot Springs. The route is described like this: down steep stairs to a suspension bridge, walk across it, along a cliff and then you’re at these hot springs are carved out of marble and sit within the river (though I imagine the water is piped down from whereever the hot spring actually is). I thought it be great to go and sit in the early on this Sunday morning, but the trail was closed. Disaster. I headed back to the hostel, packed up my stuff and dropped my key before heading to probably the most famous trail in the park, the Tunnel of Nine Turns. It was only 7:30am so I had it all to myself. Pretty amazing views of the gorge and river from this short trail.

Just outside of the park are the Chingshui Cliffs–a section of highway north of Taroko (Hualien is south) that is cut into these marble and lush green mountains as they hit the ocean. I decided to ride up and down these before the road got too heavy with traffic and then hit up the last couple hiking trails before heading to catch my train. They ended up being stunning. Like the PCH but more sheer and more beautiful. There were even a couple points where you could walk down to the black sand beaches via a series of steps.

Back in the park, I walked the Shakadang trail, along a ridiculously clear greenish-blue river, and then the Eternal Spring shrine/ monastery trail. Both had something new to see.

Then it was back to Hualien on the scooter, back to Taipei on the train, back to my room on the MRT. The only part of the return journey that had a hitch at all was when my seat was either double booked or my reservation only went through the next station. I’m not sure, but eventually the conductor showed the girl who also had car 9, seat 31 on her ticket to a different seat.

[1] Thanks to my coworker, I had actually had a little experience with a scooter in Taiwan. I’d asked him to teach me how to ride a scooter prior to this trip. His lesson was sort of like this: “Here’s how you turn it on. Here’s how you open the seat compartment. Okay, have fun; I’m going back inside.”

[2] I called the Catholic hostel once a month or so back, trying to reserve a room for a previous weekend. A man answered. After a few words from each of us in different languages it was obvious that he didn’t speak English. After an apology (which he probably didn’t understand, I now realize), I hung up. This time, I was determined so I got a coworker to call and make a reservation for me. After the call she explained how it had gone: she had called and talked to the person working there and made a reservation, saying it was for her American coworker and one bed and the night of the 2nd, etc. The worker seemed to be ending the call so she asked, “Do you want me to spell out his name so you can write it down?” The response: “No, I got it: one bed, foreigner.”

[3] Separate post about this book later.

I missed one bus while stuck waiting to cross the street yesterday. The second came much after it should have (the normal spacing is about 15 minutes apart, this was 25) and I literally couldn’t fit inside, so I took a taxi to work. It was 13 times as much (wasteful!) and the taxi driver even laughed at me for not speaking Chinese. (Note: I didn’t try to speak English to him–I had the address written out in Chinese.) Good start to the day.

You are asked this in a Chinese-speaking area.

Are you alone? then “yes”. Otherwise, “no”.