It's a hot and sweaty Saturday in Portland and I just signed a lease on a new apartment. I'll be renting the lower level of an old Victorian duplex in the Lair Hill neighborhood in SW. The neighborhood isn't quite as fun as NW was, but will be good to get to know a different part of town. The apartment has wood floors, high ceilings, some exposed brick, and a small backyard. Once I get settled and do some landscaping out back, I think it'll be a nice place. The only thing I don't like is the kitchen as it has ugly cupboards and an ugly sink. But maybe I can paint the cupboards...
I been back for just about 2 weeks but Taiwan already seems like so long ago. I'm not sure I like being back to "reality" but it'll have to do for now. Going to Seattle next weekend for 4th of July (and to get a haircut). Will be nice to be back in SEA, it's such a great city. Then heading to Vegas on the 24th with some girlfriends. Supposed to be over 100 degrees while we're there, what miserable weather. Will have to stay inside or stay by the pool, but should be fun.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Ready, Steady, Go!
Today's Taiwan fun fact: You can buy "hip-hop" flavored Doritos here.
Sunday morning I got up at 4 am to go surfing in the town of Yilan with a group of friends. I've never been surfing before and while I wasn't able to stand up on my own on the board, it was still a lot of fun. We were on a black sand beach, the weather was great, and the water was warm. Could I ask for a better way to spend my last day in Taiwan?
While I'm exicted to head home and see my friends, I will really miss some of the friends I've made in Taiwan. Taiwanese are some of the warmest and friendliest people you will ever meet and this has been a fantastic place to spend 5 months of my life.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, today is my last day in Taipei and it's been a crazy last week. Lots of lunches, dinners, and get togethers with people I may not see again. But I also managed to get out and check out some more of what Taiwan has to offer including watching hippies dance in the mud and going surfing for the first time. Let's start with the hippies...
On Saturday I headed to Taoyuan county to attend Peace Fest. It's a three day music festival set in the mountainous Kun Lun Herb Garden. After traveling by bus, taxi, and a treacherous shuttle ride up the mountain on a tiny road, we arrived at the main stage area on the festival. Normally the area in front of the stage would be sparse grass, but thanks to the rain it had turned into a sea of mud, requiring the removal of all footwear and the rolling up of all pant legs. There was a wide variety of continuous live music all day, food vendors, fire performers, and lots of people dancing in the mud. And of course, there had to be a peace circle - a giant circle of people holding hands and dancing in the rain and mud. Good times.Sunday morning I got up at 4 am to go surfing in the town of Yilan with a group of friends. I've never been surfing before and while I wasn't able to stand up on my own on the board, it was still a lot of fun. We were on a black sand beach, the weather was great, and the water was warm. Could I ask for a better way to spend my last day in Taiwan?
While I'm exicted to head home and see my friends, I will really miss some of the friends I've made in Taiwan. Taiwanese are some of the warmest and friendliest people you will ever meet and this has been a fantastic place to spend 5 months of my life.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Ghostbusters
Had a bit of a random weekend in Taipei. On Friday night I stayed home as I was feeling a little tired and was suffering from sunburn and itchy bug bites compliments of my trip to Vietnam. Was back to normal by Saturday though so decided to join some friends at a pool party being held at one of the hotels. I don't think I've ever been to an organized pool party before, but it was fun and oh so nice to take a dip in the cold water given the heat and humidity of the city. After that we stopped by my flatmate's bar for a bit, then a few of us headed to Room 18 for a long night of dancing. As I've mentioned before, the clubs here are packed on weekends. I've never seen more people in one room than I've seen crammed into the hip-hop side of Room 18. And with cover costing $20 a pop, the owner must be raking it in. Maybe I should stay here and open a club...
Sunday I got up in time to have lunch with my flatmates. It was the day of the Dragon Boat Festival which is when Taiwanese people traditionally eat zongzi, steamed glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves. My flatmate Katrina had gotten some from her mom so we had that for lunch while Katrina and Vivid filled me in on some of the Chinese legends related to zongzi and the dragon boats. They also explained to me that the bundles of herbs I would see tied to our doors and many others were there to keep the ghosts away. Keeping ghosts away is a big thing in Chinese culture.
After lunch I headed to Daiji River Park to check out the dragon boat races. Honestly, it wasn't too exciting and I was surprised how slowly the boats moved given that there are about 20 people paddling. But they have short narrow oars that don't move much water, hence the slow speeds. One of these days maybe they'll change the oars and it'll be more exciting to watch. But it was good to see once.
On Monday I was supposed to go hiking with a friend from the office, but that got canceled due to thundershowers. So instead Katrina and I headed to the National Museum of History to check out a special exhibition of the works of the French painter Jean François Millet, on loan from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Then it was home to eat some ice cream and relax before starting my last week of work in Taipei.
Sunday I got up in time to have lunch with my flatmates. It was the day of the Dragon Boat Festival which is when Taiwanese people traditionally eat zongzi, steamed glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves. My flatmate Katrina had gotten some from her mom so we had that for lunch while Katrina and Vivid filled me in on some of the Chinese legends related to zongzi and the dragon boats. They also explained to me that the bundles of herbs I would see tied to our doors and many others were there to keep the ghosts away. Keeping ghosts away is a big thing in Chinese culture.
After lunch I headed to Daiji River Park to check out the dragon boat races. Honestly, it wasn't too exciting and I was surprised how slowly the boats moved given that there are about 20 people paddling. But they have short narrow oars that don't move much water, hence the slow speeds. One of these days maybe they'll change the oars and it'll be more exciting to watch. But it was good to see once.
On Monday I was supposed to go hiking with a friend from the office, but that got canceled due to thundershowers. So instead Katrina and I headed to the National Museum of History to check out a special exhibition of the works of the French painter Jean François Millet, on loan from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Then it was home to eat some ice cream and relax before starting my last week of work in Taipei.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Vietnam
I'm happy to report that I manged to get in one last trip before leaving Taipei, a 6 day visit to Saigon and the Mekong Delta, and I had a blast. I arrived the afternoon of the 29th, met my friend Dave (who I was staying with) for lunch, and spent the rest of the day wandering around Ben Thanh market and the shops on Dong Khoi street. Saigon is a great place to shop for furniture, silk, lacquerware, and purses. It's probably a good thing I don't have extra room in my bags otherwise I would have been tempted to buy all sorts of stuff... Crossing the streets is an experience though, every time I did it I felt like I was laughing in the face of death. There aren't a lot of traffic lights and people just kind of drive around each other at intersections. If you want to cross the street you have to walk out in the traffic and keep on walking in a straight line while the cars and motorcycles zoom around you. I was a little freaked out the first few times, but used to it by end of my trip.
On Friday morning I headed to a travel agency at 8 am to start a 1/2 day tour to the Cu Chi tunnels from the Vietnam War. There were about a dozen people in my group and we traveled to the tunnels via a 2 hour speed boat ride up the Saigon River (way better than sitting in a bus). The weather was hot but fantastic and the boat driver let me sit on the bow which made it even better because not only did I get a really nice breeze but all the little kids we passed would yell and wave which was fun. After arriving at the tunnels we watched a short video on the war (lots of talk about the "American devils" attacking innocent Vietnamese villagers) and then walked though an exhibit of various booby traps used by the Vietcong. Let me tell you, those traps are very simple but extremely brutal. Then it was off to a firing range where you could fire an AK-47, M30, or another big gun. I would have done this if I could have bought just one bullet, but you had to by rounds of 10 so I skipped it. At the end we got to crawl though the tunnels, either just level one, or levels one and two. Even though the tunnels have been widened for tourists, they're still tiny. I could crouch and walk through level one, but I was on my hands and knees in level two. The tunnels stretch for miles and it's pretty amazing that they were dug by hand and that Vietnamese soldiers spent several days at a time in them.
On Saturday Dave and I set off on an overnight tour of the Mekong Delta, southwest of Saigon. The Mekong Delta is an extensive network of rice paddies and canals that produces about 2/3 of rice consumed in Vietnam. During our two days we explored the area by boat and bicycle and checked out the sights including a local floating market and a brick factory. There are a ton of brick factories in the Mekong and it doesn't look like the process has changed much in the last 100 years. Clay is dropped off at the factory, mixed with some ash, then extruded to form the bricks. A woman with a wire frame cuts the bricks to the proper length and then they're stacked in a wheel barrow and moved into the sun to dry for 3 days. After 3 days they're moved into giant brick kilns where they're fired for a month using rice husk for fuel. One thing I noticed about the brick factories (and the rice paddies, and just about everything else) is that most of the workers are women. A couple of guys were mixing the clay, and I saw guys fixing boat motors or working on motorbikes in the towns, but mostly they just seemed to be sitting around. Not cool.
As I mentioned, we did an overnight tour so Saturday night we stayed in the home of a local family. Like many homes in tropical climates, the house was open to the outside and didn't really have doors or sealed windows so lizards and bugs run around everywhere. The "shower" was a small brick enclosure with a cold water tap and a bucket, and the toilet was some boards suspended above a small pond, typical of the Mekong Delta. But the family was friendly, we got some pretty good local food, and as an added treat, some liquor out a bottle containing a baby cobra. Tasty. Sunday evening we returned to Saigon and although I enjoyed the tour of the Mekong, I was happy to be back in the city.
Monday and Tuesday and I did more window shopping and spent some quality time at the spa. $6 for 90 minutes massage?! Sign me up. I got a 90 minute massage, an hour facial, a french mani and a pedi, and my armpits waxed for a grand total of $35. The facial was the most expensive part since it required the use of various products, but what a deal! I manicure alone would set you back that much at some places in the States. Vietnam, and Thailand, are great places for pampering.
Anyhow, I really like Vietnam and would like to go back and explore Ha Long Bay and some of the beaches one of these days. But for now I'm counting down my last 10 days in Taipei and plotting my next adventure.
On Friday morning I headed to a travel agency at 8 am to start a 1/2 day tour to the Cu Chi tunnels from the Vietnam War. There were about a dozen people in my group and we traveled to the tunnels via a 2 hour speed boat ride up the Saigon River (way better than sitting in a bus). The weather was hot but fantastic and the boat driver let me sit on the bow which made it even better because not only did I get a really nice breeze but all the little kids we passed would yell and wave which was fun. After arriving at the tunnels we watched a short video on the war (lots of talk about the "American devils" attacking innocent Vietnamese villagers) and then walked though an exhibit of various booby traps used by the Vietcong. Let me tell you, those traps are very simple but extremely brutal. Then it was off to a firing range where you could fire an AK-47, M30, or another big gun. I would have done this if I could have bought just one bullet, but you had to by rounds of 10 so I skipped it. At the end we got to crawl though the tunnels, either just level one, or levels one and two. Even though the tunnels have been widened for tourists, they're still tiny. I could crouch and walk through level one, but I was on my hands and knees in level two. The tunnels stretch for miles and it's pretty amazing that they were dug by hand and that Vietnamese soldiers spent several days at a time in them.
On Saturday Dave and I set off on an overnight tour of the Mekong Delta, southwest of Saigon. The Mekong Delta is an extensive network of rice paddies and canals that produces about 2/3 of rice consumed in Vietnam. During our two days we explored the area by boat and bicycle and checked out the sights including a local floating market and a brick factory. There are a ton of brick factories in the Mekong and it doesn't look like the process has changed much in the last 100 years. Clay is dropped off at the factory, mixed with some ash, then extruded to form the bricks. A woman with a wire frame cuts the bricks to the proper length and then they're stacked in a wheel barrow and moved into the sun to dry for 3 days. After 3 days they're moved into giant brick kilns where they're fired for a month using rice husk for fuel. One thing I noticed about the brick factories (and the rice paddies, and just about everything else) is that most of the workers are women. A couple of guys were mixing the clay, and I saw guys fixing boat motors or working on motorbikes in the towns, but mostly they just seemed to be sitting around. Not cool.
As I mentioned, we did an overnight tour so Saturday night we stayed in the home of a local family. Like many homes in tropical climates, the house was open to the outside and didn't really have doors or sealed windows so lizards and bugs run around everywhere. The "shower" was a small brick enclosure with a cold water tap and a bucket, and the toilet was some boards suspended above a small pond, typical of the Mekong Delta. But the family was friendly, we got some pretty good local food, and as an added treat, some liquor out a bottle containing a baby cobra. Tasty. Sunday evening we returned to Saigon and although I enjoyed the tour of the Mekong, I was happy to be back in the city.
Monday and Tuesday and I did more window shopping and spent some quality time at the spa. $6 for 90 minutes massage?! Sign me up. I got a 90 minute massage, an hour facial, a french mani and a pedi, and my armpits waxed for a grand total of $35. The facial was the most expensive part since it required the use of various products, but what a deal! I manicure alone would set you back that much at some places in the States. Vietnam, and Thailand, are great places for pampering.
Anyhow, I really like Vietnam and would like to go back and explore Ha Long Bay and some of the beaches one of these days. But for now I'm counting down my last 10 days in Taipei and plotting my next adventure.
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