First Entry - Taiwan

Well, since I'm travelling around Asia and feel I should somehow chronicle the journey, I'm going to see if I can keep up a blog. Don't expect great writing skills, this is essentially a place where I can puke up words on a keyboard. Maybe my skills will increase with time.

So far its been a good trip. We started off in Taiwan. Pretty cool there. coming from Korea I was utterly amazed at the organization there. People actually waited in line, and on the subway they let people get off before trying to cram in. In Korea in both elevators and subway entrances they seem not to understand that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, and tried to push in before other people had left.

There was good shopping in Taiwan, and the overall atmosphere was very modern, but had a sort of cultural flavor that Korea seemed to lack for me. One of the coolest things about Taiwan were these special book businesses. They functioned as a fusion between Internet cafe/library/restaurant and coffee shop. You paid by the hour, and could have as many drinks as you like for free. Also, you have unlimited access to their computers and a large variety of magazines and books. The food there was good and cheap. It seemed like the place to hang out for studying students.

One weird experience I had there was going to see Batman 2. Man, what a freakin' awesome movie. The Joker was so damn crazy. Anyway, Anita and I were waiting in line to see the show. We showed up about 15 minutes before it started, and we already had our tickets so no problem. The waiting room started to fill up with people so there was barely any room to breathe. We sat there waiting uncomfortably for a number of minutes, then at last the doors to our particular theatre opened. As we followed the stream of people pouring into the very dark room I noticed the previews were well underway, which was weird as the doors had just opened. Our seats were "H9 and H 10" or something like that, and although the letter for the rows were labeled, the seats were not. So we had to count our way in. Just as we sit down the movie starts, however only about 1/2 the people are seated. The last wave of people finally settles in about 5-10 minutes into the movie. When the movie ended we were all rushed out of this tiny bottleneck staircase that screamed fire hazard. Weird way to do things.

While in Taiwan I read "Does anything Eat Wasps?". Essentially a bunch of questions that were mailed to scientists about everyday curiosities. My kind of book. And yes, many things eat wasps, such as the Asiatic Fraggle.

So, some final evaluations on Taiwan. Good food at reasonable prices. I tried a variety of Chinese fare and some wonderful Indian food. The pollution in Taiwan also seemed more tolerable than Korea, but that could have merely been the season that I visited it in. Overall, I'd recommend a trip there if you happen to be in the area.