Comments []

3/17/2003 - There's nothing like a trip to rural China that'll help you appreciate Taiwan more.

2/20/2003 - Indonesian Shrimp Sauce IS THE MOST PUTRID, FOUL ODOR I have ever come across. I can't believe Southeast Asians can put that stuff in their food and eat it. It smells worse than ChouDouFu (stinky tofu). In fact, I would rather smell cigarettes over that sauce anyday!

2/18/2003 - Lotsa people ride bicycles here. Except they don't seem to know that they could adjust the seat height, or maybe they just don't want to. So I see a lot of tall people riding really low on bikes, it looks funny.

1/24/2003 - Wow! I've yet to eat a fortune cookie here in Taiwan!

12/16/2002 - Stray dogs in Taiwan are really smart. They know how to cross the street, using crosswalks, looking out for cars..I think they even know how to read traffic lights.

Dogs in Taiwan also have the largest reproductive glands out of any other dogs I've ever seen.

12/14/2002 - I think things are more Christmas-y here than they are back in the states. I see lots of xmas lights, poinsettas, xmas decor and cards everywhere. But nobody really celebrates it here. We're not getting the day off from class!!

And it's also strange to see xmas decor in 70-80 degree F weather. The weather is quite strange here lately..

12/13/2002 - It's strange.. People jay-walk everywhere, EXCEPT at intersections. At intersections, when the light's red, yet there is absolutely NO traffic crossing the crosswalk for miles, pedestrians will stand at the corner until the light turns green. Perhaps if they moved several meters towards the middle of the street, they could easily have jay-walked!

11/1/2002 - Deli meat sandwiches are often lame here. You only get like 1-2 slices of meat. Like check out this instant salami sandwhich at 7-11. It's more like an egg yolk sandwich with meat.

10/31/2002 - From now on, everytime I hear Beethoven's Fur Elise, I will always think of garbage. Taiwan garbage trucks all use that song to signal their presence.

10/20/2002 - I hate it when I get conned into buy stuff I don't want. It all starts when the vendor starts talking to me in Chinese, and I really can't understand what they're saying because my Chinese understanding ability still sucks. And then they end up selling me stuff or services. And lame me, can't frickin' say no!!

10/14/2002 - Good lord, why is it rush hour at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon?! Or at 4pm on Sunday??

10/12/2002 - I hate being at the Taipei Main Station during rush hour on the subway. The Main Station is a major transfer point for the both the subway and train systems. There are people everywhere!! Scurrying in all directions. Like you could have made to your train, but because some many people rushing everywhere, you're always stuck in human traffic and you've missed 2 trains. Come to think of it, it looks a lot like regular car traffic at an intersection on the streets.

10/11/2002 - Oh yeah, and many other company uniforms for women can be quite ugly as well. Once I saw a couple ladies from a dept store walk home in their bright lavender skirt suits. The suits themselves were fine, and nice wool material, but good lord! Lavendar??! Lavendar jacket with lavendar skirt. It hurts the eyes. I would have changed my clothes before I walked home from work!

10/10/2002 - Why are grade-school uniforms so ugly?! And don't the kids get hot? The uniforms consist of thick exercise pants and a matching sweatshirt-like jacket. Each school has their own colors (usually two) and both boys and girls wear the same thing.

But who the hell chose those colors? I've seen lavendar/light blue or teal/light red, etc.. lotsa pastels. I can totally see the kids from the cool red/black school make fun of the boys from like the pink/light green school.

I'll see if I can take random pictures of kids in their school uniforms.

10/9/2002 - So many places use the chinese calendar for the date, well at least the chinese year. So you'll see on many documents that today's date would be 10/9/91, since it's the year XX91 right now. I didn't know that. In fact I thought that everything said year 91 because of some Y2K problem that shops and business were too lazy to fix! Silly, ignorant me...

10/8/2002 - I don't mean to be gross, but the air is so dirty out here, that your boogers get all black from you breathing in the pollution.

10/4/2002 - The school's admin policies are rather strange (but then perhaps it has to do with the entire Taiwan attitude). I go in at lunch time to go get 2 documents. I signed up for one of the docs the day before, so I go to pick it up and inquire about the other one. The lady at desk #3 gives me the doc, and tells me that I have to sign up (just my name and id number) to get the 2nd doc. BUT I can't do that at lunch time, I can ONLY pick up docs which lie in a pile right next to the sign up sheet. Does that make any sense??! I have no idea...

And the lady at desk #4 is a real bitch. And apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so. Other students have complained about her out of the blue. "Wow #4's a bitch!" Yes, she is.. she's got a pretty mean attitude, like she doesn't want to deal with you. But she's the only admin person who handles all the student registration and important stuff like that.

10/3/2002 - This probably goes for any country you go to... But good lord! Why is it always the overweight middle-aged women who like to stroll around, slowly and completely naked in the women's locker at the gym?! None of the hot chicks do that (well they may stroll around with a towel wrapped around them). It's really quite disturbing.

9/23/2002 - People really don't like climbing stairs here in Taiwan. When I get off the subway with hundreds of other people, everyone lines up so they can get on the standing lane (right hand side) of the elevator. So there's a huge mass of people bottlenecking at the bottom, leaving no room to get to the left hand side or the empty stairs on the side. I otter take of picture of this phenomenon... :)

9/22/2002 - Hm, they still assign seats at the movie theatres...

9/22/2002 - Even though this is a big city, I find very few pigeons (the rats of the sky) here in Taipei. Maybe everyone ate them or something...

9/20/2002 - Going to clubs here in Taiwan feels just like clubbing in SF, like Drink Club. Almost everyone's Asian, many ABC's, in fact. But what's different are 1) there are a lot more people in the clubs, 2) there are waaaay more girls, 3) and there are still a lot of people after 3am. Oh yeah, you can also smoke there too.

I start feeling like i'm back in the US until people start to bump into me with out saying 'sorry', and then I remember I'm in taiwan.

9/20/2002 - I don't know if it's just me, but so far all the cocktails I've had here are WEAK! They taste good, but they're all either very fruity or watered-down; I can hardly taste any alcohol at all! I don't even turn red after a glass and a half!

But I hear taking (mulitple) tequila shots here is quite popular. And the shots here are very big. Perhaps I should try that next time. I hope my mom's not reading this...:P

9/19/2002 - I think when I get home I'm going to be a total bitch. I've learned to start pushing and shoving people when I get off the subway. Push an old lady with no remorse. People do it to me all the time, the only way get where you need is to do the same thing back to them.

9/10/2002 - The parks here aren't very popular. They're so huge, but there are so few people making use of it. This includes other recreational spots like CKS Memorial.

9/9/2002 - Food courts, often located on the bottom floors of department stores, are major centers for rubber imitation food!

9/7/2002 - I'm afraid I'm gonna forget how to drive when i get back!

9/7/2002 - Post-typhoon weather rocks! It's neither humid nor hot. It's like a nice 72-75 degrees F, with some wind. I like wind! :)

9/7/2002 - For some reason the skin on my fingers is peeling. I'm not really working hard with my hands or anything. They're not callousing.. I wonder if it's a way of adjusting to the humidty... Maybe I'm growing more humidity-resistant skin or something. hehe

9/5/2002 - While I haven't been listening to ICRT, the American radio station, every western song I hear here is either some Britney song, some dance-remix Britney song, or some Kylie Minogue (sp?) song. Isn't there any variety??? C'mon, how 'bout some N'sync?!

9/4/2002 - I found some cute(r) young guys here! They're at the gym, working out! :P

9/4/2002 - Geez, shop/restaurant owners and employees try really hard to get your business. All you have to do is walk by their store, and they start pleading for you to come in by telling you about their specials, or just plain telling you to come in. As long as you look in the direction of their window, they'll start pleading. If you even stop to look at the menu or something posted on the window, somebody will even come outside to talk to you.

9/4/2002 - Contrary to my stereotypes, I find the most of the girls here aren't all that high-maintenance. At least they don't look the type. I mean sure, there are some that look like they'd fit the category -- i guess my stereotype would be they wear fashionable-looking garb, skinny, makeup, heels, tight jeans or skirt, etc... But most here, while they're still skinny, they dress rather grungily, like old jeans and sneakers and a tshirt. Or maybe that's the fashion. Eh, what do i know... whatever..

9/3/2002 - My chinese teacher talks a lot. We haven't really learned characters. I'm already beginning to think that Chinese 5 at berkeley was a much more effective course in learning how to read 'n write. But of course learning anything in the class is all up to me.

9/3/2002 - Golly eating here is just so cheap! When's the last time you had a $2-3 lunch in the US (especially bay area, CA). Or when's the last time you had a specialy food dinner at only about 6 bucks a dish (ie. like at that Shanghai Dumpling)?!

9/3/2002 - There's just soo many people here, walking around, on the subway.. And of them, there are a lot of young people in Taipei. Like teens-30yr olds. Where are all the middle-aged folks and seniors? I guess they just don't go out as much? And guess what guys, there's A LOT of girls here. Unlike in the Silicon Valley, i think there's over 50% girls of all the younger people here. And a lot of them can be considered cute (if you're into the skinny body type). SOOO, all my single, male buddies... if you're looking for a gf, come to taiwan! :)

On the other hand, there ARE lotsa young guys here, but they're all mostly small, skinny and scrawny, or sloppy, or sickly pale. I feel so, so SASQUATCH standing near them... Like a big, unkept american giant.

9/2/2002 - I don't know if it's just me, but it's really not that hot today. Or it is, but I'm already used to it.. nah.

9/2/2002 - There is soooo much shopping here. There's lotsa shopping centers and malls.. new ones like the Breeze Center, New York New York, Warner; and old ones like Sogo, ATT, Ming Yao.. but of course it's probably because I'm living in that part of town. But there's a lot of high-end name brand stuff at these department stores. Like Gucci stores, Armani, that type of stuff. At Breeze, all these shops were sadly quite empty. Who the hell can afford that stuff?! And i hear the taiwan economy is pretty poor.

And most of the shopping here are for women. There are soo many shops that sell shoes and handbags and hair accessories. What do men shop for???

8/30/2002 - The subway (MRT) is cool. It's convenient, clean, and cheap! Getting to school by taxi costs about $110NT, while the MRT only costs $25NT. And the trains come like every 5 minutes. Sweeet.

8/29/2002 - Taipei's not really that big a city. Everything's actually pretty close to each other, within walking distance. You'll probably get a decent workout walking everywhere, especially in the heat, but most things are walkable. I think it just seems big because of all the people (oh there's soooo many people), and cars and scooters, and just all the hustling and bustling around that people here do.