Impressions from my first day

On my first day, after my first blog entry, I left the office and started heading back to my hostel, and then I was planning to maybe hit a museum and a restaurant, but I thought I might walk back and see what struck me, you know, just follow the day. Well, I forgot that I turned around as I left the MRT (the subway system here, Mass RapidTransit) and walked the whole way to the next MRT station in the wrong direction. It took me about 5 minutes of looking at maps and turning the maps around in my head and in my hands, and then turning in circles to orient myself and the maps to figure this out. I am sure that I looked peculiar on the street corner, like I was trying todance with the map or something. But eventually I figured out why the streets had the wrong names.

The place I ended up was really incredible. I had wandered over to the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. He is a historical Taiwanese figure, and is seen as the father of the nation. There is a huge sculpture of him in an enormous building. It was funny to just be walking along the street, kind of lost, not sure where I was, and then glance to my right and see the biggest thing ever, this enormous building, just quietly loitering in a large park.

I wandered around the park for a while, then I went in to the building to see what was up with Dr. Sun Yat-sen. He was huge, and in sculpture form, as I said. He was being guarded by 2 armed guards, and I came in as they were doing their hourly changing of the guards. It was cool to see that, they do a whole routine. I tried to take a few pictures of it, but the camera was feeling snippy and only took one.

My favorite part of the whole process was that there is apparently a guy whose whole job it is is to go up to the guards who are on duty and adjust their uniforms, because the guards are not allowed to move while on duty. So he goes over and straightens out their sleeves and cuffs and stuff once or twice an hour. So if he picks someone up in a bar, or is introduced to someone pretty, he has to explain to that person that his job is to straighten uniforms. Not a lot of advancement in a job like that.

While the changing of the guard was going on, an English speaking guide sidled up to me and got me chatting. Then she offered to give me a tour of the exhibit. The museum part of the Memorial Hall has aprogram in which they have tour guides seek out confused looking foreigners and offer to explain stuff to them. I think that's really great. So I got some first hand Taiwanese perspective on the history of the island to add to the knowledge that I had acquired through my morning reading. (I have a hard time sleeping in a new place for a little while, so I woke up at 5 am last Sunday and couldn't go back to sleep. So I read about Taiwan, language and history. Because I had nothing else to do.) She was very, very nice, and I really appreciated her explanations.

Then I started heading back to the hotel, in the correct direction. If ound a great modern art/sculpture park. There was a big basket building. I have pictures. Then I think I just went home and went to bed. All the new experiences were a little tiring.