happiness in phuket

I am down in Phuket again for a few days. Kenneth and I came down here a few weeks ago, and I thought it would be nice to hit it again before heading back, since I had a little time to kill. And because it is beautiful here. It is quite a contrast to Elephant Poop Farm here. I love the beach, but I think that EPF has been the best part of my trip.

EPF later. First, stuff about Phuket. The first time I came, we came down here on the "keeping it real" second class bus and overnight train. That was fun, but epic. The whole trip, from train in Bangkok to center of town Phuket Town was about 18 hours. This time, being no fool, I took an hour and a half flight from Chiang Mai. Woo hoo!

It was way more relaxing to come to Phuket this time, because I had been here before and didn't have to figure anything out. Wow, I didn't think about that aspect of the trip here. It has been so nice knowing where the bus is and where vegetarian restaurants are and where the hostel is and what there is to do and everything. I have really been able to be on vacation. Everything is so much easier now.

The first time I came, it was Sunday and I don't think there were many people about, because the tuk tuk drivers were like flocks of ducks pecking at us, trying to make us get a ride from them. (Tuk tuk! Tuk tuk! You need tuk tuk?) Now I am used to them, and can wave them away in a much more relaxed way, and they leave me alone a lot more. (I don't really know why that is, but they do.)

One of my favorite things about Phuket is the bus from town to the beach. There is a stretch of road that acts as a bus stop, and the buses just line up there, and they leave about every half hour, give or take. Then you press a button and the driver lets you off where ever.
Since there are no bus stops, K and I were confused as to how to get the bus back into town. Turns out, you do the same thing in reverse. You go out and stand by the side of the road, and the driver goes through town really slowly honking his horn and yelling, and stops when he see someone who wants to get on the bus. It is really chill, and I love it. I wish all buses could be like that.

To experience our bus ride, go stand under a hot light for twenty minutes. (You are waiting for the bus.) Then pretend to climb into the back of a pickup truck with benches bolted to the floor and a roof. Then sit on an uncomfortable chair for a while, slowly jostling youself, making very loud noises. (The ride through town, with honking and yelling.) Then jump up and down and shake yourself for an hour, with periodic stops (for people to get on and off). Then wander around for a while under the hot light, as though you are looking for a 7-11 or a hostel. That is a bus ride in Phuket.

Besides that, I am not sure what else to say about the island. I think there is a big party scene here when it is not the off season, so I would advise not coming during the high season. There are some silly bars here, with way too loud music and girls dancing on tables.
There are a lot of tailors here. I think it must be cheaper to get clothes made here, because there is quite an industry for it. Some of the people in them are really pushy, trying to drag you in "just for a look, no buying." I have walked by more people with their hands out trying to shake my hand here than anywhere else - like, if they can engage you in conversation, they can start to try to sell you something. I did feel a little rude, just walking by, but whatever. I also feel irritated at being made to feel rude, and it is really obnoxious to bug people who just want to walk down the damn street to the beach.

There are also a lot of optomotrists and dentists, for some reason. I guess that is cheaper here too? Maybe that stuff is really expensive in Australia or something. (A lot of Australians vacation here, because it is so close.) I am not sure; I checked into getting glasses and everywhere I checked it would have been over a hundred for the lenses and one to two hundred for the frames. Forget it, I can get them cheaper in the US.

The beach here is beautiful. I want to bring it home with me. Last time I was here, it was like a paradise, white beaches, warm water, gorgeous trees. It is still fabulous here, but this time the rainy season has kicked in. The waves are twice as high and much more dangerous, and I can only go into the water about thigh high. Yesterday an official looking guy in an orange coat made people get out of the water because it was too stormy. Today I sat on the beach all day. I actually sat in the sun for a while because the wind was making me too cold. Then, around 5, it starting sprinkling. I gathered my stuff, and within 2 minutes it was pouring. Within 15 minutes it was over, but I was still walking to my hostel when it finished. Oh well. Nice and wet, from the ocean and the rain. I took a hot shower and watched "The Mummy" in Thai. I think I got the gist.

The tv is right next to the bathroom, so I got to watch tv while I showered. That was fun. Dangerous though, now I want a tv in the bathroom.

What we know so far

So, as you've probably heard, there was a coup in Thailand this morning. No word from Evelyn as of yet, but she's in a pretty remote place, and it's possible she hasn't even heard about this yet. I've emailed the Elephant farm, but have not heard back yet. I also have their phone number, and will call if I don't hear from them by tomorrow.

Not a single shot was fired in this operation, so it's been quite peaceful, and I'm certain that we have nothing to worry about. Nonetheless, not knowing anything is itself worrisome. From eveything I've read, despite being under martial law, the country is quite calm, especially in the tourist areas like Phuket and Chiang Mai (where she is.) I've heard interviews on the BBC with tourists in the country who are worried, but don't seem to be in any actual danger. Finding news hasn't been that easy. I did find this article in the Seattle Times, which is pretty informative. There is an American consulate in Chiang Mai, so if she gets in trouble, help won't be that far away. The question is how she'll find that out - there are plenty of foreigners in Chiang Mai, (though few americans), so I'm guessing that news will spread. The state department has not at the time I'm writing this put out a travel advisory for Thailand. Presumably, this would appear here, if it does. Tourism is one of Thailand's largest industries, and I can't imagine they're foolish enough to let this affect all that money coming in.

Anyway, anything new I find out, I'll post here.

Chiang Mai

I am now finishing up my time in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. Kenneth and I were here for about 3 days together, and now he has left to head back home, and I have been here on my own for two days. So I have participated in a few Evelyn oriented activities in Chiang Mai before heading to my next adventure, going to the Elephant Nature Park to volunteer for a week. (read "volunteer" as scoop huge piles of poop in a camp that caters to white chicks with too much money who like elephants.) Should be fun! And probably a lot of work. It is sort of like going on a trek, which is big business here- taking tourists out for a few days of wilderness and looking at the natives. But many of the trek packages out here feel exploitative toward the hill tribes and I would feel a little weird doing one of them. So I picked this instead.

Kenneth and I liked Chiang Mai a lot. We saw lots of wats (there are as many here as there are in Bangkok) and explored the Night Bazaar, found a few regular Thai markets and did a Monk Chat. The Monk Chat was cool. There were some Buddhist monks hanging out under some trees with a "Monk Chat" sign and you could go over and sit down and ask them questions. I learned about the daily life of a monk. (lots of study, no dating) We also enjoyed the $3 massages that were available at the night bazaar.
Some stuff here was funny. One travel agent we went to offered plane tickets, trek packages and, for some reason, massage. We thought it was odd so we bought tickets elsewhere. I found a singng atm machine which played dance music when you took money out of it. There are one baht weight machines here. Put in a baht, and the machine tells you your weight. Like the blood pressure machines at drugstores, but these are on the street, outside 7-11. I also enjoyed the icy cold red wine that I got served. And the tasteless beer.

Ooh, I finally saw a sweaty Thai. I was feeling like I was the only person in Thailand who sweated ( I sweat a lot here) and couldn't figure out how all these Thai people were so cool looking all the time. It was driving me nuts. But yesterday I saw one who was soaked with sweat and I wanted to shake his hand. I didn't because I wouldn't have been able to explain why I was so happy to see him, and he was all sweaty and gross.

Evelyn oriented activities during my last 2 days:

On the first day I went to a spa, because I love being pampered. I liked the spa a lot, my favorite part was the facial. It was so relaxing. I want more!

One thing I wasn't so thrilled about was the hot tub soak that I was supposed to do as part of my spa package. I just found the idea of soaking in a hot tub that other people have soaked in to be a little weird, and kind of gross. I mean, on the one hand, I have gone to the pool, and I don't think it is gross to swim in the same water as other people, and the water in the tub was chlorinated, but at the same time, it was a tub big enough for two, and once I started thinking about that I was too jumpy to sit there. I mean, this is Thailand. So I sat in the hot tub for about a minute, then got freaked out and got up and rinsed off. I killed time until my next phase of spa stuff started by building bubble castles and Godzilla-stomping on them.

I also took a Thai cooking class. Turns out if you use the right ingredients, not just something similiar that is easier to find where you live, your food can be pretty convincingly Thai.

I loved my Thai cooking class, but I was a little clumsy that day. I kept putting in ingredients too early and I ruined one dish that way, but that was no big deal because I spilt that dish all over the stove anyway. All over the element, so it couldn't be salvaged. Then I put my foot in a grate and got god knows what all over my feet. Yech.

Oh well, the class was great. The teacher had some good tips and the food was wonderful. Very professional- there was a maximun of 8 people in the class and there were 9 work stations, and the teacher had all the materials prepared and ready to go. I was the only one in the class, so I got lots of attention.

On my second day I took an Indian cooking class. (There are lots of Indian restaurants in Thailand.) That class was a stark contrast to the class the day before. I showed up at 9:30 sharp, and then sat for 15 minutes while the restaurant proprieters chopped vegetables. Then they made me some bread thing to have for breakfast, and I sat for another 20 minutes. This compares with a prompt pick up and beginning to my Thai cooking class, where I made my own breakfast and prepared my own materials all day. At the Indian class, I watched and helped in the restaurant kitchen while the woman who runs the restaurant made a dish, instead of making a dish on my own at my own work station, as in the Thai class.

The kitchen was filthy, by the way. Oh god, it has put me off restaurants for a while. There were flies and cockroaches. Not a lot, but some, and really, the problem that I had was that the teacher wasn't concerned about them. We used the same pot for almost every dish. I was given a spoon for tasting at the beginning of the day and had to keep using that same spoon for all the dishes, double dipping be damned. I kept my spoon in the pocket of my not entirely clean apron.

The colanders we put the vegetables in were black with grime in places.
When a big group came in to the restaurant, the 2 other students and I had to hang out at a table for half an hour while the owners cooked for the customers.

The bathroom was so bad I wouldn't use it. I just held it all day.
Really, it would have been a disaster if it hadn't been for those other 2 people taking the class. I was getting angry about the lack of professionalism and the wasting of my time and money when the 2 guys showed up.

They were an hour late, so I had to sit through the first dish and a half again (instead of the teacher just doing it later with them). But they totally saved the day. They were these 2 twenty one/twenty twoish guys from Oregon, completely laid back. They thought the whole thing was a huge joke. They laughed about "jungle Indian food experience" and ghetto cooking. The recipes were all almost all the same. You put in oil, salt, garam masala, turmeric, and chile powder, which they started calling the fab five. Then garlic and onion were the manager and producer. Joking around about it turned my attitude around and helped me see the funny side of the situation. It really was so ridiculous that it was funny.
The wife of the couple who run the restaurant took us to the market because one of the guys said that he would like to have spinach in one of the dishes. So we all got up and walked to the market. She started telling us calmly and casually about how her husband talks a lot and works a little, and that she is going to leave him and go to Bangkok to live with her daughter. Then the husband kept trying to get us to drink beer, starting at about 11am, while we were working in the kitchen with oil over a gas flame.

Ah well, it is a good story. Thank goodness for those 2 guys, they made it a lot more fun. I still left early though.

Next I took a tuk tuk to a big wat a half an hour out of town and all the way up a mountain. And, because I hadn't been cheated out of enough money yet that day, I paid almost 4 times what I should have. Ah, I will be glad to get to the prix fixness of America. I don't mind being cheated out of a little money, as long as eveyone else is being cheated too, but I don't think that is always the case here.

I did actually have to pay more to get out there. The driver wasn't entirely cheating me. The hostel people told me where to go to get a taxi out to the wat. I walked out there (because the tuk tuk driver I asked to take me offered to take me for over twice what I knew it should cost and I didn't feel like bargaining.) The drivers who take you to the mountains have a set price which is posted. The problem is that they also have a minimum number of people that they will take, and that number is not 1. So I had to subsidize the rides of 2 or 3 phantom people to get out there, and agree to let him take other people back with me (not a big deal). Oh well, the wat was worth it.

It had a fabulous view of Chiang Mai and the surrounding mountains. It was a relief to see some natural beauty. It was a huge sweeping vista, an excellent place for a wat and a monastery. There are 306 steps up to the temple. And lots of touristy shops (which I always think is strange to find in and around a temple). There was also a scary dragon creature with the word "mom" written under it. Heh heh.

The inside of the temple was open air with the biggest, goldenest chedi in the world. And piles of golden Buddhas. I went in to one of the sanctuaries to sit and look at some of them, and a monk motioned me over and blessed me. He was the happiest, friendliest, least self conscious person I have ever met. Being blessed by him made me want to become a monk. He gave off this incredibly kind vibe. Then a nice man sitting beside him tied a white string around my wrist (monks can't touch women), signifying that I was now a better person, or that I was now clean, or just that they had gotten me already.

That night I went to the weekend market in Chiang Mai. It was gigantic. It was so big I wasn't able to see all of it. It had lots of the same stuff I had seen in the other markets, but with a bunch of other stuff besides. Clothes, cool t-shirts and hippie variety and ethnic variety. I bought a another pair of Thai fisherman pants, because I love them and the ones I found only cost half what they normally do. No one tell Kenneth though, he will kill me. I keep buying the damn things, can't stop dont know why. Lots of cheap jewelry, and really cheap jewelry, and crafts, and food. There was lots of music. It was like the sort of festival that we would only see on the Fourth of July in the US, or at a city's yearly big blow out, but I think this happens every week here.

I found a shirt with a huge mechanical ape and a monkey in a ninja pose that said "robot ape vs monkey." It was too small for Kenneth, and the salesgirl wouldn't budge from her original asking price at all. So I walked.
I saw a few German sounding people berating some Mormons who were proselitizing in the street. That was great. What the hell do they want with the Thais anyway?

So that was Chiang Mai Evelynpalooza 2006. Now I go to Elephant Poop Farm for a week, then I hit Phuket for a few days of sun and reading Helen Fielding and Jane Austen. Then I go back to the US and give people presents!

I hope everyone like the pencils I got them!

Will pony up with a report on our trip to Cambodia and our trip to Phuket soon.

ayutthaya

Kenneth and I went to Ayutthaya, the previous capital of Thailand, for a day while in Bangkok. It is a 40 baht (1 US dollar) for the hour ride on the train, but sometimes you have to stand.

The moat is still protecting the city, so to get to the old city and all the temples (wats) you can either walk the length of a block and go over the bridge, or you can pay 2 baht and take a ferry. We took the ferry, because it was more fun. Marginally more fun. Well, no, more fun. It was stinky because of the loud lawnmower type motor on the boat, and it was a really short ride, but I guess it beat walking. And hell, it is always fun to be in a boat. Maybe. Actually, no. Never mind. Anyway, we took the boat.

There was a typical Thai market there, with stinky things being cooked and vegetables and meat for sale, and cheap clothing, piles of pig skin, some pig's heads, lots of trinkets, cell phone holders and lottery tickets. (The pigs heads were a little creepy. It wasn't just that they were pig's heads hanging out in piles on tables, it was that their eyes and mothes were sewn up in such a way that they looked pleased to be there.)

After wandering the market, we went looking for the cultural museum. The museum was nice, and it was small, and it had enough English in it to give us a vague idea of what Ayutthaya used to be. (The capital, and a huge trading port, being at the intersection of a few rivers.)

In addition to the historical info, the museum also had tons of schoolkids. There would be one waves of, say, green shirts running around at about waist height, writing down answers to the questions their teachers had given them, then half an hour later there would be a wave of yellow shirts running around like locusts writing down answers to the questions their teachers had given them. I think the museum is a big spot for the schools to visit.

Next we hit the wats. There are a whole lot of old temples in Ayutthaya. They are just scattered around everywhere. As we walked to the museum we ran into two or three, without even trying to find any. They are all centuries old, but no one cares. There are so many that the town just can't preserve them all. There was some guy washing his car and smoking on the grounds of one of them. I think he was living in the trailer parked next to the ancient ruins of the wat. There is just so much of that stuff around there that the unimportant wats are just crumbling, because there are so many more significant temples around.

The other day Kenneth saw some guy pulling brinks out of the city wall of the town we were in. He need to build a fire (on a median) and wanted some bricks to put around it, so he just started tearing apart the wall that is as old as the city. Hundreds of years old. Cultural heritage. Nope, need to make a fire.

And so, in Ayutthaya, there were a lot of wats to see. Some really big ones. Also lots of chedis (or stupas): these big monument things that may contain relics or ashes. We walked all around and it was ridiculously hot and further than we expected. We saw the various groups of kids from the museum going from wat to wat in big cushy tour buses. Not idiots, those kids.

And of course there was a 20 meter high Buddha to see. There is always a huge golden Buddha lurking in these cities. You really have to watch out.

I think I know what the smell is that I don't like, which seems to permeate Thailand. I figured it out this morning. It is sewer mixed with fish sauce.

and now i am in thailand

Now I am in Thailand traveling for a few weeks. Bangkok smells funny. I got a little more used to the smell, but I didn’t like it at all the first day.

There are a lot of big gold ornate temples with bits of shiny metal and glass glued all over them. And big gold Buddhas inside. And sculptures everywhere, of crazy dragons and roostermen and lions. And big swirly things on the ends of the eaves of the roofs. And intricate woodwork and designs on every surface. Many temples. Have I mentioned that there is a lot of gold? And lots of shiny? I think that the concept “less is more” has not entered the Thai consciousness.

One thing that has been too bad about Thailand is that when you go to vegetarian restaurants the restaurants are very geared towards Westerners (which makes sense) and the food is kind of Westernized. I haven’t been served any food that was too hot for me. In fact, I have been served a fair amount of bland food. Oh well.

The best food that we have had was in a little stall on Phuket Island, in Phuket Town. Phuket Town has a vegetarian festival every year, so the local stall owners can accommodate weenie vegetarians wandering around. But the food was really non-Western. And good.

In Bangkok. Kenneth and I saw the Royal Palace and a bunch of temples. All really amazing sights, but after 5 or 6 enormous golden buildings, you sort of lose your awe for the grandeur of it all and just want to go get a Sprite. Kenneth said is was sort of like what happened to us when we went to Glacier National Park last year. We were floored by the majestic vistas for the first day or two, then for the rest of the trip were completely nonplussed by the majestic scenery and were like, hey whatever, another mountain. Where can we get something to eat?

I think the thing we liked the most in Bangkok was the weekend market. It was 8 times the size of one of the night markets in Taipei. It was this labyrinth of shops that stretched on and on. We walked around it for 3 or 4 hours and I don’t think we saw half of it. And a lot of the shops had the same touristy crap, but there were also lots of other things too. It was like a hippie street fair thing, with a mall, and a food court, but with a bunch of knock off stores, with copied cds and dvds and fake converse sneakers. Luggage, pottery, dogs, purses, roast pig, “brand” name jeans, salt and pepper shakers, silk scarves, music, underwear, fresh pineapple shakes, knick knacks, rugs, stuffed elephants and massages can all be bought within a few minutes of each other.

One thing that is kind of cool is that there are piles of vendors selling food at all hours of the day all over every street. And they have little plastic tables and chairs so you can sit and eat your food. I like the temporary permanence of the arrangement. The vendors have carts they can push around and make what is essentially fast food for people walking by, and the chairs and tables are plastic and cheap and easy to move or throw away, but the whole set up with the food vendors and the table and chair layout with people sitting and eating has an air or permanence as well, like it is a little restaurant, only it is on the sidewalk. I like the vague sense of community that surrounds the little food shops.

They love their king here. There are pictures of him and the queen everywhere.

The taxi drivers here are way pushier than in Taipei. I never had to argue with a taxi driver in Taiwan, here you almost always have to, in order to get a decent fare. Or really, you have to bargain to get a fare that is too high, but not exorbitant. I am not good at bargaining. Kenneth gets mad because in the markets if I ask a price and it is way too high, I will just laugh and walk away instead of bargaining it down. Or if there is a price posted for something, if I am willing to pay the price I will not bargain at all. Whatever though, I hate bargaining.

One thing that I like is that there are people who set up sewing shops on the streets here. You can just be walking down an alley and there will be some old woman with her sewing machine camped out on a corner, fixing someone’s pants on her peddle sewing machine.

Something that is a little disconcerting is how shills will come up to you on the street and start talking to you. I am not used to people just walking up and asking where I am from, but it is the natural reaction to play along and be friendly back and say where you are from and let them engage you in conversation. These guys just want to tell you about how you can get a “really cheap” ride around town, or about the festival down the street, or the parade that will be happening later, or the ceremony for the boys becoming monks at that school right there, then they bring the conversation around to suits and tailors, or travel agents, or whatever. It is really obnoxious because you can’t just walk away without being overtly rude, and this guy is seemingly just being nice. Kenneth and I are nice people, basically, and so it is hard for us to get away quickly. Not that is it unpleasant talking to these random people who all happen to have a sister who lives in the states, (in Manhattan, in San Francisco, in Chicago) but it isn’t very interesting and there is stuff we would like to go see. Even just saying “We aren’t interested” straight out doesn’t work. This “approach” technique is extremely effective, because it is really hard to overcome that natural instinct to be polite.

I am in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand right now. I am taking some Thai cooking classes and some Indian cooking classes this weekend (Chiang Mai is really good for that sort of thing) and then next week I volunteer for the Elephant Poop Camp (Elephant Nature Park) where I pay to do work, but where I get to hang out with elephants for a week. Then I go back to Phuket Island for a few days of lazing about on the beach, then back to Taiwan for a day, then home. Phew. More on Thailand itself later.

end of taiwan

I went to Kenting right at the southern tip of Taiwan one weekend towards the end of my stay on the island. Kenting is sort of the resort town in Taiwan, but they haven’t quite got the resort thing down yet. There is one actual resort right off the beach, but the town itself hasn’t really got it’s money making thing together yet. At night, the town becomes basically one big night market, but it is more like a state fair than a night market. Chintzy games and cheap (really cheap) merchandise. The beach was nice though, and we got a taxi to drive us out to the rock that looks like Nixon’s head. It’s funny- you don’t think that you know what Nixon’s head looked like until you see this rock, and then you’re like, hey, yeah. Huh. How about that. That does look like his head. Guess I do know what that looks like.

Taichung. I think I never got around to mentioning the underwear store “Easy Shop.” That lingerie shop has a strangle hold on Taichung. I must have seen 15 of those stores around that small city. I don’t know what must be going on to support that many sexy underwear stores in one town. I mean, what kind of job do people have where. . . oh.

There were many hair salons in Taichung as well. Many. More than you would think. People like to get their hair done there. And one dentist’s office that I saw in Taichung was set up like a salon, with people in chairs in a line and other people waiting around reading magazines. That was strange.

A few last things about Taipei.
I loved the city. There is a lot to do, and most of it is really accessible. Taipei is a metropolitan city, almost European in a lot of ways. You can get almost anything there- at least, almost anything that I could think of. And even though it is definitely an Asian city, with weirdo dried squid snack things for sale at 7-11 and tuna flavored candy and terrible beer and tiny clothing and questionable bathrooms, it is also very much like other big cities around the world, with it’s crowded public transportation and taxis everywhere, the boutiques and high end shopping, the variety of people and the ubiquity of Coke and Starbucks.

One thing that I didn’t like about Taipei- the Caucasian-ness of a lot of the ads. There was a lot of American and European stuff in Taipei, which is fine, but there were a lot of billboards of Caucasians selling those things; more than I would have thought. It just seems like a strange way to try to sell a product. I didn’t like that level of cultural hegemony. Mingling is fine; there are lots of Asian products in the US, but we don’t see Asian models trying to sell us Toyotas. It was sort of like the Starbucks dichotomy. I love it, because it is a familiar oasis and I can get soy lattes and I can be comfortable there, but I am also really irritated that I can listen to the same Etta James song here that I might listen to in a Seattle Starbucks. The 2 coffee shops really are the same, one in Taipei and one in Seattle. Starbucks is a direct import. But how the hell does anyone know that people in Taiwan want to listen to the same jazz stuff that plays well in the US? Or that they want to see the same coffee graphics everywhere? Or sit on the exact same plush couches? (The only Asian concession that I saw in Starbucks was the coffee jelly. You can get tapioca balls in iced coffee here, like the crap they put in bubble tea.) It was strange, I both appreciated and resented the familiarity of Starbucks. I like my soy lattes, but I was uncomfortable with the strength of the cultural influence.

I think the thing that I will miss the most about Taipei is the people. I have met some really amazing people over here, and it was sad to end the summer and say good bye to a lot of them. I will also really miss the accessibility to people. Even with friends working long or weird hours, with such good public transportation, it was easy to go meet people for an unplanned beer or a late supper or movie or whatever. Seattle is not cut out for spontaneous plans. It takes a while to get to places. And it is more of a pain when you have to drive yourself. Oh well.

I also got used to having a cell phone, so maybe I will get one when I get back. Maybe. I bought some cell phone bling just in case.

There were potted plants everywhere. Even though Tp is a big city, with concrete and asphalt and buildings everywhere, there are also tons of potted plants. On street level it felt very green: it was like apartment buildings had their own little front-yard-in-a-pot. And there were always plants growing on balconies, huge trees growing out of pots and hanging off the sides of buildings. I mean, you wouldn’t get confused and say “Hey, wait a minute, how did I stumble onto this jungle?” or anything, but it was a lot greener than I would have thought.

Mopeds are the transportation of choice for many people in Taipei. Makes sense, they are cheaper than a car, and easier to park than a car. It was funny to see them jockeying for space at intersections. I once counted about 60 of them going through one light during rush hour. People even stack their 3 person families onto them, mom and kid in the back with dad driving, or mom driving with older kid in the back and little kid standing in the front between her knees. What is great is how safe that is. Especially since mom is usually the only one with a helmet.

I think that taxis comprise approximately 40% of the cars on the city streets.

The difference between a typhoon and a really bad rainstorm seems to be how hard the wind blows. I only saw one typhoon. It wasn’t huge. It was fairly wild, with umbrellas being pulled every which way and lots of rain, and it was hard to walk in, but you could still go out. Work never got cancelled on account of typhoon. Stupid typhoons. Not living up to their reputation.

Apparently when typhoon days are called, work for most people shuts down, but movie theaters, shops, and restaurants are still mostly open.

I took a few Mandarin classes with a tutor that a woman in the office hooked me up with. She was great, but I don’t think I was a very good student. I didn’t study very well. Also, I had a hard time getting the tones right. In Mandarin, the meaning of a word is affected by how you say the vowels. There are 4 ways of saying each vowel, and changing the way you say the vowel is like changing a consonant in English. If you go from “bat” to “cat,” you are saying a new word. If you go from “bat” with the sound going up, like when you ask a question, to “bat” going down, like at the end of a sentence, you are saying a new word. Anyway, I was good at repeating the sounds, but not at generating them. I could say a phrase right after my tutor, but I couldn’t say it on my own a few minutes later.

Another reason I didn’t learn much was that a friend of mine came with me a few times to work with the teacher as well, and the sessions quickly devolved into a Chinese insults class. I learned fat, ugly, boring, skinny, stupid, and smelly and that the way to say “very ugly” is translated as “ugly to death.”

Another time we talked about why my friend had had a beer before the session. So we learned phrases like: Why do you need to drink beer? Are you lonely? Why don’t you have a girlfriend? At least I picked up some interesting vocab at those meetings.

Also, the apartment that I stayed in had fabulous minty green couches.

taxis and tea

Taxidrivers. I think that my earlier assessment was fair. I recently had one who actually drove on the wrong side of the street for a block. Just went right over the yellow line. Oncoming traffic, who cares? Pedestrians, so what?

Some of the taxi drivers I have met have been great, but I had a bad run for a while. We got into one the other day, and it took my friend 3 minutes to get across where we wanted to go. She was like, I know my Chinese isn't that great, but that is not the problem here. This is not a language miscommunication issue. This is a “you don’t seem to understand basic words” problem. The sentence “take us to the zoo” wasn’t coming through clearly. There is only one zoo in Taipei. It is a subway stop, for chrissakes. It is big and full of animals. Take us there!

A few times, we took public transportation the first part of a trip, and then tried to get a cab from the subway station to the actual place we wanted to go, figuring that if we got a cab that usually drove around the part of town we needed to navigate, the cabbie should have some idea as to how to get where we wanted to go, especially if we handed him the address. Not so. For some cabbies, even in their own neighborhoods they are lost. And I don’t mean that the cabbie needed to slow down a little to see which building was the right one, I mean the cabbie didn’t know where major streets were. Apparently the Taiwanese equivalent to "do you want fries with that" is "here are the keys to your cab."

Getting to one of the teahouses up in the hills outside of Taipei was one taxi ride gone wrong. It took the guy a while to find the right road (you know, the one that goes up the mountain?) and he had to call the tea house to ask directions and then he still wasn’t sure. Luckily one of the people in the car saw the sign for it as we were driving around. It was unbelievable. Take the road that goes up!! All the teahouses are on it! Stop when you see the address that we gave you!

The teahouses up in the hills outside of the city were wonderful. I went 2 times. Once was just with 2 other teachers, once was with a big mixed group. The first time, with just 2 other people, we went to a quiet place where you got your own little outside pavilion, and you could just sit outside and enjoy the mountains. It was raining slightly, which was nice because you could hear the drops of rain on the roof, and there were lots of cricket type noises, and dripping trees. It had an eerie but beautiful ambiance, which was a strange thing to find so close to the city. We just sat and watched it get dark; it felt sort of like we were camping.

The second place was more indoors. We were in a room with big wide open windows, so it was sort of indoors/outdoors, until it started to rain a little and we closed the windows, then it was more indoors. The second teahouse was gorgeous. Beautiful wood carvings, view of the Taipei, pretty little tables and embroidered pillows to sit on. It was just what you would hope to see if you went into the mountains to sit in a teahouse. One weird thing though, they played elevator music the entire time. They would have one terrible song, then one Beatles song. One terrible song, one Beatles song. They played “Memories” from Cats. Oh well, the atmosphere made up for it.

The way you drink tea is this: They give you the package of loose tea of your choice, a pot that boils water, a teapot, and 2 tiny little cups big enough to hold an espresso shot each, one with regular cup proportions, one taller and thinner. You put in a few spoonfuls of tea (which is still in clumps of leaves, not all broken up) into the teapot. You fill it with the hot water, let it steep, then throw out the water. The first batch is too bitter. Then you fill it up again, let it steep, and pour the tea into the elongated cups. Then you pour your tea from the tall cup into the shorter cup, and smell the taller one to get the essence of the tea. –This is surprisingly true; you really do get a nice scent of the tea from the taller little cup. Then you sip your tea.

To pour from the taller cup to the shorter cup, you can either just pour the one like it is a little pitcher, or you can put the shorter one on top of it upside down- so they look like a little mushroom, and then do a quick switch where you flip it over fast so you don’t spill any tea. Everyone was able to successfully flip cups at least once. No cups were broken as a result of this experiment.

There was a sign by the door of the teahouse that said “no din.” I assume no clamor either, but I didn’t ask.

Something I keep forgetting is that it is respectful to hand money to a person or take change or a business card from a person with both hands. I don’t think it is super disrespectful to only use one hand- I haven’t gotten any angry looks- but I feel bad when someone else goes two handed and I forget to. I just thought of this because I asked the first teahouse people if I could get a card, and the guy handed me one with two hands and a bow, and I took it with one hand and a nod, which I felt bad about later, because I should have taken the card two handed. Oh well, I assume he could tell that I was white. And a lot of times over here white=stupid, so no problem.

One case were white does not = stupid is in English class. It is apparently really hard to get hired to teach English classes if you are Asian, even if you grew up in the States. The cram schools want the white skin authenticity. Which is totally crap, I think. At the office I was working in this summer, a parent came in and wanted to ask her kid’s teacher a question. Then when she met the teacher, she wouldn’t believe it was the right person, because the teacher was Asian, but she had spoken English like a native on the phone. Well, she did grow up in the States!!! There was one guy who got hired to teach English at one of the cram schools- he was German. He learned to speak English in Taiwan! But the fact that he was white made him qualified to teach English.

Oh, I feel that I should make a small correction. Well, not really a correction, but an elaboration. I mentioned how irritating it was that there were all these ugly white guys with all these beautiful Taiwanese women over here. Well, one of my roommates started polling Taiwanese women about this, asking why they thought this was happening, and the comments she got about this phenomenon tended to be more along the lines of “why are all these good looking white guys dating all these ugly Asian women?” Perception is everything, I guess. The Taiwanese women said that the women were too, hm. I can’t think of the right adjective, I don’t know what it would be, but they pulled back the corners of their eyes, and laughed. Like the women these white guys were dating were too Asian looking or something. I was incredibly shocked when I heard that they did that. No way could you make that comment in the US.