(by popular demand, this will hopefully be my last long winded post as I will attempt to shorten them significantly and focus on the highlights. Man, I'm doing it again, I'm rambling on in my disclaimer that my future posts will hopefully be shorter. Keep your fingers crossed for me please)
My second full day in Taipei, Sunday, I decided to tackle on my own. After waking up a bit late but sleeping better than the previous night, a little factoid I didn’t share was the people who were sharing the room with me the first night had stinky clothes and bags or perhaps feet. Quite frankly, I’m not at liberty to discuss where they were from since I don’t want to generalize about Swedish people, but they were nice folks, haha! In any case, they were NOT there the second night and I was relieved. I first headed to the CKS Memorial via MRT. It’s a giant square courtyard with a few buildings where kids practice their hip hop dancing and families just stroll and sit. The memorial building itself houses a giant statue of CKS himself and the ground floor has lots of pictures and his two bulletproof Cadillac limos he used. The design of the courtyard and the buildings were quite awesome, but overly nothing too mind blowing. I did enjoy sitting and people watching, though! From there I intended to walk to Longshan temple but a nice fellow who noticed I was trying to get my bearings (with a map, thank you) advised me against it. Back on the MRT I went and decided to postpone Longshan Temple and head to trendy Ximending which was on the way and is where the “young and trendy folks” hang out.
Ximending proved to be exactly what I had imagined. Lots of stores, food establishments, high end shops, tattoo parlors, and other things you’d expect in the trendy part of town. I walked the full bit of it, observed a concert, found a nice outdoor patio area, and then decided to walk to Longshan Temple. Now it really wasn’t that far of a walk BUT the signs weren’t very clear so it took me three requests for directions and multiple looks on my map and a bit over an hour to get there but I finally did. The temple was having a special festival where they were giving out free oolong tea which was amazingly awesome. The temple, in the middle of the city, managed to have a few waterfalls that pleasantly fell into the ponds below them. It was a welcome escape from the hustle of the city, but only vehicle hustle as there were loads of people walking all about. I paid my respects to the gazillion statues and dodged the fiery flames of people holding incense sticks by the fistful and proceeded to head to Snake Alley down the way. I did have to make a brief stop for a girl playing music on a saw, quite neat, oh yeah stopped for a dumpling as well, delicious, oh yeah, and a sugarcane juice, also yummy!
Snake Alley, which apparently has gone down in popularity the past few years, is a street where they are known to dramatically kill snakes and other animals. I wasn’t really keen on seeing this but figured I should at least pass through. Fortunately, they don’t start the “show” until 7pm and I arrived shortly before that. I did see some disturbing sights including live snakes piled into solariums ready to be killed and live turtles that have been removed from their shells. That pretty much made me want to leave and I did. I decided to walk around the other part of the market a bit to get my mind off of the ghastly scenes. I contemplated getting a foot massage but thought I might be too relaxed to get home after one. Instead I perused sunglasses, belts, and other knickknacks till I found another dumpling stand. I ordered and the lady kept pointing and saying something but I couldn’t figure it out until after I left. She was trying to ask me what priced dumpling did I want. Oh well, it was still delicious and energized me for my trip home. When I got back to the hostel, my horror as who was back but one of the “stinky folks” and he was staying in my room again. I had to leave so I went to a teppenyaki place which is the Japanese style where they cook in front of you for some lamb, soup, veggies, rice, and unlimited coke that I don’t drink. Sleep followed . . . in the stinky room!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
First Days in Taiwan
Though I’ve skipped a boatload of updates from Korea and the Philippines in my sporadic blog updates I wanted to write about my trip to Taiwan before I forgot too many details about it. To start out with, it’s my new favorite place. It's the type of place that renewed my travel energy, much the same way Japan started my travel bug. Korea and the Philippines are also great, but they took a bit of time to grow on me; Taiwan, not so much! I knew I wanted to visit there, but didn’t think the trip would be so soon. Basically, while in the Philippines, I needed to pay about $70 to extend my visa. I’m a bit bitter about that since it’s pretty much a scheme to collect money. You get 21 free days when you arrive then need to pay $70 dollars to give you another 38 days then another $70 for another 59 days. In any case, I figured I should just take a trip to another country for a “few more” dollars instead. Looking at Cebu Pacific Air (a Philippine low cost airline) I checked the prices of Singapore, Kuala Lumpor, Thailand, and a couple other countries that aren’t coming to my head right now. China and Vietnam were out for this round since I only noticed my visa was about to expire about five days before the actual date which didn’t give me enough time to secure a visa for those countries. A trip to Taipei proved to be the cheapest at the last minute with a RT ticket running about $215. The crazy part about it is if I had planned even more in advance I could’ve gotten a RT ticket for about $50 to $60 (gotta be lucky for those ones) or for $120 if I had a bit more time. I gave myself “9 days” in Taiwan and you’ll soon learn why the 9 is in quotes.
My flight took off from MNL around 10:40pm on Friday, April 09, 2010 and arrived around midnight early Saturday morning. Unfortunately, there was no bus service at this time but surprisingly my lack of planning self did have foresight and talked to the hostel owner where I was going to be staying and she reserved a hired car for me. The hour trip to JV’s Hostel in Taipei took about an hour and cost me 900NTD or about $30. Obviously, I associate this cost with my airline ticket since if I arrived earlier I could’ve taken a bus. So now the price of my flight just went up from $215 to $245, haha, I’m so Indian! Everyone was still up or out when I arrived so I got the quick tour, chatted it up with the other hostel folks, and called it a night around 3:30am.
I had posted a thread in the Taipei Couchsurfing forum a few days earlier asking if anyone had suggestions of things to do while I was in Taiwan. A girl posted a response and suggested I go to Danshui, a town about 40 minutes or so north by public transportation, to meet up on a photography walk. Even though I’m not amazing at photography, I had no plans so I said why not. It ended up being a group of three people and me, two Taiwanese girls, Jessica and Debbie, and a guy from the UK, Nick. Everyone was so nice and welcoming. We sort of casually strolled around the town, stopped by a few sites, and even managed time to scale a rock climbing wall. Jessica suggested I try a-gi and bought a bowl for me. I’m not sure how to really describe it except that it’s a steamed/fried tofu ball with glass noodles inside served in a broth and a spicy sauce and that it was quite delicious! We had some tea at a lovely tea stall then did some more walking around.
Sort of lost track of time and Jessica wanted to show me Fisherman’s Wharf and its lovely sunset but had run out of time due to a prior engagement. Here’s the crazy nice part, because she wasn’t able to, she volunteered her other friend, Debbie, to show it to me instead. In any case, we didn’t actually make the wharf from a mixture of running out of time, it being kind of far, and us getting lost, however, we did catch the sunset along the river nonetheless. Heading back to the MRT, we walked through the food street, and Debbie suggested I try taro covered durian and mountain bubble tea. The former was interesting (if you don’t know what durian is, it’s the “stinky” fruit) and good, and the latter was awesome, tea made with edible seeds from some tree. We both decided to take the MRT back to the city center but on our way we had an impulse decision to head to the famous Shilin Night Market for even more food, because you KNOW I love to eat . . . and I eat a lot . . . and I can’t stop . . . and I have a problem :( kidding, kidding. So we actually got a bit lost again, but it really wasn’t our fault since we got off at the Shilin MRT spot BUT the market is actually the stop after it with a name not even similar to Shilin (further in our defense, the market has moved over the past few years), honestly I don’t get lost much, well not THAT much, but sometimes, from time to time, I like maps and how does a guy that likes maps get lost? If you do figure that out, let me know please! The night market was a smorgasbord of food but we only settled for an oyster omelet, a couple of sausages where the ‘bun’ was made out of seasoned rice, a couple juices made with bitter melon (good for the blood), and a giant chicken fritter. After our meal we had just enough will in us to ‘roll’ around the streets and visit the other aspects of the night market with everything from a giant pet market, clothing market, carnival games, bowling, the list goes on and on. We finally got ourselves on the MRT, headed back into the city, and called it a night! I am not sure I could’ve navigated my way as functionally around the market without Debbie. The niceness of Taiwanese peoples, so thanks Jessica, Debbie, and Nick!
As usual, pictures are (or will be) on my Facebook account!
My flight took off from MNL around 10:40pm on Friday, April 09, 2010 and arrived around midnight early Saturday morning. Unfortunately, there was no bus service at this time but surprisingly my lack of planning self did have foresight and talked to the hostel owner where I was going to be staying and she reserved a hired car for me. The hour trip to JV’s Hostel in Taipei took about an hour and cost me 900NTD or about $30. Obviously, I associate this cost with my airline ticket since if I arrived earlier I could’ve taken a bus. So now the price of my flight just went up from $215 to $245, haha, I’m so Indian! Everyone was still up or out when I arrived so I got the quick tour, chatted it up with the other hostel folks, and called it a night around 3:30am.
I had posted a thread in the Taipei Couchsurfing forum a few days earlier asking if anyone had suggestions of things to do while I was in Taiwan. A girl posted a response and suggested I go to Danshui, a town about 40 minutes or so north by public transportation, to meet up on a photography walk. Even though I’m not amazing at photography, I had no plans so I said why not. It ended up being a group of three people and me, two Taiwanese girls, Jessica and Debbie, and a guy from the UK, Nick. Everyone was so nice and welcoming. We sort of casually strolled around the town, stopped by a few sites, and even managed time to scale a rock climbing wall. Jessica suggested I try a-gi and bought a bowl for me. I’m not sure how to really describe it except that it’s a steamed/fried tofu ball with glass noodles inside served in a broth and a spicy sauce and that it was quite delicious! We had some tea at a lovely tea stall then did some more walking around.
Sort of lost track of time and Jessica wanted to show me Fisherman’s Wharf and its lovely sunset but had run out of time due to a prior engagement. Here’s the crazy nice part, because she wasn’t able to, she volunteered her other friend, Debbie, to show it to me instead. In any case, we didn’t actually make the wharf from a mixture of running out of time, it being kind of far, and us getting lost, however, we did catch the sunset along the river nonetheless. Heading back to the MRT, we walked through the food street, and Debbie suggested I try taro covered durian and mountain bubble tea. The former was interesting (if you don’t know what durian is, it’s the “stinky” fruit) and good, and the latter was awesome, tea made with edible seeds from some tree. We both decided to take the MRT back to the city center but on our way we had an impulse decision to head to the famous Shilin Night Market for even more food, because you KNOW I love to eat . . . and I eat a lot . . . and I can’t stop . . . and I have a problem :( kidding, kidding. So we actually got a bit lost again, but it really wasn’t our fault since we got off at the Shilin MRT spot BUT the market is actually the stop after it with a name not even similar to Shilin (further in our defense, the market has moved over the past few years), honestly I don’t get lost much, well not THAT much, but sometimes, from time to time, I like maps and how does a guy that likes maps get lost? If you do figure that out, let me know please! The night market was a smorgasbord of food but we only settled for an oyster omelet, a couple of sausages where the ‘bun’ was made out of seasoned rice, a couple juices made with bitter melon (good for the blood), and a giant chicken fritter. After our meal we had just enough will in us to ‘roll’ around the streets and visit the other aspects of the night market with everything from a giant pet market, clothing market, carnival games, bowling, the list goes on and on. We finally got ourselves on the MRT, headed back into the city, and called it a night! I am not sure I could’ve navigated my way as functionally around the market without Debbie. The niceness of Taiwanese peoples, so thanks Jessica, Debbie, and Nick!
As usual, pictures are (or will be) on my Facebook account!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
The Rest of the Weeks in Gwangju – Weekends Two through Four
I’m not even sure anyone is reading this blog anymore since I’m so damn slow in writing it, but I shall keep going. It’s funny because I’m actually sitting in the Philippines writing about quite a few months ago, to properly document this for me and my 2-3 (maybe 0) followers I will continue. So, the rest of my weekdays with the English camp were like the first with only the weekends to really differentiate the weeks (keep in mind it’s one day weekends, too).
I did notice certain matters of interest that anybody who has lived in Korea will probably recall the first time seeing them and being a bit surprised. Now, of course, it’s nothing new and possibly quite boring. However, here I go: people run red lights in Korea, stopping at them is optional and often times discouraged, as I drove some months later I, too, was encouraged with the words “go go go, what are you waiting for” so off I went through the red lights; interestingly, there are lots of traffic cams that monitor your speed and where you park but interestingly not if you are going to run a red light, hmmm; almost every restaurant has a call button, you need something you push the button, it’s easy, it’s efficient, I love it; couples love to match each other hats, clothes, shoes, even purses; brings me to my next point, some men in Korea have purses, not the manly satchel thingies but proper purses, some look like bowling bags, some look like large makeup bags, but ALL look like purses; Korea takes their recycling seriously with most public places having 4-5 different containers, the challenge lies in reading the Korean text and figuring out what to put where, I’m a fan of all the recycling, though; Koreans advertise by throwing flyers on the ground, this doesn’t really make sense to me since they are pretty big about recycling but it is what it is and is a bit upsetting to me; there is no open container law in Korea so many people buy beer and drink outside the convenience store or wherever they please; everyone has a GPS device and they are so advanced many people drive and watch TV, yep, figure that one out (coupled with people running red lights, too); if they aren’t watching TV on the GPS, they are watching it on the mobile phone, they can also video chat on their mobile phones, pretty neat; their internet speed is blazingly fast, I hear you can download hundreds of MB in a few minutes, not too shabby! There are plenty of other things, but I’ll let you come to Korea and experience them for yourself.
Since I couldn’t read Korean at this point, when my colleagues and I went out for dinner we would just randomly pick one item each at various price ranges and share them. We successfully did this on 3 or 4 occasions never really getting anything we didn’t like. Pretty damn lucky if you ask me! Other highlights include me successfully staining each one of my white work shirts (4 in total) by various methods, most of which are food related. On the other end of the spectrum, I setup the dorm shower room to provide me with a 4 showerhead shower. I can tell you there isn’t quite anything like it! The remaining weekends included seeing the Boseung Tea Fields, the southern tip of mainland Korea, hiking up a mountain then wading through a river, and a trip to the Indian restaurant buffet. Each class had to put on a final presentation for the rest of the camp and their families. My classes had to perform Cinderella where in one of the two performances Cinderella was played by a boy. It was very well received, surprisingly, haha! The last Saturday of the camp was a huge celebration for us all, but mine had to be cut short since I had to report to another camp up in Seoul the next day . . .
I did notice certain matters of interest that anybody who has lived in Korea will probably recall the first time seeing them and being a bit surprised. Now, of course, it’s nothing new and possibly quite boring. However, here I go: people run red lights in Korea, stopping at them is optional and often times discouraged, as I drove some months later I, too, was encouraged with the words “go go go, what are you waiting for” so off I went through the red lights; interestingly, there are lots of traffic cams that monitor your speed and where you park but interestingly not if you are going to run a red light, hmmm; almost every restaurant has a call button, you need something you push the button, it’s easy, it’s efficient, I love it; couples love to match each other hats, clothes, shoes, even purses; brings me to my next point, some men in Korea have purses, not the manly satchel thingies but proper purses, some look like bowling bags, some look like large makeup bags, but ALL look like purses; Korea takes their recycling seriously with most public places having 4-5 different containers, the challenge lies in reading the Korean text and figuring out what to put where, I’m a fan of all the recycling, though; Koreans advertise by throwing flyers on the ground, this doesn’t really make sense to me since they are pretty big about recycling but it is what it is and is a bit upsetting to me; there is no open container law in Korea so many people buy beer and drink outside the convenience store or wherever they please; everyone has a GPS device and they are so advanced many people drive and watch TV, yep, figure that one out (coupled with people running red lights, too); if they aren’t watching TV on the GPS, they are watching it on the mobile phone, they can also video chat on their mobile phones, pretty neat; their internet speed is blazingly fast, I hear you can download hundreds of MB in a few minutes, not too shabby! There are plenty of other things, but I’ll let you come to Korea and experience them for yourself.
Since I couldn’t read Korean at this point, when my colleagues and I went out for dinner we would just randomly pick one item each at various price ranges and share them. We successfully did this on 3 or 4 occasions never really getting anything we didn’t like. Pretty damn lucky if you ask me! Other highlights include me successfully staining each one of my white work shirts (4 in total) by various methods, most of which are food related. On the other end of the spectrum, I setup the dorm shower room to provide me with a 4 showerhead shower. I can tell you there isn’t quite anything like it! The remaining weekends included seeing the Boseung Tea Fields, the southern tip of mainland Korea, hiking up a mountain then wading through a river, and a trip to the Indian restaurant buffet. Each class had to put on a final presentation for the rest of the camp and their families. My classes had to perform Cinderella where in one of the two performances Cinderella was played by a boy. It was very well received, surprisingly, haha! The last Saturday of the camp was a huge celebration for us all, but mine had to be cut short since I had to report to another camp up in Seoul the next day . . .
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