Week of October 25th, 2013

Couple of fun times were had this week.  On Wednesday evening, our buddy Mike (you may remember him from his doppelganger Chinese Spranger that sideswiped our car a couple weeks ago) came to town for work.  He came into train the local Expeditors office on something on Thursday before moving onto Thailand that night, so we had a few hours with him Wednesday evening.  So what can one expect to be shown of TPE in 4 hours?  Mike implied to us via email from his connecting airport that he was hungry and sore, so our first stop was for ramen at Ippudo (natch).  Spranger said he had never been for proper ramen before and it looked like it hit the spot.  Felt better to know that I was not the only human on earth that had never experienced this wonderful Japanese black art before and was glad to be the one to share this delicacy with him.  He seemed to enjoy it and it filled the hole in his belly. 

Then we had to address his "soreness", so it was onto to our neighborhood for a late night foot massage.  Our local place takes customers up to 11PM, which fit our limited schedule.  Betty and Mike settled in for an hour of some paw manipulation.  They do work you over pretty good and about 45 minutes in, Mike said that he would be OK if it was over at that point, but he didn't dare tell them that as the  masseuses were star struck with him.  They (really the ambiguously gay masseur) kept telling (through Betty's translation) him what a good looking white man he was and wondered if he was some movie star, so Mike's ego was thoroughly stroked.  For the rest of the night, I kept calling him Tom Cruise.  Actually, referred to him as such with a Chinese accent...Tom-a Cruise-a.  They were so smitten that they asked for a photo.  I swear, if I see this framed and displayed in their wall of fame on our next visit, am gonna hurl.

I didn't join them for the massage, mainly cause they hurt me more than making me feel better, but also as I wanted to play with my new iPod that Mike muled over for me.  I bought the Classic, with 160gb of space a few weeks back in anticipation of his visit, so was hanging out with them during their rub down to play with it.  It is so great...put everything I hve on iTunes onto it (85gb, 8900 songs and just about a month of continuous music).  So far, have just hit 'shuffle all' and am hearing things in my collection that I had only played a couple times, but didn't really appreciate the first time around.  Love it love it love it so much.  Combine it with the new HTC One phone, that can live stream almost any radio station on the planet, my subscription to NFL Game Pass and Netflix, and now being tuned in properly is now complete.  We live in a truly great time.

The other good time was at the TAS Food Fair on Saturday.  I was kinda bitching about the workload and disorganization of it the other day, but the day of was a great time.  Tons of work for yours truly...got there at 6:30AM to set-up the three drink booth stands, and a lot of hustling throughout the day keeping them supplied and staffed, and then tearing down till about 4p, but it is a day long party with everyone you know being there.  The Fair is a huge deal in town as there are not only food offerings are from all corners of the planet (some being excellent...can't remember the last time I had a falafel), but there were also games, crafts, a Haunted House, etc.  I think they estimated the crowd at 8,000 and at prime time, there was a 20 minute wait to get in and bus loads of people were getting dropped off.   The Netherlands booth didn't have the best food, really, when was the last time you wanted to go eat Dutch unless you didn't want to pay the whole bill, but their workers definitely had the best looking outfits...had a  Catholic school uniform meets Hamish farm girl vibe. 

I have to call out how awesome the family was in helping.  Carolyn took a shift as the 5th graders got to use helping at the booths as part of their 10 hours of service they are all required to give.  Betty and Paul offered to take a two hour shift, but I mentioned to Paul the night before that I could use some help early (6AM on a Saturday) moving drinks and such.  He was reluctant when I went to bed, but as I'm getting ready to head out, he wakes up and tells me he's coming along.  One of his female friends was there early too, so his motivation to give dad a hand might not have been pure, but his help was invaluable.  Then he and Betty took over the main booth from 9-11am.  Their booth was in the middle of the main food section and it did 3 times the business the other two booths did combined, and they were busting it from the opening bell.  At 11, their "adult" volunteer replacement didn't show, and they hung in there through the lunch rush from 11-1pm.  Paul had also enlisted a couple of his buddies to help too, so they were having a work party.

Then, the 1PM replacement parent didn't show either, so Betty was tabbed for another shift.  That's a lot of work for both of them and while I think they had a good time, I was still very grateful for their efforts.  Toward the end of the fair, some booths had a bunch of food leftover, so we took home a huge pile of samosas for a couple bucks, and the bake sale gave Paul a big bag of goodies that didn't sell, so we had a relatively free dinner.  As we sat around eating our bounty for dinner, we all got to share our collective experiences from the day of hard work.  After dinner, we turned off the lights and watched the latest episode of our favorite family guilty pleasure show, NCIS.  We have done a lot of cool things together, but cannot remember a more satisfying family day. 

Since I'm blowing smoke, have to puff a little more about Paul.  We had our parent-teacher conferences with his on Thursday.  So far, he is pulling in straight A's, but the impressive part is how all of the teachers say how much they love him.  They all appreciate his energy and humor, and how much they enjoy him being in their class.  Apparently, he tells the English teacher jokes and says to her that he wishes he could tell her more inappropriate ones.  He goes into her class early and writes one on the chalkboard every morning.  Genius.  Am sure the fact that she's cute helps with the motivation.  She said that she was out with another one of his (female) teachers the night before and were talking about how they have a mutual admiration for him.  Am so damn envious of the kids way with the chicks.

Finally, I mentioned a few weeks ago that Carolyn is on a new (and improved) soccer team this year.  The parents of the girls saw a need for their own club, so a few us got together and formed one called the Taipei Heartbreakers.  We hired a professional coach and fill in the assistant ranks with very high quality parent coaching.  It is a terrific organization and the girls are really liking it while getting good instruction.  My role is in team communications, but was also a consultant on the uniform design.  I did very little work in sourcing a vendor or working with the designer, but did have a little input on the color scheme and some of the trim design.  We had our first game last Sunday, and while the girls played well, they looked awesome.  I truly believe these are the best looking uniforms for a female team that I have ever seen.

 

Week of October 18th, 2013

Kind of an unusual week socially.  I was contacted by two "friends of friends" that just moved to Taipei that asked to meet to have me tell them what I know about Taipei, so had a couple of lunches with mini-tours of the neighborhood.  Couple of nice fellas.  One whose wife is here working for 3M with a couple kids at the American school.  The other is an old college Deadhead friend's friend and we have high hopes for him.  Is really into music and is also a big baseball fan.  He also has a couple kids at the American school and he and his wife both work for the State Department.  I even talked him into helping me out at the Food Fair next weekend.

The big PTA fundraiser in the Fall is the Food Fair held at the school and it is a pretty good scene.  Being an international school, there is a wide variety of cultures in the school community and therefore are a lot of food options represented...all the bright stars one would want; Thai, Indian, Italian and Mexican.  You also get those cuisines that are like brown dwarfs...stars that had insufficient mass to ignite...like German and Russian.  Last year, I stood behind a grill and cooked dogs in searing heat for the "American" booth for 4 hours.  Not a good time, but I volunteered to help out with whatever this year cause it seemed like the right thing to do.  Was asked if I could run the drinks booth and said sure.  Was great actually, cause all you sell is water and Coke products and it's a piece of cake.  What they sprung on me this week is they are going to increase the number of drink booths at the fair from 1 to 3, so now have gone from a small business owner to running a chain restaurant...envision something like Pollos Hermanos.  So have had to scramble to find volunteers to help fill the booths for 5 hours, plan set-up and such, which has cut into my MLB playoff watching enjoyment a bit (currently, Dodgers down 3-2 going back to STL.)  The most frustrating part is that the organizer is one of the types that likes to think through everything out loud...so annoying.  I appreciate that she is also a volunteer and that it's a huge job, but the position needs someone that is more authoritative.  Am happy to help, just tell me what you want and save me the inner workings of your mental process.  I don't dare say anything though or they'll have me running the show next year. 

Last Saturday, was invited to go out with some folks to sample one of the $100 plate restaurants downtown.  Pretty simple concept...minimally decorated beer hall that serves a variety of food dishes that cost $100 (US$3.50) along with a choice of fresh fish that they steam whole (costs a bit more than $100).  Along the back wall are huge beer fridges where you go grab your own bottles (NT80/US$2.80 for a 750ml bottle) and just eat and booze the night away.  In our party (of 9) was an executive chef at a local fancy hotel, and he selected the fish.  You can kind of see the fish offerings in this photo.

That photo makes the place look pretty classy actually...good colors.  Took this with my new phone, and HTC One, which I totally love.  Decided to move away from the iBrands due to the crappy battery life and into the Android.  Thought that getting a Samsung was cliché and the new HTC (a Taiwanese company) was getting great reviews.  Time will tell if the lifespan is any better, but so far, the functionality is excellent and it is a dream ergonomically.

We had some adventurous food orderers who chose some "treats" like steamed pork bellies, spicy fried cuttlefish, and BBQ squid along with some more familiar offerings like eggplant and tofu.  The familiar things were good while I was mixed on the stuff outside of my comfort zone, but that is the fun of it, no?  We all agreed to go with Taiwan Beer, which I've grown way to fond of.  The 9 of us drank 43 bottles...just over two crates.

I didn't take that photo...someone with an iPhone did...and have the same damn rotating issue with it.  Another reason I am happy to have changed brands.   The next day, we all agreed that we should have stopped at 40 bottles.  Cannot remember the last time I've had such a raging hangover. 

A highlight of the night was the balloon animal guy that came in and was gifted in the art of making erotic balloon art.  Was too lit to remember to take snaps of the penis hat.  But I was coherent enough to get a picture of the highlight of the evening (for me anyway)...the Taiwan Beer Girl.

Check out that two handed simultaneous pour.  The glasses were the little shot glass kind, so this is harder than it looks.  And she did not spill a single drop.  Add in the TW Beer cheer leading outfit, her (unusual for a Chinese) dimples, and more than my share of 43 bottles of beer, and I felt like I had found a future mother for my children (should that need unexpectedly arise of course).

Finally for this week, have to share some recent conversations with Carolyn (now age 10).  She has a friend that she's been pretty tight with so far, and I asked her the other day if she wanted to invite her for a sleepover.  She said that she hasn't been getting along great with her recently as this friend is getting into boys.  Carolyn was feeling pressured by this girl to find a boy that she "liked".  It was a nice moment that she still feels comfortable talking about this stuff with me, and hearing that her attitude was that she feels too young for that kind of thing.  A couple days later, Care volunteers that she told this friend that there was a boy she kinda/sorta liked and that this friend immediately started "liking" this boy too.  I have heard of this proclivity amongst some females, but the fact it is rearing its ugly head at 10 years old really grossed me out.  So far, I like her attitude towards the whole situation but really fear for the peer pressure she is going to face for the next what...decade.  Longer?  I pray that we are instilling the right mind set that will allow her to cope with it successfully, but am open to any tips those of you with older daughters might want to share.  The other morning, am on Skype with my buddy talking football when Paul wakes up and kinda joins the conversation.  My buddy asks Paul (now age 14) if there are girls he likes and he says no.  I say, what about that girl so and so I see you hanging around with sometimes, she looks cute, and Paul replies "yeah, but she is always depressed" and so is keeping his distance.  So far so good with that one.

Week of October 11th, 2013

Couple of 'firsts' this week.  First...had my first experience with ramen.  Was talking to a buddy who was raving about a ramen place, so we reserved a night and booked the ladies to go check it out.  As I'm walking in, had to confess to the group that I had never had ramen before...that includes the little bag of instant noodles that the kids eat and people (Walter White included) claim to have lived off of in college.  Seems bizarre no?  We went to Ippudo and it was delicious.  Big bowl of noodles with pork, seaweed, mushrooms, and an egg...ordered spicy.  Of course I know about sushi and teriyaki, but how did I miss an entire genre of Japanese cuisine for so long.  Apparently, there is a whole ramen culture and the way the broth is prepared and the ingrediants are marinated is considered an art form.  At Ippudo, they also offered other treats.  I enjoyed the mini pork sandwich but absolutely loved the spicy sizzling tofu soup.  Have been craving it ever since.  Add to the mix the big bottles of Asahi served in shot glasses and you have yourself just about the perfect dining experience.  They just opened a branch of another popular ramen place called Ramen Nagi around the corner and know that I will soon be descending deep into the black art that is Japanese ramen.

The second event of the week was being involved in my first car accident in Taiwan.  Driving Betty to work and at exactly 7:45, and we pull up to a line of cars stopped for a red light.  As soon as our car rolls to a stop, we hear and feel another car scraping along the drivers side of our rig.  The dip shit rolls down his window and I motion to him to pull it over to the side.  As we pull over, a third car does the same.  Turns out that the guy tried to split the gap between me and the third car and clipped us both.  The reason I know it was 7:45 is that it was recorded on our dashboard cam.  Was able to upload some of the videos from the SD card and here is the event...it's at the end of this one and the only way you can tell it was an accident is the car shaking a little bit. 

This next video is of us all pulling over.  Not terribly exciting except that at the end, you can see the dude getting out of his car.  His appearance reminds me of my friend Spranger, only the Chinese version, and we will refer to him going forward as Chinese Spranger. 

In the movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, there is a scene at the bar where they identify celebrity look-a-likes from other nationalities...Brazilian Billy Bob Thornton and Native American Joe Pesci.  Funny scene and a decent movie.  We play this game a lot.

So we pull over and call the cops...the people that leased us the car said to do that and then call them.  A scooter cop shows up and we all run through our version of events.  Thank my lucky stars that Betty was in the car and could do the translation thing (and also to witness that it no way was I at fault cause I know she would consider me guilty until proven innocent).  I do know that if she wasn't there that I could ask the cop to send a Foreign Affairs officer that speaks English to help me out.  She hears the Chinese Spranger claiming it was my fault as I started moving when he was in front and scratched him.  What a dick...not only did I have Betty as a witness, but also the other guy he hit and our dashboard camera. 

The scooter cop then calls an incident cop who arrives in a nasty looking Toyota of some kind.  He goes through the group interview process again and takes our dashboard cam SD card to his car to review.  He comes back and proceeds to encourage us to settle the claim on the spot.  I had read about this cultural trait before we moved where most fender benders are resolved on the spot by the two parties where guilt is assigned and money is exchanged.  I learned this week that most people do not have car insurance and this method works better to stay out of the eyes of the law and keeps costs down.  As we are in a lease situation, no way does that work for us.  I think it would be way easier for the cop to avoid work, which was his motivation for us to settle.

After that, we all get called separately to be interviewed by the cop in his cruiser...our conversation recorded on his smart phone.  His nasty on the outside looking Toyota was worse on the inside...smelled of BO and was full of food an other junk, like he was living out of it.  I asked him what the video showed and he said (through Betty) that it was totally Chinese Sprangers fault.  By this time, the guy who leased us the car had arrived and got all the details from the cop so he could figure out how to get money out of the dude.  While this whole process took close to three hours, all in all it was a pretty painless event.  The car goes in on Monday to be repaired and I don't have to do a thing.  Well, I do now have to go and obtain a Taiwanese drivers license cause the International one is only valid for a year.  If you want to share what I'm up against, you can take a practice test here.  I taken (and failed) it twice. 

One more thing on the road topic...since this was the first time I've seen the output of the video cam, thought I 'd share the below clip so you can get a glimpse of what we battle every day.  This is an example of the d-bags that sweep around in front of the left turn lane cars and inch into oncoming traffic in an effort to save 5 seconds.  Buttholes

I hope this video upload thing works, cause I can't wait to show you more.

Finally for today, have a couple of household tips that I recently learned that are quite useful and want to share.  First, when you buy a bag of potatoes, to help delay the time when they start growing eyes, put an apple in the bag with them.  Works like a charm.  Second, when we were visiting my mom this summer (and doing laundry at her place), she said to make sure and zip up the fly on shorts and pants as it will reduce the strain on those seams during the agitation processes in the washer and dryer.  Thanks mom...learn something from you every time we talk.

Week of October 4th, 2013

Things you see and don't see 'round here. 

I never see money on the ground.  With busted up knees and feet, I have to keep my eyes towards the ground as to avoid uneven pavement else I will go crashing to the ground.  As the AARP age less than two years way, a busted hip becomes a growing concern.  With a constant scan of the ground happening, not only do I rarely step in gum or doggy poop, but in the States, am always picking up loose change and the occasional bill.  Am a true believer in the 'find a penny' superstition and think it's the reason I've made it this far.  But here, have never seen a single coin of any denomination.  The smallest is a 1 dollar coin, which equates to about 3.5 cents.  Are the Taiwanese much more guarded with their money, or are the Americans far more careless with theirs?

Birds are a creature that I feel you should see a lot more of in such a tropical environment.  While you see them, you don't see a lot of them.  I have previously speculated that the reason for that is they become the daily special at the multitude of crispy chicken stands, but that is probably just another racist stereotype coming out.  And I don't think they have crows here...at least I haven't noticed one and have not been woken up by their horrible caws once.  The relative absence of birds then translates into a complete lack of bird poop on the car.  I made a note in my book on Wednesday to add this to my post this week, and what happens when I'm driving around yesterday?  Huge dump right on the front window. 

I've written previously about all of the stray dogs around town.  Last year, we were amazed at not only how many there were, but how well behaved and smart they were.  The number of them is always attributed to dog owners tiring of their animals and kicking them out into the street, which probably accounts for their proper training.    When we returned from the States in August, we immediately noticed they were nowhere to be seen.  We at first speculated that since it was so hot, that they were simply beating the heat in the shade.  When the kids went back to school, they heard from their chums that there was an outbreak of rabies and the local authorities had rounded them all up.   Further conversations confirm such an outbreak, but not that there has been a mass round-up (and possible slaughter) of the little guys.  Kinda makes me sad thinking about it and totally pissed at the horrible creatures that abandon their pets. 

Another rarity around town is seeing a panhandler.  I was hit up the other day (guy said he was Indonesian and needed bus money), and it struck me that this was only the second time I've been asked for change.  Since I look like I don't speak the language, they might not feel like hitting me up is worth it, however, I've never seen someone looking for change at an intersection nor homeless people pushing their belongings in shopping carts.  I only hope the authorities don't have the same policy with them as they do the stray dogs.

While I don't see many homeless sleeping in alleyways or under bridges, you see a lot of people sleeping just about everywhere.  The Ikea is a popular spot...they even take off their shoes and climb right in between the sheets of the demo beds.  Park benches, tables at Starbucks, anywhere they can catch 40 winks is fair game.  The 7-11 is a popular place for food...while they do have the rotating hot dog machine, they also have the steaming troughs of tofu and other nasty smelling treats.  Since it is a lunch place, most 7E's typically have seating.  Saw this lady totally zonked at one the other day.  Shoes off, plastic bag as a blanket, totally snoring away.  Totally envious

You do see many waterfalls.  Unsurprising as the terrain is rugged and geologically recent, and there is frequent heavy rainfall (typhoon blowing through this weekend for instance), rapid erosion is prevalent throughout the island.  Betty signed up for a tour of some local waterfalls an hour outside of TPE last week, but her boss was in town and could not go, so I went in her place.  Truly spectacular Wufengqi waterfalls in Yilan County.

The hike up to see the big one was grueling, but also in the area (and due to the geologic characteristics of the island, all over the place) are some local hot springs, so they took us to the public one to soak our feet in the warm water afterwards.  I'm not a huge hot spring guy, but if that's your bag, Taiwan is a great place for you. 

As an added bonus, this site is also the location of the only Asian Marian Apparition.  I didn't know what that was...but basically is an appearance of the Virgin Mary.  Quite an extensive vetting process to be confirmed as a true apparition, and the one at WufengQi has been neither approved or denied (most are denied), but is in a No Decision status. 

Story goes that in 1980, nine men were hiking in the area and became lost in the fog in very rugged terrain.  Unable to make it out on their own and fearing for their lives, the Virgin Mary appeared to them and led them to safety.  What made it more incredible was that the men were all Buddhists...they have since converted to Christianity.

Finally, something I don't see anymore is actual history on the History Channel.  Just looked at today's offerings and we get an hour of Storage Wars, an hour of Duck Dynasty, an hour of Counting Cars, and then the rest of the day features a Pawn Stars marathon.  I love me some Storage Wars...Dave is a butthole of course, but Darrell, Barry, Jarrod and Brandi feel like good friends...but what happened to a good Civil War documentary?