Taiwan offers the beautiful city of Taipei as well as access to the largest collection of Chinese artifacts in the world. Despite its cultural sites, the country is plagued with natural disasters. In fact, more than 70% of the island is prone to experiencing at least three different types of natural disasters, including: floods, earthquakes, typhoons, windstorms, and landslides.
We've experienced landslides and typhoons first hand.
They left out the part about the balding properties of the acid rain...I never saw that mentioned in any of the tour guides. Needless to say, since the acid rain discovery the other day, we are all carrying umbrellas now. I have also thought it strange that all the cars here are newish when I was expecting them to be refurbished relics from the Vietnam era US Army "occupation", much like the frozen in time 50's vintage cars in Cuba. But with acid rain, they all must have a short shelf life and disintegrate at a younger age.
Another thing they left out of the article are the dangers to your health posed by the local driving techniques. A tourist probably isn't driving much on their own, but they have to get in cabs at the least, or will walk on the streets somewhat, and with everyone driving like they are particles in the Large Hadron Collider, the risk of getting blasted into a Higgs boson is a clear and present danger.
Regarding driving...received my fifth speeding ticket this week. Another speed cam job...Betty is convinced we are subsidizing a good portion of the cities budget at this point. Quite an efficient system and they must rake it the bucks from it as little to no actual police are involved in the process. We are now aware (since I've been popped by everyone of them) of all the traffic cams on our daily commute and it is obvious that everyone else is too. They all drive like bats outta hell, but as they approach a camera, they all slam on their brakes to a turtles pace as they go through the radar range, then gas it onto the next red light, at which they will run on many occasions.
I could write a daily diary about the absolute non-sensical driving maneuvers that we see, but it would be repetitive after a short while...and they all come down to the question of whether the driver is stupid or asshole. I do have to get a couple of the more common ones off my chest though.
On a three of four lane road, you will often see a car drifting all the way to the left lane, but within a few yards of the intersection, decide that is the time for a right turn and will literally veer across all the lanes to make their turn.
The other scenario is the impatient turner...this is the guy that arrives at an intersection and a car or two is sitting in the left turn lane waiting for a break in oncoming traffic to ease to make their turn. The impatient guy will move around the waiting cars and pull in front of the first car in the turn lane so he can go first. Often times his car is sticking into either the oncoming traffic lanes, so those cars have to veer around him (possibly hitting scooters that are careening alongside of those cars), or is sticking out into the through lanes of his own street also causing cars to veer around him into potential accidents. I know this is an illegal move as I have studied their traffic "laws", but this is an absolute common and expected maneuver. It seems like such an F-U move that this a-hole thinks his time and existence in this life is superior to anyone elses's that I seriously feel violence welling up inside me towards them. Being able to articulate this frustration helps me find my happy place. I cannot wait to get to Italy in a few weeks to glimpse first hand at how they drive as their "creativity" on the roads is legendary and to see how it compares to TW.
In Chinese class the other day, we were learning the names for furniture and discussion turned to why the Japanese tables are so low and how that culture sits on the floor. The teacher (who is now my go-to source on everything cultural) said that the Japanese originated from China, but they emigrated to those countries before the invention of the chair in China about 500 years ago and never widely adopted the use of it in their society. I am then guessing that is the cause as to why Japanese butts evolved as they have as they do not start protruding a good 4-5 inches lower than those of the rest of the world.
The Turducken game invented yesterday is providing endless hours of entertainment and predict it will be sweeping the nation Gangnam style soon enough. To recap, a Tuducken is a Thanksgiving treat where a chicken is stuffed into a duck and then stuffed into a turkey. The game is to who can come up with the "best" Chinese version of the Turducken...last nights winner was the Turdogat, which is a rat/dog/turkey combo. Feel free to submit your concoction in the comments and we will announce the winner at Christmas.
Finally...stumbled across this SNL clip about the iPhone 5. We've been quoting it liberally and now perform the Traditional Chinese Sarcastic Dance whenever someone starts whining.
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