Taiwan for tourists

Yesterday at dinner, I asked my siblings where they would take their non-Taiwanese friends, if any ever came to visit Taiwan.

We actually came up with a decent list of non-food destinations for Taipei:
- Taipei 101: Currently the tallest building in the world, and in a newer area of town.
- The National Palace Museum: Home of all the priceless Chinese artifacts which were stolen/rescued by Chiang Kai-Shek in the late 1940's, before the Cultural Revolution.
- Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial: There's a lot of debate over whether he should be memorialized or best forgotten, but the memorial itself is worth a look.
- Shih Lin Night Market: The most famous night market; lots of Taiwan street food like stinky tofu, oyster omelets, and bubble tea.
- Lungshan Temple: I feel like I've been there but I don't really remember. Nevertheless, it's supposed to be a good example of a traditional Buddhist-Daoist Asian temple.
- Snake Alley: Pretty gross, but where else can you watch a snake get cut open as its blood is spilled into a soup bowl?
- KTV: Private karaoke rooms are all over the city, but there are lots on Lin Sen North Road: V-Mix, Cashbox, Partyworld, and Holiday.
- Shi Men Ding: Where all the trendy local teenagers hang out and shop.
- Yang Ming Shan: A national park north of Taipei, which has some good hiking and decent views.
- Beitou: Beitou is a resort town a bit north of Taipei, that has natural sulfur springs.

We had a harder time coming up with places to visit outside Taipei:
- Kending National Park: One of the best national parks in Taiwan, located at the southern tip of the island. Includes E Luan Bi Park. I remember it being quite pretty (over fifteen years ago!).
- Queen's Head Rock (Ye Liou): Ye Liou, in northern Taiwan, is full of strange rock formations, the most famous of which strongly resembles a woman's head in profile.
- Fo Guang Shan Monastery: A Buddhist monastery which features a gigantic golden Buddha statue surrounded by hundreds of smaller Buddha statues.
- Tainan: Previously the capital of Taiwan, Tainan is rich in colonial history (Dutch, Spanish) and yummy snack foods.
- Kaohsiung: The second largest city in Taiwan, and the largest harbor. I seem to remember it being only about an hour away from Tainan by car. Starting next year, it will take 90 minutes to get from Taipei to Kaohsiung by high-speed rail.
- Sun Moon Lake, Ali Shan, Yu Shan, Taroko Gorge: I haven't been to any of these places, but they're all famous and/or national parks.

That's enough to see and do for at least a week or two, isn't it?

life on the Pacific Rim

Two days ago, I was reading about the spate of small earthquakes which hit the East Bay recently and thinking morbidly about what to do if a big one hit the Bay Area while I was out of town.

Then, yesterday evening around 8:30pm, while we were standing in the lobby of Partyworld KTV waiting for our room, we felt a definite ripple, and then heard a popping noise from one of the huge, multi-story long chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. We quickly moved to a safer area, just in case. It turns out there was a large earthquake off the coast of Pingtung, on the southern coast of Taiwan, followed by a series of aftershocks.

mmm...dumplings

There are lots of yummy things to eat in Taiwan, and I've had many of them over the last few days, but I never leave without having gone to Din Tai Fong. Can't beat their dumplings...



We always horrify the waitstaff with our American-sized appetites; this is the third consecutive year that our waitress has tried to convince us our order was too large, and it's the third consecutive year that we've finished everything that we've ordered.

This year, after we sat down, they brought out a little contraption that consisted of cloth stretched over a folding metal frame:



The waitress set it up at the corner of the table between my sister and me, and looked at us expectantly. We gave her a blank look, and she explained it was for our purses.

I thought this was absolute genius. I'm always slinging my purse over the back of my chair (where it often falls because the chair is curved or someone has bumped it), or wedging it between my back and the chair (where it pokes me while I eat), or holding it uncomfortably on my lap (where I proceed to drop food on it). Why don't we have these things in the US yet?

hero worship

My mother tells me that every time the Yankees' Chien-Ming Wang picks up a win, one of the Taiwanese newspapers dedicates a full page to Wang, to celebrate the achievement. (Wang is the only successful MLB player to come out of Taiwan so far.) This makes that newspaper hugely popular on the days after his wins, and people (my cousin among them) run out to the newspaper stands in the mornings to buy copies before they're gone.

Here's one from his 18th win:

Christmas travel

For the last few years, I've been meeting up with my family in Taipei for Christmas. My brother flies in from Baltimore, my sister from New York, and my parents and myself from the Bay Area. It's nice because everyone has Christmas off, so we don't have to worry about lining up schedules, and we get to visit Taiwan while the weather is pleasant (usually in the 60s). The downside is that plane tickets to Asia are really expensive during the winter holidays, and we've had several travel mishaps over the years.

Last year I wrote about the nine hours I spent waiting at LAX after our connection from SFO to LAX was delayed, but I didn't mention that that same day, my brother's luggage was lost while he was connecting in Seattle, and when he finally got his suitcase back, his Playstation and all his games had been stolen, not to mention a bottle of expensive cologne.

This year, my brother was originally supposed to fly United from Baltimore to San Francisco, connecting in Denver, and then he was going to have dinner (with my uncle's family and me) in San Francisco before getting on another flight to Taipei. My parents were in Taipei already and didn't realize how bad things were at Denver International, and I didn't realize he had a one-stop flight, so it was my uncle, whose daughter's classmate had been stranded in Denver for two days already, who realized that we needed a contingency plan.

I spent an hour on hold with United before getting ahold of a reservations agent, who told me there were no flights from the East Coast to San Francisco, and no other rerouting possibilities, so our only option was a full refund. I asked her sarcastically if she was going to refund the international leg of the flight, and of course she said no.

My parents then scoured the internet and found a one-way, $700 flight on US Air, connecting through Philadelphia, and arriving at 7:40pm, which was only half an hour later than the cancelled United flight, so they quickly booked it. (A cheaper JetBlue flight from Dulles to Oakland sold out before they were able to buy it.) At that point we thought everything would be fine.

Well, my sister made it to Taipei, with only a two-hour delay. My brother made it to San Francisco with a half-hour delay, arriving at 8:10pm. Unfortunately, that made him too late to join us for our sushi dinner, but we bought him takeout and brought it to the airport. Then, the bombshell. US Air had lost his luggage in Philly. They said it might come on the 10:00pm flight, it might come on the 10:45pm flight, or it might come the next morning.

The Taipei flight on EVA Air departed at 12:05pm, and boarded at 11:20pm, with check-in closing at 11:05pm, so he waited for the 10:00pm, didn't see his bag, decided it was cutting it too close to wait for the 10:45pm as well, and tried to file a lost baggage claim. US Air told him that if he filed the claim, they would be unable to release the baggage to EVA Air once it arrived. So, he went to the EVA counter and got checked in, but in a classic travel moment, was told that EVA would be unable to get his luggage unless they had a lost baggage claim from US Air. He went back to the US Air baggage claim area, and while he was waiting in line with the other 50-odd people to file his claim, he found his bag, which had come on the 10:45pm flight. He quickly grabbed the bag, hauled ass back to the EVA counter, got his bag checked in, and made it to the gate about 10 minutes before boarding.

Ironically, my brother would never have gone back to check the 10:45pm flight if he hadn't been given wrong information by US Air about whether to file a claim. But in the end, everything worked out perfectly (except that my parents spent $700 on a one-way domestic flight), with everyone (and their clothes) arriving in time for Christmas dinner.

California cold

It's been really cold recently, in the Bay Area. Normally when I say that I mean that it's 50 degrees and I have to wear a jacket, but it really is cold this time; overnight temperatures are in the low 30s (South Bay) and high 20s (North Bay).

Unfortunately, after nearly six years back in California, I seem to have lost most of my cold weather clothing. I did manage to dig up my down jacket, but I can't find any gloves except ski gloves, I don't know where any of my thick socks went, and all of my turtlenecks seem to be of the thin cotton variety. If this lasts much longer I may have to go shopping.

sports guy

I used to read Gregg Easterbrook's TMQ column regularly, until I got fed up with his preachiness, and I still read Peter King's MMQB every week, but my new favorite sports column is Bill Simmons' Sports Guy. Recently I've found myself forwarding snippets of his columns to friends a couple of times a week, because he's just so damned insightful. (I'm sure that must be annoying, so sorry guys!) Plus, I really enjoy his writing style: casual, intense, and full of great metaphors. Can't get enough.

walking

Last year, they started giving out pedometers at my work gym, in a effort to make us healthier. I'm never one to pass up free stuff, so of course I got one.

It's funny what happens when you give pedometers to a bunch of driven, competitive people. I myself never take elevators anymore, unless the destination floor is at least five floors away. I also choose to walk rather than drive short distances (e.g. 1/2 mile) now, which is contrary to all of my Californian driving-culture upbringing.

Anyway, it's now been one whole year since I started wearing the pedometer, and according to my log, I've walked at least 3,026,087 steps over the past year, for a total of 619.24 miles. Not so bad, for a code monkey.

gingerbread houses

Last weekend, I had a gingerbread house making party at my place. We spent most of the morning baking gingerbread (thus ensuring that my kitchen and my hair would smell like gingerbread for days) and making icing cement. After the guests arrived, we assembled and decorated the houses in teams of two, and then held a contest (every team getting to vote).

I was pleasantly surprised by people's patience and ingenuity; some teams had construction problems, and other teams had decorating mishaps, but in the end, every house held together, looked good, and there were tons of cute, creative details.

Here are some photos:

house with a snowman	carousel
Fenway Park	my house
bunny house (winner!)	lots of gingerbread houses