Picking up where I left off, in Narita airport...
They delayed boarding slightly due to an aircraft change,
and as I checked in they noted that my seat no longer existed. Fortunately,
they re-assigned me the equivalent exit row seat, so I was in good shape. The
announcements on the plane go tri-lingual for these flights, English, Japanese,
and Mandarin. It’s interesting to listen to them back to back like that. We sat
on the tarmac at Narita for about 45 minutes, which also made us late getting
into Taipei.
Customs and immigration was a breeze. It actually took me quite a
bit longer to get my luggage than it did to go through immigration. I was
curious to see if they were going to say anything about my passport, because
while the US (and many other countries) are not required to have a visa to
visit Taipei, their visa/entry rules require at least 6 months’ validity remaining
on one’s passport. My passport expires on May 27 2012, so I had a margin even
from the end of the trip, but I definitely had to double-check to make sure I
didn’t have to renew before I left, and they didn’t say anything.
The word from Those Who Know These Things is that not a lot
of places in Taipei take credit cards, taxis definitely don’t, and outside of
hotels, an Amex (my corporate card) is a useless green hunk of plastic. So, I
needed to get cash. Bank of America participates in the inaccurately named
Global ATM Alliance so that you might have a chance of getting money internationally without paying
exorbitant banking fees. Europe, ok, Canada, no problem. Africa, Central and
South America, Caribbean, etc are a bit hit or miss, especially since BoA only
recognizes reciprocal relationships with a bank in its home country (that is,
Deutsche Bank in Germany is ok, but not in Poland, etc). Asia? [crickets] Nada,
zip, zilch. BoA at least has a direct
affiliation with China Construction Bank so that you can get money in China (I
used it last year in Beijing), but it’s not applicable to branches in Hong Kong,
and they have nothing in Taipei, so I stopped at the first ATM I saw. My
general assumption is that it’s still cheaper to get local currency via an ATM
than via the currency exchange in the US, and I’m not keen on traveling with a
large amount of USD to change once I get here anyway. In general, I sort of
feel like if you fancy yourself a global (or even National) banking player, it
shouldn’t be my problem that you aren’t where I am when I need money. I can
understand hitting me with a charge if I am too lazy to go even slightly out of
my way to get to the closest BoA (or affiliate) ATM within a certain distance
radius, but if you don’t have *any* options for me, you shouldn’t be charging
me for the “convenience” of accessing my own money. If you lose money eating
the other bank’s fees, that should be your incentive to get a reciprocal
relationship set up, or get some ATMs deployed. But given that this is the bank
that thought it would be a good idea to charge $5/month for people to, you
know, use their debit card for actual its intended purpose, I’m not holding my
breath.
There was a huge line for the taxi stand, due to the fact
that several international flights had landed at about the same time, and it
was pretty late. I wasn’t really keen on waiting in the line, as it looked like
it was actively losing ground (far fewer taxis taking people out of the queue
than new people entering), and it was already 11pm local time, meaning that I'd been up for 26+ hours straight. So when someone
came up to me and tried to sell me a taxi ride as I was trying to find the end
of the taxi line, I accepted, despite my better judgment. I knew that normal
taxi fare from the airport to downtown was usually NT$1200-1300 (which is
usually meter fare + tolls), so when he offered a NT$1400 flat rate, I figured
the extra $3-5 US was worth the convenience of getting to my bed that much
quicker. The fixer made a call on his cell phone, walked me over to the arrivals curb,
and within 2 minutes, up drove my cab (Toyota Corolla, I think). I noted that
the driver slipped the fixer a bit of cash, so I guess it benefits both of
them. Fortunately it was a licensed cab (though the driver didn’t match the
picture on the license) just running off-meter. In 40 minutes or so, I was at
my hotel, receipt in hand, and I daresay that the driver was more responsible
than some of the cabs I’ve had to/from Dulles. I didn’t see anything notable in
terms of cars, but that probably had a lot to do with the fact that it was
rainy and late on Friday night. I did note two things on the ride – a lot of
the trucks and buses have LED lights that flash or change color (blue, red, green, white, etc) to make them
more visible, either aesthetically or for safety reasons, and there were a few
places where some construction of piers for the new MRT (Mass Rail Transit)
extension to connect Taipei with the airport had created some low overhangs,
and they were festively decorated with yellow LED rope lights instead of low
clearance signs.
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