Taipei #8 - Saturday

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, of course it would do that on the day I leave. Cab ride to the airport was uneventful. I rode in a Toyota Wish, which I believe is a Matrix here, but I thought that perhaps it was somewhat like the “Wish sandwich” from the Blues Brothers, in that you wish it was a different car. It’s actually pretty comfortable, but the joke is fun to make. On the ride, I snapped the picture you see here, my cabbie saw 140kph, and I got a better view of the construction work being done to build an extension of the MRT system so that there is rail service between downtown Taipei and Taoyuan airport, which is more than 40 minutes away even in light traffic. Most of it is elevated rail, and it’s pretty interesting to watch it being built.

The highlight of the morning came while standing and waiting to check in. While it may sound like I’ve lost my mind because I'm happy about waiting in line at the airport, the reason it was the highlight of the morning was that one of the screens was showing what the English subtitles called, “Airport Safety Propaganda.” It went over all of the standard stuff, but had the unique angle of using these very ornate puppets which appear to be traditional Chinese string puppets, complete with mouths that open and close, and traditional costumes. To make the anachronism even more pronounced, they go through the security check point, boarding, using portable electronics (a cell phone and a tablet pc) on the plane, etc. As if that wasn’t bizarre enough, the English translation was either done by someone with a sense of humor or is just one more unintentionally hilarious example of Engrish. I wish I could find a video of it online, but so far no luck. I know that a colleague was taking some video, but I’m not sure if it’s been posted or if it even came out well enough to read the subtitles.

Fortunately, because I was with several colleagues from IETF, they were able to get me into the airline lounges both in Taipei and Narita as a guest, so while I waited for my flight in Taipei, I was able to get some breakfast, including a can of Pocari Sweat, which you may remember from Japan. But even better yet, the United lounge at Narita had these great automatic beer pouring robots. You took a frosted glass from the case, placed it in the cradle, pressed a button, and the machine tilted the glass, filled it almost full, then straightened the glass and dispensed foam to give it a nice head. I was so impressed that I took video.  

The flights in and out of Narita were both pretty bumpy this time. Turbulence doesn’t really bother me, but I was somewhat surprised, because it was severe enough that they had the flight attendants in their seats for a good 30-45 minutes longer than normal, and for such a big plane (777), there was a lot of dancing. Another interesting quirk of the 777 – it rains inside of it! During take-off and landing, at least where I was, near the exit rows, the vents above the aisle and near the window drip a significant amount of water intermittently. I’m not sure if it’s because water freezes up inside the vents while airborne and then thaws as the temperature rises, but all 4 777s I flew on this trip did this.

China trip 4 - Tuesday

Today was not a banner day for food or activity. I was attending a panel discussion for lunch today, and box lunches were provided. The lunch itself was rather dull – a Western-style roast beef sandwich and a chicken sandwich, some yogurt, a bottle of water, a bit of slightly sweet bread, and a banana. The sandwiches had no condiments, so the main thing of interest was that they both had cucumber on them, and the chicken was weakly seasoned with curry. Those who know me know that the banana held no interest for me. The one thing that struck me as odd is that the yogurt said “aloe” amid the Chinese characters. I turned it over, and sure enough, in the English ingredients list was “aloe vera gel.” I never really thought of aloe vera as edible, but I was curious, so I tried it. It was plain yogurt, but it had a slight hint of a floral taste. I’m not sure of the health benefits of ingesting aloe, but I assume that they’re similar to applying it topically. The lunch box itself was a plastic box similar to a Japanese Bento box, but without any dividers inside.

Dinner was at a Teppenyaki restaurant. Pretty much, if you’ve been to one of these, you’ve been to all of them. The menu is the same, the food is the same, the “grill it in front of you” schtick is the same. The main thing that made dinner enjoyable was the company – I was with friends, and we had a private room to be loud, laugh, and carry on as we saw fit. The restaurant was trendy, almost to a fault. It was in a basement, and if you didn’t know where it was, you would never have found it, but the main entry area was designed almost to look like an outdoor zen garden – it had a water feature, stepping stones, and a sand patch with zen patterns traced in it, with dark river rock filling in the spaces. Pretty cool. It was obviously a bit of a tourist destination, because the menu was carefully translated into English, the waitress spoke at least passable English (vs the broken English that is available if we’re lucky, or no English at all), and the prices were high. Fortunately, we had a benefactor, so I didn’t need to stress too much about the prices.

On the way home, I was impressed yet again by how horrible the drivers are here. I can honestly say that the worst driver in the US would be among the best here. Every time we’re out, I see people backing up to reach off-ramps that they’ve missed, playing chicken with each other while changing lanes, ignoring traffic signals, nearly mowing down pedestrians and bikes in crosswalks, dramatic speed differentials because there are an equal number of people flying along at double the speed limit or puttering at half of it.

The horn and high beams are used constantly, but flashing your high beams seems to be more about conveying your frustration with something that a driver is doing than to signal them to go ahead, even if they are in the process of cutting you off. The one difference is that the Taxi drivers here don’t yell at the other drivers like they would in NYC, and there doesn’t seem to be an equivalent to the middle finger that is so common when a driver does something stupid or inconsiderate in the US. Either way though, it really is lunacy!