Category: Taipei

Breast for Success

I don’t know if anyone is catching this latest “reality” TV show but I think in terms of “reality” it has much more of it than the others. Before I left, I caught the one episode where they were dressed in airline stewardess uniforms and kicked the mens’ ass with it. Yeah, sure, sex sells.

The telling statement is this: “These guys have nothing—not power, not sex.” It’s even more true when you consider women make up more than half the work force and the mid-level managers are also probably staffed at that level. Anecdotally, of the people who are out of work, here in Silicon Valley, it’s the men who are out of work and falling back on their wive’s job.

On a side note, my Taiwan trip hit a glitch. I ate a really bad (super hot) chili at a Thai place in 101 Taipei Center and it knocked me out for a whole day. Slowly recovering….

=YC

The city is finally catching up to me…..

Full day of walking and taking public transportation. My feet are killing me like I’d just walked 5 miles over speed bumps. The nice day really helped and got to see parts of “old Taipei”, a place called Xinzhuang which is the first stop/city over the river from “new” Taipei. This is really a suburb of the city itself.

Crossing the bridge, you were immediately confronted with the sights and sounds of a very busy city remaking itself. Lots of construction and in particular a city-intersection where a new subway stop is being built. This of course just really aggravated the traffic situation. Still, it cool to see a city in action. I met up with a friend and we immediately hit the market area and had some great noodles and side dishes, Taiwan style. THen we walked around the market some more, which is a typical “night market” feel but in the day time. Hawkers of all types. Predominant though is food which naturally appealed greatly to my gastronomic senses. So, in terms of “eye candy” there is definitely quite a bit of the usual suspects but also of the food variety. My eyes being bigger than my stomach can handle.

Nevertheless, I attacked the issue head…er stomach on this evening, having Taiwan style hot-pot. I ate so much it hurt. Walked around some and then hit a dessert place on the corner in another market area to have some hot red bean soup with taro style gelatin. All in all, great stuff. Blew out my diet and hurt my feet with all the walking. But it was worth it.

Let’s see what’s in store for tomorrow….

=YC

So it’s like Day 4 here …. and it’s all a blur.

AJ has been giving me the low-down and the “hi-down” of living in Taipei … kinda like Living la vida loca AJ style. I learned about the Green Party and the Blue Party. The powers of beetlenut and its cultural implications on the people of Taipei itself. The more interesting aspect of vehicular traffic laws, the complete and utter lack of them has been really fascinating. I think by far this has been the most wild-wild-west of the major Asian cities. You find that there are traffic rules permitting far left lane right turns, thereby cutting off 1 or 2 car lanes plus the moped lanes. Now the mopeds are quite interesting by themselves. The appear to “own” the roads but seemingly without rhyme or reason. They’ll go wrong way on a one way road, sidewalks are just another vehicular pathway for them to get where they need to go. Yesterday I almost poked some guy’s eye out with my oversized umbrella when he pulled right up next to me at the curb waiting for the same pedestrian green light to cross. Sidewalks, ah, another Taipei cultural feature. It’s not really for pedestrians. It’s an opportunity for a night market or place to hawk your wares. You can be trying to drive down a small road, and have mopeds and pedestrians in your way, but the sidewalk is empty. Wheee!

So today the sun is out! Hurrah, it’s a happy day. The non-stop rain has been driving me nuts. I think been like 2 weeks and I’ve barely seen sun. Coldest Taipei winter in like 30 yrs. I think there’s something to global warming. I’m definitely going to be exploring the bus and subway system more. The subway is like Singapore’s very clean and efficient. Time to explore the old part of Taipei.

More updates laters….

=YC