Things I love about Taiwan

Not a complete list, but lately I've been thinking of the things I love about this place:

• Damn it’s beautiful here.
• The abundance of fresh tropical fruit, fruits I have never seen or heard of before, which leads to a lot of fresh, made-to-order fruit juice for very cheap.
• The tomato is in its rightful place as a fruit.
• In many public toilets, there is toilet seat sanitizer for your convenience. Beats the hell out of a paper seat cover.
• The bus and trains are unbelievably convenient and affordable. And they usually don't smell!
• Japanese and Korean food anywhere, anytime (Taiwanese food ain't bad either).
  
• Jungle air every time I come home.
• People don't stare all that much, at least in Taipei.
• People love cycling. Oh god do they love cycling here.
• The pork butcher down the street who has half a pig lying on his truck bed every morning.
  
• The open air karaoke that the neighborhood drunks frequent.
• The abandoned buildings behind tall brick walls that I want to break into.
• Hot Lix. The bbq skewers in my little night market.
• Tong Hua Night market.
• Fireworks in my 'hood 24/7/365 (actually I hate that but I'm sure I'll laugh about it someday)
• The bird outside my window with the craziest song I have ever heard who likes to get started at about 2 am. (another thing I'll laugh about someday)
  
• Being able to drink beer when you're walking down the street.
• All of the hilarious things I see here every day, usually in the form of terrible English on a t-shirt.
  

Tokyo

Devin and I just got back from a week in lovely Tokyo. The place is amazing. I've never seen a better train system in my life, or as many damn people. It's a huge, crowded city with something for everyone. We had a great time visiting old friends and colleagues and just taking in what the city has to offer. Oh and the food is unbelievable.
Here are a few of my favorite shots:





I took tons of photos, so check out my photo page for more...

A sensory trip like no other

So before we begin, I should tell you that I'll be talking about pee a lot in this post. It's not pleasant but it's damn funny...
Also you should know that the buses here DON'T SMELL. Usually.

I got out of my class tonight and had to make the difficult decision of getting on the 'slow' bus back home or perhaps waiting indefinitely for the fast one. At 9:45 pm you have to take what you can get, so I boarded said slow bus which turned out to be a huge mistake.
The whole bus smelled as if were doused in urine (think most Trimet buses). And there was no epicenter that I was able to detect. It smelled like someone had dumped a bucket of pee on every single seat.
Now, I got on this bus at the beginning of the route, and got off near the end, so I was able to witness several different coping methods.
In the beginning, it was just the odd cracked window, including mine. Didn't help much.
We got short-term relief from someone who brought some fast food onto the bus, but they got off after a few stops, leaving us once again to suffer. (can you believe that the fast food actually smelled good to me?!)
Then someone busted out the air freshener, which worked for a few minutes, but the pee would not let up.
The award for best effort, however, goes to the person who finally gave up and lit a stick of incense, which I'm sure is against all kinds of rules.
I know, I know, I got all weak and spoiled after being away from the Portland metro buses for this long, but man it was bad. It brings me back...

Taipei Freemason's Temple

The Mason's Temple is tucked away in central Taipei, right off of one of the train lines. I kept catching glimpses of it from the train, and one day I finally tracked it down, only to find that it was as glorious as I had imagined. My guess on the construction date is late 60s, early 70s. Pretty run down. I'm sure years of acid rain and pollution didn't help much, but the result is a mysterious and groovy building, shrouded in mystery. At least for me.
More photos here.

Temporary

I'm trying my best to document this unique(?) and rather wasteful practice that I've been made aware of in Taipei's real estate industry: Once someone is ready to build an apartment building on their land they naturally want to sell some of the units first. So before they build it, they construct an extremely modern-looking, but extremely cheap temporary structure in which they try to impress potential buyers.
The first one Devin and I became aware of was called Opus 1. For months we thought that it was some swank club where rich people went. That is, until Devin walked by and the place was completely torn down. Then, as I was passing a really ugly one with a friend one day, she told me that they stay up for about a year, then are torn down to make way for the real structure. And the final confirmation came to me a couple of months ago, when one started to go up down the street from my home. It has been interesting to see the process, and to see the fact that it is almost entirely made of plywood. There is no foundation (which may be a bad idea, since this particular one is on a steep, muddy hillside).
Here are a couple of examples of the buildings.

This one looked really nice at night, but a closer look during the day showed some shoddy workmanship. Note the ripples in what I assume is tin in the second photo:




This one is down the street from us. It looks super nice from the front, but the back reveals a tin roof and lotsa plywood.


This one is in a line of about 3 in the rapidly growing neighborhood of Nangang in east Taipei. Looks super nice, but is connected to some crappy little shack on the back end.


This will be an ongoing hunt. For more, check my photo page.

Amazed

So, Taiwan is pretty damn cool, actually. Even if there are typhoons and millions and millions of scooters everywhere that spit out pollution and give me a sore throat. I can get over the counter oral contraceptives, I can take the bus for 50 cents, I can ride on the world's most efficient subway system for 50 cents to a dollar per ride, I can have cell phone service for US $12 a month, I can eat a decent meal for less than a dollar, and a great meal for $5, I can get almost every amenity that I enjoyed at home (sometimes at a price). Also, Taipei has some pretty cool little areas. I love wandering down alleys and side streets, where the noise of the traffic is blocked by the tall buildings and there are concrete walls and fences for me to imagine the other side of. There are some surprisingly peaceful spots just a block off of the main thoroughfares in this city. It's pretty great.
Lately I've been doing research on some other cities for a project at work, which has inspired me to get out more...
The first one was Kaohsiung, which is one of the southernmost cities. It's famous for its port, and industry, but it's trying to revamp and become an eco-city (sustainability is HUGE here). They also have a Container Arts Festival, where artists are given a shipping container with which they can do what they wish:



Thought that was pretty cool, but then again, I'm a trade geek so of course it's cool.

And then I started looking at Taichung (Central Taiwan) and discovered that they're building the coolest opera house EVER:



Scheduled completion is 2oo9. I can't wait. Yay for modernism!

Update

I thought I should post something, since it's been a while, although there's not too much to report. Devin and I have been working hard. Working and commuting seem to occupy most of our time. I even have a class on Saturday mornings, and he's got one Sundays. We're pining to get out of Taipei, but we never seem to have the time. We're also cat-sitting, so going away for a weekend is out of the question until the kitty is gone.

I've had a lot of ups and downs lately. I lost confidence in myself and my job for a good while. I feel that my company doesn't trust me as a teacher yet. Although I know I have a lot to learn and they're trying to help me, I feel that it's not being done in a constructive way (they have a pretty skewed ideas on constructive criticism and professionalism in general). But I have to remember that most of my students really like me and feel that they've learned a lot from me. I just had a couple of bad experiences, which I suppose is normal for most new teachers.

To add to my frustration (or maybe as a result of it), I became really homesick. I am sad that I missed my old roommates Jereme and Amy get hitched, and I may miss my dear friend Carisa's wedding in October (although I'm looking at ticket prices taking donations).  At the same time as I started to get frustrated with my job and got terribly homesick, I happened to come across an amazing job opportunity in Portland at a company that I've been drooling over for years. They seemed really interested in me and my experience, and I corresponded with the HR person for about to weeks. In the end, the company decided to hold off on hiring for a few months. So I'm not moving home quite yet, but talking to this company (which deals in import/apparel production/all the things I like), made me realize that the apparel trade world is really where I want to be. It will be harder than I previously thought to pursue that avenue here, so if I want to carry on with that, I'll have to move back to the States. But I'll be saving that for later.

So for now, I want to see this whole teaching thing through. I signed a year contract, and I want to reach the end of it. I have turned my attitude around and am improving my teaching skills by leaps and bounds. I am once again happy to be doing this and appreciate the experience. I also have a lot more to see here in East Asia. I haven't been to Southern Taiwan yet! or Japan! or Korea! or the million other places that are just a short plane or boat ride away.

PS: Check my photo page for new additions.....