Taiwan has a lot of earthquakes. Most are too small to notice. Some are big enough, but you don't notice them anyway. There was a 5.1 earthquake in the middle of the country last week. It was reportedly felt all over the island. I never knew about it until I read the news.
I was on a train to Taipei a few months ago. When the train started to slow down nowhere near a station, I assumed it was some kind of mechanical issue. Then I got a phone call asking me if I was okay.
“The train will get in late if it doesn't speed up,” I said. “But how did you know?”
There was a large earthquake between where I was and where I was going. The high speed train moved very slowly just in case there was damage to the tracks. I never felt any earthquake. You might think that was because I was on a train, but the high speed train is pretty smooth. Not Japan smooth. If you stand a coin upright, it will probably fall. But the cars were made in Japan. It is not a bumpy ride.
On Tuesday morning there was a 3.4 in Yilan, over 200km from Kaohsiung. That was too far away and too small for me to feel. Two hours later, there was a 4.8 off the coast of Haulien, just south of Yilan. I felt that one. It was like a large truck driving by. It ended before I even realized it was an earthquake.
At 01:06 on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, there was a 5.4 off the coast of Taitung. I felt that one. The epicenter was just over 100km away, and 5.4 is a lot bigger than 4.8. At 01:41, there was more shaking. At first, I thought it was an aftershock to the 5.4. Only this one felt much larger and lasted far longer. I never timed it, but it just kept going. It was like hearing “American Pie” for the first time. You think it is going to wind down after yet another chorus, but then here comes another verse. In the middle of all the shaking, my phone started screaming. The government sends out automated alert messages as soon as possible to warm people of the larger earthquakes. More often than not, you get the message a second before you feel the ground shake, or as it starts. This time, I got the message right in the middle. That either meant I was close to the epicenter or it was going to be a big one.
What I initially thought was an aftershock turned out to be a 6.6 earthquake in Hualien, 150km north of the 5.4 in Taitung. We get a lot of earthquakes, but a 6.6 thirty five minutes after a 5.4, in two completely different locations, is a little unusual.
The first aftershock to the 6.6 came exactly one minute later. It was a healthy 5.7. Less than a minute after that one, there was a 6.1 aftershock. The experts are still debating if that was an aftershock or its own earthquake. It was certainly large enough, but it was in the same area and came two minutes after the 6.6.
Between 01:44 and 12:26 there were at least 49 aftershocks larger than 4.0. Two of them managed to top 5.8. The tectonic plates are still angry as I type this, though the aftershocks are getting smaller. I can't feel any of them anymore.
So far, there are no reports of any serious damage or death. I have not heard about any freeway damage yet, though something along the east coast must have broken. Haulien and Taitung are the two least populated counties, outside of the smaller island groups. Not coincidentally, they take the brunt of most earthquakes and typhoons.
In the middle of all these aftershocks, there was a tiny 2.7 in Hsinchu, 150km away from all the action. Nobody is going to talk about that one. That was like Farrah Fawcett dying on the same day as Michael Jackson.
Most of this happened today. Some of the numbers above will probably change as the experts make their calculations.
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
Sunday, March 20, 2022
Lantern Festival 2022
The Lantern Festival, 元宵節, is always on the 15th day of the new year and marks the end of the Spring Festival. This year, New Year's Day was 1 February, so the Lantern Festival was 15 February. Pretty straightforward so far.
But in Taiwan, one city hosts the Lantern Festival every year. On the actual day of the holiday, everyone all over the country can light lanterns, watch lion dances, and set off fireworks. If you want to see the big lantern display, you have to go to whichever city is hosting. To make life easier for everyone, they usually keep it going for about a month.
Last year's was in Taipei. I did not go to that one. This year, it was in Kaohsiung for the first time in ten years. That meant it was always going to be crowded. Some people will travel anywhere in the country to see it, but most are more likely to go when it is in their city. Since Kaohsiung is one of the largest cities in the country, and easy to get to from anywhere on the west coast, and it had been ten years since the last one, they decided to hold the festival in two different locations.
Site 1 was the harbor, which has plenty of room to hold thousands of elaborate displays, but very little parking.
Site 2 was conveniently in the park right outside my office. You would think that might make going to work every day a bit of a chore, what with extra traffic and everyone trying to park in my space. Oddly enough, they did not let anyone who was visiting the Lantern Festival into the parking garage, even though there are hundreds of spaces for visitors.
The parking lot where I work was built less than ten years ago. Unlike a lot of parking in Kaohsiung, they knew a little about traffic when they built this one. No matter which entrance you use, you have to turn one way for employees and another for visitors. Without an employee card, you cannot get into the employee parking. Even if they allowed parking during the Lantern Festival, I would have never been affected. I assume they closed visitor parking since there were far more visitors than spaces every night. I have no idea where everyone parked, but there are more than a few options along the MRT line.
This year's Lantern Festival was in the Fongshan District of Kaohsiung (鳳山區). Fenghuang (鳳凰) is a bird from Chinese mythology that symbolizes the sun, moon, sky, and planets. It embodies the union of yin and yang. Though this is the Year of the Tiger, the central display of this year's Lantern Festsival was the Fenghuang.
Friday, December 10, 2021
My Birthday Present part 2
Hisoka and I had both just arrived in Hong Kong from short flights and long airport delays, so neither of us objected to a soak in a hot tub. I brought a bathing suit to Hong Kong because our new apartment has two swimming pools I wanted to try out. I also brought it to Hisoka's apartment because he said there was a pool downstairs. He never mentioned the hot tub because he wanted to surprise me. And it worked. He surprised the pants off me. Hisoka brought his own tiny trunks, which I never saw on this trip. As private as that hot tub was, he agreed with me that bathing suits would have been gratuitous.
It is worth noting that I see nothing inherently sexual about swimming, or soaking, naked. I have been in thousands of swimming pools, hot tubs, hot springs, lakes, rivers, and general bodies of water without doing anything even adjacent to the neighborhood of sex. Hisoka and I got naked in a Miyajima hot spring on our first real date, and hanky panky was categorically tabu. Not only were we surrounded by older people, but that sort of thing would have gotten us kicked out and banned for life.
It is also worth noting that neither Hisoka nor I had our spices ground for a considerable period of time. The fact of which was vividly illustrated when I got into the water. What is a discreet way to put this? Hisoka shot his load all over the deck faster than a teenager in the back seat on prom night. He was fully erect before he even took off his clothes. Watching me get naked and penetrate the jet bubbles was too much for him. I like to put a positive spin on things, so the good news was that none of his seed spilled into the hot tub. I had no idea how often that thing was cleaned. I only knew that hosing off the wooden deck had to be an easier job.
With sex in the water out of the question, we both sat back and enjoyed a nice soak. Yes, the polite thing for him to do would have been to service me. That would have required me keeping most of myself out of the hot tub, and I wanted to be in it. Besides, we had all day.
We talked about going out to hit the town, but we both had a busy week ahead of us. Sunday was our day of rest. It made more sense to make use of the apartment. Since it was an apartment and not a hotel, we had to go out when we wanted to eat. I like staying in apartments better than hotels, but hotels have room service.
For lunch, we went to Feast, an upscale buffet restaurant on King's Road near Quarry Bay Park. They had a wide variety of local food on tiny plates and local food pretending to be international food, with more soups, salads, and sides than anyone really needs. They even had coleslaw, which is not something you see every day in Hong Kong. I mostly just got desserts, because that is how I roll. Hisoka got several tiny plates of stamina, because he would need it. We both knew that after lunch, I was going to ride him like the Matterhorn. Hong Kong Disneyland has no Matterhorn, but saying I would ride him like the Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop sounds almost insulting.
Hisoka and I are both old fashioned in matters of the heart. I like to wait a painfully long time before I jump in the sack and he tries to get laid as soon as possible. We are more new fashioned in our willingness to find less traditional locations. Hot tubs, for example. Balconies are another. I have always been fond of kitchen coupling. The typical kitchen counter tends to be a nice height. Whoever invented islands was a genius, though quartz countertops can get cold.
Despite being open to several rooms, a few secluded outdoor spots, and pieces of furniture that are not beds, we found ourselves on the bed. Next to the bed was a large, almost floor to ceiling window with unobstructed views of Devil's Peak. I never really noticed the view with Hisoka on top of, under, and behind me. I can say that it was a nice bed, with a bit of give and not too much bounce.. Traditionally, Chinese beds are hard. Pillow tops have only recently made their way to China. You never want anything in your bed to be too soft, while a nice cushion under your butt or knees is good for longevity. What we call queen size on this side of the world is smaller than what I consider queen size. That queen size was wide enough for two, if a little on the short side. I am probably much shorter than anyone in the NBA, yet I have spent countless nights with my feet hanging over the bed.
I may have misspoken about the view. I seem to recall looking at the hills while we were pressed together on the tiny bedroom balcony. Though I suppose, technically, that was not in the bedroom.
Hisoka brought a box of condoms to Hong Kong. That might sound presumptuous, but it is far better to have something you might never use than to not have something you desperately need. He brought them from Japan instead of buying them in Hong Kong because he says Chinese condoms are too small. This is where things get interesting, and probably more than a little offensive to a couple billion people.
According to Hisoka, condoms in China are smaller than condoms in Japan. I cannot verify such a thing, but my first boyfriend in Hong Kong, who was not even a little Chinese, also claimed they were too small. In his case, he was making a mountain out of a molehill. Despite not wielding a katana himself, he assumed Chinese men were all holding a tanto. Hisoka, both on the other hand and using the other hand, has a more realistic self-image. He has seen enough porn to remain humble, and spent enough time in hot springs and locker rooms to boast. When he says Chinese condoms are too small, I have to consider it theoretically possible. Yet I cannot ignore that Durex and Trojan are in more than a few stores, and I know they come in more than one size. Several Japanese brands are widely available. It seems unlikely that those Japanese companies are making extra small sizes for the Chinese market. Unless it was for purely mocking purposes.
On what has to be the most important hand, a typical condom can stretch more than enough for almost every man. Unless you are exceptionally tiny or exceptionally huge. I would imagine more men have difficulties with condoms that are too loose. The funny thing is, I have never heard of a single man in the history of the universe say that condoms are too big.
Which brings us to a question that every man I have ever known has asked me. Does size matter? To men, yes. It absolutely does. To women? I don't know. I speak for only one woman. But I know that even if Hisoka were hung like an elephant, spraying the pool deck would have still been useless to me. It is not simply the motion of the ocean that counts, but how long it takes that boat to dock. A cabin cruiser that makes it to shore is a million times better than a giant oil tanker that spills crude 3,000 kilometers from its destination. The good news is that after Hisoka's blue balls turned beige, he had far more control. The other good news is that he had a box of condoms. Just one would not have been enough for the day. Though I still say what he could get in Hong Kong was sufficient.
Before dinner, we spent more time in and around the rooftop hot tub. November is not the best time to lie out and get a tan, and Hong Kong is not the best tanning city. Not that it matters. My skin goes straight from alabaster to lobster. But that particular deck had ample sitting and/or lying room, and the sun, such as it was, still felt good on my skin. Especially on a rooftop with a soft breeze and no one staring at me. Or at least only one person staring at me.
For dinner, we went to Frites, a Belgian restaurant just off King's Road near Quarry Bay Park. Or at least a Chinese version of a Belgian restaurant. Hisoka picked it because I used to work in Belgium. Except, I have never worked in Belgium. I was a little disappointed that he thought my time in Amsterdam was actually Belgium. Then I realized that we rarely talk about our jobs. I told him I was going to Amsterdam when I did, but that was three years ago, and I might not have mentioned it since. I would be surprised if I have never mentioned Amsterdam. It is a wondrous city. I would be equally surprised if we had any meaningful conversation about my work in Amsterdam. He tells me about places he goes for work, while I only have a general idea of what he does for a living.
Having never worked in Belgium, I cannot say anything about how authentic the Frites menu is, but they had falafel quesadillas, which I support wholeheartedly. You can put falafel in anything, and you can put anything in a quesadilla, so why not falafel quesadilla. Being a Belgian restaurant, maybe, they also had a large beer menu. So we got a bottle of wine. We also got some frites with mayonnaise because when you go to a place called Frites, you have to try the frites. If I went to Mejores Tacos del Mundo, there is a pretty good chance I might get a taco.
Hisoka has always known that I can taste absolutely nothing. He still likes to show me restaurants that he thinks I would have liked back when I could sense flavor. I am more than used to going wherever whoever I'm going out to eat with wants to go, so I let Hisoka find all of our meals. Revealingly, he never suggested anything American, Chinese or Japanese. During business meals, he mostly eats Japanese. On his free time, he likes to try new things. His assumption that I would like to avoid American food is both sound and unnecessary since I rarely come in contact with American food.
Back when I had a boyfriend and an active sex life, I often looked at past travels in terms of food. One of my favorite things about going somewhere new was eating something new. I never reminisce about the places we knocked boots. Now that food is only something I eat to survive, I might start looking back at travel in terms of whether or not I got some action. In a few months, I will forget all about the restaurants on this trip. Without the coleslaw, our lunch would already be forgotten. What I will remember most are the naked bodies twisting around each other. And that rooftop hot tub. If you can put a hot tub on your roof, I highly recommend it. Unless you live in a gabled house.
The whole point of keeping the Ma On Shan apartment rather than renting it out was to have a place to stay whenever we are in town. I spent the first night somewhere else anyway. Lily spent the night in the new apartment, along with our tenant/Kevin's friend. I can pretty much guarantee that they had a patently different night than Hisoka and I. But there is no need to feel bad for Lily. She lives with her boyfriend. They can do all the deviant things Hisoka and I did any time. But we have no hot tub at home.
It is worth noting that I see nothing inherently sexual about swimming, or soaking, naked. I have been in thousands of swimming pools, hot tubs, hot springs, lakes, rivers, and general bodies of water without doing anything even adjacent to the neighborhood of sex. Hisoka and I got naked in a Miyajima hot spring on our first real date, and hanky panky was categorically tabu. Not only were we surrounded by older people, but that sort of thing would have gotten us kicked out and banned for life.
It is also worth noting that neither Hisoka nor I had our spices ground for a considerable period of time. The fact of which was vividly illustrated when I got into the water. What is a discreet way to put this? Hisoka shot his load all over the deck faster than a teenager in the back seat on prom night. He was fully erect before he even took off his clothes. Watching me get naked and penetrate the jet bubbles was too much for him. I like to put a positive spin on things, so the good news was that none of his seed spilled into the hot tub. I had no idea how often that thing was cleaned. I only knew that hosing off the wooden deck had to be an easier job.
With sex in the water out of the question, we both sat back and enjoyed a nice soak. Yes, the polite thing for him to do would have been to service me. That would have required me keeping most of myself out of the hot tub, and I wanted to be in it. Besides, we had all day.
We talked about going out to hit the town, but we both had a busy week ahead of us. Sunday was our day of rest. It made more sense to make use of the apartment. Since it was an apartment and not a hotel, we had to go out when we wanted to eat. I like staying in apartments better than hotels, but hotels have room service.
For lunch, we went to Feast, an upscale buffet restaurant on King's Road near Quarry Bay Park. They had a wide variety of local food on tiny plates and local food pretending to be international food, with more soups, salads, and sides than anyone really needs. They even had coleslaw, which is not something you see every day in Hong Kong. I mostly just got desserts, because that is how I roll. Hisoka got several tiny plates of stamina, because he would need it. We both knew that after lunch, I was going to ride him like the Matterhorn. Hong Kong Disneyland has no Matterhorn, but saying I would ride him like the Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop sounds almost insulting.
Hisoka and I are both old fashioned in matters of the heart. I like to wait a painfully long time before I jump in the sack and he tries to get laid as soon as possible. We are more new fashioned in our willingness to find less traditional locations. Hot tubs, for example. Balconies are another. I have always been fond of kitchen coupling. The typical kitchen counter tends to be a nice height. Whoever invented islands was a genius, though quartz countertops can get cold.
Despite being open to several rooms, a few secluded outdoor spots, and pieces of furniture that are not beds, we found ourselves on the bed. Next to the bed was a large, almost floor to ceiling window with unobstructed views of Devil's Peak. I never really noticed the view with Hisoka on top of, under, and behind me. I can say that it was a nice bed, with a bit of give and not too much bounce.. Traditionally, Chinese beds are hard. Pillow tops have only recently made their way to China. You never want anything in your bed to be too soft, while a nice cushion under your butt or knees is good for longevity. What we call queen size on this side of the world is smaller than what I consider queen size. That queen size was wide enough for two, if a little on the short side. I am probably much shorter than anyone in the NBA, yet I have spent countless nights with my feet hanging over the bed.
I may have misspoken about the view. I seem to recall looking at the hills while we were pressed together on the tiny bedroom balcony. Though I suppose, technically, that was not in the bedroom.
Hisoka brought a box of condoms to Hong Kong. That might sound presumptuous, but it is far better to have something you might never use than to not have something you desperately need. He brought them from Japan instead of buying them in Hong Kong because he says Chinese condoms are too small. This is where things get interesting, and probably more than a little offensive to a couple billion people.
According to Hisoka, condoms in China are smaller than condoms in Japan. I cannot verify such a thing, but my first boyfriend in Hong Kong, who was not even a little Chinese, also claimed they were too small. In his case, he was making a mountain out of a molehill. Despite not wielding a katana himself, he assumed Chinese men were all holding a tanto. Hisoka, both on the other hand and using the other hand, has a more realistic self-image. He has seen enough porn to remain humble, and spent enough time in hot springs and locker rooms to boast. When he says Chinese condoms are too small, I have to consider it theoretically possible. Yet I cannot ignore that Durex and Trojan are in more than a few stores, and I know they come in more than one size. Several Japanese brands are widely available. It seems unlikely that those Japanese companies are making extra small sizes for the Chinese market. Unless it was for purely mocking purposes.
On what has to be the most important hand, a typical condom can stretch more than enough for almost every man. Unless you are exceptionally tiny or exceptionally huge. I would imagine more men have difficulties with condoms that are too loose. The funny thing is, I have never heard of a single man in the history of the universe say that condoms are too big.
Which brings us to a question that every man I have ever known has asked me. Does size matter? To men, yes. It absolutely does. To women? I don't know. I speak for only one woman. But I know that even if Hisoka were hung like an elephant, spraying the pool deck would have still been useless to me. It is not simply the motion of the ocean that counts, but how long it takes that boat to dock. A cabin cruiser that makes it to shore is a million times better than a giant oil tanker that spills crude 3,000 kilometers from its destination. The good news is that after Hisoka's blue balls turned beige, he had far more control. The other good news is that he had a box of condoms. Just one would not have been enough for the day. Though I still say what he could get in Hong Kong was sufficient.
Before dinner, we spent more time in and around the rooftop hot tub. November is not the best time to lie out and get a tan, and Hong Kong is not the best tanning city. Not that it matters. My skin goes straight from alabaster to lobster. But that particular deck had ample sitting and/or lying room, and the sun, such as it was, still felt good on my skin. Especially on a rooftop with a soft breeze and no one staring at me. Or at least only one person staring at me.
For dinner, we went to Frites, a Belgian restaurant just off King's Road near Quarry Bay Park. Or at least a Chinese version of a Belgian restaurant. Hisoka picked it because I used to work in Belgium. Except, I have never worked in Belgium. I was a little disappointed that he thought my time in Amsterdam was actually Belgium. Then I realized that we rarely talk about our jobs. I told him I was going to Amsterdam when I did, but that was three years ago, and I might not have mentioned it since. I would be surprised if I have never mentioned Amsterdam. It is a wondrous city. I would be equally surprised if we had any meaningful conversation about my work in Amsterdam. He tells me about places he goes for work, while I only have a general idea of what he does for a living.
Having never worked in Belgium, I cannot say anything about how authentic the Frites menu is, but they had falafel quesadillas, which I support wholeheartedly. You can put falafel in anything, and you can put anything in a quesadilla, so why not falafel quesadilla. Being a Belgian restaurant, maybe, they also had a large beer menu. So we got a bottle of wine. We also got some frites with mayonnaise because when you go to a place called Frites, you have to try the frites. If I went to Mejores Tacos del Mundo, there is a pretty good chance I might get a taco.
Hisoka has always known that I can taste absolutely nothing. He still likes to show me restaurants that he thinks I would have liked back when I could sense flavor. I am more than used to going wherever whoever I'm going out to eat with wants to go, so I let Hisoka find all of our meals. Revealingly, he never suggested anything American, Chinese or Japanese. During business meals, he mostly eats Japanese. On his free time, he likes to try new things. His assumption that I would like to avoid American food is both sound and unnecessary since I rarely come in contact with American food.
Back when I had a boyfriend and an active sex life, I often looked at past travels in terms of food. One of my favorite things about going somewhere new was eating something new. I never reminisce about the places we knocked boots. Now that food is only something I eat to survive, I might start looking back at travel in terms of whether or not I got some action. In a few months, I will forget all about the restaurants on this trip. Without the coleslaw, our lunch would already be forgotten. What I will remember most are the naked bodies twisting around each other. And that rooftop hot tub. If you can put a hot tub on your roof, I highly recommend it. Unless you live in a gabled house.
The whole point of keeping the Ma On Shan apartment rather than renting it out was to have a place to stay whenever we are in town. I spent the first night somewhere else anyway. Lily spent the night in the new apartment, along with our tenant/Kevin's friend. I can pretty much guarantee that they had a patently different night than Hisoka and I. But there is no need to feel bad for Lily. She lives with her boyfriend. They can do all the deviant things Hisoka and I did any time. But we have no hot tub at home.
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
My Birthday Present part 1
The day before my birthday, Lily and I went to Hong Kong. We were always going to spend a day or two together. At the same time, we are both fully capable of entertaining ourselves without the other. I knew I never had to worry about her when I made other plans for Sunday.
Hisoka and I met in May 2018. Our second date was six months after our first. You could say we have been taking things slowly. We had not seen each other in person since 2019, though we keep in contact via the technology of the day. In early 2020, his country was hit hard by the popular virus that was making the rounds. That put an end to his business trips to Hong Kong, or anywhere else. When the Japanese government blocked visitors from China, we knew we would not be seeing other again anytime soon. I moved to Kaohsiung in the middle of 2020. Taiwan was practically unaffected, and to keep it that way, they restricted visitors and quarantined the few people they let in.
Long distance relationships blow. I had a boyfriend who moved to Fuzhou while we lived in Hong Kong. The two cities are in the same country, less than 700 kilometers apart, about the same distance as New York to Raleigh. But you have to fly, go through immigration, and deal with Chinese airport bullshit, which is much easier than American airport bullshit, though still unnecessarily bureaucratic. I would never fly from New York to Raleigh. I can drive it in 8 hours, or two 4 hour drives if you spend a night or two in Washington. Driving from Hong Kong to Fuzhou is not much of an option. You can take a few buses, which would take all day.
Fortunately, Hisoka and I are not in a long distance relationship. We live over 2,000 km apart, and are not anywhere close to monogamous. He is free to do whatever he wants, though he says work keeps him too busy and the virus makes dating harder than ever. I am free to do whatever I want, though I say work keeps me busy and I have minimal interest in Chinese men.
Since I'm white, I am required by the horrendous history of my people to point out that it is not a racial thing. I take far greater issue with the socioeconomic role of women in Chinese culture. I find Hisoka attractive. He is Japanese, which is not at all Chinese, though my people can rarely tell the difference. We tend to think of all East Asians as one giant homogeneous other. More often than not, when people from my country talk about people from East Asia, they simply call everyone Asian, adding India, Israel, and all the -stans into the giant mix. We get upset if people don't know the difference between New York City and Upstate, because they are so different, while blindly lumping all 5 billion Asians together.
Eventually, China made it easier to move around and Japan got their problems under control. By the time Hisoka started going back to Hong Kong on intermittent business trips, I was mostly in Kaohsiung, a much smaller city not frequented nearly as often by foreigners in suits.
Then came our trip to Disneyland. It was timed for my birthday, and not for Hisoka. His presence was a coincidence, and not especially fortuitous. All of his big meetings were during the week Lily and I returned to Taiwan. If Hisoka and I were going to see each other in Hong Kong, it would have to be the weekend before. I had to work that Saturday. The earliest I could go was Sunday, and we were both busy all day Monday. Lily and I were always going to fly to Hong Kong on Sunday. Monday was a big day, so we wanted to get in the day before. Hisoka was originally going to arrive on Sunday, but changed it to Saturday, giving him time to prepare and rest up. While he still had some work to do on Saturday, Sunday was his day off, so he could devote it entirely to me. As it should be.
When Lily and I landed on Sunday, we went straight to our brand new Ma On Shan apartment. Now that I have spent some time in the apartment, I can see how nice it is. Since the estate opened this year, everything is new and clean. Hopefully, they will always maintain the grounds and greenery up to the current standards, but it will never look as new as it does right now. Eventually, corners will get dirty and tiles will crack. Chinese culture does not frown on treating your surroundings like a giant trash can. That the estate is closer to the rich end of the spectrum than the poor end is irrelevant since rich people are no less likely to be slobs here. They simply have more people cleaning up after them.
We also saw how inconvenient the apartment's location is to most of the city. To get to our previous apartments from the airport, we simply took the Airport Express to Kowloon and took a taxi to the apartment. When we lived in Yau Ma Tei, we could walk from the station. For the new apartment, we took the Airport Express to Kowloon, took the MTR to Wu Kai Sha, and walked to the apartment. It was only one MTR line, but it took an hour on top of the 30 minute train from the airport. The Airport Express to Kowloon and a taxi to Wu Kai Sha would have taken an hour total. We quickly realized that the best way to get to and from the airport is directly by taxi. It takes about 45 minutes, depending on traffic, and taxis are dirt cheap in Hong Kong, compared to other international metropolises. I always liked the Airport Express, but it looks like I will not need it anymore.
Hisoka also had new accommodations in the city. His company used to put him up at the Harbour Grand Kowloon, which has a wonderful swimming pool, great views of Kowloon Bay if your room is on that side, and happens to be in one of my favorite neighborhoods. Between then and now, he got a promotion. Instead of business hotels, he stays in a serviced apartment.
Meeting at my new apartment would have been inconvenient for everyone. So we met at his new apartment in Aldrich Bay, near all the government buildings. The neighborhood faces Kowloon Bay from the opposite direction and is otherwise unfamiliar to me. The apartment is an average sized one bedroom that looks new. I doubt it is as new as my new apartment, but it can't be more than five years old. As with most newer apartments in Hong Kong, the bedroom is tiny. Most of the space is reserved for the living room. A unique feature in the bedroom is a little sitting alcove out of sight from the bed. A more common feature is the tiny balcony just big enough to stand and watch the boats go by, or for two people to stand on if they press together close enough to feel each other's warm, athletic bodies.
The kitchen is large by old Hong Kong standards, which is the new standard. Everything in it is new and shiny, just like every other new kitchen. The hardest thing to find the first time I hunted apartments was a decent kitchen. The Hong Kong market has finally realized the importance of a good kitchen. Since only business travelers are going to stay in this apartment, at least as long as Hisoka's company has the lease, the kitchen might be the least important room. Most of the transient tenants will be eating out for the duration of their visit.
The bathroom has a full bathtub, which is rare in Hong Hong, and a separate but connected shower in the same enclosed space. You can rinse off before soaking in the tub, or vice versa, without getting water all over the place. It also has a waterproof TV, because we live in a time when people need constant electronic noise and distraction.
The best feature of this apartment, by any measure, is the hot tub on the roof. They call it a penthouse apartment, even though there are several in the building with roofs at different levels. Each penthouse has a stairway that leads to its portion of the roof. Our Ma On Shan apartment has the same thing. I think it might be the latest trend. But our stairway leads to an empty roof deck, at least until we put some outdoor furniture up there. The stairway in Hisoka's company apartment leads to a roof deck with a large hot tub and a couple of soft chairs to sit and watch the boats go by.
The roof deck is completely private, if you ignore the thousands of other apartments across the bay. From this building, it is impossible to see onto any of the other decks without climbing up those stairs, which are only accessible from inside the apartment. That makes the hot tub as private as you can get outdoors. It also means any maintenance people have to go through the living room to get onto the roof. Since no one is in the apartment most of the time, that is unlikely to cause any problems. If a family lived there rather than the occasional businessman, that could be disruptive.
It was probably not designed to be a serviced apartment leased out to a private company, but it does the job pretty well. Our Ma On Shan apartment could easily house business travelers, if they did not mind sleeping an hour away from all their big meetings. More importantly, Hisoka's apartment has that hot tub. Few things are better after a long day of corporate bullshit, or a long day of airport bullshit, than soaking in a hot tub up on the roof. Except maybe having someone to soak with you.
Hisoka and I met in May 2018. Our second date was six months after our first. You could say we have been taking things slowly. We had not seen each other in person since 2019, though we keep in contact via the technology of the day. In early 2020, his country was hit hard by the popular virus that was making the rounds. That put an end to his business trips to Hong Kong, or anywhere else. When the Japanese government blocked visitors from China, we knew we would not be seeing other again anytime soon. I moved to Kaohsiung in the middle of 2020. Taiwan was practically unaffected, and to keep it that way, they restricted visitors and quarantined the few people they let in.
Long distance relationships blow. I had a boyfriend who moved to Fuzhou while we lived in Hong Kong. The two cities are in the same country, less than 700 kilometers apart, about the same distance as New York to Raleigh. But you have to fly, go through immigration, and deal with Chinese airport bullshit, which is much easier than American airport bullshit, though still unnecessarily bureaucratic. I would never fly from New York to Raleigh. I can drive it in 8 hours, or two 4 hour drives if you spend a night or two in Washington. Driving from Hong Kong to Fuzhou is not much of an option. You can take a few buses, which would take all day.
Fortunately, Hisoka and I are not in a long distance relationship. We live over 2,000 km apart, and are not anywhere close to monogamous. He is free to do whatever he wants, though he says work keeps him too busy and the virus makes dating harder than ever. I am free to do whatever I want, though I say work keeps me busy and I have minimal interest in Chinese men.
Since I'm white, I am required by the horrendous history of my people to point out that it is not a racial thing. I take far greater issue with the socioeconomic role of women in Chinese culture. I find Hisoka attractive. He is Japanese, which is not at all Chinese, though my people can rarely tell the difference. We tend to think of all East Asians as one giant homogeneous other. More often than not, when people from my country talk about people from East Asia, they simply call everyone Asian, adding India, Israel, and all the -stans into the giant mix. We get upset if people don't know the difference between New York City and Upstate, because they are so different, while blindly lumping all 5 billion Asians together.
Eventually, China made it easier to move around and Japan got their problems under control. By the time Hisoka started going back to Hong Kong on intermittent business trips, I was mostly in Kaohsiung, a much smaller city not frequented nearly as often by foreigners in suits.
Then came our trip to Disneyland. It was timed for my birthday, and not for Hisoka. His presence was a coincidence, and not especially fortuitous. All of his big meetings were during the week Lily and I returned to Taiwan. If Hisoka and I were going to see each other in Hong Kong, it would have to be the weekend before. I had to work that Saturday. The earliest I could go was Sunday, and we were both busy all day Monday. Lily and I were always going to fly to Hong Kong on Sunday. Monday was a big day, so we wanted to get in the day before. Hisoka was originally going to arrive on Sunday, but changed it to Saturday, giving him time to prepare and rest up. While he still had some work to do on Saturday, Sunday was his day off, so he could devote it entirely to me. As it should be.
When Lily and I landed on Sunday, we went straight to our brand new Ma On Shan apartment. Now that I have spent some time in the apartment, I can see how nice it is. Since the estate opened this year, everything is new and clean. Hopefully, they will always maintain the grounds and greenery up to the current standards, but it will never look as new as it does right now. Eventually, corners will get dirty and tiles will crack. Chinese culture does not frown on treating your surroundings like a giant trash can. That the estate is closer to the rich end of the spectrum than the poor end is irrelevant since rich people are no less likely to be slobs here. They simply have more people cleaning up after them.
We also saw how inconvenient the apartment's location is to most of the city. To get to our previous apartments from the airport, we simply took the Airport Express to Kowloon and took a taxi to the apartment. When we lived in Yau Ma Tei, we could walk from the station. For the new apartment, we took the Airport Express to Kowloon, took the MTR to Wu Kai Sha, and walked to the apartment. It was only one MTR line, but it took an hour on top of the 30 minute train from the airport. The Airport Express to Kowloon and a taxi to Wu Kai Sha would have taken an hour total. We quickly realized that the best way to get to and from the airport is directly by taxi. It takes about 45 minutes, depending on traffic, and taxis are dirt cheap in Hong Kong, compared to other international metropolises. I always liked the Airport Express, but it looks like I will not need it anymore.
Hisoka also had new accommodations in the city. His company used to put him up at the Harbour Grand Kowloon, which has a wonderful swimming pool, great views of Kowloon Bay if your room is on that side, and happens to be in one of my favorite neighborhoods. Between then and now, he got a promotion. Instead of business hotels, he stays in a serviced apartment.
Meeting at my new apartment would have been inconvenient for everyone. So we met at his new apartment in Aldrich Bay, near all the government buildings. The neighborhood faces Kowloon Bay from the opposite direction and is otherwise unfamiliar to me. The apartment is an average sized one bedroom that looks new. I doubt it is as new as my new apartment, but it can't be more than five years old. As with most newer apartments in Hong Kong, the bedroom is tiny. Most of the space is reserved for the living room. A unique feature in the bedroom is a little sitting alcove out of sight from the bed. A more common feature is the tiny balcony just big enough to stand and watch the boats go by, or for two people to stand on if they press together close enough to feel each other's warm, athletic bodies.
The kitchen is large by old Hong Kong standards, which is the new standard. Everything in it is new and shiny, just like every other new kitchen. The hardest thing to find the first time I hunted apartments was a decent kitchen. The Hong Kong market has finally realized the importance of a good kitchen. Since only business travelers are going to stay in this apartment, at least as long as Hisoka's company has the lease, the kitchen might be the least important room. Most of the transient tenants will be eating out for the duration of their visit.
The bathroom has a full bathtub, which is rare in Hong Hong, and a separate but connected shower in the same enclosed space. You can rinse off before soaking in the tub, or vice versa, without getting water all over the place. It also has a waterproof TV, because we live in a time when people need constant electronic noise and distraction.
The best feature of this apartment, by any measure, is the hot tub on the roof. They call it a penthouse apartment, even though there are several in the building with roofs at different levels. Each penthouse has a stairway that leads to its portion of the roof. Our Ma On Shan apartment has the same thing. I think it might be the latest trend. But our stairway leads to an empty roof deck, at least until we put some outdoor furniture up there. The stairway in Hisoka's company apartment leads to a roof deck with a large hot tub and a couple of soft chairs to sit and watch the boats go by.
The roof deck is completely private, if you ignore the thousands of other apartments across the bay. From this building, it is impossible to see onto any of the other decks without climbing up those stairs, which are only accessible from inside the apartment. That makes the hot tub as private as you can get outdoors. It also means any maintenance people have to go through the living room to get onto the roof. Since no one is in the apartment most of the time, that is unlikely to cause any problems. If a family lived there rather than the occasional businessman, that could be disruptive.
It was probably not designed to be a serviced apartment leased out to a private company, but it does the job pretty well. Our Ma On Shan apartment could easily house business travelers, if they did not mind sleeping an hour away from all their big meetings. More importantly, Hisoka's apartment has that hot tub. Few things are better after a long day of corporate bullshit, or a long day of airport bullshit, than soaking in a hot tub up on the roof. Except maybe having someone to soak with you.
Thursday, December 2, 2021
International Thanksgiving Birthday
We were back in Kaohsiung before Thanksgiving Thursday. This was our second Thanksgiving in Taiwan, and as usual, we did nothing Thanksgivingish. On Friday, Lily and I saw Chen Hsin Yi's Ten Lines of Poetry to NK at Weiwuying. A multimedia performance, Ten Lines of Poetry to NK is based on the poetry of Chiang Tzu Te and combines the Neo-Classical Chamber Ensemble playing a score by Fang Szu Yu and Yang Chien Ru, choreography by Zhang Ya Ting, and a film by Zhao Chien Ming. There were shows on both Thursday and Friday, so we could have seen them on Thanksgiving, but I got tickets for Friday.
Friday night's dancers were, in order of who has the better agents, Zhang Hsin Yu, Huang Ya Mei, Chiang Chieh Hsi, Hsueh Yu Hsi, Shih Min Szu, Kao Hsin Yu, Su Wan Chu, Tseng Ting Kai, and Wong Tsan Kai.
The Neo-Classical Chamber Ensemble was conducted by Chen Hsin Yi, with Huang Hsin Pi on piano, Tsai Keng Ming and Huang Huan Wei on violin, Wong Yin Jin on viola, Hsiung Jui Hsien on cello, and Chen Yang on percussion.
Ten Lines of Poetry to NK
Act 1: Beauty of the Purest Sense
Act 2: An Autumn Without Lust
Act 3: The Flags of Pretension
Act 4: The Mandates of Mazu
Act 5: The Boiling City
Act 6: Beauty of the Purest Sense II
Tuesday, November 30, 2021
International Birthday Thanksgiving
My birthday was on the Monday before Thanksgiving. This year's Thanksgiving was on the Thursday after my birthday. When they are closer together, we sometimes have a combination birthday/Thanksgiving dinner. Since pretty much no one else in my current life grew up with or cares about Thanksgiving, those tend to be more birthday celebrations to everyone else and Thanksgiving to me. Sometimes, they are several days or even a week apart. Then we have a Thanksgiving dinner that everyone acknowledges is Thanksgiving. This year, they were a few days apart with different activities in different countries.
For my birthday, Lily and I went to Disneyland. It seemed like a pretty good idea at the time. We first met each other while working at Disneyland, what feels like a lifetime ago. She quit in early 2016. I left a year later. Neither of us has been back since 2018.
Hong Kong Disneyland is in the middle of a massive expansion and renovation, including two entire lands. Frozenland was originally going to open in 2020. Now, it is supposed to open next year. Marvel Land is currently scheduled for 2023. Those are not the real names. Frozenland is Arendelle: World of Frozen, built on empty land that was always intended for such an expansion. The other one is something equally stupid, like Iron Man Expo or Marvel Something, built over the former Autopia and empty space. They should call it Avengerland, which would cause all kinds of confusion with Adventureland on the opposite side of the park. As it is, there is no Land in the name. Not that it ever stopped Grizzly Gulch or Mystic Point. But Mystic Point is more of a small neighborhood than a full land. Grizzly Gulch, however, has always been Hong Kong's version of Frontierland.
An obvious difference from our time, that we could clearly see, was the castle. Back in our day, Sleeping Beauty Castle was a copy of the one at Disneyland California. When they announced the remodeling, a lot of people liked the idea of having a castle that did not look just like another park's castle, though there were rumors that the new castle would be more like Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant at Disneyland Paris. Today, it is the Castle of Magical Dreams, and looks more like Cinderella Castle at Disney World in Florida. They spent millions of dollars to go from California to Florida. The fireworks show over the castle was suspended during the renovation. They say it will resume on New Year's Day 2022. So, no fireworks for my birthday.
The park was closed from the Wednesday to Friday before we went. On 17 November, they closed because one cast member or guest tested positive for that popular virus. To avoid any bad publicity, and maybe disinfect the place, they shut down for a few days. They also tested everyone who works there and encouraged visitors to get tested as well. We went fully aware that any number of problems could prevent us from going or lead to a phone call from the government after we left. So far, no one has told us that we came in contact with anyone more contagious than usual.
The closure and hullabaloo over a single person with the plague entering the park made no difference to us, as long as it was open when we showed up. The benefit was that the place was far less crowded than usual. There are no holidays in Hong Kong between Double Nine and Christmas. November is a month of nothing, and generally a good time to go to Disneyland. A November day without fireworks, parades, and after everyone freaks out is even better.
One of the best things about working at Disneyland was that we could get in for free. Now that we no longer work there, we have to pay. Not full price, fortunately. The cheapest one day ticket that includes nothing but entrance to the park is currently HK$639 per person. As high as that sounds, it is still 20% less than Disneyland California, for a slightly smaller park. Food throughout Hong Kong is dirt cheap, except at Disneyland. You can easily spend HK$99 (US$12.75) on a single cafeteria meal. The restaurants are even more. I looked around and people are spending over US$20 (HK$156) per meal at Disneyland California. Ironically, a standard cup of pop is HK$30 and US$3.99, which is practically the same.
No matter what you do, you are going to spend too much money at Disneyland. Unless it is your birthday. Then you can get a birthday button at City Hall on Main Street, USA for free. My complimentary birthday button is destined to take a place of pride in a box in my closet.
At most Disney parks, I used to follow the same general pattern, depending on each park's layout. After a walk up Main Street, USA, I turned left through Adventureland into New Orleans Square and headed straight for Pirates of the Caribbean, followed by the Haunted Mansion. From there, I would travel clockwise, more or less. Hong Kong Disneyland has no Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion or New Orleans Square. There is a Mystic Manor in Mystic Point, which some people like to compare with the Haunted Mansion, but other than a dark ride inside a “house”, they have nothing in common. Mystic Manor is a decent ride in its own way, but it is no Haunted Mansion.
In Hong Kong, instead of turning left from Main Street, USA, I used to turn right into Tomorrowland and head straight for Space Mountain. But then they turned Tomorrowland into Star Wars: Tomorrowland Takeover and changed Space Mountain to Hyperspace Mountain, though the ride is basically the same. Now, Tomorrowland is Stark Expo. At least until the new Marvel Land is finished. Since the two lands will be right next to each other, Marvel rides are bleeding into Tomorrowland as they gradually open. So far, they have the Iron Man Experience, a motion simulation ride like Star Tours, and Ant Man and the Wasp, which is the new version of the old Buzz Lightyear shoot 'em up ride.
On Monday, we headed up Main Street, USA and straight into Fantasyland, which is in the same location at every park. Neither Lily nor I have a particular ride order, but we will always hit it's a small world, the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and Cinderella Carousel. I used to like the Mad Hatter Tea Cups, but my head does not approve of getting dizzy anymore.
Hong Kong's Adventureland only has one real ride, the Jungle Cruise, which takes up most of the lake/river. The rest of the Land is Tarzan's Treehouse, food, and shopping. Just past the Karibuni Marketplace, which is souvenir shopping, is the entrance to Grizzly Gulch, home to my favorite Disney ride, Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars, a faster and less predictable version of Big Thunder Mountain. Geyser Gulch, with its fountain and water pistols, is an excellent place to cool off on a humid summer day. November is not especially hot, making it an even emptier time to go. Frontierland is called Grizzly Gulch in Hong Kong for the same reason it is Westernland in Tokyo. Unlike fantasy, adventure, and tomorrow, frontier does not mean the same thing in Chinese and Japanese as it does in English.
The opposite entrance to Grizzly Gulch leads to Mystic Point and Mystic Manor. Continuing through Mystic Point is Toy Story Land, which has a couple of fast rides for teenagers and a lot of fluff for children. The other entrance to Toy Story Land leads back to Adventureland and Fantasyland, and will lead to Arendelle in the future.
Hong Kong Disneyland is the smallest Disney park in the world. A single day is more than enough time to ride everything we are interested in, sit down to lunch, catch a show or two, and snack too much along the way. A good deal of the space is dedicated to walk-throughs and places to take pictures. The overwhelming majority of guests are Chinese, who have loved to photograph everywhere they go since long before Facebook and Instagram were invented.
Despite the small size, the railroad can be a convenient way to get to a different side of the park on crowded days. When it was first built, it ran around the outside perimeter, just like every other park. But Hong Kong Disneyland was specifically designed to expand gradually over the years. Grizzly Gulch, Mystic Point, and Toy Story Land are on the other side of the tracks. When Arendelle and Marvel Land are finished, half the park will be outside the original perimeter. Instead of surrounding the park, the railroad will be an inner ring. What I always found interesting was that they built Grizzly Gulch, Mystic Point, and Toy Story Land to the south, toward their hotels and a large body of water. If you stay at the Disneyland Hotel, you are only 100 meters from Grizzly Gulch, but of course cannot get in unless you go a kilometer around the corner to the park's entrance. Arendelle and Marvel Land are being built just to the west and north, where there has always been ample room. When I first set foot in Hong Kong Disneyland, I assumed they would expand to the east, where there is a large patch of absolutely nothing. Maybe they are saving that for whatever comes next.
2005-2018
RIP
Wednesday, November 3, 2021
Halloween 2021
This was our second Halloween in Taiwan, and just like last year, no one did anything Halloween related. In Hong Kong, there are enough expats that you can always find someone doing something. People love to dress up in the most outrageous costumes they can imagine, but most simply go as superheroes, pirates or zombies. More often than not, costumes are based on whichever movies/TV shows are the most popular that week. More importantly, Halloween provides another excuse to stay up late and drink entirely too much.
In Taiwan, you would never know it is Halloween. It is just like 端午節 in Ohio.
This year, we celebrated Halloween a little differently. On Saturday, we saw the National Symphony Orchestra at Weiwuying. On Sunday, Halloween, we saw the Taoyuan City Orchestra. The National Symphony Orchestra is based at the National Concert Hall, just next to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei. The Taoyuan City Orchestra is, not surprisingly, based in Taoyuan. Both ensembles are currently on tour and hit Kaohsiung on the same weekend.
Saturday's National Symphony Orchestra performance featured Wu Ting Yuh, Li Chia Hao, Tseng Chih Hong, and Tsai Cun Chun on violin, Wu Yen Ten and Lu Chao Ying on viola, Huang Jih Sheng on cello, Tsai Hsin Chieh on bass, and Huang Yi Chun on piano. They performed Sergei Rachmaninoff's Trio élégiaque No 1 in Gm, Antonin Dvorak's Piano Trio No 4 in Em, Bedrich Smetana's String Quartet No 1 in Em, and Leos Janacek's Suite for Strings.
On Halloween, which no one seemed to know or care was Halloween, the Taoyuan City Orchestra was in Kaohsiung as part of their “Immortal Love” tour. They performed Ryan Zen's Sparkling Night Erhu Duet Concerto, Zheng Jih Min & Luo Wei Lun's Legend of the White Snake Dizi Concerto, and He Zhan Hao & Chen Gang Qu's The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, with Wei Jing Yi on violin, Liang Wen Ting on dizi, Peng Li Ting and Zhang Wei Yun on erhu, and Qu Chun Quan conducting.
These were noticeably dissimilar nights of music. Rachmaninoff, Dvorak, and Smetana are well established in European concert music and have all been dead for quite some time. Ryan Zen, Zheng Jih Min, Luo Wei Lun, He Zhan Hao, and Chen Gang Qu are contemporary and largely unknown outside of Taiwan. The National Symphony Orchestra is generally considered the premiere orchestra in Taiwan. The Taoyuan City Orchestra is considered a youth ensemble, with the best and brightest music students from around the country. If you asked members of the Taoyuan City Orchestra where they want to end up, most would probably name the National Symphony Orchestra.
I fully support student musicians, and love to see the next generation's up and comers before they hit the big time. Far too many of them are better musicians than I could ever hope to be. But Saturday was undeniably a better night of music. Huang Jih Sheng is the best cellist I have seen live since Yo Yo Ma. Or at least Henri Demarquette. Maybe Wang Yung Tzu. I have seen a few cellists lately.
In Taiwan, you would never know it is Halloween. It is just like 端午節 in Ohio.
This year, we celebrated Halloween a little differently. On Saturday, we saw the National Symphony Orchestra at Weiwuying. On Sunday, Halloween, we saw the Taoyuan City Orchestra. The National Symphony Orchestra is based at the National Concert Hall, just next to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei. The Taoyuan City Orchestra is, not surprisingly, based in Taoyuan. Both ensembles are currently on tour and hit Kaohsiung on the same weekend.
Saturday's National Symphony Orchestra performance featured Wu Ting Yuh, Li Chia Hao, Tseng Chih Hong, and Tsai Cun Chun on violin, Wu Yen Ten and Lu Chao Ying on viola, Huang Jih Sheng on cello, Tsai Hsin Chieh on bass, and Huang Yi Chun on piano. They performed Sergei Rachmaninoff's Trio élégiaque No 1 in Gm, Antonin Dvorak's Piano Trio No 4 in Em, Bedrich Smetana's String Quartet No 1 in Em, and Leos Janacek's Suite for Strings.
On Halloween, which no one seemed to know or care was Halloween, the Taoyuan City Orchestra was in Kaohsiung as part of their “Immortal Love” tour. They performed Ryan Zen's Sparkling Night Erhu Duet Concerto, Zheng Jih Min & Luo Wei Lun's Legend of the White Snake Dizi Concerto, and He Zhan Hao & Chen Gang Qu's The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, with Wei Jing Yi on violin, Liang Wen Ting on dizi, Peng Li Ting and Zhang Wei Yun on erhu, and Qu Chun Quan conducting.
These were noticeably dissimilar nights of music. Rachmaninoff, Dvorak, and Smetana are well established in European concert music and have all been dead for quite some time. Ryan Zen, Zheng Jih Min, Luo Wei Lun, He Zhan Hao, and Chen Gang Qu are contemporary and largely unknown outside of Taiwan. The National Symphony Orchestra is generally considered the premiere orchestra in Taiwan. The Taoyuan City Orchestra is considered a youth ensemble, with the best and brightest music students from around the country. If you asked members of the Taoyuan City Orchestra where they want to end up, most would probably name the National Symphony Orchestra.
I fully support student musicians, and love to see the next generation's up and comers before they hit the big time. Far too many of them are better musicians than I could ever hope to be. But Saturday was undeniably a better night of music. Huang Jih Sheng is the best cellist I have seen live since Yo Yo Ma. Or at least Henri Demarquette. Maybe Wang Yung Tzu. I have seen a few cellists lately.
Sunday, October 24, 2021
Lord Of the Land part 4
Previously on the Landlord Show
When we bought the Ma On Shan apartment, we intended to rent it out. The property manager of the Hung Hom apartment found a reliable tenant right away. Ma On Shan is not as conveniently located as Hung Hom, but it is one of those up and coming neighborhoods that all the experts say is going to be jumping any time now.
When we thought about keeping it for ourselves, we did the math. Any time any of us go to Hong Kong, we either spend the night at a friend's house or get a hotel room. One night in a hotel is more expensive than a single day's rent on the apartment, but a full month's rent, every month, is going to bring in far more than we would ever spend from the occasional hotel. It makes no financial sense to keep the apartment empty just so we have a place to stay from time to time.
On the other hand, this is a brand new apartment. The estate was built this year. Unlike any apartment any of us ever had, no previous occupant had ever lived in this one. Chinese apartments come in a vast variety of styles and sizes. The best are always new. For whatever reason, every apartment loses something as soon as someone else has moved in. Virgin apartments are few and far between.
The Kai Tak apartment is also brand new. It is little more than an empty shell at this point, and will not be ready for occupancy until deep into next year. And the location is far more central than Ma On Shan. But it is also our largest and most expensive apartment, and can easily bring in the most rent. Theoretically, we will sell it for much more than the others some day. That apartment was designed for a family to live in full time, not one or two people to pop in from time to time.
Eventually, we came upon a solution. Kevin knows someone who was looking for an apartment, but did not need four bedrooms. I met this guy once for a few minutes, but Kevin worked with him for years. If he has Kevin's seal of approval, that is good enough for me. He readily agreed to pay far less rent and accept any or all of us as occasional roommates. This is a pretty good deal for everyone. He gets a nice, brand new apartment in a new estate for less rent than he would ever pay without roommates, while having the place to himself most of the time. We get a place to stay whenever we are in town. The apartment was practically designed for this arrangement. The master bedroom/bathroom, rented out to Kevin's colleague, are on one side of the living room, while the other bedrooms and bathrooms, for the rest of us, are on the opposite side. By renting it out ourselves, we pay no fees to the property management company, aside from standard maintenance and security. We would still make more money if we rented out the apartment to a family and went to hotels while in town, but now we have a much better place to stay.
I like having a place in town. It seems like such an adult thing to do. I have always preferred to stay in apartments over hotels, even on short trips. Hotels are usually cold and impersonal. And all the business hotels look the same to me. Show me pictures of some of the hotel rooms I have stayed in over the years and I might not be able to tell you which was which. Apartments feel like someone's home. I can easily identify every apartment I have known.
This particular apartment is not especially large, but it has enough space for us. Our tenant's bedroom is almost as big as the others combined. Lily and Kevin get the second biggest bedroom because they are two people. Of the remaining small bedrooms, I claimed the one with a balcony. It has the same view of Plover Cove as the living room balcony, but it leaves a buffer bedroom between them and me. I don't know how thick the interior walls are yet, but I know how long it has been since I had happy time with anyone, so the less I hear theirs, the better. Who got which bathroom was entirely decided by location. The master bathroom is in the master bedroom. The two smaller bathrooms are right next to Lily and Kevin's bedroom and directly across the hall from my bedroom.
Since it is a new building, the swimming pools look as clean as they will ever be. The main pool in the main courtyard is already a popular place for people to sit around and stare at their phones, but it looks like the smaller rooftop pool on one of the towers has never been used. I will change that the next time I go. It is not at all visible from the ground floor, or anywhere other than that tower's roof, so it is possible that not everyone knows about it. But anyone who was given the large packet of information that we got when we bought the place should know exactly where it is. The gym is small, and not at all impressive, but everything in it is new. They have a good variety of equipment for different muscle groups.
One feature that I have never seen in Hong Kong is that every top floor apartment has its own private deck on the roof, other than the tower with the swimming pool. That is probably not a unique feature, but I have never lived on the top floor in Hong Kong. Until now. We share our roof with two other apartments, but each deck is segregated and is completely private, until someone does maintenance on the elevators or HVAC.
The biggest downside to this apartment is the location, if you want to be in the heart of the city. It would take three different MTR lines to get to Central. Or two different buses in about 90 minutes. But I think if the MTR were not an option, I would simply take a taxi. The drive is probably less than 45 minutes in moderate traffic. Coincidentally, the Tuen Ma line that goes to Ma On Shan also goes to the Kai Tak and Hung Hom apartments.
Fortunately, none of us really care about Central. That is where the foreign tourists and new expats go. It is the Times Square of Hong Kong. Everyone finds better places after a month or two in the city. Mong Kok and Yau Ma Tei are my neighborhoods, and I like the Hung Hom to Kwun Tong area. But Lion Rock and Sai Kung Country Park are the best of Hong Kong. Which makes Ma On Shan more convenient than it appears on paper. The nature reserves and country parks are a world away from Central, but Ma On Shan is literally surrounded by nature on all sides. It is also much closer to Shenzhen, making a trip into Mainland China that much easier.
When we bought the Ma On Shan apartment, we intended to rent it out. The property manager of the Hung Hom apartment found a reliable tenant right away. Ma On Shan is not as conveniently located as Hung Hom, but it is one of those up and coming neighborhoods that all the experts say is going to be jumping any time now.
When we thought about keeping it for ourselves, we did the math. Any time any of us go to Hong Kong, we either spend the night at a friend's house or get a hotel room. One night in a hotel is more expensive than a single day's rent on the apartment, but a full month's rent, every month, is going to bring in far more than we would ever spend from the occasional hotel. It makes no financial sense to keep the apartment empty just so we have a place to stay from time to time.
On the other hand, this is a brand new apartment. The estate was built this year. Unlike any apartment any of us ever had, no previous occupant had ever lived in this one. Chinese apartments come in a vast variety of styles and sizes. The best are always new. For whatever reason, every apartment loses something as soon as someone else has moved in. Virgin apartments are few and far between.
The Kai Tak apartment is also brand new. It is little more than an empty shell at this point, and will not be ready for occupancy until deep into next year. And the location is far more central than Ma On Shan. But it is also our largest and most expensive apartment, and can easily bring in the most rent. Theoretically, we will sell it for much more than the others some day. That apartment was designed for a family to live in full time, not one or two people to pop in from time to time.
Eventually, we came upon a solution. Kevin knows someone who was looking for an apartment, but did not need four bedrooms. I met this guy once for a few minutes, but Kevin worked with him for years. If he has Kevin's seal of approval, that is good enough for me. He readily agreed to pay far less rent and accept any or all of us as occasional roommates. This is a pretty good deal for everyone. He gets a nice, brand new apartment in a new estate for less rent than he would ever pay without roommates, while having the place to himself most of the time. We get a place to stay whenever we are in town. The apartment was practically designed for this arrangement. The master bedroom/bathroom, rented out to Kevin's colleague, are on one side of the living room, while the other bedrooms and bathrooms, for the rest of us, are on the opposite side. By renting it out ourselves, we pay no fees to the property management company, aside from standard maintenance and security. We would still make more money if we rented out the apartment to a family and went to hotels while in town, but now we have a much better place to stay.
I like having a place in town. It seems like such an adult thing to do. I have always preferred to stay in apartments over hotels, even on short trips. Hotels are usually cold and impersonal. And all the business hotels look the same to me. Show me pictures of some of the hotel rooms I have stayed in over the years and I might not be able to tell you which was which. Apartments feel like someone's home. I can easily identify every apartment I have known.
This particular apartment is not especially large, but it has enough space for us. Our tenant's bedroom is almost as big as the others combined. Lily and Kevin get the second biggest bedroom because they are two people. Of the remaining small bedrooms, I claimed the one with a balcony. It has the same view of Plover Cove as the living room balcony, but it leaves a buffer bedroom between them and me. I don't know how thick the interior walls are yet, but I know how long it has been since I had happy time with anyone, so the less I hear theirs, the better. Who got which bathroom was entirely decided by location. The master bathroom is in the master bedroom. The two smaller bathrooms are right next to Lily and Kevin's bedroom and directly across the hall from my bedroom.
Since it is a new building, the swimming pools look as clean as they will ever be. The main pool in the main courtyard is already a popular place for people to sit around and stare at their phones, but it looks like the smaller rooftop pool on one of the towers has never been used. I will change that the next time I go. It is not at all visible from the ground floor, or anywhere other than that tower's roof, so it is possible that not everyone knows about it. But anyone who was given the large packet of information that we got when we bought the place should know exactly where it is. The gym is small, and not at all impressive, but everything in it is new. They have a good variety of equipment for different muscle groups.
One feature that I have never seen in Hong Kong is that every top floor apartment has its own private deck on the roof, other than the tower with the swimming pool. That is probably not a unique feature, but I have never lived on the top floor in Hong Kong. Until now. We share our roof with two other apartments, but each deck is segregated and is completely private, until someone does maintenance on the elevators or HVAC.
The biggest downside to this apartment is the location, if you want to be in the heart of the city. It would take three different MTR lines to get to Central. Or two different buses in about 90 minutes. But I think if the MTR were not an option, I would simply take a taxi. The drive is probably less than 45 minutes in moderate traffic. Coincidentally, the Tuen Ma line that goes to Ma On Shan also goes to the Kai Tak and Hung Hom apartments.
Fortunately, none of us really care about Central. That is where the foreign tourists and new expats go. It is the Times Square of Hong Kong. Everyone finds better places after a month or two in the city. Mong Kok and Yau Ma Tei are my neighborhoods, and I like the Hung Hom to Kwun Tong area. But Lion Rock and Sai Kung Country Park are the best of Hong Kong. Which makes Ma On Shan more convenient than it appears on paper. The nature reserves and country parks are a world away from Central, but Ma On Shan is literally surrounded by nature on all sides. It is also much closer to Shenzhen, making a trip into Mainland China that much easier.
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Bereavement Tour part 2
One of the easiest places in Taiwan to get around in the rain is Taipei. Much of it is indoors and the MRT goes everywhere, underground. Taipei is also far more foreigner-friendly than the south. There are “English” signs all over the place and more people speak at least some version of English than anywhere else in the country. Didier wisely chose to go on a day that both Lily and I were available.
Rather than drive, we took the gaotie. The drive from Kaohsiung to Taipei takes at least four hours, under the best conditions. Once there, driving is pointless and parking is expensive. The fastest train takes 90 minutes. Didier's previous train experience was on the xiaotie from Chiayi to Tainan. Otherwise, he got free rides everywhere. For him, the difference between xiaotie and gaotie was like transporting from 1980 to the early 21st century.
One of the Taipei stops is Taipei Main Station, the only gaotie station in a city center. The station directly connects to the two largest MRT lines, the main bus station, and the xiaotie station. It is also an easy walk to several museums, 228 Peace Park, and the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. Chiang Kai Shek was a murderous dictator, but his memorial hall is one of the more impressive architectural landmarks in the country. Had it not already been on Yi Jun's list, I would have recommended it.
Lily recommended busy and bustling sights like Bopiliao and Ximending, both of which are good examples of Taiwan's culture, though from different centuries. Bopiliao (Longshan Temple station exit #3) is an old Qing Dynasty street that has been restored to its natural state, with seismic reinforcement and ample fire exits. Ximending (Ximen station exit #6) is a purely modern pedestrian street. People often claim it looks like Tokyo, but that is only because there are millions of neon lights and youngsters shopping all night. That is where the similarities end. Both streets are close to Longshan Temple (Longshan Temple station exit #1). At 300 years, it is not the oldest temple in Taiwan, but it is probably the most famous.
That would have been an easy afternoon of walking, but Didier wanted to avoid the crowds, and he had already spent a day at Fo Guang Shan. Longshan Temple and Fo Guang Shan are completely different religions, but from his European point of view, they were the same.
I suggested a few museums. They are indoors and never nearly as crowded as the shopping streets. From Taipei Main Station, the Museum of Contemporary Art is one block north, the National Taiwan Museum (NTU Hospital exit #4) is three blocks south, and the National Museum of History (Xiaonanmen exit #3) is a few blocks further south. The National Taiwan Museum is in 228 Peace Park (NTU Hospital exit #1 & #4), which is a nice little park a block away from the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall (Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall exit #5). The National Museum of History is in the Taipei Botanical Garden (Xiaonanmen exit #3), which is a nice little garden just west of Chiang Kai Shek. Walking to any or all of the museums would be easy. Instead, we went to the National Palace Museum in Shilin, which is nowhere near Taipei Main Station. It is, however, the single best place in the world to see Imperial Chinese art. Didier liked the sound of that.
Taipei is known for its nightlife, with the most popular shopping, the most expensive dance clubs, and the most famous night markets in the country. Didier wanted to avoid everything. I find a night of dancing quite relaxing, but he was still afraid of being around too many people while his side of the world was deep into a plague. Even stranger, he was not a fan of dancing. Something he was willing to do was take the turbolift up to the top of Taipei 101 (Taipei 101 exit #4). I think the views are much better in the daytime, if it is not too cloudy, but the lights at night show how large Taipei is, by Taiwan standards, and how tiny it is compared to Tokyo.
We spent the night at the Home Hotel (Taipei 101 exit #4), a small boutique hotel about three blocks from Taipei 101. It was also the hotel I stayed in the first time I went to Taipei. I like it because it is smaller than the typical business hotel and the service is better than anywhere else in the city.
We started the next day with a morning bicycle ride through the riverside parks along the Keelung River. Morning is easily the best time to ride a bicycle in Taipei. Not so much for the weather. It is always going to be hot and humid, no matter what time of day. But afternoons and evenings along the river get far too crowded. Mornings are comparatively empty. There are almost no lights along the winding river, and the packs of stray dogs can get a bit territorial, so the middle of night might not be the best time. There are a variety of hiking options in eastern Taipei, but we did some hiking in Kenting, so Didier was looking for something a little less strenuous.
Had it just been Lily and me, we would have ridden the bicycles from the hotel to the river. It is only a ten minute ride, at most, but it requires navigating busy streets and dodging traffic in a country where right of way is an alien concept. Anyone without a firm understanding of the culture should stick with the clearly marked bicycle paths in areas where cars and trucks are physically blocked from entering. With Didier, we took the MRT to Jiannan (exit #3) and rode through the more scenic parks just north of the airport. Starting from Nangang and riding west until the river ends makes more sense, but Didier is more of a leisurely stroll bicyclist.
The Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall (Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall exit #4) was on Didier's list, so we went there. When there are no performances or events, the hall is little more than a large public space. There are better parks in Taipei, but it is an easy walk from Taipei 101. Before we went to Taipei, I thought Taipei Main Station would be our hub from which to branch out around the city. But since we stayed at a hotel next to Taipei 101, that became our reference point.
Just outside the Sun Yat Sen MRT station (exit #2) is a “German” bakery that I thought Didier might enjoy. Like pretty much everything else in Taiwan, it is far more Taiwanese than whatever other region it claims, but they have large German style pretzels. Lily thinks they are terrible, but she is not German. Neither is Didier, but France is a lot closer than Canada. He had been in Taiwan for a while at this point, and I know of no authentic French restaurants anywhere in the country, so a fake German bakery would have to do. Unfortunately, Didier agreed with Lily about the pretzels. But he liked the brioche.
About a ten minute walk north of the bakery is Little New York Pizza. Lily says it is the best pizza in Taiwan. It certainly looks like New York pizza, and the slices are large enough, but I doubt it tastes anything like New York. It was also not at all French, but our goal was to find food unlike the Taiwanese and Chinese Didier had been eating every day. Pizza, at least real pizza with tomato sauce and cheese, is not at all Chinese.
There are thousands of pizza places in Taipei, if not hundreds. Most of them claim to have the best pizza in the city, county or country. It is as absurd as all the “original” pizza places in New York. Unfortunately, I can say nothing about the taste, but few look like they could ever be the best. Far too many serve “pizza” without cheese or sauce, and for some reason, proofing the dough is considered unlucky. Almost all of them serve something other than pizza as a main course. Most have more traditional Chinese dishes. More than a few have various noodle and/or pasta dishes. Little New York is the only one I know about that only has pizza, aside from fries and maybe garlic bread, but those are acceptable side dishes. In my experience, the best pizza places concentrate on pizza. Anything else on the menu is an afterthought. Big Boyz Pizza in Songshan (Nanjing Fuxing exit #5) has Chicago style, which is unheard of in Taiwan, but their New York pizza looks nothing like New York, and Lily said it was criminally undercooked. If they can't take the time to cook a New York pizza, I can only imagine how the Chicago turns out.
I should probably point out that there is more than one Little New York Pizza in Taipei. The one on Yanji Street, just north of Civic Blvd, is the only one that is all pizza. The others have larger restaurant menus.
From Taipei, we went to Hsinchu. The gaotie only takes 30 minutes, but the Hsinchu station is not actually in the city of Hsinchu. Ordinarily, a trip around Taiwan could easily skip Hsinchu, but Didier heard that Hsinchu is the technological capital of Taiwan. While true, that does little for visitors, unless you want to tour a semiconductor factory. Since Lily knows someone who knows someone whose house we could stay in, we went to Zhubei, which is just across the river from Hinschu. Conveniently and coincidentally, the house was only a ten minute Uber ride from the Hsinchu gaotie station, which is in Zhubei.
I downloaded Uber onto my phone for this trip. I had thought about using it once before, but I have a car in Kaohsiung and use the MRT in Taipei. I almost never have any need for Uber, unless I am going to or coming from the airport. Then I get a ride from someone or take a taxi. While Hsinchu has plenty of taxis, I thought we would spend more time going back and forth between Zhubei and Hsinchu. Having Uber on my phone made sense.
Downloading the app was a bit of a chore. My 4-year-old phone has its original battery. I can remember a time when I would charge it two or three times a week. Now, I keep it plugged in when not in use. Downloading the Uber app sucked up the battery. I had to plug mobile devices into other mobile devices, making everything far less mobile. It was a whole production. The app works exactly as it should, and the technology is pretty impressive. I push a button on my phone and in five minutes or less, someone picks me up and takes me where I want to go. And no cash changes hands. But I have to make sure my battery is above 80% when I use it. I was at 70% when I opened the app one time, and 1% when I gave the driver a 5 star review. I might need to get a new battery.
I hate the entire “citizen critic” system that has infected every aspect of modern life. Everyone wants to give everything a review. Almost no one is qualified to be a professional critic in any given field, and most people are not nearly as nice online as they are in person. I say, unless your driver was smoking or drunk, give him 5 stars. Was the ride perfect in every possible way? Probably not. But there is no need to be a dick about it.
We did pretty much nothing in Hsinchu and spent most of our time in Zhubei. The house where we stayed was in the middle of the restaurant district. There were no French restaurants, of course, but they had a branch of a Taiwanese-Italian restaurant we have in Kaohsiung and a popular pizza place that is generally decent, but not New York.
Hsinchu was nothing like Didier expected, but he took the technological label a little too literally. He thought it was going to be some advanced city with evidence of the future in every direction. Instead, he got a typical Taiwan city that looks pretty much like every other Taiwan city. Taiwan has a lot of positive aspects, but it is definitely not known for its architecture. Go to pretty much any city in western Europe and you will see people taking pictures of random buildings. No one does that in Taiwan. I expected nothing out of Hsinchu, but found a nice little neighborhood across the river.
When Didier finally went home, he had only crossed a fraction of the places he wanted to see off his list. It was an unrealistic list. Taiwan is a small country, but you can never see it all in one visit. He is always free to come back, but I get the impression that this place is simply too depressing for him. Not because he and Yi Jun spent too much time here, but because they did not spend nearly enough.
Rather than drive, we took the gaotie. The drive from Kaohsiung to Taipei takes at least four hours, under the best conditions. Once there, driving is pointless and parking is expensive. The fastest train takes 90 minutes. Didier's previous train experience was on the xiaotie from Chiayi to Tainan. Otherwise, he got free rides everywhere. For him, the difference between xiaotie and gaotie was like transporting from 1980 to the early 21st century.
One of the Taipei stops is Taipei Main Station, the only gaotie station in a city center. The station directly connects to the two largest MRT lines, the main bus station, and the xiaotie station. It is also an easy walk to several museums, 228 Peace Park, and the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. Chiang Kai Shek was a murderous dictator, but his memorial hall is one of the more impressive architectural landmarks in the country. Had it not already been on Yi Jun's list, I would have recommended it.
Lily recommended busy and bustling sights like Bopiliao and Ximending, both of which are good examples of Taiwan's culture, though from different centuries. Bopiliao (Longshan Temple station exit #3) is an old Qing Dynasty street that has been restored to its natural state, with seismic reinforcement and ample fire exits. Ximending (Ximen station exit #6) is a purely modern pedestrian street. People often claim it looks like Tokyo, but that is only because there are millions of neon lights and youngsters shopping all night. That is where the similarities end. Both streets are close to Longshan Temple (Longshan Temple station exit #1). At 300 years, it is not the oldest temple in Taiwan, but it is probably the most famous.
That would have been an easy afternoon of walking, but Didier wanted to avoid the crowds, and he had already spent a day at Fo Guang Shan. Longshan Temple and Fo Guang Shan are completely different religions, but from his European point of view, they were the same.
I suggested a few museums. They are indoors and never nearly as crowded as the shopping streets. From Taipei Main Station, the Museum of Contemporary Art is one block north, the National Taiwan Museum (NTU Hospital exit #4) is three blocks south, and the National Museum of History (Xiaonanmen exit #3) is a few blocks further south. The National Taiwan Museum is in 228 Peace Park (NTU Hospital exit #1 & #4), which is a nice little park a block away from the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall (Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall exit #5). The National Museum of History is in the Taipei Botanical Garden (Xiaonanmen exit #3), which is a nice little garden just west of Chiang Kai Shek. Walking to any or all of the museums would be easy. Instead, we went to the National Palace Museum in Shilin, which is nowhere near Taipei Main Station. It is, however, the single best place in the world to see Imperial Chinese art. Didier liked the sound of that.
Taipei is known for its nightlife, with the most popular shopping, the most expensive dance clubs, and the most famous night markets in the country. Didier wanted to avoid everything. I find a night of dancing quite relaxing, but he was still afraid of being around too many people while his side of the world was deep into a plague. Even stranger, he was not a fan of dancing. Something he was willing to do was take the turbolift up to the top of Taipei 101 (Taipei 101 exit #4). I think the views are much better in the daytime, if it is not too cloudy, but the lights at night show how large Taipei is, by Taiwan standards, and how tiny it is compared to Tokyo.
We spent the night at the Home Hotel (Taipei 101 exit #4), a small boutique hotel about three blocks from Taipei 101. It was also the hotel I stayed in the first time I went to Taipei. I like it because it is smaller than the typical business hotel and the service is better than anywhere else in the city.
We started the next day with a morning bicycle ride through the riverside parks along the Keelung River. Morning is easily the best time to ride a bicycle in Taipei. Not so much for the weather. It is always going to be hot and humid, no matter what time of day. But afternoons and evenings along the river get far too crowded. Mornings are comparatively empty. There are almost no lights along the winding river, and the packs of stray dogs can get a bit territorial, so the middle of night might not be the best time. There are a variety of hiking options in eastern Taipei, but we did some hiking in Kenting, so Didier was looking for something a little less strenuous.
Had it just been Lily and me, we would have ridden the bicycles from the hotel to the river. It is only a ten minute ride, at most, but it requires navigating busy streets and dodging traffic in a country where right of way is an alien concept. Anyone without a firm understanding of the culture should stick with the clearly marked bicycle paths in areas where cars and trucks are physically blocked from entering. With Didier, we took the MRT to Jiannan (exit #3) and rode through the more scenic parks just north of the airport. Starting from Nangang and riding west until the river ends makes more sense, but Didier is more of a leisurely stroll bicyclist.
The Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall (Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall exit #4) was on Didier's list, so we went there. When there are no performances or events, the hall is little more than a large public space. There are better parks in Taipei, but it is an easy walk from Taipei 101. Before we went to Taipei, I thought Taipei Main Station would be our hub from which to branch out around the city. But since we stayed at a hotel next to Taipei 101, that became our reference point.
Just outside the Sun Yat Sen MRT station (exit #2) is a “German” bakery that I thought Didier might enjoy. Like pretty much everything else in Taiwan, it is far more Taiwanese than whatever other region it claims, but they have large German style pretzels. Lily thinks they are terrible, but she is not German. Neither is Didier, but France is a lot closer than Canada. He had been in Taiwan for a while at this point, and I know of no authentic French restaurants anywhere in the country, so a fake German bakery would have to do. Unfortunately, Didier agreed with Lily about the pretzels. But he liked the brioche.
About a ten minute walk north of the bakery is Little New York Pizza. Lily says it is the best pizza in Taiwan. It certainly looks like New York pizza, and the slices are large enough, but I doubt it tastes anything like New York. It was also not at all French, but our goal was to find food unlike the Taiwanese and Chinese Didier had been eating every day. Pizza, at least real pizza with tomato sauce and cheese, is not at all Chinese.
There are thousands of pizza places in Taipei, if not hundreds. Most of them claim to have the best pizza in the city, county or country. It is as absurd as all the “original” pizza places in New York. Unfortunately, I can say nothing about the taste, but few look like they could ever be the best. Far too many serve “pizza” without cheese or sauce, and for some reason, proofing the dough is considered unlucky. Almost all of them serve something other than pizza as a main course. Most have more traditional Chinese dishes. More than a few have various noodle and/or pasta dishes. Little New York is the only one I know about that only has pizza, aside from fries and maybe garlic bread, but those are acceptable side dishes. In my experience, the best pizza places concentrate on pizza. Anything else on the menu is an afterthought. Big Boyz Pizza in Songshan (Nanjing Fuxing exit #5) has Chicago style, which is unheard of in Taiwan, but their New York pizza looks nothing like New York, and Lily said it was criminally undercooked. If they can't take the time to cook a New York pizza, I can only imagine how the Chicago turns out.
I should probably point out that there is more than one Little New York Pizza in Taipei. The one on Yanji Street, just north of Civic Blvd, is the only one that is all pizza. The others have larger restaurant menus.
From Taipei, we went to Hsinchu. The gaotie only takes 30 minutes, but the Hsinchu station is not actually in the city of Hsinchu. Ordinarily, a trip around Taiwan could easily skip Hsinchu, but Didier heard that Hsinchu is the technological capital of Taiwan. While true, that does little for visitors, unless you want to tour a semiconductor factory. Since Lily knows someone who knows someone whose house we could stay in, we went to Zhubei, which is just across the river from Hinschu. Conveniently and coincidentally, the house was only a ten minute Uber ride from the Hsinchu gaotie station, which is in Zhubei.
I downloaded Uber onto my phone for this trip. I had thought about using it once before, but I have a car in Kaohsiung and use the MRT in Taipei. I almost never have any need for Uber, unless I am going to or coming from the airport. Then I get a ride from someone or take a taxi. While Hsinchu has plenty of taxis, I thought we would spend more time going back and forth between Zhubei and Hsinchu. Having Uber on my phone made sense.
Downloading the app was a bit of a chore. My 4-year-old phone has its original battery. I can remember a time when I would charge it two or three times a week. Now, I keep it plugged in when not in use. Downloading the Uber app sucked up the battery. I had to plug mobile devices into other mobile devices, making everything far less mobile. It was a whole production. The app works exactly as it should, and the technology is pretty impressive. I push a button on my phone and in five minutes or less, someone picks me up and takes me where I want to go. And no cash changes hands. But I have to make sure my battery is above 80% when I use it. I was at 70% when I opened the app one time, and 1% when I gave the driver a 5 star review. I might need to get a new battery.
I hate the entire “citizen critic” system that has infected every aspect of modern life. Everyone wants to give everything a review. Almost no one is qualified to be a professional critic in any given field, and most people are not nearly as nice online as they are in person. I say, unless your driver was smoking or drunk, give him 5 stars. Was the ride perfect in every possible way? Probably not. But there is no need to be a dick about it.
We did pretty much nothing in Hsinchu and spent most of our time in Zhubei. The house where we stayed was in the middle of the restaurant district. There were no French restaurants, of course, but they had a branch of a Taiwanese-Italian restaurant we have in Kaohsiung and a popular pizza place that is generally decent, but not New York.
Hsinchu was nothing like Didier expected, but he took the technological label a little too literally. He thought it was going to be some advanced city with evidence of the future in every direction. Instead, he got a typical Taiwan city that looks pretty much like every other Taiwan city. Taiwan has a lot of positive aspects, but it is definitely not known for its architecture. Go to pretty much any city in western Europe and you will see people taking pictures of random buildings. No one does that in Taiwan. I expected nothing out of Hsinchu, but found a nice little neighborhood across the river.
When Didier finally went home, he had only crossed a fraction of the places he wanted to see off his list. It was an unrealistic list. Taiwan is a small country, but you can never see it all in one visit. He is always free to come back, but I get the impression that this place is simply too depressing for him. Not because he and Yi Jun spent too much time here, but because they did not spend nearly enough.
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
Bereavement Tour part 1
Didier is still in Taiwan. There is still paperwork that needs to be filled out and Yi Jun's family is currently arguing over her life insurance. I think everything should go to her children, as she specifically requested. But it is not up to me. Didier is also trying to avoid going back home without his wife. It will happen sooner or later, but he is not ready.
Though I only met Didier once before Yi Jun died, I am the closest thing he has to a friend in Taiwan. He knows Yi Jun's family and me, though he does not know them especially well. It kind of seems like Yi Jun did not particularly want to live in Taiwan. When she was married to an American, she lived in Michigan. When she was married to Didier, she lived in France and Ohio. Yi Jun and Didier used to visit Taiwan during the New Year and special occasions, but Didier was largely unfamiliar with the culture. In me, he saw someone who knows the culture and can speak to him in a language he understands. I like to think I can speak French on a good day, but we mostly communicate in English. And I knew Yi Jun in a way that makes more sense to him. Her family knew young Yi Jun. We knew the more modern, adult version.
During Yi Jun's last round of treatment, Didier stayed in her sister's house in Chiayi and the hospital hotel. After the funeral, there was no point in staying at the hospital, and he did not want to spend any time in the sister's house, so he went to Tainan. Getting from Chiayi to Tainan is pretty easy, and Didier is comfortable with trains, but he had no idea how to get around once he was there. His phone call started our grand tour of Taiwan.
Before going back to France, and possibly never coming to Taiwan again, Didier wanted to see all the sights that Yi Jun talked about. Getting around the west coast of Taiwan is pretty easy without a car. The slow trains are not at all on time, but they go to pretty much any city you would ever want to see, and most stations are downtown. The high speed train is far more reliable, cleaner, and comfortable, but only one high speed station is in a city center. Most are not even in the largest city of their respective counties. The stations were built out in the countryside where there were large enough patches of empty land. Had Didier taken the gaotie from Chiayi to Tainan, he would have actually gone from Taibao to Gueiren. Chiayi's station was convenient, in his case, since Yi Jun's hospital and sister are in Chiayi County rather than Chiayi City, but Tainan's station is practically in Kaohsiung. I think the hospital was built close to the Chiayi (Taibao) station on purpose. Most stations have free shuttles that take you to the city, and there are ample taxis at every station, but every shuttle and almost every taxi requires at least some knowledge of the language. Foreigners are better off with the xiaotie, which has stations in the middle of each city, though all announced changes are in Chinese.
Today's language lesson: “xiaotie”™ is not a real word. I made it up. The high speed train is 高鐵 (gaotie). The slow speed train is actually 臺鐵 (taitie). Somewhere along the line, I started calling it 小鐵 (xiaotie), which is a bit of a pun, though not a very good one. 高 (gao) and 小 (xiao) are opposites, and rhyme. 臺 is short for 臺灣 (Taiwan), and does not even come close to rhyming.
Didier was going to travel around Taiwan alone. I thought that might not be the best idea. It is certainly possible, but probably not ideal while grieving and not entirely thinking straight. When I offered to help, he assumed I only meant guiding him around Kaohsiung and that he should take the train from Tainan, even though there were places in Tainan on his list. What he did not realize was that I could drive to his Tainan hotel in under 45 minutes. At his hotel, he showed me his list of all the places he wanted to go. He vastly underestimated both the size of Taiwan and the travel times by train. It is a relatively small island, but he had enough sights for a month of travel. I had a car that could reduce travel times, but I also had a job that required my participation.
I knew he was never going to see everything on his list, so I concentrated on the highlights. We were already in Tainan, so we started there. Tainan is an old city and has a great deal of historical sights. Most of them are outdoors and it was raining ropes. Didier thought it was a typhoon. It was certainly typhoon season, but this was a light drizzle by comparison. Instead of Chihkanlou, or Anping, or any of the temples, we went to the Chimei Museum. The outdoor grounds are nice, but the indoor museum is what you want to see.
I had to go to work, so I was going to Kaohsiung with or without Didier. He had a lot of Kaohsiung on his list, so he took the free ride.
I have lived in Kaohsiung for a little over a year. There are parts of the city I have yet to see myself, but I know enough to show someone around. From a French point of view, Kaohsiung is a large, crowded city. From a Chinese point of view, Kaohsiung is pretty small. To experience the culture, you have to go to night markets, food stalls, and places where people are generally packed together like lemmings. Didier is from France, where they are struggling with a bit of a plague right now, and most recently lived in the United States, which refuses to settle for anything but first place. The last thing he wanted was to be in a crowd, especially in a culture that considers it unlucky to cover one's mouth while coughing or sneezing.
So I took him to Fo Guang Shan. Outside of ceremonies and special occasions, the monastery is rarely crowded, and the museum is large enough to seem empty on most weekdays. It is also probably a pretty great place to experience right after burying your wife.
I may not be the best guide for Kaohsiung, but I know a thing or two about Fo Guang Shan. I spent some time there last year and know a few of the monks personally. I introduced Didier to my former laoshi and reminisced around campus while they talked about the meaning of life and death for a few hours. Didier still has to go home without his wife, but at least he had an experienced shoulder to cry on and heard something more meaningful than the usual platitudes most of us never adequately know how to express. Didier felt a little better, and we went to the museum where other monks gave him a tour through a few thousand years of Buddhism. When we went to the monastery, it was lightly raining and looked like there was more on the way. When we walked out of the museum, the sun was shining and birds were happy. Didier saw it as a sign. I saw it as autumn weather.
One of the places Yi Jun talked about the most was Kenting. Taiwanese love Kenting. It is the Hawaii of Taiwan. Having been to both Hawaii and Kenting, I disagree. Kenting is in a tropical monsoon climate zone, making it far hotter and wetter than Honolulu. When I was in Hawaii, it would rain for an hour at most and another hour later, you could never tell it was anything but sunny. If it is raining in Kenting, you will not see any sun that day. Hurricanes almost never hit Honolulu. Typhoons hit Kenting all the time.
But it was at the top of Didier's list and only a two hour drive. Most people go on the weekends, but my days off are during the week. We went on a Tuesday. The last time I went to Kenting was a Saturday in the middle of summer. As it turns out, the place is far less crowded on a Tuesday after the school year starts.
The beaches in Kenting are easily the most popular in the entire country. I have no idea why. There is nothing particularly wrong with them, but they are small, usually crowded, and swimming is either highly discouraged or completely illegal. Most people just go to take pictures for the Facebook. Sunset is the popular time, even though the beaches face south and east. Didier is from France, which has a few nice beaches down south and some enormous, sprawling beaches up north. He was not impressed with Kenting.
We spent most of our Kenting time at the national park. Even with the tropical climate and intermittent rain, it is an easy park to hike, with ample trails and paved staircases. You could easily spend a few days exploring the entire park, but we had a few hours. We had no plans to spend the night in Kenting, and I had to show Didier the night market.
Despite the popularity of the beaches, most people go to Kenting for the night life. Several streets downtown become a large night market after sunset. Normal shopping streets during the day take on a carnival atmosphere at night. You can play old style arcade games, like that one where you try to throw a ping pong ball into a tiny fish bowl with an opening too small to fit a ping pong ball, or the one where you throw dull darts at underinflated balloons. Most people stick to buying cheap crap. And, of course, everyone goes for the food. It is not a night market without countless food stalls selling everything from 愛玉 to 仙草. Didier avoided the night markets in Kaohsiung, so Kenting's night scene was essential.
Kenting has plenty of hotels, most of which have plenty of rooms available this time of year. But it is only a two hour drive to Kaohsiung and I was busy the next day, so we did not spend the night.
Hualien was on Didier's list, and I recommend Taroko Gorge wholeheartedly. It is easily Taiwan's best nature site. It is also about as far from Kaohsiung as you can get. Leaving from Kenting would be much easier, though not faster. Whether Didier decided to go to Haulien or not, I was unavailable. I could have put him on the xiaotie, but then he would be on his own in a place that requires some form of transportation, or at least a bicycle. The rainy season technically ends in September, but it has been dragging on longer this year, and since hiking Taroko Gorge in the rain is not the best idea, he decided against it.
I like Didier's idea of traveling around the country and seeing all the sights Yi Jun talked about, but she died at the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the school year. Most vacation days are used up by the end of summer. At any other time of year, I probably could have found people to take him to most of the places on his list.
Though I only met Didier once before Yi Jun died, I am the closest thing he has to a friend in Taiwan. He knows Yi Jun's family and me, though he does not know them especially well. It kind of seems like Yi Jun did not particularly want to live in Taiwan. When she was married to an American, she lived in Michigan. When she was married to Didier, she lived in France and Ohio. Yi Jun and Didier used to visit Taiwan during the New Year and special occasions, but Didier was largely unfamiliar with the culture. In me, he saw someone who knows the culture and can speak to him in a language he understands. I like to think I can speak French on a good day, but we mostly communicate in English. And I knew Yi Jun in a way that makes more sense to him. Her family knew young Yi Jun. We knew the more modern, adult version.
During Yi Jun's last round of treatment, Didier stayed in her sister's house in Chiayi and the hospital hotel. After the funeral, there was no point in staying at the hospital, and he did not want to spend any time in the sister's house, so he went to Tainan. Getting from Chiayi to Tainan is pretty easy, and Didier is comfortable with trains, but he had no idea how to get around once he was there. His phone call started our grand tour of Taiwan.
Before going back to France, and possibly never coming to Taiwan again, Didier wanted to see all the sights that Yi Jun talked about. Getting around the west coast of Taiwan is pretty easy without a car. The slow trains are not at all on time, but they go to pretty much any city you would ever want to see, and most stations are downtown. The high speed train is far more reliable, cleaner, and comfortable, but only one high speed station is in a city center. Most are not even in the largest city of their respective counties. The stations were built out in the countryside where there were large enough patches of empty land. Had Didier taken the gaotie from Chiayi to Tainan, he would have actually gone from Taibao to Gueiren. Chiayi's station was convenient, in his case, since Yi Jun's hospital and sister are in Chiayi County rather than Chiayi City, but Tainan's station is practically in Kaohsiung. I think the hospital was built close to the Chiayi (Taibao) station on purpose. Most stations have free shuttles that take you to the city, and there are ample taxis at every station, but every shuttle and almost every taxi requires at least some knowledge of the language. Foreigners are better off with the xiaotie, which has stations in the middle of each city, though all announced changes are in Chinese.
Today's language lesson: “xiaotie”™ is not a real word. I made it up. The high speed train is 高鐵 (gaotie). The slow speed train is actually 臺鐵 (taitie). Somewhere along the line, I started calling it 小鐵 (xiaotie), which is a bit of a pun, though not a very good one. 高 (gao) and 小 (xiao) are opposites, and rhyme. 臺 is short for 臺灣 (Taiwan), and does not even come close to rhyming.
Didier was going to travel around Taiwan alone. I thought that might not be the best idea. It is certainly possible, but probably not ideal while grieving and not entirely thinking straight. When I offered to help, he assumed I only meant guiding him around Kaohsiung and that he should take the train from Tainan, even though there were places in Tainan on his list. What he did not realize was that I could drive to his Tainan hotel in under 45 minutes. At his hotel, he showed me his list of all the places he wanted to go. He vastly underestimated both the size of Taiwan and the travel times by train. It is a relatively small island, but he had enough sights for a month of travel. I had a car that could reduce travel times, but I also had a job that required my participation.
I knew he was never going to see everything on his list, so I concentrated on the highlights. We were already in Tainan, so we started there. Tainan is an old city and has a great deal of historical sights. Most of them are outdoors and it was raining ropes. Didier thought it was a typhoon. It was certainly typhoon season, but this was a light drizzle by comparison. Instead of Chihkanlou, or Anping, or any of the temples, we went to the Chimei Museum. The outdoor grounds are nice, but the indoor museum is what you want to see.
I had to go to work, so I was going to Kaohsiung with or without Didier. He had a lot of Kaohsiung on his list, so he took the free ride.
I have lived in Kaohsiung for a little over a year. There are parts of the city I have yet to see myself, but I know enough to show someone around. From a French point of view, Kaohsiung is a large, crowded city. From a Chinese point of view, Kaohsiung is pretty small. To experience the culture, you have to go to night markets, food stalls, and places where people are generally packed together like lemmings. Didier is from France, where they are struggling with a bit of a plague right now, and most recently lived in the United States, which refuses to settle for anything but first place. The last thing he wanted was to be in a crowd, especially in a culture that considers it unlucky to cover one's mouth while coughing or sneezing.
So I took him to Fo Guang Shan. Outside of ceremonies and special occasions, the monastery is rarely crowded, and the museum is large enough to seem empty on most weekdays. It is also probably a pretty great place to experience right after burying your wife.
I may not be the best guide for Kaohsiung, but I know a thing or two about Fo Guang Shan. I spent some time there last year and know a few of the monks personally. I introduced Didier to my former laoshi and reminisced around campus while they talked about the meaning of life and death for a few hours. Didier still has to go home without his wife, but at least he had an experienced shoulder to cry on and heard something more meaningful than the usual platitudes most of us never adequately know how to express. Didier felt a little better, and we went to the museum where other monks gave him a tour through a few thousand years of Buddhism. When we went to the monastery, it was lightly raining and looked like there was more on the way. When we walked out of the museum, the sun was shining and birds were happy. Didier saw it as a sign. I saw it as autumn weather.
One of the places Yi Jun talked about the most was Kenting. Taiwanese love Kenting. It is the Hawaii of Taiwan. Having been to both Hawaii and Kenting, I disagree. Kenting is in a tropical monsoon climate zone, making it far hotter and wetter than Honolulu. When I was in Hawaii, it would rain for an hour at most and another hour later, you could never tell it was anything but sunny. If it is raining in Kenting, you will not see any sun that day. Hurricanes almost never hit Honolulu. Typhoons hit Kenting all the time.
But it was at the top of Didier's list and only a two hour drive. Most people go on the weekends, but my days off are during the week. We went on a Tuesday. The last time I went to Kenting was a Saturday in the middle of summer. As it turns out, the place is far less crowded on a Tuesday after the school year starts.
The beaches in Kenting are easily the most popular in the entire country. I have no idea why. There is nothing particularly wrong with them, but they are small, usually crowded, and swimming is either highly discouraged or completely illegal. Most people just go to take pictures for the Facebook. Sunset is the popular time, even though the beaches face south and east. Didier is from France, which has a few nice beaches down south and some enormous, sprawling beaches up north. He was not impressed with Kenting.
We spent most of our Kenting time at the national park. Even with the tropical climate and intermittent rain, it is an easy park to hike, with ample trails and paved staircases. You could easily spend a few days exploring the entire park, but we had a few hours. We had no plans to spend the night in Kenting, and I had to show Didier the night market.
Despite the popularity of the beaches, most people go to Kenting for the night life. Several streets downtown become a large night market after sunset. Normal shopping streets during the day take on a carnival atmosphere at night. You can play old style arcade games, like that one where you try to throw a ping pong ball into a tiny fish bowl with an opening too small to fit a ping pong ball, or the one where you throw dull darts at underinflated balloons. Most people stick to buying cheap crap. And, of course, everyone goes for the food. It is not a night market without countless food stalls selling everything from 愛玉 to 仙草. Didier avoided the night markets in Kaohsiung, so Kenting's night scene was essential.
Kenting has plenty of hotels, most of which have plenty of rooms available this time of year. But it is only a two hour drive to Kaohsiung and I was busy the next day, so we did not spend the night.
Hualien was on Didier's list, and I recommend Taroko Gorge wholeheartedly. It is easily Taiwan's best nature site. It is also about as far from Kaohsiung as you can get. Leaving from Kenting would be much easier, though not faster. Whether Didier decided to go to Haulien or not, I was unavailable. I could have put him on the xiaotie, but then he would be on his own in a place that requires some form of transportation, or at least a bicycle. The rainy season technically ends in September, but it has been dragging on longer this year, and since hiking Taroko Gorge in the rain is not the best idea, he decided against it.
I like Didier's idea of traveling around the country and seeing all the sights Yi Jun talked about, but she died at the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the school year. Most vacation days are used up by the end of summer. At any other time of year, I probably could have found people to take him to most of the places on his list.
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