The blissful 75 degree days have officially ceased as of this week. We are now down into the 50's and with the rain and wind, it can be downright nasty out there. Ah... Feels like home!
I got my first care package in the mail on Friday and damn it felt good. I know it's only been a month but hell, nothing can cheer you up like a box full of stuff that you had been wishing you'd brought since you landed. (A big thanks to my Mom for making it happen) So I have now a new pair of glasses to replace the ones lost in Hualien, my old digital camera to replace the one lost in... well, you know where, and some great gifts from back home.
I spent a good 4 hours today on public transit in one form or another. This is not a complaint, I'm just sayin'. I traveled to the north of Taipei to go to Costco so I could pick up a wireless router for my internet. Turns out that this was apparently not the issue, so I'm still without high-speed internet for the time being. But I digress. Getting to Costco took two hours or more of bus rides, subway rides, and much subway terminal wandering with lots of confused muttering and walking up and down the same flight of stairs a couple of times to make sure I was in the right location. It was all worth it though when my eyes caught the heavenly glow of American influence that is Costco in Taipei. It's a beautiful thing.
My first order of business was to get some food at the counter, which is much the same as getting food in any other Costco except for the fact that here there are roughly 6 people for every one person in a Costco back home. The sheer amount of human mass packed into that place is staggering, it's like lining up on a conveyer belt to be shoved into a sausage casing made of shopping carts. You can hardly turn around without having to say "Duei bu chi" (excuse me) to some old lady or another and when you finally reach the food stand and see that big huge picture of a hot dog you kind of feel like you can commiserate with the poor pig who ended up in there. Is there pigs in hot dogs these days? Who knows. Anyway, the food is basically the same except for the bacon cheeseburgers, Seafood pizza and Peking Duck pizza. I was feeling extra adventureous today and got the Peking Duck pizza and was happy to find that it exceeded expectations. It's a bit like a bar-be-que chicken pizza from California Pizza Kitchen because of the sweet sauce and poultry flavor along with the green vegetable of some kind that is scattered liberally about. I scarfed it down while taking the escalator up to the second floor which is where you have to start shopping. Which reminds me of the first time I was there with some Taiwanese guys who were from California, I was remarking how interesting it was that there are escalators everywhere in Taiwan and one of them said, casually: "Well, around here you have to build vertically, not horizontally." And by God he's right. I have completely taken for granted that back home you can just build and build on new land all around without any thought of moving skyward. Think of a Fred Meyer, those beasts could be contained in the size of a basketball court in Taiwan, but it would be 6 stories tall.
Another interesting difference between the Costco's back home and the one here is that they give you liquor samples. Please, read that again. Liquor. Samples. You can be walking down an aisle filled with 80 pack boxes of diapers one moment and stumble onto a sample lady offering you a shot of whiskey in a plastic cup with ice. It's hard to comprehend at first, being an American who's so used to flashing his I.D. every time I want to take a crap, but over here they will give you booze for free in a grocery store. Which reminds me, I've not been carded once since I've been here and I have no idea what the legal drinking age is. In Washington I couldn't walk within 20 feet of a bar entrance without some lump of muscle and flesh with a skin-tight black shirt on asking me for I.D.
So after I purchase my wireless router and take a taxi back to the subway station I settle in for another long haul back home. But just as I walk into the terminal I remember that my care package also contained my skateboard trucks (the axle portion on bottom that holds the wheels) and I whip out a shredded scrap of paper that has been nearly water logged to death by the ocean (again, Hualien, that place destroyed me) which has directions, if you can call them that, to a skateboard shop off of one of the stops on my way home. I could not resist. It has been over a month since I stepped on a board and every time I leave my apartment all I do while walking down the street is imagine skateboarding every piece of marble, metal, and concrete that stands between me and wherever I'm going.
It was raining at this point but I decided I had to find this place. My directions say, and I quote: "Sun Yat Sen Memorial, #2, go through 4, then ----->" That was what I was working with and an hour later, I found the place. My heart was racing when I saw the blue sign for "Jimi" which is the name of the skateshop. I staggered in, wet, tired, and brimming with joy at having actually found the place. I have to admit, in my month in Taiwan I have not felt more at home than I did when I walked into that skateshop. It was like the outside world fell away and I had walked into a place where I was understood. There was a skate video playing on a tv in the corner and skateboards lined the walls. It was like my own personal Shangri-la and even after I'd paid for my board and had no further business in the place, I just hung about for a little while, not wanting to actually leave. I made a skate-date with the guy who worked there for 3 o'clock tomorrow at some place in ximen (pronounced she-men, which is dangerously close to semen, and has been known to make me giggle when said by Taiwanese people).
With my board in hand I strode out the front door in the rain and walked back to the MRT station with my head aloft, shoulders back, with all the confidence of someone who'd just found their own little home away from home.
The second to last first of the day was stepping on my board and pushing around the underground parking garage at my apartment building. I think I scared the crap out of a little kid on his way to the garbage area but other than that it was bliss. The final first of the day came about half an hour ago when I was sitting on my couch looking at skateboarding videos online and felt the vibration of what I thought was a lead-footed individual walking down the hallway. This steady thump... thump... thump... feeling soon turned into a gradual shaking of everything not bolted down in my apartment and the light bulb in my brain flickered to life: Earthquake! I had been told that Taiwan was notorious for earthquakes but I hadn't experience one yet. It got steadily more powerful and before long it was really moving things around, but I've been through a lot of earthquakes and wasn't too bothered by it, other than the thought that I'd never been nine stories up during one before. Another first.
When it subsided I had the overwhelming urge to get onto my blog and record the occasion which basically brings you all up to speed. Also, I'm going to start a second blog about skateboarding in Taiwan which I hope to get published on a skateboarding magazine's website. So wish me luck on that!
All in all, a long but fruitful day full of equal parts tedium and adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment