Usually when I sit down to write in this thing, after I've turned my fan to "medium" with the reciprocate knob in the "on" position, I have no idea what I'm going to write. And today Danielle asked me if I was going to write about them in my 'blog.' It doesn't say 'blog' anywhere here does it? Who says this is a 'blog?'
It was a good question though, today after morning service I became a tourist again and hung out with Chris and Danielle, Carol, Thaddeus, and Jack, the last two having met them just today. So I guess you could say today was exciting, I got to see things, big things, that I hadn't seen before.
I saw much more of the Taipei Main Station than I even knew existed, it is very big, kind of like Grand Central Station in New York but not quite as big I think. The 'basement' is the MRT (subway) station that I've seen many times, but if you keep going up and up you end up in a huge train station that reaches far beyond the MRT system of Tapei.
Then I saw Taipei 101. I'd seen it already, but this time I went to the top. It's very big, the tallest building in the world, or so they say.
Then I saw Taipei itself from Taipei 101, also very big, so big that you need to pay 10 kuai to use those coin operated binoculars to look at it all. The 10 kuai is used to cover maintenance and a monthly calibration of the optics so that anyone with crossed eyes can see comfortably through it. Maybe I'm the one with crossed eyes, or maybe my eyes are too close together I don't know.
Then, encouraged by Thaddeus's enthusiasm, we all went to see the "damper baby," and it's really labeled that somewhere, but you can just call it the "damper." The damper is a big heavy steel ball suspended from the 91st floor that dampens the swaying of Taipei 101 from wind. Click here to see a diagram. I guess there are three of them in this building. We saw the biggest one, 5.5 meters across, which is the biggest in the world. So it too was a big thing I saw today.
I also want to comment on the elevator, it's the worlds fastest elevator, it climbs all the way to 89th floor in 37 seconds, and we were shocked that it was 37 seconds, it felt like 10 seconds and we hardly felt it move. Although your ears pop a couple times on the way down. This was not very big, that I could see, but I'm sure if I got to gaze up the elevator shaft I'd be impressed at how "big" it was. Also the service people seemed to think the elevator was bigger than it is, they crammed so many of us into that elevator, I've never been in one so tightly packed.
After we came back down, checking to see if anything floated in the elevator on the way down, we met up with Erika who had already been up twice, and Jack who was saving the experience to share with his soon-to-be fiance who is currently in Japan. As we were meeting them I heard my name, and turned around, and there were Eric and Anita, waving at me from the security line for the elevator that we had just exited. In a city of 8 million people what are the odds of running into somebody by chance? Probably pretty high if you're a tourist and you're at Taipei 101. But I really didn't get to talk to them because they were on the other side of a security line, I suppose I could have made a scene trying to get to them, gotten stunned by a stun gun then deported back to America, but I decided to talk to Anita later on my cell phone instead.
After that it's all a blur. I only remember bits and pieces: I remember Carol standing without any handrail support on the MRT, like it was nothing. I tried it, but I'm nowhere near as natural as she is. I remember that I talked on my cell phone in the MRT, they have some sort of cell service down there. Then I remember a conversation between the six of us about being stared at because we're foreign looking, Chris and I like it, but nobody else does. Chris said it makes him feel famous, I'm with him there, I like it. I think maybe Chris and I have in common growing up in places where we didn't stand out it any particular way by how we looked. I'll have to see what Danielle thinks about that, she'll have something to say.
After Taipei 101 we debated what we wanted to do next and decided to go back to Carol, Jessica, and Erika's place for their wine and cheese party. The party was, as many things I've described today, big, at least for the small space it was in. I met several people, from Korea, Canada, Taiwan, Finland/Estonia, England, and South Africa, and I saw some familiar faces too. I got to drink wine, eat cheese, settle a "which olive is more salty" dispute, speak Chinese, speak English, and hear lots of interesting stories and learn lots about living in Taiwan from some of the long-time foreigners.
Danielle told me that she wasn't sure if she wanted to tell me that she read my so-called 'blog' because it might make me self conscious and filter things out. And I told her that I already do filter things out. I can't remember if she asked me what I filter, but here is an example.
My room-mate's name is Fan Tien. Carol got me in contact with him and he kindly took me in, we split costs, as room-mates do. People often ask me "how's your room-mate/" I often say "Oh good, great, nice guy." This is an entirely honest answer, Fan Tien is a very nice guy, puts up with my strange living habits, gives me rides on his scooter, offers to take me places, helps me find service groups, hooks me up with Bethel trips, sometimes we go out for Stinky tofu together, beer, regular food, he's given me Chinese pronunciation CDs, he gave me his old cell phone, the list goes on. He's just a nice guy, always helping out, and always friendly, and he gets it, I like him. But... But... when I come home, or one of my room-mates come home, I like there to be a little reception: "Hi Fan Tien, I'm home." "Hi Marc." or "Hi Marc, I'm home." "Hi Fan Tien." That's a need I have in a living together relationship, nothing fancy, it doesn't have to be every single time I come home or he comes home. Just an acknowledgment of entry into the apartment, house, or whatever. I'm not mad, I'm not upset, I don't feel like I'm being treated unfairly, I'm just saying there's a little bit of emptiness for me, something missing, when I come home. But I don't tell people that when they ask me "how's your room-mate?" I filter it. So there, there's a little unfiltered 'blogging' for ya. (edit 316) Permalink