Lately my blog has been showing older entries. I'm not sure why yet.

Update: 2009-01-06 00:50 (PST)

All fixed now. The .htaccess file got deleted. I restored it from a back-up. I still haven't started uploading pictures from Taiwan yet. I've been very busy setting up my mom and dad's little home office network and my own computer, and computers at work and lot's of computers. Lots and lots. (edit 505) Permalink

Today Washington State's road's became a little less safe, I got my driver's license replaced. I lost my driver's license in Taipei so I've been unable to drive until today. So a few hours ago I found myself behind the wheel of one of the most deadly machines in the world. I was wondering if it would be weird or difficult to drive again after nearly a year of pedestrianism, but it's like riding a bike, only less pedaling.

The weirdest thing was the sense of ease and my renewed tremendous range, I had a full tank of gas and the rest of the day to go where I wanted to go. I ended up going to Best Buy and looking at those new Blue Ray players, with no intention of buying them. I was curious how much a Blue Ray drive would be for my computer, $119, not too bad, but I don't need one. After that I found myself in some sort of rush traffic, sitting behind rows and rows of red tail lights spacing out, my brain having that numb feeling where it knows it can't fall asleep but it has nothing to do other than keep it's foot on the brake and watch for the read break lights to go dark then proceed forward. As I sat there in traffic, a word I had hoped to forget, I reminisced about my old life: it's been almost a week since I've walked the streets of Taipei. In Taipei I would have still had almost two hours of day light left, and in Taipei I wouldn't be alone in a car behind hundreds of cars I'd be on a side walk, bus or an MRT behind hundreds of human beings.

But which is better? My car was quiet and smelled like a not new anymore car and a heater, my car has a comfortable non-stinky smell, at least in my opinion (I have a habit of not eating in my car so that it doesn't smell weird.) But if I was on a sidewalk in Taipei I'd smell all kind of weird things, some of them really good, but lot's of them kind of weird or not good, like stinky tofu or temple insense, those things smell bad. Crowds of people stuck in a small MRT train usually don't smell very good either, although I wouldn't say that the MRT smells bad.

My car was nice and quiet too, the sounds outside muted, muffled, and overridden by soft cello music playing in my car's CD player. That part I liked, the peacefulness of my car. But then again it's kind of lonely in there too, kind of sad. I looked out at the hundreds of other cars waiting for the light to change, pulling out of parking lots, quietly making left turns next to me, all insulated from each other by windshields, turning lanes, and 2-second braking distances. Here we were, hundreds of us, on our ways home, or wherever we were going, together but alone.

Of course I realize that I didn't really want to see all those people, I didn't want to look at them, avoid eye contact them, hear them yell at their kids or talk on their cell phones. Their kids probably wouldn't stare at me though, since I'm not a foreigner here, maybe that's another reason why it wouldn't be any fun. Of course on the Taipei MRT almost half of the people pretend to sleep, or maybe they really are, maybe sleeping is the urban transit way of isolating yourself.

I think I've decided that I'd rather be a person than a car though. A person among people, because then I have the option of staring at someone, smiling, or maybe even actually talking to someone. In cars, as comfortable as they are, I'd have to roll down my window and yell, and they probably wouldn't hear me anyway. Do people ever roll down the window and yell "Excuse me!" or "Sorry I didn't see you there." or "Thanks?" Do kids ever get to see funny looking foreign guys with big noses (like me) when they are sitting in those child seats in the back seat of an SUV? I also can't make faces at those same little kids either. (edit 504) Permalink

I'm not sure if this blog will be interesting anymore now that I'm back in the U.S. One of the reasons, other than keeping my family and friends updated on my far away life, was to give myself something to look back on later, like a journal. There are, as you can imagine, many things I didn't blog about. There are also over three thousand pictures I never posted. I didn't post them because my poor little laptop could barely handle Picasa, among other technical reasons and laziness.

So one of my goals will be to upload my favorite pictures and add explanations. Of course goals are not one of my strong points so we'll see what happens. (edit 503) Permalink

I'm home now, using my mom's computer. I survived the final 12 hour flight from Hong Kong. The meals, I think there were two, were delicious. I'm not the only one who enjoys airplane food, there's at least two of us. I'd recommend the Cathay Pacific A330 over the A340 (Airplanes), I'm not sure if the are all equiped the same, but I flew on a A330 from Taipei to Hong Kong and it had the wonderful video system that new planes have, with pausable movies and video games, TV shows, I think it will send e-mail too. The A330 also has a power outlet on the economy class! An exciting thing for a computer nerd with a batteryless laptop and 12 hours to kill. But the A340, my 12 hour flight, didn't have it! But never fear, because I know you might be worried, I was able to completely fill my time by watching slightly fuzzy movies on the low-tech TV on the back of the seat in front me.

You might be wondering why I'm blogging about seat back TV systems. I'm wondering too, it's probably because I'm exhuasted. I'm going to go to bed now. No more blogs for me tonight. (edit 502) Permalink

I'm blogging from the Hong Kong Airport. How about that? I only have 15 minutes though, so I'm not going to say much other than that this keyboard sticks and that I've developed a bad headache. My next flight is in about 2 hours it's almost 12 hours long, 3 hours shorter than my flight here 10 months ago. The wind must be at the tail this time. I almost missed my flight actually, the e-mail I got said 7:25 PM, but when I got to the gat it said 7:05 PM, I'm really glad I was early, but not so glad that I never looked at my ticket. Anyway I think someone else wants to use this computer. (edit 501) Permalink

In seven hours and thirty three minutes I'll be sitting in one of those slightly too narrow economy seats on a jet-plane. It'll probably taxi around for awhile, and the crew will go through those military like procedures and preparations that they always do before the plane takes off. So I can't say at what exact minute I'll be in the air. But at the moment I'm on the ground, or to be more precise, on the fourth floor above the ground waiting for a DVD to burn at my friend's house. He's not home, he's in school, but I'll see him a little later before I leave.

I'm still wondering if all my clothes will fit into my bag, I left a few items up to dry, unpacked, the bag is already a little tight. Sometimes clothes take up more room than you think they will, what looks like just a few more things ends up being a pretty think stack of under shirts on your bed. But I guess if they don't fit I can buy some more undershirts. Maybe I should have titled this blog: Packing Details.

I'm also a little sad, not just because I'm leaving so many friends behind, but because I lost my little black book full of phone numbers e-mail addresses, directions, bus numbers to take places, chinese words. I guess I won't miss it, because I can't remember what's in it, but then again that was the point in having it! I think my drivers license ended up in it too, I can't find that either.

As you can tell, I'm a worrier, and a procrastinator. Which means the closer I get to take-off time the more nervous I get. I'm always worrying about things falling out of my pockets, checking zippers so things don't fall out, making back-up copies of things like electronic tickets, passports, visas. I keep credit cards in different places so if I lose my wallet or something I have a back-up. I have a secret-pocket necklace type thing for my passport and important documents. I also keep triplicate copies of all my digital photos. I try to make sure I have at least two options of travel, taxi and MRT, always keep a taxi fare on me even though I hardly ever ride the taxi, but just in case... But I guess the lesson here is that you can't prepare for, or prevent, every disaster or problem. Time and unforseen circumstance befall us all. So why do I worry? I ended up losing my wallet in Hong Kong, two weeks worth of digital pictures from a crashed hard drive, and my little black book with all my numbers in it.

But Taiwan has helped me to learn that everything can't be prepared for, I have to accept the unexpected. I hope to one day return. In a few moments I'll be taking one of my last rides on the Taipei MRT, one of my favorite things about this city. I've become very sentimental about everything here, the people, the little old ladies who seem to be always yelling, and lately the awkward attempt by people here to celebrate Christmas, the bus drivers where red caps and jackets. It just seems funny when it reaches 72 degrees outside. On the MRT on my way here I got one of my last stares from a little girl.

But I'm ready, I'll be home at the end of the day today. Which is still so funny to me, the time zones, I'll spend some time in tomorrow in Hong Kong, then I'll be back in today when I land in Vancouver twenty minutes after I take off from Taipei. (edit 500) Permalink

It's ten to three, in the morning, my bedroom floor is a mess. The contents of two suitcases have been spilled out onto the floor. During my ten month stay here I used my suit cases as sort of furniture and storage. Most normal people get things like dressers and wardrobes, desks, chairs, things like that to keep their belongings in, their stuff. But not me, I've been camping for ten months. Or have I been procrastinating?

But in a way it's nice. My roommate may soon move out of this apartment, so he probably wouldn't appreciate it if I left a bunch of furniture behind for him to dispose of. I have none, just a plastic foot stool and a mattress (now on the floor).

I should be packing stuff, or at least throwing away the countless 7-11 receipts that spilled out from my suit case. But I haven't blogged in a long time, and I feel a little sad. I feel sad and happy at the same time, or maybe not at the same time, but back and forth, depending on where my mind drifts. At the moment it's snowing back in Bellingham, WA, but by the time I get home it'll be a melted slushy mess. But even thinking about snow, wet boots and cold floors, rooms that are either chilly or just a little bit too hot, makes me miss home. I wonder if my mom has been stoking the wood stove lately. I wonder if I really know what stoke even means. It's been a long time since I've had face to face conversations with my family, and with my friends, people who have known me most of my life. I have that feeling inside, a warm feeling, that I'm going back home now. Even though the word home has become a new and complicated word for me, having made a home here in Taipei for a while. Home in the strongest sense of the word, for the last ten months, has been a place far far away that I point to in whichever direction I think is north east. That's the happy warm feeling that I have.

But today I waved at a much newer friend of mine as I alighted the MRT train, possibly for the last time. "Good-bye" I said, "have a nice... life... in Taiwan." "See you when I come back ... to visit Taiwan," I added awkwardly, feeling that my good-bye was way too final sounding. I'm not sure if I'll be back in Taiwan, maybe ever, but I hope so.

I've been saying a lot of sad good-byes the last few days, wondering if I'll ever see them again in this world. Sometimes I even have to kind of forcefully walk away after a few failed good-bye-I'm-really-going-this-times, which is a weird feeling, I don't remember ever having to say good-bye like this so much, it's usually more like "See you later." But not here.

It's also kind of funny I guess, but I get some hugs from the brothers occasionally, but here sisters, or women in general, don't hug men in public. But I did get a few surprise hugs from a bunch of Japanese sisters, but don't tell anyone. Besides cheese I think hugging is the number one thing that should be added to the culture here.

So here I sit: missing Taiwan before I've even left it. Tonight Khyree, Irinca, and I went to Taipei's biggest night market and feasted on night market food. My meal included several Japanese chewey rice pieces covered in various tasty sauces, including a cheese sauce and a sesame sauce, delicious, a chicken heart skewer, my favorite. I never thought of eating chicken hearts before, but they are quite good. Then I got some shrimp fried rice, then I had a Kiwi "ice" for desert, which was ridiculously huge and mind numbingly sweet. Khyree had passion fruit, and Irinca got milk and egg, which was surprisingly good. And that was my last time in a Taiwan night market. (edit 499) Permalink

This is a late night entry from the couch of Khyree and Jake. My vacation week has started, and has mostly been wasted by sleeping in. I'm not very good at vacationing. Is it possible to not be good at that? Well don't sleep till noon if you want to have some R & R, because that's when school is over anyway, so you could have done anything you did on vacation but just done it after school instead. But the difference is you can stay up really late, you might note the date stamp above.

Everyone else is tucked in bed in their bed rooms, 3 of them, I am in the living room, left unsupervised with the family computer (which is Jake's computer, he leaves it on). I didn't realize I'd be coming here tonight and didn't bring any cash, so Khyree will hopefully feed me tomorrow, we plan to go out to breakfast. If you can call the meal that you eat after you finally wake up at noon breakfast. Whatever you call it, I like eating it and going out to eat it with friends.

Khyree and I are getting to be pros at the hot springs now, it's so cheap ($1.30USD), and quite easy to get to. We do have to ride the MRT to the end of the line, which takes 45 minutes, but it's worth it. There's nothing quite as enjoyable, or quite the same, as sitting in water that's too hot for too long then getting up to go into a cooler pool, or the cold pool which is way too cold until you get used to it. But we kept repeating this process tonight, it's how you do the hot springs, too hot, too cold, too even-hotter, too cold. I heard it's good for the skin or the circulation or something. The part when you first get in the hot water after the cold water is the best part usually. And of course there are plenty of people in the pools and plenty of slightly akward things that I had to divert my eyes from for various reasons. Sometimes I'd just close my eyes to avoid akwardness.

Last time Khyree and I decided not to buy the tight "proper" shorts and weren't allowed in. But this time we decided to bow to the rules and buy some of the "proper" shorts, which are skin hugging but not spedos, niether of us wanted to, but the hot water could not be resisted for long. So today, we braved a new world of swimwear. The swimwear wasn't as bad as we'd feared, it was double layered and spent most of it's time submersed in the murky waters of the hot springs anyway.

We even saw the old man that we talked to a few weeks ago, about China vs America, but we didn't talk to him and we're not sure he recognized us anyway. Maybe he didn't recognize us in our new swimwear.

Before long we found ourselves on a lightly populated MRT train. I got Khyree to take a picture of me a car away, so I look small. Then I went to one end of the hundred something feet long train and then walked to the other end recording a video along the way. The video ended up shaky and I should have looked around more, but I got a video of the entire length of a Tapei Metro System six-car train. I think the train stopped twice during my little walk. And I felt kind of silly on my walk back. But now that the video has been shot, I feel better about coming home, I got some MRT video. The MRT is one of my favorite things in this city. I'm a nerd that way. Maybe I'll take some more video. Those trains are long and I have a lot of hard drive space left on my laptop computer. (edit 498) Permalink

Yesterday I didn't really have to go to school, and I didn't, my visa had already been extended for the last time. I no longer need to give immigration my attendance records to justify re-extending my visa. I would like to continue my studies, but I'm in Taiwan, I've had only a few days off in the ten months I've been here already. Most of my friends have had a few weeks off, they go to Universities, but my school is catered to business men, they don't take long vacations like students do. I want to use my remaining 12 days to see a little bit of the island. Today I returned, after my little hooky day, to have one final day of class, and to say goodbye to my teachers and my 3 remaining classmates. I even got to say goodbye to two class mates that had switched to a different class.

Class went as usual, plenty of new confusing words that never quite translate into English. Plenty of laughing. Plenty of Teacher Chang drawing childish pictures on the white board and apologizing for it. Today Jason came up to the white board and turned one of her pictures into a dog's face. I even had my usual meal of an egg and an egg with rice during class, with a milk tea to wash it all down. I snapped a few pictures too, but I wish I had snapped a few more. I supposed I could go back and have another last day of school, but that would just be weird.

As I passed countless piles of dog "fen" on my way home I remembered that today we learned how to say "a big pile of poo," in the nice way, "the way a young lady would say it" the teacher said. We also learned how to say "double eye-lid" and "single eye-lid," Jason hadn't realized the eye-lid differences (50% of Asians have single eye-lids, Westerners all have double eye-lids), and Yangping said that when he was sick he had double eye-lids. Jason and I let our third teacher know that we thought her eye-lids were pretty, they are. Naturally she rejected this possibility and said that we had a different viewpoint being Westerners. Of course we do.

So after saying my good-byes, riding the elevator down one final time, I found myself turning the corner that I usually turn and feeling an unexpected lump in my throat. As I squeezed by a lady eating noodles from a bowl on a stool blocking 2/3 of the busy sidewalk I knew I'd miss my school days, but I hadn't expected to feel a lump in my throat. I guess it's only natural having spent 3 hours a day for ten months with the same people, learning a new complex language, that I'd feel a little lump in my throat. I still feel a little lump in my throat, I may never see any of them again, who knows where any of us will end up in a few years. From now on I'll have to learn Chinese on my own, no longer will I have a little audience to laugh at my sentences.

But this is just the beginning of the end, I still have a little party to go to and 5 meetings to attend. Many good-byes left to say, people asking me if I'll be coming back, and me saying that I don't know, no plans yet. I've already given my printer to my room-mate and my broken bicycle to Sammy Pu. I'm already wondering how much junk I'll be able to squeeze into my suit cases, I've aquired a few odds and ends.

But my Taiwan adventure is not quite over yet. Even though I've been talking about how little time I have left for at least a month, I still have a couple weeks left for new blog entries, if I find the time, or have a computer on which to type them. (edit 494) Permalink

I should be sleeping, but a little while ago I came out of the bathroom and saw a movement in the corner of my eye. A cockroach! I peered behind the various things, a broom and a few cleaning things, a box, some junk... I think it was a big one. No, I was wrong it was a spider! I hate spiders. And this was the biggest spider I've ever seen not behind glass. I wasted a good deal of time trying to gauge how big it was, not as big as my hand, but bigger than my palm, I'd say 5 inches across. It had weird patterns on it too, it seemed to have a smile painted on it's back.

Needless to say, being a spider hater, there isn't much chance of me getting any good sleep tonight. My body was primed for combat, I was under the influence of adrenaline. How to kill it.

The worse part about this freakish beast, in addition to it's size, was it's speed. I can't even describe it, I'd be curious how many miles per hour it moved. But it moved almost faster than I could see, when it did move at all, watching me there on the wall, with it's creepy smile pattern. I had to go put on my shoes, there was no chance I'd let this thing run down the wall and across the floor and touch my naked feet!

The spider was in the same spot when I returned. Yes, it was in an inconvenient spot to kill, but it was a horrible creature. I had to kill it, I would not be able to step into the bathroom in the morning knowing I had not killed it, sleep might not come either. It was either him or me.

I won't try to make it sound anymore exciting that it really was, he dogged two stabs with a long handled cleaning implement. I must have awakened my room-mate with the light and by knocking over the ironing board. Like I said, he was lightning fast. He ended up under the box, which I pushed around until he flew out from under there and up a portion of wall onto a flat table-thing where we have a bunch of junk from the previous guy who lived here. I stabbed at him a couple times, but he was too fast. Once he was in the junk, boxes of stuff and plates and bags, I'd never find him.

But, he chose a poor hiding place: under a package of tissues, some of his legs sticking out from under the edge. This way he couldn't see me from above, the tissue package blocked his view. I may have done damage to my wrist bones I hit the top of that package so hard. It must have awakened my room-mate, even though I never heard anything from his room, maybe the spider already got to him.

So I won. The hand sized spider lost, he lost because he had poor decision making skills. He may have had a tremendous speed advantage and pure intimidatingness but his hiding place was the instrument of his death. Also his legs were longer than even he realized, they stuck out from his deadly hiding place.

I'm going to be worthless in the morning, it's been almost an hour, the adrenaline is wearing off. (edit 492) Permalink