our flight was in the evening the last day in taiwan, but we didnt do much during the day anyhoo. mostly strolling around with small aunt from my dads side (the taipei capitol building, the train station district, etc)…no pics either. by that point my camera was already sitting inside my luggage. the flights not worth talking about either, because it was cramped, noisey, and was much suckage. they did show the illusionist tho…score.

but anyhoo, fun trip altogether. my dad went to the nines for this trip…all so dave could get a face full of taiwan. and its good to reconnect with the family we dont see much from america. my parents wont always be around, so my sis and i are making sure we connect with our cousins now. anyhoo, pics of the dinner from day.07 and drinkies from day.09, c/o of my cousin claire…word.

* full set of taiwan06 pics on flickr.

we set out north in the morning to the outskirts of taipei county. i actually had no clue where we were going til we arrived at danshui, the end of the subway line. my dad was apparently taking us to some place called fort san domingo near the waterside. we’re like, “san domingo? donde estamos??” its apparently an old spanish fort built in 1629 that was just recently renovated and opened to the public. next to the fort is also an old-school english colonial house, the old british consulate of taiwan. i had no idea any of this was even here…sweet. we roam the grounds for a good while, relax with afternoon tea and dessert at a coffee shop on the grounds, then head to the shillin market for some old-fashioned taiwanese lunch.

we do other random stuff i cant remember the rest of the day til we subsequently end up at taipei 101, the worlds tallest dildo….er, skyscraper. bamboo, yea…its supposed to be bamboo. whatever. it is pretty big tho, and chock full of mall goodness. we’re there with aunts number five and six from my moms side since they’d actually never been either and wanted to go shopping. we split up and roam the massive tower/mall/altar to capitalism separately. i wander aimlessly, check out the massive atrium, the sony style store, etc. i eventually head up to the observation deck on the 89th floor, hoping to get some nice photos. the elevator shoots up in less than half a minute. according to wiki, it travels at 37.5 mph…crikeys. once up there i just roam around the windows, eat some ice cream (yum), peek at the giant pendulum, and wait for sunset to take some nite photography. except it doesnt get dark enough for the city to turn on their lights before i have to head back down…damnit. we all meet up and head out. we have a quick dinner at a noodle soup shop near the hotel, then the kids plan their escape. drinky drinks! the last full day in taiwan and we finally get to go have some real fun…sigh. our cousins from the other nite (dads side) meet us at the hotel and we all head out to…whatever area the old-school sogo is in. the other night me, my sis, and dave wandered around aimlessly, we probably shouldve just cabbed it here, since that was actually one of the few neighborhoods i remember drinking in. anyhoo, we ease into a chill bar called sofa and drink to our last night in taiwan. cheers.

* full set of taiwan06 pics on flickr.

yar…my new computers being a bit of a dill. its kinda not working. which isnt good. im sending it back tomorrow and hopefully itll be sorted out. because once its up and running, wooha itll be beautiful.

ok, turning nerd meter down a notch. today was sally’s farewell dinner at shabu tatsu. omg, little sallys off to africa! shes doing volunteer work in tanzania (?) for a few months, so we’ll be without her sunshine for the time being. le sigh.

TAIWAN HOMECOMING DAY.07
im without my trusty notes now, so most of these recollections are hopefully jogged by my photo collection. day 7 was finishing up some requisite taipei touristing. it was shit out, but these were the kind of places dave had to see. first stop was the national palace museum, which i didnt know but had just finished renovations. four years worth…wow. and it was worth every penny. i even found this article when i got back to america. the whole museum looked alot different than the old boring version i had in my memory. this place was actually pretty nice. we made the rounds, looked at the ju ware (broken dishes…meh), the portraits (ooh), and the jade cabbage (mmm…cabbage). we romped around the adjacent “imperial” park, then went off to find foodage around shillin.

next up was the chiang-kai shek memorial, a mildly “humble” memorial for the generalissimo of taiwan. it was the same as my memory…yep, moving on. we wouldve gone onto the sun yat sen memorial, but we opted out and instead hung around the underground shopping district nearby.

at nite, we headed north to beitou to meet up with my moms side for some noshing. they picked out this restaurant parked way up in the mountains that had some ridiculously nice views of taipei. there we met up with a good portion of my moms side, along with one male cousin (surprise) and the three daughters (oldest + a set of twins…one sister was missing) of my moms oldest sister. its funny to note the twins arent much alike, and the supposed “nice” one is actually a freaky drinker. every round she’d down hers faster than everybody…it was scary. the “kids” decided to head oot and aboot afterwards for some liquoring. we ended up at a tgif…ha! whatever, as long as they bring the sauce, its all good.

* full set of taiwan06 pics on flickr.

hmm, bugger. apparently this is my last day of note-taking. i mustve gotten bored of jotting down notes after this day. heres to hoping the photos are enough to jog my memory.

the day started off with a jaunt to yang ming park high up in the hills somewhere. i was so sick of sight-seeing at this point that i just popped in my headphones for the duration of the morning. we literally travelled the lengths of the island til we finally get back to taipei, and wheres the first place we go? back into the fucking mountains. i wasnt having any of it…plus the place smelled of sulfur. thats just super. i get the enthusiasm back in me when we finally head back into the city proper. i think we had another “site” to check out when we collectively let our aunt know that our eyes are bleeding at this point, and we just want to chill out. shes the cool aunt, so understands our touristy-ness overdose. we instead detour to a temple that also happens to be in a hopping area…coo beans. tho by the time we made our way thru the temple, we had to rush back to the hotel to meet relatives. we got the appetizer tho…its cool.

everybody heads up to their rooms to drop shit off while i wait outside the dining area of the hotel. i actually didnt know who we were meeting for dinner til this crowd of people walked by me and one happens to holler my name. im like, “eh?“…oh word, cousins. and cousins we actually know…and like hanging out with. bonus. so this particular set of cousins (three sisters) we grew up with, since we’re all part of the older generation of cousins (my dads the oldest son, and the mother of the three cousins’ his older sister). i also get to meet another male cousin i never knew i had…from fourth(?) aunt. woot. my grandmothers here too, but she just had surgery, so actually didnt even recognize me…sigh. we all chow on food, drink liquor, and try to get my ten year old cousin to get liquored with us. hes having none of it…what a pussy. when it comes time for pictures, everybody whips out a damn camera. we spend probably close to an hour taking random pictures with approximately ten cameras. asians.

after dinner, we decide to head oot and aboot (finally) with just the cousins…and third aunt actually because there wasnt going to be any shopping without her. we head over to the rockin’ shillin nite market, which is still as kickin’ as the last time i hung around the area. sis and the cousins are looking for clothes, im looking for fun tech gadgets, and dave…well daves just looking for the red bean cakes. poor dave.

* full set of taiwan06 pics on flickr.

flash-forward to this past weekend. i watched children of men on satty with fish. god that is one depressing movie. really well made, and everybody in it rocked (especially michael caine), but damn was it depressing to watch. not so much that the whole worlds crazy, but that its probably what would take place if something similar were to really happen. gogo humanity. anyhoo, another thing worth noting from satty…nj drivers really sucked that nite. like fuck, nobody could drive. we saw one accident and five near-accidents, along with a myriad of other really stupid things…people turning right into oncoming traffic, people driving without headlights on, etc. people, get the fuck off the roads. anyhoo, flashback to funner times. they should make “funner” a real word.

TAIWAN HOMECOMING DAY.05
we got up bright and early for breakfast at the mataian park, which may have been like the only hotel in the village. it was nice tho…but (supposedly) expensive. our first stop for the day were the taroko gorges….like big windy gorges that you can drive thru and check out. theyve expanded alot of the roads since the last time we came to visit, but when we say “expanded”, we really just mean that theyre no longer one-lane. we stopped at the rest stop next to the hotel (cant remember the name) within taroko, where there was apparently some kind of “white-people” convention. more non-asians than you could shake a leg at…must be the place to be or something.

we roamed the area, headed up the mountainside temple to check out the big buddha along the side of the mountain, and get some nice views from up top. we then had lunch at one of the local eateries near the hotel, then continued on our way. dave went back to crying in the back of the van while we traversed the eastern mountains. we hit taipei in the evening after travelling thru i dont know how many really really really long tunnels that went thru the mountains. they were long…one was like five times the length of the holland. i dont seem to have any pics of what we did that night, and my notes dont mention anything. but i do vaguely recall that we wandered around aimlessly looking for a place to drink liquor, couldnt find a single damn bar, so grabbed beer from a 7-11 and drank in patty and daves room. how sad.

* full set of taiwan06 pics on flickr.

first a birthday shoutout to my favorite korean, bo-ra! happy barfday! and thank friendster, because god knows i cant remember anyones birthday on my own!

CHRISTMAS, YAY!
christmas day was our last day in kaohsiung. we set out in the morning towards the crazy motherfucking mountain roads that lead to my mothers hometown of kuang-fu. we tried to warn dave ahead of time…”dave, the roads…they are like crazy shit.” and he goes “nah, ive been thru the cali mountains. this wont be any different.” whereby we reply ominously, “you are not ready.” or something. but whatever, we set out onto the eastern highway leading north. before we hit the mountains tho, we made a road-side stop at a fruit stand, where my parents picked up a bucket (literally) full of some native fruit they didnt even know the english name for. it was good tho, but super-delicate. if you pressed it too hard, it opened right up.
wikipedia break

hmm, guess wiki says theyre called sweetsop, or sugar-apple. sure, im down with that. theyre pretty delicate, but sweet and good. we had to pack them lightly in our van tho…the slightest pressure opened them up. then they get all gooey and sticky and blech. i think thats all thats worth noting for this day, besides the fact that the mountain roads had dave crying in the back. we drove for a really long time thru the mountains til we finally hit kuang-fu in the evening. we paid a visit to various relatives who still lived in the village, ate at my grandfathers restaurant, then headed out to catch some tribal amei cultural village. it was (literally) in the middle of nowhere, and we needed aunt number four(?) to come with us to show us the way. apparently the place is more of a stop for tour buses than it is for locals driving up. the show was packed with numerous japanese tourists who piled out of i think three giant buses…word. the show was interesting and entertaining. it also didnt hurt that a good half of the amei performers were obscenely cute. where do they find these girls?? wow, thumbs up.

* full set of taiwan06 pics on flickr.

first, the usual journal entry, before the shit gets old and/or i cant even recollect it. ive had some odd dreams in the past. theyre usually really weird or really boring, but can usually be traced back to something that mightve lingered in my head before i went to bed. a month straight of watching mr and mrs. smith netted me that sweet sweet dream of making out with a pair (yea a pair) of angelina jolie twins. god that dream was awesome. but last night i dreamt something super-realistic, detailed and specific, and absolutely out of context. which i suppose one, let me remember (most) of it, and two, left me wondering what the fuck. i dreamt i was in the korean military, and i was trying to vie for this girl named sookyang(?). so i treated her father (who was a general in the military) to dinner, and he said something along the lines of “im impressed”…and that was it. wtf. it seemed less like a dream and more like a page torn out of someones memories. where the hells the context? i have nothing to trace this back to. bring back the angelina jolie twins. please.

new years at niagara with anna, sean, and sally. right…had to jot that in there somewhere. otherwise next year rolls by and im wondering to myself, what the fuck did i do for new years last year? it was my first new years in america in a while…so i suppose that much is worth noting. right then…

and tonite i met up with my friend hosan who was visiting from cali. grad school winter break and all that. we tried out mai house in tribeca, whos head chef is actually the original chef of bao 111, which is right around the corner! woot. the food was pretty good, and we caught up on ten years worth of stuff (i havent actually seen hosan since high school) in three hours worth of noshing…wow.

TAIWAN HOMECOMING DAY.03
back to adventures in tropical taiwan. it was mildly temperate…more chilly from the wind then cool. whatever. we got up bright and early on the third day to go pay respects to my grandfather at the temple. my uncle (husband of aunt number…whatever) came along to pay his respects too. we didnt actually have any fruits to offer, or any ghost money to burn. so we prayed extra hard to compensate. we went to visit lotus lake afterwards and strolled thru the dragon and tiger pagodas, then checked out the turtle pond. patty likes turtles…i dont know why.

we met up at our aunts house for some home-cooked taiwanese lunch…daves first. because god knows patty cooks like shit. we wanted to squeeze in some shopping before we had to meet another group for a boat cruise, so we went to check out a new department store called megacity which was big. whats another word for bigger than big? i dont feel like whipping out a thesaurus…it was big. too bad it was big and full of girly shit. 10 floors of bras and shoes, and like a fraction of a floor for piddly electronics. we are massively disappointed…and i mean we as in the “males”. so me and dave wander aimlessly, checking out the liquor section of the supermarket downstairs in the basement. there are some beers we havent heard of before…we’ll have to check that shit out later.

the port of departure is a short hop away from the department store, so we meet some of my dads friends there for a boat cruise around the kaohsiung harbor. its kind of odd cruising thru an industrial port…but kind of hypnotic. big boats dont really look that big til youre right next to it and you realize its 20 stories tall…woot. its an hour tour of cruising thru the massive harbor, and by the time we turn around and head back to the port, i dont think we’d even seen the ocean. massive.

dinner is at the hotel kingdom, western buffet style. woot for sirloin. it was the christmas buffet i think, the only indication to us that the next day was even christmas. they did have a santa running around tossing candy at us, like a pseudo kris kringle/samhain hybrid. dave got pictures of his first chinese santa. maybe ill post them if they ever send their photos to me.

* full set of taiwan06 pics on flickr.

we set out towards kaohsiung the next morning. we were picked up by a friends friend who i actually never got the name of, so he’ll just henceforth be known as “that uncle that drove us around”. we headed out of taipei and south along the western coast. our first pitstop was the miaoli wood sculpture museum in sanyi. at first glance the place wasnt all that, til we actually got to the upper floors where the good shit was. wood sculptures from around the world and numerous historical ones. really nice stuff. the building itself has actually pretty nice too…interior-wise anyway. nice spaces and circulation flow. the exterior was ass.

we continued on to the tourist spots of tourist spots…sun moon lake. its like people cant stop talking about the place. its nice and all, but geez, its just water. the temple overlooking it tho, that was pretty nice. wen wu temple was a massive complex on one of the shores of the lake. yea, we cant tell you have alot of money, with all the gold gilding and triple-story tiers. cant tell.

the rest of the trek to kaohsiung was pretty long and uninteresting. so after we got tired of staring at the hot girls wearing lingerie wrapping betelnuts in the glass houses, we napped the rest of the trip to kaohsiung. bonus tho, we were staying at the kaohsiung grand hotel. woot! its the sister hotel of the one in taipei, and its pretty massive. we met up with part of the clan in the banquet hall for more foodage. aunt number one, uncle number two, great-uncle once removed number whatever…its all kind of a blur. we ate, then headed out to our first nite market in kaohsiung, which was packed like a mofo. we treked up and down the aisles til dave had his fill, then we headed back to the hotel to sleep. it was like…9pm. fuckin’ a.

* full set of taiwan06 pics on flickr.

shit, back in america and im kinda having vacation withdrawal. or is it taiwan withdrawal? am i starting to actually love taiwan? crikeys…

the last time i visited taiwan was back in 2002/03 around the same time of the year, and that was a fun trip because it was probably the first time i hung out with my cousins all grown up and doing grown-up things (aka: getting drunk). and prior to that was the infamous “love boat” summer of 1998(?)…that was all types of craziness. anyhoo, this particular trip was to introduce my sis’ new spouse to our taiwanese clan. only my youngest aunt and my grandfather on my moms side made the trip across the pond, so the others were waiting to meet the new white dude in the family.

i headed to newark airport immediately after work on the 20th. newark > jfk, because jfk is in the middle of a sewage pile in the middle of nowhere. my god its so easy to get to newark, its not even funny. i dont think im ever going to fly out of jfk again. i get there around the same time as my sis and dave, so we check in and grab some chili’s before the flight. after the rest of the group arrives (daves aunt sharon and my parents), we head in, board, fly off, etc. im ready to get comfy with my personal entertainment system when im blind-sided by an old school setup with tvs in the aisles. argh! fuck this. i flip the “get the fuck to sleep” switch in my brain and snooze til our refuel in seattle, then sleep all the way across the pacific ocean. somewhere along the way, aunt sharon starts to get queezy and sick. shes shuttled off to the hospital the second we land with stomach flare-ups (not clear on the details). everybody heads to the hospital too except me, my mother, and my aunt, who was at the airport to meet up with us. btw, im still not all too clear what number this aunt is, since shes referred to as “small aunt” in chinese (shes the youngest on my dads side). i think my dad has four sisters, but i could be wrong.

we check into our hotel and then try and figure out what to do while we wait for everybody to get back from the hospital. we stroll a nearby street market (mom needed new shoes), grabbed beef noodle soup for lunch, and walked to the tian xing temple not too far from our hotel. there was a pretty large crowd of people at the temple making offerings, getting blessed, and divining the new year. i snuck around and took photos like a cheeky tourist.

everybody was still at the hospital, so we took a bus over to the martyr’s shrine to get a headstart on our touristy stuff. the area was relatively barren when we first got there, but a few minutes short of the hour, we turn around and see a massive group of (i think) japanese tourists accompanying the marching troupe of soldiers as the hourly changing of the guard began. where did they come from? the entire procession took a while. i felt like tripping one of them, but they probably would’ve shot me.

we headed back to the hotel afterwards and met up with the rest of the group. aunt sharon was resting in her room, and the rest of us headed upstairs to the banquet hall to have dinner with i cant remember at this point. im sure it was my dads side, i just cant remember who was there. meh…whatever.

* full set of taiwan06 pics on flickr.