OMG, WTF am I eating??
Hiiii. Long time no post!
For all you people who actually still read my journal, or have been trying to, here I go again.
My current location: Taipei
My current time: half past midnight
My current what I think the time should be: almost 1 pm
What I've been doing with myself: sleeping and eating
What I've been doing too much of: sleeping and eating
What have I been eating?: can't tell you, I'm not quite sure
Anyway.
Here I am in Taipei after 13 grueling hours on a plane. Note to people who've never flown to China-ish areas, Chinese airplanes have much smaller seats, but recline more nicely to make up for it (sorta). We left a little past midnight from LA and flew non-stop to Taiwan. Ordinarily, one would sleep on the plane (to combat jet-lag and to make the flight less boring) but unfortunately for me, there was a little two-year old who spent most of the flight howling in that whiney two-year-old kind of way punctuated with the occasional scream of frustration. Why anybody would bring a two-year old on a flight like this and NOT get him his own seat is beyond me. At least we got fed the entire time. The food was filling, if not quite satisfying, and at the very least was identifiable which is comforting in its own right.
The Taipei airport is one of the cleanest airports I've ever seen. Literally. I could see my reflection in the polished marble floor, not only out in the hall but in the restroom too. Boggling! The city itself is one of the strangest combinations of extremely high-tech and run-down I've seen yet. The sidewalks are like small mazes of parked scooters and food stands sporting bizarre foods. All the windows and balconies I saw on the drive into town were barred in, quite formidable if you ask me. The busses have small tv's in them and are once again spotless like the airport. The streets are narrow and the lanes even narrower. After viewing the way people drive here, my best guess is that the only road law people follow religiously are the red lights. All the rest are just a suggestion. The "Pittsburgh left" would definitely not work here, though; countless deaths of people on tiny scooters would result.
It's all been pretty exciting so far. I got to visit the Night Market after dinner. The Night Market is a bustling area where people are crammed into small alleys like sardines to oggle at brilliantly-lit semi-permanent stores, kioks, and wares. We stopped by the food area of the Night Market and I politely (at least I hope politely) refused to have anything to eat. The hundred and one smells of who knows what is actually cooking in such a small area is more than a bit overwhelming, and besides, I've eaten far too much in the last 24 hours, thank you very much! That, and we were sitting next to the "fish out your own shrimp and roast it yourself!" kiosk, which I found more than slightly grisly. I've never been terribly fond of pre-cooked already-shelled shrimp to begin with, and the sight of fresh shrimp being skewered and popped onto grills like plump spiny bugs was a more than a little unsettling. The Chinese are more practical about their food, whatever that means.
Well, I should go now, I hope to be able to post regularly about what I've been doing, but I'm not sure how accessible computers will be for the rest of my trip. Hopefully those hotels in China won't charge me *too* much for using a business center.
This is me, signing out.
For all you people who actually still read my journal, or have been trying to, here I go again.
My current location: Taipei
My current time: half past midnight
My current what I think the time should be: almost 1 pm
What I've been doing with myself: sleeping and eating
What I've been doing too much of: sleeping and eating
What have I been eating?: can't tell you, I'm not quite sure
Anyway.
Here I am in Taipei after 13 grueling hours on a plane. Note to people who've never flown to China-ish areas, Chinese airplanes have much smaller seats, but recline more nicely to make up for it (sorta). We left a little past midnight from LA and flew non-stop to Taiwan. Ordinarily, one would sleep on the plane (to combat jet-lag and to make the flight less boring) but unfortunately for me, there was a little two-year old who spent most of the flight howling in that whiney two-year-old kind of way punctuated with the occasional scream of frustration. Why anybody would bring a two-year old on a flight like this and NOT get him his own seat is beyond me. At least we got fed the entire time. The food was filling, if not quite satisfying, and at the very least was identifiable which is comforting in its own right.
The Taipei airport is one of the cleanest airports I've ever seen. Literally. I could see my reflection in the polished marble floor, not only out in the hall but in the restroom too. Boggling! The city itself is one of the strangest combinations of extremely high-tech and run-down I've seen yet. The sidewalks are like small mazes of parked scooters and food stands sporting bizarre foods. All the windows and balconies I saw on the drive into town were barred in, quite formidable if you ask me. The busses have small tv's in them and are once again spotless like the airport. The streets are narrow and the lanes even narrower. After viewing the way people drive here, my best guess is that the only road law people follow religiously are the red lights. All the rest are just a suggestion. The "Pittsburgh left" would definitely not work here, though; countless deaths of people on tiny scooters would result.
It's all been pretty exciting so far. I got to visit the Night Market after dinner. The Night Market is a bustling area where people are crammed into small alleys like sardines to oggle at brilliantly-lit semi-permanent stores, kioks, and wares. We stopped by the food area of the Night Market and I politely (at least I hope politely) refused to have anything to eat. The hundred and one smells of who knows what is actually cooking in such a small area is more than a bit overwhelming, and besides, I've eaten far too much in the last 24 hours, thank you very much! That, and we were sitting next to the "fish out your own shrimp and roast it yourself!" kiosk, which I found more than slightly grisly. I've never been terribly fond of pre-cooked already-shelled shrimp to begin with, and the sight of fresh shrimp being skewered and popped onto grills like plump spiny bugs was a more than a little unsettling. The Chinese are more practical about their food, whatever that means.
Well, I should go now, I hope to be able to post regularly about what I've been doing, but I'm not sure how accessible computers will be for the rest of my trip. Hopefully those hotels in China won't charge me *too* much for using a business center.
This is me, signing out.