Journeying
Taiwan Fact: Tainan was the cultural and political capital of Taiwan until 1885. Tainan has only around 700,000 people and is just full of temples and historical sites. Taipei is a much newer feeling city and, I feel, is lacking in cultural history for it.
I just said goodbye to Adam for perhaps the last time. His flight leaves tomorrow. We parted with the hope of seeing each other again in the states, and it was sincere, but realistically reserved.
Last night we had a little going away thing for him that was very pleasant.
This weekend was pretty ridiculous. We went to Tainan for a little adventure.
After a four hour bus ride, we arrived at 3am on Saturday morning. We found a couple of cheap hotel rooms and went out into the empty street-canyons. A few dead ends and dubious tips later, we found an empty bar that was supposed to fill up around 5am. It did not and we went back and fell asleep somewhat dissatisfied.
The next day was quite the opposite. Our first impressions were consistent with each other and were that Tainan is cleaner, much less crowded, friendlier and relatively culture-rich. We saw temples and stuff.
Confucius Temple
Koxinga, who drove the Dutch from Taiwan.
After this little park, we walked across the street where Aaron recognized a cigar shop he'd been to on a visit some years ago. The three men smoking and drinking wine at the table lead us to inquire whether the place was actually open. Not only were we assured that it was and bought some inexpensive Cuban cigars, we were offered seats and free whiskey. The guy who seemed to be the youngest, though still probably around 40, was very chatty though everyone else was very pleasant as well. Evelyn, the owner playing computer games behind the desk, was described as the "most beautiful woman in Taiwan- er Tainan", to which she responded (in Chinese) "maybe this street", which, though probably being at least 45, may well have been true. She sold us the cigars we later enjoyed at Adam's goodbye party. We moved along with whiskey in our tummies and the sun still high in the sky.
Etching of torture scenes from the underworld.
Though we were steered away from it by some locals, we got a cab to An Ping, which is supposed to be an interesting district to visit. Turns out those locals were dumbasses because our cab got bogged down in a badass parade umbrella'd by fireworks. We asked why they were celebrating and he said "happy Christmas". Haha, what a liar! We later found the celebration is only held once every thirty years, though we didn't discover what, exactly, it was celebrating. We got out and followed the parade. On the opposite side, commuters were crawling around it. There was one lane of the road filled alternately with costumed marchers and explosives.
Now, I like fireworks, and there were serious shells being launched regularly from at least five different locations for hours. There were places where they fired confetti canons, but the whole route was carpeted in charred coils of brown firework shrapnel. After a 7-eleven stop for booze, we went into a restaurant to get these well-known, famous oyster (Chinese-style) omelets, which were pretty fabulous. While we were finishing up, we felt a shaking that didn't let up until after we had decided it might be prudent to get out of the building. The we walked down the canal towards the ocean until we decided it was time to go out and again turned toward the city.
We went to two smaller bars that had been recommended to us at first. Then we went to a club that had a steep entry, but was terrible in a way that was refreshingly different from ones in Taipei. After sort of wandering around it a bit and leaving for some 7-eleven beers, we came back and, at my lead, took over the emptying stage and turned that club around! Once we'd filled up the stage, we left to our final bar.
The Armory was a little more relaxed, though still played top 40 stuff and had some people dancing (including Andy and me up on the bar at one point). This girl started talking to me in very good English and just as I introduced her to Aaron, Andy walked up. As I started to say "And this is my friend-" she broke in with "Andy!" Turns out they were facebook friends for no good reason and hadn't actually met before.
At one point I noticed a very awful, smooth looking foreigner trying to dance with a girl who was very obviously trying to get away from him. He grabbed her several times, even as she tried to bury herself in her friends. Eventually I very forcefully thrust myself in his way and started grinding on him, asking him how it was going and all that. He said he wasn't gay and I said that was too bad. Then I went over to the rest of the guys and briefed them on the situation, trying to recruit them to surround him and dance on him. Aaron and Andy were preoccupied, but after being foiled at the last minute on his way out the door with a girl, Adam was very interested. But rather than dancing on him, Adam took his douchy, askew ball cap. And held it behind his back. After some posturing, the guy (who, it turns out, was Guatemalan) turns to me and asks if Adam is my friend and asks what his problem is. I got in his face and called him about about the girl. Eventually turned him back over to Adam who returned the hat and, as the Guatemalan was turning to go sit at the bar for the rest of the night, slapped him in the back of the head. Fuck yeah, asshole.
Home by 6am, smoked up and passed out.
The next day we walked around some more and just relaxed in this slower paced and very pretty town, agreeing that the trip had been pretty brilliant: well planned, well executed and full of happy surprises like the parade at An Ping.
We smoked again just before the bus ride and passed around a bottle of red on our return to the north. I was happy to crawl in bed with Jordan after Sunday's 11pm brought our journey to an end.
I just said goodbye to Adam for perhaps the last time. His flight leaves tomorrow. We parted with the hope of seeing each other again in the states, and it was sincere, but realistically reserved.
Last night we had a little going away thing for him that was very pleasant.
This weekend was pretty ridiculous. We went to Tainan for a little adventure.
After a four hour bus ride, we arrived at 3am on Saturday morning. We found a couple of cheap hotel rooms and went out into the empty street-canyons. A few dead ends and dubious tips later, we found an empty bar that was supposed to fill up around 5am. It did not and we went back and fell asleep somewhat dissatisfied.
The next day was quite the opposite. Our first impressions were consistent with each other and were that Tainan is cleaner, much less crowded, friendlier and relatively culture-rich. We saw temples and stuff.
Confucius Temple
Koxinga, who drove the Dutch from Taiwan.
After this little park, we walked across the street where Aaron recognized a cigar shop he'd been to on a visit some years ago. The three men smoking and drinking wine at the table lead us to inquire whether the place was actually open. Not only were we assured that it was and bought some inexpensive Cuban cigars, we were offered seats and free whiskey. The guy who seemed to be the youngest, though still probably around 40, was very chatty though everyone else was very pleasant as well. Evelyn, the owner playing computer games behind the desk, was described as the "most beautiful woman in Taiwan- er Tainan", to which she responded (in Chinese) "maybe this street", which, though probably being at least 45, may well have been true. She sold us the cigars we later enjoyed at Adam's goodbye party. We moved along with whiskey in our tummies and the sun still high in the sky.
Etching of torture scenes from the underworld.
Though we were steered away from it by some locals, we got a cab to An Ping, which is supposed to be an interesting district to visit. Turns out those locals were dumbasses because our cab got bogged down in a badass parade umbrella'd by fireworks. We asked why they were celebrating and he said "happy Christmas". Haha, what a liar! We later found the celebration is only held once every thirty years, though we didn't discover what, exactly, it was celebrating. We got out and followed the parade. On the opposite side, commuters were crawling around it. There was one lane of the road filled alternately with costumed marchers and explosives.
Now, I like fireworks, and there were serious shells being launched regularly from at least five different locations for hours. There were places where they fired confetti canons, but the whole route was carpeted in charred coils of brown firework shrapnel. After a 7-eleven stop for booze, we went into a restaurant to get these well-known, famous oyster (Chinese-style) omelets, which were pretty fabulous. While we were finishing up, we felt a shaking that didn't let up until after we had decided it might be prudent to get out of the building. The we walked down the canal towards the ocean until we decided it was time to go out and again turned toward the city.
We went to two smaller bars that had been recommended to us at first. Then we went to a club that had a steep entry, but was terrible in a way that was refreshingly different from ones in Taipei. After sort of wandering around it a bit and leaving for some 7-eleven beers, we came back and, at my lead, took over the emptying stage and turned that club around! Once we'd filled up the stage, we left to our final bar.
The Armory was a little more relaxed, though still played top 40 stuff and had some people dancing (including Andy and me up on the bar at one point). This girl started talking to me in very good English and just as I introduced her to Aaron, Andy walked up. As I started to say "And this is my friend-" she broke in with "Andy!" Turns out they were facebook friends for no good reason and hadn't actually met before.
At one point I noticed a very awful, smooth looking foreigner trying to dance with a girl who was very obviously trying to get away from him. He grabbed her several times, even as she tried to bury herself in her friends. Eventually I very forcefully thrust myself in his way and started grinding on him, asking him how it was going and all that. He said he wasn't gay and I said that was too bad. Then I went over to the rest of the guys and briefed them on the situation, trying to recruit them to surround him and dance on him. Aaron and Andy were preoccupied, but after being foiled at the last minute on his way out the door with a girl, Adam was very interested. But rather than dancing on him, Adam took his douchy, askew ball cap. And held it behind his back. After some posturing, the guy (who, it turns out, was Guatemalan) turns to me and asks if Adam is my friend and asks what his problem is. I got in his face and called him about about the girl. Eventually turned him back over to Adam who returned the hat and, as the Guatemalan was turning to go sit at the bar for the rest of the night, slapped him in the back of the head. Fuck yeah, asshole.
Home by 6am, smoked up and passed out.
The next day we walked around some more and just relaxed in this slower paced and very pretty town, agreeing that the trip had been pretty brilliant: well planned, well executed and full of happy surprises like the parade at An Ping.
We smoked again just before the bus ride and passed around a bottle of red on our return to the north. I was happy to crawl in bed with Jordan after Sunday's 11pm brought our journey to an end.