You Can Fit a Whole Cow In It

Bikes, Trains, Streets and Parks

The street art in Taipei was defiantly different. Everything from the city planners or from the graphite looked great.





Overall, I was really surprised to see how westernized Taipei was. It really had a different feel to it then Japan, but it was also very different from what we had imagined. At times, it didn't feel Asian at all, not until we looked up and saw all the signs written in Chinese characters. At night the streets light up like a giant billboard. Shops pilled on top of each other. Each building having numerous businesses or restaurants in it. There are a few places like that in Kyoto but nothing to this scale. Taipei is one of the most concentrated places in the world. It felt like it too especially in the subway.

The subway system is amazing. Very modern and the flow of people from one area to another can be very overwhelming. As big, fast and developed as the subway system is. It honestly felt that I was like a canned tuna. The amount of people in Taipei is packed and eventually they will have to build a lot more to keep with with it. The Chinese names allowed me to have a little fun. This kanji means West Gate.



Not everything was westernized. One thing that was nice to see was even though the city was bustling, every once and a while we found a little Zen garden.

Dirty and Noisy Bikes

Taiwan is about a 2-hour flight from Osaka. Remember that that is 2 hours flying straight south. In the middle of December, that meant going tropical for us. Now, this post may seem a little harsh but this just the first impression we got coming off the plain. In comparison, Japan is very different. Within the first few minutes of arriving, I already missed Japan.

The first thing we noticed was how green the outskirts of Taipei were. It looked like a jungle. I successfully caught some temples on the ride up. The outskirts may be green but the city is closer to black. What is really interesting to see in this picture is the guard rail on the side of the highway. What you'll notice is that its' black. The original colour should be a bright silver but because of all the diesel and pollution it looks so dirty. I'm sure they've never cleaned it.

That feeling kept with me all throughout the trip. My brother said that everything turns this city colour after a few weeks. Now I understand why. Gross

You may not be able to see it but this building has a strange yellow colour to it. The sky was mostly the same colour when we were there. Now I've never experienced smog before but it disgusted me and I felt ashamed for breathing in that kind of air. If the sky looks nice and blue in this picture that's due to the magic of digital correcting.
The next thing we noticed right off the start were the taxi cabs. They are clearly trying to get the New York feeling by having lots of yellow cabs everywhere. Unlike other places, taxis here are really cheap. In Japan, taxi cabs feel closer to limos. The drivers get out and open your door and dress in uniforms with little white gloves. In Taipei, they not only looked like New York cabbies but they acted like it too. They even had the New Yorker arrogance in the sense that they only spoke Mandarin. I had to specifically make a recording of my brother saying his address to play it for the driver because after a few times of trying most of them could not understand our bad Chinese.

As you can see by this pic these cabs were everywhere. I'm sure gas is incredibly expensive living on an island.

The last big difference that we saw with Japan was how many motorcycles were on the street. The feeling was like a buzzing swarm of bees on the streets. Like France, nobody follows any traffic laws. They weave between the cars, pedestrians and each other. They don't stop for red lights and to quote my brother he "honestly feel[s] terrified" every time he gets on his bike. They sort of look like a little army straight out of Mad Max. At least from anywhere in the city you can hear the army coming for you. The streets are noisier then the loudest river, not because of the honking or exhausts but because of the 3cc motors on some of these things.
In Canada, I'm not sure if we can buy these little mopeds. My image of a motor bike is closer to a Harley Davidson or something out of Easy Rider then these little things. I'm sure everyone in High School would have gotten one. We do have them in Japan but overall the street is not so congested with bikes everywhere. They run around $2000 for a new one and closer to $400 for used. If I get into school here I may consider buying one. It's cheaper then the subway.

In Taipei, if there was once a sidewalk then it's now become a motor bike parking spot. In most of the side streets you had to walk on the street because the sidewalk was just riddled with bikes. Always keeping an eye out of incoming traffic.

Most back alleys in Kyoto are empty because cars have to get through. Taipei looks like it was once bulldozed right to the ground and then planned in a very modern way. So there are a lot of back alleys that are filled with trash and of course lots of motorbikes.

Almost Tropical X-mas

For X-mas Helene and I wanted to do something fun because a trip home would be too expensive. As much as we miss our families. Visiting Thailand was high on our list but it was simply way too expensive because thats what everyone does in this part of the world (except the Chinese) during the holiday season. (The Chinese go crazy in February for Chinese New Year) The second choice was to visit my brother Leo in Taiwan. Sorry bro for you being the second choice but Thailand sounded really awesome.

Some people have suggested to me that Taiwan is somehow Chinese property. Now, I have never been to China but from all the commercialism I saw, Taiwan is not China. I'm sure the US military will back me up on this. People tell me that Taiwan is more inclined towards the Japanese then the Chinese way. But I can tell you that there is huge difference.

I haven't seen my brother in over 3 years. I've was in France and he`s was in Taiwan with little interest to visit Canada. With freezing temperatures of +20°C in Taiwan, I can see why. I'm sure it sucks in the summer because of all the smog and humidity but for the winter Taiwan was a nice change. Tropical Winter From the 24th of December to the 28th we surprisingly found decently priced tickets to visit him.

Now in this side of the world the`re a little more liberal when it comes to some freedoms. For instance, here`s something you won`t see in the West. Maybe it`ll disappear out here too. One day. Everyone loves a good smoking room. Rather than having one cigarette you can have 19 at the same time. Now you`re in flavour country.

I`ve see stations like this at other airports, when people come out the`re followed by a big cloud of smoke. Ever see that Seinfeld episode where Kramer turns his apartment into a smoking lounge. The last time I saw one of these was in Europe before all the smoking protesting mothers started all the hooha.

Arriving in Taiwan, this sign was placed in front of us numerous times. They feel that threating the would be criminals with cute pictures of dogs would somehow detour their illegal activities.
Don`t they normally use big and angry looking dogs that are trained to jump on people. I know the bagel is a cute and probably good dog but it doesn`t exactly strike fear into the hearts of the drug traffickers.

Raping Samurai Soccer

Here is an awesome commercial.

Back in Business

Since October I've been working for this Canadian guy who had to go back to Canada for whatever reasons. I lived in his house and took over his English classes. He would call once and a while to check in on me but overall it was a pretty good gig. The agreement was that he would be back at the beginning of April and then I would be screwed. Out of work and out of a house. And so April came.....

Sometime in mid-February he asked me if I could work an extra month. I agreed and didn't hear back for another 3 weeks, at which time he mentioned that he bought his ticket for March 29th. That's the date we were going on and 2d ays before his supposed return he calls me and asks if I could work an extra month. This guy was a real piece of work. By that point in time we already had our keys to the new place. The story with this guy ends with us just making it out of the house with all our stuff moments before he pulled up with his family in a taxi. I'm ecstatic that this part of my visit to Japan is over. Sometime I'll come back and tell you all about this guy.

Now I enter phase 2 of my Japanese experience. We now have our own place and I currently have no employer. Honestly, it's not that bad. I'm currently, in the process of recruiting new students to teach. From what I figure I only need about 8 to cover all my expenses and the rest will be extra. You have no idea how easy it is to teach English and everyone here wants to learn. I highly recommend the experience. I haven't tried that hard to get students and I already have 3.

But April was just for me. I saved up enough moola to take the month off and prepare my university applications. Now if you asked me to write an essay on what I think about "whatever", I could pull something out and make it sound good. But these applications ask deep and meaningful stuff like what I want to do with my life before, during and after the program....I don't know. So I needed to do some soul searching. At least deeply enough so it sounded good. I've currently applied for two universities in Japan and I'm thinking if I want to apply to a third. I'll come back to this topic once I hear something back from them.

April had another big project, Japanese. From my experience in France, I now know that in order to get over the first hump of learning a language you can't learn it part time. In France, I tried for at least a year to learn French part-time and it got me nowhere. Same thing happened here. Thus, I knew that April needed to be devoted to learning Japanese EVERYDAY. (well maybe not everyday but almost everyday, I am a procrastinator which is a very bad habit I know.).


Somehow we've accumulated a great collection of how to learn Japanese books.

For about a month I was looking for a teacher who would want to teach me everyday. Sure enough no one wanted that. But as it turns out a group of elderly housewives that I was teaching for the last 6 months offered to teach me Japanese in exchange for English lessons. That sounded good to me and so, everyday I go to Starbucks near my house, buy a coffee, learn and practice Japanese and then pull an English lesson out of my...... you get the idea. A different teacher everyday. It's been working well. This Thursday will be the last class of the month. It's been really fun. If I ever learn another language...one month intensive is how to do it.

April has been filled with stealing Internet, learning Japanese, shopping for stuff to fill the new place and working on these applications. None of it turned out to be as easy going as I thought it would be.

As for the internet. I'm finally back online. In order to get internet hooked up. I needed to call the company and tell them I was interested. Then I waited for them to send me my account stuff by post. I had to confirm a date when a guy would need to come by and "do construction" BY POST. I called the company and they told me I had to do it by mail, there was no way to speed this up. COME ON! We're in the 21st century. People NEED the Internet. In the end, what in Canada would have been done in 2 days took 30 in Japan. I waited 30 days for a guy to come over here and "construct" my Internet. What that really meant was he opened the box with the modem and plugged it into the socket. Ta-da...Internet.......At least it was full service.

Black Hole in the 21st Century

Let's get you back up to speed.

Its been over a month and a half since I've updated this thing and there is a lot of really good excuses of why I didn't do it but I'll leave those to your imagination and for future posts. Overall, I've been backlogged with stories that need to be told before I can get anywhere. For starters, my visit to Taiwan, visitors from Canada and the move.

When will all these stories be up. Well here is the story for today.

Do to my boss returning from Canada we lost the house and I of course I lost my job. However, we got a new place and due to the complexity of trying to get internet...We don't have any. I just spent the better part of the last hour walking around with Helene's computer trying to get a wireless signal that I could steal of someone. Yes, that's right, I'm a total Jerk. I'm that guy.

My computer is too weak for such pirating needs. Even with this computer the signal is really awful. It feels like I'm back in the 50's wiggling the antenna trying to get Leave it to Beaver to be clear enough to understand what is happening.

Anyway, from what I understand there is a guy coming next week to check something in the house and then sometime next year, I'll get internet. I'll be updating everyday. I'm currently unemployed so I have lots of time to entertain you and myself. I hope all the memories have not been exaggerated and altered due to the length of time. It took me to write the stories.

Lots of catching up to do. The list is here for your reference and mine,
1) Christmas in Taiwan
2) Jordan's New Year's Eve
3) First Canadian Visitor
4) Birthdayness
5) Second visitor from Canada
6) TOKYO
7) Broken Computer
8) Okonomiyaki (don't look it up, I'll explain)
9) Finding a place
10) Getting stuff for said place
11) Moving out and dealing with the Boss
12) Japanese lessons
13) University applications
14) Sakura

I'll be back as soon as I can get a good enough signal. Trust me it suck living in a Black Hole.