Just got home, unpacked, and showered after a 24 hour commute. Left San Francisco last night in a swirl of emotion, stoned haziness, and near gut-bust from San Tung's famous chicken wings. Man this flight is brutal and I am beat up tired. A couple of cool things that happened were: 1) during my layover, I got a massage in Taiwan from a blind dude who could speak chinese, japanese, and english, so we practiced, and 2) I ran into a guy from the JET Programme in the food court (Gavin), and we had beef noodle soup together for breakfast. He spent the summer in New Zealand and was just getting back, I guess he had an 8 hour layover in Taipei airport but they kicked him out overnight (whoever heard of an airport closing overnight?!).
I had an awesome trip back home. It was so good to see everybody and hang out (and sorry if I missed anybody - Mari, Shin, Gordon especially, you're first on the list for next time).
I gotta pass out I'm delirious from the exhaustion, and I gotta get up for school in the morning. Back to the 3 speed bike.
I'll upload pictures from the last 2 months this weekend and try to catch up a bit on the ol' blog... that is, unless I go to "Tennis Camp," which I got an invitation from this retired dude from my Chinese class invited me to. Cool, huh?
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Life at 38,000 feet
Man technology is amazing! At this very moment, I'm sitting in a big flying tin can that's cruising 38,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean and using wireless internet! Can you believe it? That's pretty amazing.
So we've spent the last 4 days in Taipei, which was awesome, as usual. One of my favorite things this time was cruising around the Shiling Night market, trying all the different types of foods (This store called "Really Big Chicken" was my favorite 'Hao Da Da Gi Pai"). Taipei is an eater's paradise. There is so much good food there for really cheap, ranging from the night-market street stalls, to super fancy old school chinese restaurants. Ah god it's going to be hard to go back to bland and tasteless (and overpriced) Japanese food after this month.
Taipei is such a great city. It has a really interesting mix of moderinty and underdevelopment. The climate is sub-tropical, so everything there feels alive - there are trees growing everywhere, and green is totally abundant. My favorite is all of the Banyan trees, which gives the city a mysterious vibe, kinda like New Orleans. The people there are awesome too! Certainly not as quiet or subdued as the Japanese, but not as rude and socially revolting as the mainland Chinese (fewer smokers, spitters, pushers), they have a certain charm about them. Since Taipei is such an international city, many people speak English, and few people freak out when they encounter a foreigner (nor do they try to hustle them, like in Dehli or Phuket, or Shanghai). People actually stop to help people on the street. They are as courteous as a chinaman can get, I would say.
I'll post the pictures from my when I get back to Japan. I would definitely recommend Taiwan/Taipei to anybody that is visiting Asia - it's such an awesome place with cool things to see and do, great people, and awesome awesome awesome food.
So we've spent the last 4 days in Taipei, which was awesome, as usual. One of my favorite things this time was cruising around the Shiling Night market, trying all the different types of foods (This store called "Really Big Chicken" was my favorite 'Hao Da Da Gi Pai"). Taipei is an eater's paradise. There is so much good food there for really cheap, ranging from the night-market street stalls, to super fancy old school chinese restaurants. Ah god it's going to be hard to go back to bland and tasteless (and overpriced) Japanese food after this month.
Taipei is such a great city. It has a really interesting mix of moderinty and underdevelopment. The climate is sub-tropical, so everything there feels alive - there are trees growing everywhere, and green is totally abundant. My favorite is all of the Banyan trees, which gives the city a mysterious vibe, kinda like New Orleans. The people there are awesome too! Certainly not as quiet or subdued as the Japanese, but not as rude and socially revolting as the mainland Chinese (fewer smokers, spitters, pushers), they have a certain charm about them. Since Taipei is such an international city, many people speak English, and few people freak out when they encounter a foreigner (nor do they try to hustle them, like in Dehli or Phuket, or Shanghai). People actually stop to help people on the street. They are as courteous as a chinaman can get, I would say.
I'll post the pictures from my when I get back to Japan. I would definitely recommend Taiwan/Taipei to anybody that is visiting Asia - it's such an awesome place with cool things to see and do, great people, and awesome awesome awesome food.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
On The Run
Whew. Life has been moving at a manic pace the last two weeks. After "Closing Ceremony" on July 20th, I made my slow way up to Tokyo Orientation (I was an orientation assistant this year), stopping along the way to hike Mt. Fuji, check out the remote town of Shimoda on the Shizu-Hanto peninsula, and visit a giant Buddha statue in Kamakura. After arrving in Tokyo, I was up and working from about 7am to 3am for 5 days of mayhem, and then I came back to Tatsuno to have a hurried sayonnara/birthday party with Markane, and I just finished an all night packing job.
The cab comes in about an hour, I gotta wrap up some last things and then it's off to Taipei for 4 days to see my Dad and Grandfather, then 3 weeks touring around California and Michigan. Whew!!
The cab comes in about an hour, I gotta wrap up some last things and then it's off to Taipei for 4 days to see my Dad and Grandfather, then 3 weeks touring around California and Michigan. Whew!!
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