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.