my first leap

So I’m in this crazy situation. I’m in Taitung Centre; and in the library, the office where workers work. It seems the house/hotel we’re staying at, the guy told us we can use the internet here but after asking around, workers here tell us we need a card to use the computers. So we call the guy; he calls a colleague, who goes to the internet room but because the guy who’s working there is a volunteer and doing his job, he wouldn’t let us and then another colleague had to come down and then the internet guy said okay but he’s going to lunch so now I’m in an office using a work computer!! In one morning we have created havoc in the local library abusing our powers, well, someone is using their power for us. Are you confused? I am. But here I am.

Yating, Shihmen (Yating’s sister), Sophia have gone off to find the largest bank here so Sophia can change her HK dollars to Taiwan dollars (Yating keeps asking Sophia if she has her passport – it’s important) and left me here alone tapping away. Now I know how it feels even for a little bit about working in an office here.

The night before leaving Taipei we took the MRT to Zhongxiou Danhua station (we saw 5 westerners!) and Ling picked us up and drove to Tunghua Night Market; Yating met us there later. It seems that you can order Sashimi, Octopus as well as Chinese food in most places. We also had Bamboo shoots, and purple brown sausage eaten with a slice of garlic and coriander , all new to me and very tasty. Ling tell us that Japanese and Korean influences are big in Taiwan because of Japanese occupation and Korean is just very popular right now (Remember what I said about Korea being the new Japanese?). All menus are in Chinese. While we ate, Sophia and I tell Yating and Ling where we walked. They think we’ve walked from one end of Taiwan to the other by their look of shock. So we tell them north of Ximen (the hotel) is where you can get all your cloths/materials; south is where the techno camera stuff are; east, the hospitals/medical stuff and where trendy school kids hangout playing computer games and stuff and in the east wasn’t much stuff.

I left my big backpack at Wonstar Hotel for free. The hotel which is also known as Onestar is pretty cool. You get free porn and lots of movie channels on a the biggest TV I’ve ever seen. Yesterday we had to get up at 5.45am to get the train at 7.10am. We were dawdling (5 mins to go) when this foghorn of a sound blasted our room. It was a fire alarm. I finished off my coffee and we grabbed our stuff and like royalty in chaos, we were escorted out by all the guests in the hotel. Poor woman at the desk; she was being told off big time. We left unscathed. We were told to meet at Taipei Main Station at the 7-11, the most popular convenient store. Luckily Sophia wandered about, we found out there were six 7-11’s with one at each corner of the station! The 7-11’s sell hot steamed buns – I liked the pork and preserved cabbage.

There’s a ladies carriage for women only on the train. Train schedules are in Chinese with no English translations. The seats have lots of space for your legs and the seat reclines lower so I fell asleep during our 6 hours ride. The scenery is breathtaking to put it mildly – deep mountains…

Friends are back. Have to go. Will finish this later.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. – John Locke. English Philosopher who made great contributions in studies of politics, government and psychology. 1632–1704

This internet cafe is pretty cool; I get a whole executive-looking booth to myself with a phone to call for drinks and things. Sophia is with me. We touched down in Taipei airport yesterday night an hour apart.

Flying to Taipei, I watched 5 Korean films (Daisy, When Romance meets Destiny etc) and 1 Italian film (Manuale d’Amore). I was feeling in the mood for love. I couldn’t sleep; and after being fed like cattle (nice food, and I do appreciate being fed but it’s the feeling of grogginess plus the feeling that the cells in your butt cheeks have grown 10 times its size since you sat down 16 hours ago). Anyway, during this half-alive zombie-like, food-up-to-your-neck 16 hour feeling, I had one of those I-might-just-freak-out-right-now-and-cause-mayhem moments as I filled out my immigration form and it asked for a visa number and the title at the top of the form tells me it’s part of the Republic of China (I had to get a visa to go into China!). I checked my sguiggly notes and next to Taiwan I had written the word ‘no’. But I’ve done silly things before – I call these incidences distracted dazed moments, another word for it is ditsy I guess, I prefer distracted moments. Anyway, I ask the air steward and he couldn’t tell me so for what felt like a horrible constipated lengthy time, I was contemplating the idea of being detained, calling my friends and telling them I’ve been kept in some prison cell by the Police because I stupidly forgot to get a visa. I was quite calm outwardly but inside I was like ‘Man! How can they let me on the plane without telling me and now I’m criminal in limbo and I’d be like Tom Hanks in The Terminal and if so, I hope they have a bookshop here; how can I get it so wrong, how can they not know; they can’t possibly keep me; there must be exceptions where they can stamp and I can pay, a speedway just for stupid people like me because there can’t be many stupid people like me! Oh Mennnnn!’. I was pretty calm on the outside. I pride myself for my composure at the time but other than that, INTERNAL TURMOIL are two words that came to mind. But luckily after talking to the visa office after checking for an escape route and not finding one; the guy behind the counter confirmed my little ‘no’ sguiggle was right. For the UK, you don’t need one if your stay is less than 30 days. Thank the lord’s arse; though I’m sure it would have been an interesting experience, my friends Ling and Yating were waiting for me as I came out so it would have caused a little inconvenience I’d say.

I didn’t recognise them; one: I’m blind and two: I didn’t recognise their hair styles which had changed drastically since I saw them (Yating, a year or so ago; Ling, 4 years). We dumped my backpack into Ling’s big orange company car before going to another terminal to wait for Sophia’s arrival from HK. It’s so humid; so different from breezy Canberra; you notice you’ve got to breathe deeply like breathing under a hot blanket.

Once we were all in the car driving to Wonstar Hotel in Ximen where Yating helped book a room for Sophia and me; I find out that we’re going to a film set in Taitung on Thursday where the main actress in ‘The Eye’ will be filming – Sophia is working on this film. Then I find out that Ling is working now with a famous director who did ‘3 Times’; she was assistant producer on ‘3 Times’ starring Shuqi (famous lead actress in ‘The Transporter’). Stop drooling guys!

The girls talk about the politics here in Taiwan in the car. Ling tells me that that very morning the president nearly got overthrown! They tell me that politics is very temperamental here and fun to watch; how they have six 24 hour news channels and people watch political debates etc for entertainment – they tell me of this famous incident when a politician ate paper in a mad outburst. We wandered around Ximen today. The humidity not only slows your breathing, your senses, your thought processes, your intellectual capacity but also your physical ability to do things quickly for fear of melting into a puddle of sweat. Not nice thought but true. It numbs you and gradually seeps you of any mental or physical energy. Today I’ve already had 2 showers and we’re going out later when Ling and Yating finish work. People who speak English are rare, Westerners, well, we saw one today and those who can speak English are probably working and not people you’d interact with in the streets. The signs, menus etc are not tourist friendly which makes it more interesting as characters I learnt from Chinese school in the olden days come rushing back. We’re here for tonight. Tomorrow we’re taking the train to Taitung, down south to the film set and I’ve been told a 6 hour or so journey along the coast – I so hope the coast bit is true and if I get to see things 6 hours is not too bad.

My ramble got cut off yesterday as I lost track of time and nearly missed my flight. I wanted to say that though I receive spuds from others, as Veronica rightly mentioned, I give them out as well, nice ones more often than not-so-nice I hope. A partner is a longer interaction where you’re throwing spuds (in a not violent way) at each other and enjoying the game. Though sometimes unexpected and the throw is a little ‘off-side’ and difficult to catch, I do like receiving spuds.

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To Tobias: Great news about ‘Yacht’; I will find out about Silent Witness; thanks for being my besty friend.

To Veronica: You gave me a spud as well, a nice one, thanks. I’m meeting Seb in Singapore very soon.

To Sun Bear: The spud hit hard but I caught it and now I have a spud.

To Nick: Thanks for sharing. Hope things are clearer and better today. The quotes I get emailed to me by ThinkExist.com so I thought I’d share them.

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Quote of the day
Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature.
– Seneca. Roman philosopher, mid-1st century AD

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