my first leap

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.

***

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.

***

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

Tags: Politics, Taipei, Taiwan, Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 28th, 2006 at 5:36 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.