Lost in Ogawa

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After a month of hiatus, I’M BACK!…in Japan that is. Happy New Year! I apologize for my absence but I was on vacation!!! Yes, I was in need of a nice relaxing vacation after a semester of hard work and intense Japanese studying. Some people would beg to differ but I think I deserved it! I left Japan for about 12 days but it felt shorter than that. People who know me will no doubt guess that I have a problem of grounding myself in one country. If I don’t hop on an airplane every few months or so, I wouldn’t be the Tony that all of you know. Alright, so my first destination: Taipei, Taiwan. Yes, the land where I was born, the “Motherland”!! Ok, that sounded weird because Taiwan is not a communist country nor is it “CHINA” or a “Province” of China. Nuh uh! Taiwan is Taiwan, a separate entity. Those of you who thought otherwise are wrong. You know who you are!!

Quick sidenote about Xmas in Japan, it doesn’t exist. Well, maybe it does but they don’t celebrate it like we do in the States. The Japanese acknowledges Christmas on Dec. 25th but it is not a holiday and in fact it’s actually a workday. Well, I do know an Asian family that works back in L.A. and I’m sure there are some people that work on Xmas. This year, Xmas landed on a Saturday so it made no difference. Some places put up decorations and lights but I still wasn’t feeling the Christmas spirit. There was no common practice of sending Xmas cards in Japan, only during New Years do they send out greeting cards to friends and families. There isn’t even a way to say “Merry Xmas” in Japanese but there were 3 different ways in Japanese to wish someone a Happy New Year. One of the greetings you would say prior to New Year (N.Y.), one you would say after N.Y., and one you would say in response to somebody after they wished you a Happy New Year first. It still means Happy New Year in some respect but said completely different, go figure! I explained to my kids about what Christmas is like in the States. It made me feel nostalgic and for a split second, I wanted to go back to California. Oh well, the moment has passed. On a happier note, the Japanese do get New Years Day off but unfortunately this year N.Y. was also on a Saturday so it made no difference either!

Ok, back to Taiwan. It was GREAT! My brother came to visit me in Japan and then we went together to Taiwan. We stayed with our relatives and hung out with our cousins. It’s so nice to have relatives in Taiwan because they take good care of us and constantly feed us like there’s no tomorrow. What I miss about Taiwan are the deli foods sold on little street vendor carts on the sides of streets. They’re everywhere in Taiwan. If you have a little money in Taiwan, it’s hard to believe you’ll go hungry. They also have these awesome “night markets” in these specific streets every night. In addition to the food, there were also street vendors selling many different things, from little souvenir trinkets, to jewelry, to socks and underwear. It’s cool because you can Eat and Shop at the same time. Did I also mention everything is Cheap?! in respect to Japan and the States of course. You can even bargain. If you don’t haggle, they know you’re a foreigner and they’ll want to charge you more. It’s also nice being in Taiwan when you don’t generally have a problem speaking their language. That’s why I felt very comfortable being there. What else did I do while I was there? Eating comprised of most of the things I did in Taiwan but my bro and I did go to a car show. It’s pretty similar in style to the Japanese car show. Just look at the pictures and you’ll know why. We also tried fried cricket or grasshopper and ostrich meat with our cousins. That was something out of the ordinary. It’s definitely not common Taiwanese entrees. One of my cousins just wanted to try something exotic. How that for exotic? We also went on a Ferris wheel and played at a batting cage at a new shopping center in Taipei. So that’s pretty much what I did in Taiwan in about 7 days. Next, onward to my second destination: Korea!

Pictures from Taiwan (in non chronological order!)
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tonykao0627/album?.dir=/ef07

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, January 14th, 2005 at 1:18 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.