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MY TRIP TO TAIWAN (Note: this is years old...Carmen and I are no longer together, and I am no longer a fatty.)

As you may or may not know, I recently spent 1 1/2 weeks in Taipei Taiwan. This page is a photographic scrapbook of my experiences in Taiwan. To sum it all up in a nutshell: that time in Taiwan was the best week of my life. (Mainly because I spent all of my time with Carmen)

The reason that I went to Taiwan in the first place was to spend time with my girlfriend Carmen, meet her family, and learn a little about where she came from.

So we begin our journey...

	Here is a picture I took on the plane to Taiwan. I was flying on EVA airlines (which I could never determine if you pronounced it like a name, or E-V-A Airlines). As soon as I went to the boarding gate of this airline, I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore... I was the only white person boarding this plane to Taiwan...and all of the announcements were given in Chinese THEN english...I got more than my fair share of looks while waiting for the plane. Once on the plane, I was given a pair of green slippers in a plastic bag. Apparently, the Asian distaste with wearing shoes indoors also applies to airplanes. For the most part the flight was fairly normal. The only strange things were that the plane rocked a LOT while going over the pacific ocean. And I mean a LOT. Since I was the only person in my section of the plane (I think all of the Taiwanese people asked to be seated away from me) I kept putting myself in the old "bent over arms around the knees" posture they tell you to assume if the plane crashes. By the time I got to Taiwan I was just happy to be alive. Oh yeah, and at the end of the flight, the stewardesses stand in front of the plane and everyone applauds them...Like I said...not in Kansas anymore.
	Here we see my tour guide, the beautiful and mysterious Carmen Chan. I think that being in Taiwan without her would have sucked. But since she was there, Taiwan was great. It is kind of hard to see in this scaled-down-for-the-web picture, but she is wearing her brown-eye contacts. Normally I don't like any form of body altering...piercings, jewelry, makeup, hair dye etc...but these contacts were pretty sexy on her. I flew halfway around the world to see this girl.....It was worth it!
	Here we see Carmen modelling for a Japanese-Style advertisement for the Taiwanese gatorade-like beverage: POCARI SWEAT. Yes kids, I did not mistype...POCARI SWEAT. And they don't mean sweat like in some other context you don't know...they mean sweat from your body. Chinese has an interesting way of sounding funny when you directly translate it into english. Note to Chinese product managers: Get an American translator when coming up with English names for your beverages.
	There is a 7-11 on EVERY street cornder in Taiwan. At first I thought it would be cool to take a picture of every one I saw...but I quickly realised that this was completely impractical...my camera can hold 54 pictures at a time, and I wouldn't have had room for anything else...I saw 54 7-11's the first 20 minutes alone. On my third day there I realised why they have 7-11's everywhere...The population there is extremely dense. If they had 7-11's spaced normally, you would have people swarming to the 7-11 all of the time, and this would cause heavy(er) pedestrian traffic, as well as overwhelm the 7-11 owner. Interesting note: even though India is closer to Taiwan than America is...I did not see ANY Indians working at 7-11...I guess they all go to America. One last thing...EVERY 7-11 there has a crock-pot full of 1000 year old eggs. If you haven't seen these vile things...they are eggs that have been buried in mud and allowed to absorb the black color of the mud...then they are soaked in ass-flavored (and scented) spices until they are completely inedible to Americans. You smell the ass-eggs the second you walk into 7-11.
	Vincent: You see, they got the same shit they got here, 'cept there it's a little different. Jules: Explain: Vincent: Well, they got yogurt...'cept there they call it drinking yogurt... On my second night there I was getting a little hungry. My jet lag had made it difficult to eat, and I was having a little trouble adjusting to the local cuisine...I desparately needed protein. I said we should go to 7-11 and get some yogurt. Carmen said that they had yogurt. I was so happy I almost cried. But the yogurt it Taiwan is not the eat-it-with-a-spoon type we have here...there they have liquid DRINKING YOGURT. I was so sad that I almost cried. However... after trying it i was happy...it ROCKS. I continued to drink about 3 yogurts a day while I was there. If it were not for the drinking yogurt, I may not have survived my trip.
Beautiful garden	Here is the garden outside of the historical Museum. I think this is the most beautiful landscape picture I have ever taken.
	They have a pond outside of the museum where you can feed the fish. Here is a picture of the water where some kids have thrown a few ducks into the water.
	This is the water a few seconds later. I try to respect other cultures...but I think it is a little cruel to throw live ducks into the water with these ravenous fish. But...Taiwanese people have a different set of values from us Americans... (Editor's Note: Just kidding. They really didn't feed the ducks to the fish. It just looked like that in the picture)
	Here is Carmen moving our 2-seater bike. We and a few of Carmen's friends rode 2-seater bikes through the city streets of Fang Shui (spelling?).to get to the beach. It was loads of fun and Carmen and I got extremely sunburned. The traffic in this area is comparable to the traffic at veterans and williams... except without any red lights or people who know how to drive. In Taiwan...EVERYONE drives like a COMPLETE AND TOTAL MANIAC!!!! I hate to be so crass...but it is true...the people there drive like they are smoking crack. Not only that but NO ONE WEARS SEAT BELTS!!!!! Not only that... the cabs HIDE THE SEAT BELTS!!!! Taiwanese people find seat belts so unpleasant that they tuck them into the seats.
	Here is an average picture of the traffic in Taiwan. Note the cab-to car ratio.
	Speaking of cabs... Here is a picture of some cool air freshener/fans that I bought in Taiwan. (Note that even this comes in Hello Kitty flavor) The first thing I noticed about the cabs in Taiwan is that they all have cool little fan things on their A/C. Actually, the first thing I noticed was no seat belts...then I noticed the insane driving...but THEN I noticed the cool fans on the A/C.
	In Taiwan there are LOTS of dancing games! At the movie theater and at all of the arcades they have these huge machines with floor pads so you can play dancing games like "Bust-A-Groove"...except the dancing games are cooler over there. I bought one called Crazy Dancing, and I bought two floor mats for my Playstation! Unfortunately, the game won't work on my Playstation (I thought that the chip would let you play international games?) But luckily I got it to work on my computer...plus the dance pad has a Parallel Port adapter...so we're all going to have to get together at Brent's house and do some Crazy Dancing!!!!!
	In Taiwan EVERYONE has a cellphone. People talk on their cellphones more than they talk to you in person. And everyone has weird lights on their cellphones like KITT in Knight Rider. (A man....that doesn't exist). I figured...when in Rome...so I bought a Jack the Pumpkin King doo-dad for my cellphone. I am now officially RICE!
	Here we see the beautiful scenic beach in Taiwan. No...that is not seashells... That is trash...
	After a long day at the beach we went to a coffee shop to get a snack. Here we see me enjoying a pancake. No...I did not mistype...I in fact ordered a Pancake...and when I asked... they assured me that this was a pancake. In Taiwan, apparently the laws of physics change and when you cook pancakes they look remarkably like waffles.
	I must admit...I never really understood Karoake before... I always thought it was a rather funny apect of asian culture.
	That is....until I drank a bunch of beer and ROCKED OUT!!!! You'll notice that I'm wearing a different shirt in this picture. That is because I liked Karaoke so much the first time...that I asked Carmen to bring me back a second time! Karaoke in Taiwan is different then what you have probably seen here in America. There...they have a company called Cashbox that owns these HUGE buildings with about 20 or so floors, each with about 20-30 rooms open 24 hours a day! Carmen told me that they have about 50 cashbox buildings in Taipei alone! They are so packed that you have to book RESERVATIONS!!!! Anyway...at Cashbox KTV (Karaoke Telivision I assume) you rent a room, and hang out with your friends singing Karaoke. You get room service...and they bring you beers, food, hookers (I'm serious) or whatever. It is FUN!!!!!!!!!!!
	Carmen has a beautiful singing voice. I have secretly always wanted a girlfriend with a good singing voice.
	Besides hookers, one popular thing to buy at the KTV is "Hello Kitty" merchandise. I cannot possibly exaggerate the amount of "Hello Kitty" stuff in Taiwan. There were hello kitty stores. There were hello kitty computer keyboards (I bought one!) There were hello kitty COMPUTERS! Carmen told me that they even have hello kitty condoms!
	More Hello Kitty
	Even More Hello Kitty
	Like I said before...I bought a Hello Kitty keyboard. It ROCKS! Besides being pink...and besides having a picture of Hello Kitty on it, and besides having multicolored keys...it has zhuyin and Chinese symbols on the keys for that "authentic Chinese" look and feel. I love my Hello Kitty Keyboard.
	My saving grace in Taiwan was my ability to use chopsticks. I couldn't speak Chinese, I couldn't eat any weird food, and I have blue eyes. BUT...I am the chopsticks mack master - so the Taiwanese people thought I was cool. Every time a Taiwanese person saw me eat, they commented on my badass chopsticks skills.
	This is the average size of a drink in Taiwan. In fact, I would venture to say that this was one of the larger drinks I encountered. Not only were the drinks small, but at a restaurant when you ordered a spicy-ass meal...they would wait like 20 minutes after your food arrived to bring you your drink. I noticed in 7-11 that they had the new 1-liter drinks like we have here in America...So I thought...hey...maybe SOME people drink a lot of coke.... That night at dinner...Carmen's family was using a 1-liter at dinner for everyone. The 1-liter is their answer to the 3-liter...not a personal drink...
	Speaking of coke here is a picture of a coke. Now for a quick chinese lesson. I learned a lot whilst there... The written chinese language is made up of 214 base symbols called "radicals". These base symbols are relatively simple, and comprise words like "man", "down", "large", "small", and others. The second symbol from the top is the radical "kou", which translates as "mouth" (more on this later) Additional words are created by combining these base radicals together into one symbol. Words can be composed of 2,3 or several radicals. (I'm not sure what the highest number is). Note that these radicals are crammed into ONE character...not next to each other like the letters in a word in english. Sometimes these radicals are combined together in a sensible way...like combining "woman" and "child" to get "good"...but really you just have to memorize...a lot of the combinations are just crap. The bottom word on the coke is "le", which is an example of several radicals combined... honestly I'm not sure which they are...I think that one might be "nu" or woman, and one might be "da" or large...the resulting word is "le"...which is kind of a filler word and sort of means "already"...or "y'know". There are about 10,000 symbols in active use in Chinese...but these days new words are added to the world all of the time. In the old days it wasn't such a big deal... just more crap to memorize...but these days with printing presses, machines and computers... it would be unweildy to keep adding new arbitrary symbols to the language. So modern chinese words are no longer added by symbol. When a new word comes out like "Internet" or "Pentium" or "Hacker"...two approaches are used: Hyphanates and Phonetics. Hyphanates are words formed by combining two or more simpler words. Hyphanates are fairly common in English (But note that they are RAMPANT in Chinese... almost the entire modern Chinese language is comprised of hypenates). An example of a hyphanate is: wheelchair (wheel-chair) or fencepost, or telephone pole etc. The second way new words are added is through phonetics. Coca Cola is a good example of a phonetic. The words on this coke can are "Ko Kou Ko Le"...or "happy mouth happy already". Proper names are almost always represented through phonetics, which is why everyone's name means "powerful dragon" or some such thing.
	Here is Kentucky Fried Chicken...I'm not sure what that says in Chinese.
Click here to see a McDonalds menu	McDonalds Menu
	Here we see the beautiful Carmen Chan cooking some Japanese BBQ. This was probably the best meal I had while in Taiwan.
	Here is me and Carmen Enjoying our dinner.
	Here is Carmen's mom and sister enjoying their meal.
	Here is the street the Japanese BBQ restaurant was on. It is interesting to note that a lot of Japanese people hang out in this area.
	It is also interesting to note that any time someone told me "A lot of Japanese people hang out here"...someone else would later tell me "That is where you go to get a hooker"
	Here is one of the beautiful ornate temples in Taiwan. In Taiwan, Buddhism has been mixed with traditional Chinese folk religion to form a really really strange hybrid. It is impossible to see in these pictures, but the trim of this building has some really beautiful carvings on it.
	Here is a typical street in Taiwan.
	This is the area by the night market...notice the prevalence of scooters.
	Here is Carmen's sister in the jade market. The jade market is remarkably similar to the French market in the quarter...except the stuff in the Jade Market isn't shit.
	Here is a statue of buddha with a swastika on his chest. I saw quite a few swastikas around Taiwan. I have seen Swastikas before in old religeons, but this is the first time I have seen a REVERSE swastika a la the 3rd reich!
	This child is the son of one of Carmen's mother's friends. He was cute so I figured I'd put his picture up here.