not much to see or do

a big part of my frustration here is the guidebook. i've been using the lonely planet guidebooks, and they've been excellent, but not this one. the guy who wrote it seems to have no idea what might be necessary information, or even interesting information, for people visiting here. it seems more geared to people who show up here to live, for whatever bizarre reasons they would have to do that. i've been trying to figure out getting out of taipei and seeing more of the island. i look up a city down the east coast, and in the 'getting there and away' section, he writes, 'buses and trains come here from taipei via some other cities'. he doens't tell which of the 3 train stations, or which of the myriad of bus stations, doesn't tell the costs, or how many buses or trains run each day, or how much they cost. i can see on the map that the town is on the train track, so i myself figured out that trains run there, so he told me nothing that i couldn't figure out sitting at home. then he says about the buses, 'if you've been studying chinese characters for awhile, you'll easily be able to tell if you have to pay when you get on or when you get off or both, by looking for the symbol for 'wufai' (or whatever it is)', but he doesn't show the symbol, or tell how much the bus costs or anything. the guy is an idiot.

anyway, taiwan is an island. but most people don't swim...they are afraid of drowning. this is fascinating to me. i would think one sure way to make it highly unlikely you will drown would be to learn how to swim. also, most people do not turn on their headlights at night because it is a firm belief here that driving with your headlights on decreases your gas mileage dramatically. i tried to rent a car to see the rest of the island, but you need an international driver's license, which i can't get here. they said they'd still rent me the car, but i'd have no insurance. no thanks. not when i'm going to be the only one with my headlights on out in the country. i've been studying mandarin. many of these asian languages have various tones that get word meaning across. that is, the same word can mean multiple things depending on how it's said. mandarin is the easiest from that point of view...vietnamese was the worst. but it's still confusing, since i don't know what it's supposed to sound like, reading it in a book. for example, and i'm not making this up, the words for 'i have a cold' are exactly the same as for 'i copulate with cats'. so i'm afraid to say anything at all. i usually just point. people here are friendly, so that is good. that's been the case everywhere on my trip except for tahiti and manila, so far. oh, one thing i keep forgetting to mention...everywhere i've been, even here where nothing at all is in english except the street signs, the tshirts people wear are all in english. i've yet to see a tshirt in ny other language at all. very interesting.

i saw the national theater, the national orchestra hall, and the chiang kai shek memorial hall today. they sit near each other in a big park. the scale of them is truly amazing. they seem so huge. i took pictures with people in them so it's easy to tell how huge they are. i know that when i get to tienamen square in beijing, it'll make this place seem like a model railroad village, but for now, it's amazing. that's about all there is to see in taipei...it's a big city, 3 million people in town, another 4 million in the suburbs. oh, i'll try to get north to the old palace of chiang and his wife. there's a couple rivers running through the city, but nothing great. i might check out the world financial area too. taipei is a city for doing business, not really for visiting. they have a very expansive metro rail system that i have yet to use. oh, i walked through the botanical gardens today too. so i'll head to the massive taipei train station and see what i can figure out. at least it's not that big of an island. no matter which train or bus i get on, i can somehow get back here by the 27th when i leave, i'm sure.

let's see...other observations...oh, the garbage trucks go out in the afternoons, and they park in the middle of the block and play beethoven and people bring their trash. i'm not joking. and there's lots of scooters here, and in fact taiwan calls itself the motorbike capital of the world, but it's nothing like saigon here. they need to visit there to see how it's really done. people here drive on the correct side of the road and obey traffic rules...amateurs. it's quieter here than saigon...that reminds me, i forgot to mention how in vietnam they have musical horns instead of just the beeping kind. then they have other music for a backup horn, even on small cars. then they connect that horn to the turn signals. so it's amazingly noisy all the time just from people driving, turning, and backing up. here it's mostly cloudy all the time, apparently, and the smog is really bad. not as bad as bangkok, but second worst of my trip so far. it's expensive here too, though not as bad as hong kong. well, i'll hopefully get out and see more of the country tomorrow through friday.