That's all

So my time in Taiwan is up, and I'm returning home today. There are a lot of pictures in my Flickr stream that I didn't link to on this journal, so you can view them at your leisure. I really enjoyed all the tropical fruit available here, especially papaya and mango and guava. And I will never forget the near chaotic dance between cars and scooters. It's too bad I didn't have a chance to explore more of the country, whether it was culture or food. But this was a business trip, and an exhausting one at that.

I got to the airport too early. EVA only allows check-in two hours before flights to Hong Kong. While onboard the plane, they play clips from a Taiwanese orchestra. Loudly. I don't know whether this serves to diffuse or encourage air rage. At Hong Kong, I was surprised to see my name on a card held up by an airline employee. The EVA counter at Taoyuan neglected to check me in for the second flight, so I was escorted through the Air Canada check-in counter and the fast lane of security and customs.

Mini movie reviews:

• Aurore: somewhat cheesy French film about a princess obsessed with dance; I didn't get to see the end of this one
  
• The Curse of the Golden Flower: visually sumptuous film about a royal family's secrets in China; not as good as House of Flying Daggers, but similarly grand and jaw-dropping
  
• Dr. No: while a classic, it just doesn't have the quirky, memorable characters of other 007 films; I mean, come on, the fight with Dr. No is 10 seconds long
  
• Prête-moi ta main: rom-com about a middle-aged man who tries to get his family off his back by pretending to get engaged to a woman he hires; I didn't see the end of this one, but suspect they actually end up getting together
  

A capital idea

On my last full day in Taiwan, I decided to go visit Taipei via the hotel's shuttle. After a 50-minute ride, it dropped us off near the Ambassador Hotel, and I walked from there to the nearest subway stop, Shuanglian Station on the (green) Danshui-Xindian line. First order of business was a day pass for the Metro, which only cost $200NT with a $50NT refundable deposit if you return the card. I was delighted with the modernity of the system, from automated distance-based fare dispensing machines to contactless smart cards and pixelboards displaying the next train's arrival time. In comparison, the TTC is such a dinosaur.

From there, I went two stops to Taipei Main Station and bought an HSR ticket. Note that there are two railway networks, the TRA which runs in a loop around the island, and the newer HSR, which is a high-speed “bullet train” that goes follows the Western coast. The ticket machine has easy-to-use English directions and I was able to book a reserved seat on the last train back to Hsinchu. Walking out from the subway side of the station (Exit 1) across to the main hall, I stopped by the Visitor Information Centre. My friend who lives in Taiwan told me that youth between 15 and 30 are eligible for discounted admission to tourist sites. After filling out a form, I picked up the little rubber bookmark which serves to inform everyone that I am still a youth (barely).

Next stop was the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, or whatever they are calling it these days. Unfortunately, there was nothing much to see, as there were no events going on at the Theater or Concert Hall during the day, and the main hall appeared closed. I wasted about a half hour here before getting back on the subway towards Taipei City Hall Station (blue line).

From the station, I looked up and walked towards Taipei 101, the world's tallest building. The food court had a lot of interesting vendors, but I couldn't read any of the menu, and ended up having a bland bowl of fresh noodles with wontons. Nearby was Jason's Market Place, an upscale grocery with lots of imported items and prepared food counters. After stowing my purchases in a locker, I lined up to go to the observation deck. The elevator ride is fast: 89 floors in 39 seconds! As it was getting close to 16:00, I walked back to the subway, planning to go to the National Palace Museum.

I got off at Jiantan Station, then took the Red #30 bus. As the driver didn't speak English, and I didn't know which stop to get off at, I whipped out my brochure and pointed at the museum. The ride took about 30 minutes, and, not surprisingly, the museum was not admitting anyone after 16:30. This was terrible planning on my part, as I knew they closed at 17:00 whereas I didn't check the closing time of Taipei 101. The museum, which I'm told has a collection so large it takes several years to rotate through the exhibits, would have been a much better experience than the skyscraper, I'm sure. Oh well, live and learn.

The bus ride back to the subway station took twice as long, as schoolkids were just finishing some exams, and the traffic jams were heavy. Right outside Jiantan Station is the Shilin Night Market. I wasn't very hungry, so I walked around City Jungle for a while. In the back streets, there was a growing crowd of young shoppers. Whether it was from the humidity, pollution or tiredness, I wasn't feeling too energetic and just sat down on an uncomfortable bench for a while until I got hungry.

Retracing my steps back to the main building, I passed by lots of little vendors selling snacks. One guy was shaving a big block of peanut brittle, then sprinkling it on a thin crepe. After topping it with coriander and ice cream, he rolled it up like a burrito. I tried one: it was texturally interesting, but the flavour combinations didn't work for me.

At the main market building, there were a lot of different food items for sale:

And before anyone asks, yes, I did pass by stinky tofu vendors. I was willing to try it, but didn't realize that the rotting meat smell was, in fact, made from a bean curd product. They serve the tofu deep fried and covered in a garlic sauce. I've had natto, a fermented Japanese soy bean product, but this was entirely different.

At this point, I really felt like going home, so I sat around for a bit, eating my Hot Star Large Fried chicken. The HSR train was just like the Shinkansen, right down to how each car is numbered, the diagrams on the seat backs, the announcements, etc.

All night long (all night)

Sunday started off with a plan to work on restructuring some code and doing adequate testing to be ready to integrate on Monday. It started off pretty slowly, but around noon, I needed to get out of my room.

Under a steady drizzle, I walked north towards the freeway in search of Nova, an electronics store where I hoped to buy an SD card reader. The walk ended up taking 45 minutes and took me to a bazaar-like multistory building in which multiple vendors were selling different things like cameras, computers, parts, etc. Prices were roughly the same as Canadian prices for the most part. I picked up a USB SD card reader/writer for $300TWD ($9.75CAD), a 2GB Sandisk SD card for $600TWD ($19.50CAD) and a 5-port USB 2.0 PCI card for $360TWD ($11.75CAD). Other brands of SD media retailed for about the same as in Canada.

A flower outside a church.

As afternoon turned into evening, and evening turned into night... night turned into midnight, then turned into the wee hours of the morning, and I found myself staying up until the sun rose on Monday! I haven't done an all-nighter in a few years, but I felt alert and was in "the zone" for debugging. At work, I was able to function normally until late afternoon when I really felt the need to put my head down.

The other person who I am working with and I went to a local Pizza Hut take-out for dinner. They were made to order, so we had to wait about 15 minutes or so. Not bad, crispy crust with octopus, onions, mayonnaise, sauce, sesame seeds... takoyaki, my new flavour combination!

A small venture

I need some better impulse control, or else eating a massive breakfast buffet each morning for 10 days is really going to do me in. Good thing there's a scale (kilograms only) in the room. Around 14:00, I went out in search of lunch. Walking along the main thoroughfare outside the hotel (Guangfu Road Sec 1), I navigated the narrow street with some difficulty. There are no sidewalks to speak of: around one metre of pavement separates the front of a store from the road. The right lane is slightly wider, to accomodate parked cars and scooters which often straddle the painted line.

As I wandered past numerous hair cutting salons, tiny scooter and car repair shops, betel nut beauties, and snack vendors, I realized I was one of the few pedestrians. My walk involved frequent darting out onto the road in order to make my way past the parked cars. Most customers drive up to storefronts on their scooter, made their purchase, then departed. I even saw miniature dogs perched on the floorboard of some scooters! Here's a photo of some fashionable headgear to wear while motoring:

I picked up this sesame ball filled with red bean paste for $25TWD. Very oily, with a shell that was too thick, but I liked how it's deeply browned.

Buns steaming on the side of the street.

A takoyaki (章魚燒) vendor drew my attention. Of course, I didn't know what it was at first, nor that it was a Japanese import. Much gesticulating and stilted Mandarin was exchanged. He started by oiling the hemispherical molds liberally, then ladling a batter into the molds, sprinkling them with onions, cabbage and a bright orange powder (cheese? tempura scraps?), octopus chunks, and then more batter. When they were partially cooked, he used two metal skewers to deftly rotate them, ensuring it was evenly cooked, and the balls were round. More oil went over top, and the spheres began to sputter and brown. To serve, he sprinkled the takoyaki with ao nori, something spicy (togarashi, maybe), okonomiyaki sauce, Japanese mayonnaise, shaved bonito flakes, and placed the whole thing in a paper container. These were absolutely delicious! This vendor might have been part of this franchise.

Water, water everywhere

Here is this week's weather forecast:
My lunch was decidedly not worth reporting, greasy cafeteria food; 10 seconds after I put my chopsticks down, we were back in the lab working.

For dinner, I ate in one of the hotel restaurants, Nakayama. The Hsinchu Dinner consisted of pickled cabbage and seafood as an amuse-bouche, seared tuna slices, sashimi on ice, fried stuffed tofu, tempura, some kind of grayish cubes (I thought it might be sesame set with agar, but the waitress could only communicate it was vegetable-based), rice with pickled vegetables, grilled mackerel, miso soup, and for dessert, red bean and barley sweet soup. All for $880TWD (under $30CAD) including the 10% service charge.

I've been able to escape working the weekend, but will be stuck in the hotel working anyway, as it's been raining a lot, and I have things to do before Monday. Hopefully, I'll be able to make it out to a local night market (and get a card reader so I can upload the pictures I've been describing), and maybe even squeeze in a short trip to Taipei.

Work hard. Period.

Overcast, humid and rainy today. My hotel room has, amongst the regular stuff, a toilet with a heated seat and "Family" wash button (in contrast to "Bidet" mode); a smoke-escaping mask which offers protection (for your face only, I guess) up to 450°F; and a desk fit for middle schoolers (clips, coloured paperclips, mini-stapler, ruler, eraser, pencil and pen!).

I don't know they do it, but all the scooter drivers must have nerves of steel. They swerve in and out of traffic, pass on both sides of cars, and congregate in large crowds at traffic lights.

The office I am working in has placed me in a room of about 8 other engineers, all gathered around a table covered in card readers, wireless networking gear, cellphone parts and laptops. We started around 09:00 and I didn't leave until about 21:00. This is apparently normal.

Fortunately, we got to go out to lunch today at Golden Mountain Fine Arts and Life Style. It's a modern building, made to look a traditional Chinese one, complete with lanterns, carved dragons, sliding wooden doors and a pond with goldfish. Riding in company cars, we drove through back alleys and side streets to reach the restaurant. I don't know what the art connection is. Here's someone else's gorgeous pictures. And the food? How about:

• tea flavoured with barley or some other grain
  
• Taiwanese beer (with a disturbing 96 10 25 expiry date)*
  
• cold platter with sashimi, canned peaches, raw vegetables in mustardy sauce, and some white, twig-like, opaque vegetable
  
• stir-fried chicken with mangos and peppers
  
• deep-fried pork (ribs I think) with butterflied surf clams
  
• shark-fin soup
  
• steamed fish
  
• seafood in tangy sauce baked in whole papaya
  
• spiky lobster on Taiwanese noodles
  
• stir-fried vegetables (peppers, asparagus, shitake mushrooms, crinkle-cut white cucumber-like vegetable)
  
• herbal soup with black chicken
  
• fresh kiwi juice blended with ice
  
• siu mai dumplings
  
• individual containers of Häagen-Dazs (!) ice cream
  
• fresh melon platter
  

Wonderful service and a relaxing atmosphere as it's partly open to the outside. An amusing soundtrack was provided by easy listening favourites played on glockenspiel. No, really. No pictures, but here's someone else's from the restaurant.

*Update: My parents tell me that in Taiwan, dates are often counted from when the Republic of China was founded in 1911. So 96 is really 2007.

En route to Taiwan

On a weekday morning, Terminal 1 is eerily empty. The agents at the counter are twiddling their thumbs, the security screeners sit around chatting, and there isn't a single occupied seat at some gates. I guess I didn't need to show up 3 hours early.

Free WiFi in Terminal 1, near Gates 170-180. Look for SSID: datavalet.

Grr, I forgot my digital camera cable, and this laptop doesn't have an SD reader. Boo.

Over 17 hours of flying, so I don't have much energy to write. Entertainment provided by:

• Eragon: forgettable Lord of the Rings wannabe featuring an ugly dragon
  
• Big Fish: charming Tim Burton movie about a father-son relationship interspersed with vivid tall tales
  
• Black Gold: The Dark History of Coffee by Antony Wild - I'm only done the first chapter and already feeling uneasy about drinking java.

Here's a cute sign at the airport:

New Year's Cruise

Mom and I went down to the Eastern Caribbean on a cruise last week aboard the Caribbean Princess. Here's a link to annotated photos on Flickr.