Taipei | Taiwaneers

Taipei: The Convenient City

Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life, Taiwanese Culture 1 Response »

Oct 292009

Muzha Line MRT, Taipei
Taipei 101 and City

One trait that Taiwanese people seem to desire a lot is convenience. When I tell people I live near Guting MRT station but my university is near Jiantan MRT station they’ll tell me how horrible that is because “it’s not very convenient.” I explain that it’s because Emily goes to a university near Guting. In reality though the distance is still only about 20 minutes by scooter when it’s not rush-hour which, to me, is still pretty good.

The desire for convenience by her residents gives Taipei some wonderful features. Lets take me and Emily for example. Our house is right in the middle of the city. We are three blocks from the MRT: Taipei’s ‘subway.’ On our block we have multiple convenience stores, bus stops, our preferred scooter shop, a dry-cleaners, not too mention a bicycle store which has proven to be very useful as the air in my tires is always running low. Three blocks away are electronic stores, a grocery, Starbucks, McDonald’s, and a lot, lot more. 5 blocks away you hit Emily’s school and two more past that brings you to the Shida Night Market and some of the best restaurants in the city! I haven’t even mentioned that we are just a few blocks from several parks including the River Park system that goes on for miles following Taipei’s various riverbanks.

You know how in American cities you have to drive out to the suburbs to go to Wal-Mart or Home Depot or any of those big box stores? Here in Taipei we are about 10 minutes by scooter from Carrefour (a French version of Wal-Mart), 20 minutes from B&Q (basically Home Depot with a different name), and while we have never gone 20 minutes would also bring us to Costco.

One of the uniquenesses of Taipei is how small, geographically speaking, it is. It’s actually one of the most densely populated places on earth in terms of per-square-inch with a population of 8 million (I think). While dense population does present some down-sides I really like how “convenient” my city is!

Air Raid Drill

Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life, Taiwanese Culture No Responses »

Jun 302009

One second I was walking down the street on the way to the post office and the next second I was part of an air raid drill. Thats exactly what happened to me today.

Emily and I were puttering around our house getting everything ready for our summer-break departure tomorrow. All of a sudden we heard an extremely loud and extremely long alarm from outside. It was the same kind of noise I remember hearing as a kid that signaled tornadoes.

We opened the window to see if people were rushing away from buildings or anything giving us an indication of real danger from an earthquake or something but seeing no one we just continued what we were doing and finally the alarm stopped.

A few minutes later I left for the post office and walked down the street to the first intersection. I was about to cross the street when a Cop standing there told me that I had to stay. Looking around I noticed several people just hanging out at the corner and then I realized how eerie it was that there were no cars or scooters or pedestrians or bicycles or anything moving along the streets. One of the other guys standing there spoke a little English and he explained to me that this was a 15 minute air-raid drill that is done across Taipei city once a year.

After the obligatory 15 minutes were up the deafening alarm sounded long and loud again and as quickly as you can snap your fingers the streets were full with cars and pedestrians.

In a country where I feel less in danger than when I’m in America this was a surreal experience.

Travel Log Korea – Entry 1

Korea, Michael's Posts, Travel & Exploring 1 Response »

Feb 122009

Today was quite a day. We began by packing and getting the house ready for departure. Once it came time to locate our passports we ran into difficulty though. Emily had lost hers. She researched what she could do on the interweb lickity-split and set off to the Taipei Immigration Office, then on to the American Institute in Taiwan (aka USA embassy) and then back to the Taipei Immigration Office securing her temporary passport in the nick of time.

We decided to screw the cheaper option of taking the bus to the airport and took a taxi instead (I hate shelling out money) because of the time crunch we were now under.

Once we got to the airport we got through everything just fine with time to spare and boarded the Korean Air flight without any more problems.

After the million hour flights from the US to Taiwan this measely little 2 hour 20 min flight to Incheon International Airport outside of Seoul, South Korea was nothing.

After touchdown we got through immigration and customs no problem. Then we tried to use our credit card at an ATM to get some more cash as we only had a little bit. Here is where the next fiasco overtook us. Neither of us could get our credit cards to work in the ATM because we couldn’t remember our PIN numbers. So without much cash we got on our free shuttle from the Airport to the Airport Backpacker Guesthouse where we are staying tonight. After 2 minutes in the car we got to our hostel. It is really really really nice and is only $35ish USD a night for two people….I am very impressed.

I got on the internet and made some international phone calls on my cell phone (I am not looking forward to seeing the bill) to get the credit card situation sorted out. After talking to VISA representatives it seems as though I’ll be able to get cash without my PIN by going to banks and showing my passport. They also told me I shouldn’t have a problem using it for purchases so hopefully we’ll be okay.

Those few hours thinking we were stuck in Korea for the next week without any money or way of getting any was quite the stress-test though. Needless to say we recommend everyone to locate their passports and double-check their methods of obtaining cash before traveling by at least 24 hours if not more.

On a pleasant note: Its great here. Our plane got in after dark so I can’t really see much but stepping outside of the airport into the cold winter air made me feel like I was home. It was real winter air where you could see your breath and needed a coat. It felt great!

We are excited to greet tomorrow, fix the money situation and make our triumphal entry into Seoul.