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FAI'S TAIWANESE ADVENTURES
29.10.2004 NEW IMPROVED WEBSITE - http://users.bigpond.net.au/faitastic
I have figured out my BIGPOND Account details and finally have successfully FTP into my account. I have posted all these previous entries into that website, so you won't miss out on the stuff I wrote before. You can also leave comments for me on this newer website, however, you need to register an account. It is not difficult to do, it just takes a minute or two. I will understand if you don't want to. Cheers~ The site again is: http://users.bigpond.net.au/faitastic
This is the last entry on this site, please bookmark the new site at Bigpond from now on. I will not be updating this one anymore. Cheers. Sorry for any confusion.
29.10.2004 New Changes Coming Soon
I spent half of last night posting most of these entries to a new blog site. I will advise of these changes as an entry on here sometime next week. Why next week? I need to go to visit the in-laws again. Need to go and pay respect to some relatives too. Have not done that much since arriving. The formalities of being Chinese.
28.10.2004 Earthquake #3 & #4
The man that predicted the earthquakes was correct. However, in an earlier statement, he did state that the earthquakes may not happen anymore due to the big earthquakes in Japan recently.
There was an earthquake in the city of Hualien and then one in the city of Ilan. This happened a tiny bit after 10am today!
This man can hear earthquakes?? Faitastic's Believe it or not~
27.10.2004 Guestbook
I have installed the free Yahoo Geocities Guestbook function. It should be present on the left hand side menu as Leave and View Blogs. The disadvantage to this guestbook is that it does not refer to any particular entry I have logged, and it will keep expanding down and down and down, requiring you to keep scrolling. Have I bagged it enough??
You can see the reason why I did not install it till now. I have found a few other blog leaving programs which require PHP etc. I have only looked into it briefly, so you will have to put up with this blogger for the time being. I have installed it as a last resort, as a few people have mentioned that they can't leave me messages online.
26.10.2004 Repent!
On the news today, they reported about the aftershocks of Japan's earthquake. This lead to the news showing the TW psychics again. i.e. The dude that can hear earthquakes and the astrologist. I listen to a radio station called ICRT in Taiwan. It stands for International Community Radio Taiwan. They speak a lot of English and bits and pieces of chinese on the station, so it is much easier for me to understand. The station actually has an online chat function. The DJs are usually present in the chatroom during their program, and you can often communicate real time with them.
Someone on the chatsite mentioned if anyone else saw the deal with the psychics. I asked what are some good pointers to survive if there is an earthquake. One guy told me to turn around and kiss my fanny and say goodbye to it.
The DJ at the time told me not to worry too much. He said that TW news is built up on sensationalism, and that if you worry too much about things like this, then you are not doing much for yourself. He said that when he used to live in San Francisco he used to walk out on the street and people would tell him to repent. He said he left most of that back in SF when he decided to move to Taiwan. I too have heard a few Taiwanese people tell others to repent in chinese.
25.10.2004 Typhoon Nock-ten
The fury of the detected typhoon 'Nock-ten' hit Taiwan the worst today. The word Nock-ten means 'bird' in Liaotian. Last night on the news many suburbs were advised whether they needed to go to work or to school. The typhoon has to be quite strong to be able to stop people from working or going to school. They usually post the suburbs that don't need to go on the TV and on the radio. I live in one of the suburbs that did not have to go to school/work. Kate however works in a suburb that was not on the list, and thus she still had to go to work. I think it is a bit crazy, as she lives in a suburb that was labelled unsafe to work.
A few people lost their lives today. One cameraman got blown over a bridge and fell into the rapids. An IT worker died from overwork and exhaustion from updating the details for the Central Weather Bureau. A man got flooded in his own house and died. A fisherman is lost at sea. A young military serviceman was helping the fire department when their truck got bogged. He went out to push the truck with others when a sudden flash flood swept him away. He only started work in September. It makes you think how precious life is, and how important your family and friends are to you.
24.10.2004 Psychics
I was watching the TV today, and there were a couple TV presenters interviewing some so-called special people. These people say that they have the ability to detect/predict earthquakes coming.
One particular gentleman said that he knew that the Saturday - 23/10/2004 Taipei earthquake was going to occur as he could hear it coming. He said his ears can hear earthquakes ever since the massive 921 earthquake happened years ago. Since then, he believes he can hear them coming with his special ability. I know anyone can hear an earthquake, but he can hear them coming in advance.
I don't know what you call them, but I am refering to those people that read the stars. A lady who is one of these people, I think they are called Astrologists. She believes that she has recently read the stars, and she expects that Taiwan will have an earthquake around December 25th-ish 2004.
I guess I cannot do too much to stop an earthquake from occuring. If it decides to unleash its power on the the tiny island. I guess I should just learn to live my life without worrying too much about these things. Of course, it is sometimes easier to say than to do.
23.10.2004 Temple/Monastery & Earthquake #2
I went to a temple in the suburb of Zhongli today. It is actually a temple and monastery side by side. There were many nicely architectured structures. It seems like a very nice and peaceful place compared to one other city temple I have been before. As this temple was located on more of a country type setting, it had greenery around it. On the grounds they had big ponds with coy carp fish inside them. The running water and the fish really softened the atmosphere even more. From their appearance I saw many monks from various countries all coming to this particular monastery in Taiwan to learn, I guess what monks learn.
After dinner, we took the train back to Hsinchu. When I got home that night, I turned on the television. After about 1/2 an hour, it was reported that there was an earthquake in Taipei at around 10:04pm. It was about 10:30pm when I saw this news flash. It was a number 4 earthquake, but only reached a 1 where I was situated, and thus, I did not notice it much at the time.
Scary stuff earthquakes. Japan got hit by one recently, which I think you would all know of from the news. They got hit by a 6.8 scaled Earthquake, and it caused massive damage to buildings, roads, and even de-railed a bullet train. Japan also recently got hit by a massive Typhoon. Seems like there are a lot of natural disasters this year.
22.10.2004 - Hot Dog
Today I went back to visit the in-laws again. I left on Friday afternoon without Kate, who was still at work. I went back earlier on purpose so that I could ride my Mother-in-laws motorcycle. Kate took hers to work, so I could not ride it. My sister-in-law only rides a 50cc one, and I need to get used to a larger engined bike. When I go for the exam later ( who know when ) it will need to be on at least a 125cc bike. Thus I believe it is better I practice on a 125cc bike.
I got onto the train and arrived in the city where the in-laws live. I walked to the local bank and waited for my sis-in-law to fix up her Bankcard. The ATM in Hsinchu did not like her card anymore, as I think the magnetic strip was dying. Like all banks, they need you to go to the branch where you opened it. That took quite a while, and we went to an arranged spot where were waited for my father-in-law to pick us up by car. While we were waiting, there was a little hawker store selling 'hot dogs'. I looked at the store and did not see any hot dogs, but only some dagwood dogs. My sister-in-law asked me if I wanted one, and without even waiting for a reply bought two.
When we got into the car, she told me to eat one. I refused to eat in the car, as I did not want to get tomato sauce all over the car. When I finally arrived at my 2nd home in TW, I wanted to eat the dagwood dog as I did not have breakfast, and it was already around 2:30pm at that time. I took a bite. To my surprise, it was not as tasty as I thought it would be. The fried batter surrounding the dog was sweet, and not savoury like the ones back home. I tasted like eating a sausage and medeira cake together with tomato sauce. So if you come to Taiwan, you can decide whether you want it try one of these or not. It is a taste you will have to experience for yourself.
By the way, I did not get a chance to ride the bike, as my mother-in-law took it to visit some relatives that afternoon. Real Bummer~!
21.10.2004 - Mr Whippy ~~
The rubbish man is coming. Yes, seriously he is arriving shortly here to my estate. How do I know? Does Fai have a sixth sense? Does he have the strength of the bear and the eyes of an eagle? Well, no, he only has telekynesis.
Ok, enough jokes, the rubbish dump trucks play music when they drive. This music is very loud. It is like the Mr Whippy Truck music, but they don't give you ice cream. In Taiwan, you have to dump the rubbish in the truck yourself. You have to run after it if you miss it. I don't have to run after it everyday as I live in a unit and we pay body corporate fees which includes dumping of rubbish. Having said that, I still have to take my rubbish downstairs to the basement. Some dude grabs it from there and empties it for us.
One time a lady on the news threw her rubbish in the truck and also her house keys. She went back to grab it, and had a nasty accident with her arm. She was on the news of course not because she lost her house keys only.
19.10.2004 - Motorcycle Licence
Today I went to do a health check. I have to do this before I can apply to do the motorcycle licence exam. When I first arrived in Taiwan, I went to the transport department, and tried to change over my Australian Drivers Licence to a Taiwanese one, but they would not allow it. The man stated that people from Queensland in Australia could not change their licence to a Taiwanese one. Only those who are from Canberra can change their licence to a Taiwanese one. I knew information similar to this before I came to Taiwan. In preparation, I photocopied my licence and got it Authenicated by the Taiwanese Economic and Cutural Office in Brisbane before I went to Taiwan to overcome this issue. This authenticated document did not help whatsoever.
Having gone through all my bike training in Australia and being able to legally ride up to a 1000cc bike, I was not too happy. I thought to myself I only want to ride a 125cc Automatic Scooter, not even a manual 500cc bike. Finally, I accepted it, after complaining once or twice on the way home.
Well, the health check is now complete and I have determined I can see the colour green and can read the numbers 0 to 9 in chinese. Later one day I will go for the paper exam and then the physical riding exam. Everything seems quite difficult to apply for here, especially with the language barrier. My sister-in-law helped me today while doing the health check, as filling in the forms is even difficult. They are all in Chinese, no english whatsoever. I wonder how all the Americans here got their licence. Oh, that is right, they don't live in Queensland, Australia. United States, the Canberra of Australia.
Check this out. Some of the 'motorcycle riding manual' questions are quite weird. For example:
Q. When riding a motorcycle on a road, (1) you do not need to follow the traffic signs. (2) you should follow the traffic signs, markings, signals indication. (3) traffic signs are not related to motorcycles, you can ignore them.
A. ( I wonder )
They are not all like that of course, however, there are quite a few of them on that level of dagginess.
18.10.2004 - First Birthday outside of Australia
I forgot to mention that I spent my first birthday outside of Australia in Taiwan, a couple of weeks ago. We went to a steak house here in Hsinchu City. It was big news recently on TV that a lot of beef in Taiwan is actually reconstituted beef. They were getting bits and pieces of different cow, and joining them together in a steak shape patty and then cut them into rectangles or circles. To me, they did not look that bad actually.
People were complaining about the quality of the meat. As some meat joined together were older than other pieces, this led people to believe there may be possible health issues. Others say that the taste is bad, and that some pieces of meat are not even from the same side of the cow. That is, it is not the same 'cut' of meat.
When I went to the restaurant that day, they did not have beef on the menu. I think the restaurant that I went to, actually used to sell meat like that. It should be cheaper to buy? I guess they most likely would have made more profit from it.
That night I ordered a chicken steak instead. Luckily they can not rejoin chickens into new ones, or I don't think they can. My chicken still had its drumstick bone attached still, and generally did not look like a fake piece of meat.
They had quite good service at that particular restaurant. The waiters and waitresses were smiling all night. I don't know how they can keep their face like that for so long. Maybe it is good practice later for wedding photos when they get married. The waiter brought my chicken over, and he even cut the bone out for me. My chicken could no longer bone me, as it was de-boned. It was not de-boned because I was special, or because it was my birthday, but because they do it for everyone as part of their service.
I looked around at the people who ordered fish, chicken and pork. They too had a waiter/waitress cut their fish etc open and take out all the bones. They would do that and then walk to their special waiting spot to smile a bit more. The price of the meal was not hugely expensive, but compared to other eateries, I guess you could say it was. Must be paying for all those damn smiles, and for the dude to cut out my damn chicken bone. I felt a little bit silly, as I waited for them to cut out my chicken bone. It made feel like I had some sort of disability for a split second, but then again, if I was paying that much more for de-boning, I guess it has to be done!
BTW - All belated birthday presents still welcomed :P~
15.10.2004 - EAAAARRRTHHHHQUAAAAKE!!!!!!
At exactly 12:08pm TW Time today, there was an earthquake that measured 7 on the richter scale. The entire apartment shook so badly. It started as a little tremor, and I thought that maybe someone dropped something upstairs or downstairs. It felt only small like when you are in the Sunnybank Shopping Centre foodcourt eating lunch, and the whole floor shakes, and you think oh.. dodgy construction, she'll be right. However, the shakes intensified, and caused us to stay in our chairs.
The hanging light and fan were shaking. My sister in law said to turn off the Television, as if it is a big one, the electrical wiring can disconnect and can cause fires. We are going off to get supplies tonight. We will get some dry goods, water, and some torches, and stick them in a bag.
It was reported on the news minutes later.
13.10.2004 - Transport
There are several main forms of traffic in Taiwan which are similar to most other countries. These forms of traffic include Train, Motorcar, Motorcycle ( Standard/Scooter/Moped ), Bus, Taxi, Bicycle, Walking and more.
To my knowledge there are a few types of Train. There is Light Rail, which is kinda like a monorail, you can find this type in Taipei and maybe some other places. There is the normal above ground rail, and there is the subway type ones (MRT). On the Light Rail and Subway (MRT) you are not allowed to have chewing gum/drinks/food inside, or you may cop a big fine. On the normal train, you can eat and drink.
Like Australia, the standard trains also come as an express, which only stop at major cities. Those which are not express stop at all stations. I usually catch the one that stops at all stations, as the in-laws live at a station which is not such a big city. The only advantage of catching a train which stops at all stations is that it is a little cheaper in price.
Cars are everywhere. You can see the trend to move more towards smaller cars, as the roads in Taiwan are very narrow, extremely narrow in fact. In Hsinchu where I am currently staying, I heard from a friend that it has been established for quite some time, but it has only become a little more popular after the opening of the Science and Technology Park and thus increasing the amount of workers and factories opening around the area. I also heard that the roads are quite narrow as there was not much town planning for this city as it has been established for quite some time now, and previously there were not so many cars here.
Motorcycles ( Scooter/Moped ) is one of the main form of transport used by the country. Motorcycles are flying in and out of streets everywhere. Standard sizes include 50/70/90/100/125/ 150/250. You will mostly see 50cc or 125cc bikes around the place. Bikes are more economical in comparison with a car costing about $A1600 to $A2500 for a 50cc/125cc respectively. Those figures are just rough estimates of course. You can see they are much cheaper than a car, and cheaper to feed fuel too.
Walking is done for short distances only. Most people here will decide to ride their bike or scooter than to walk. However, at night, after dinner, you will see a lot of people doing daily exercise in the park. Taiwanese believe you should walk slowly straight after a meal. Personally, I prefer not to walk straight after a meal. A little while after is okay for me, but not straight after. Always had a fear of appendicitous, although I do know that is usually caused by jumping vigorously.
As mentioned before, the roads are very narrow. To me, when I walk out on the road, it seems like I am going to get run over every 3 seconds due to the narrowness of the roads and 2 way traffic, and dudes that park their cars on the sides in no parking zones. These dudes are called 'Che Ba' in Chinese, which stands for 'Car Hogs' if you want a rough translation. My relatives laugh at me when I walk on the road, as I am always looking around. Of course I am looking around a lot, the bloody cars and bikes are nearly taking my head off every 3 seconds. They said just walk and don't look back. "No one will deliberately come to hit you in the head. They are more worried to hit you than you are worried of being hit". That did not make me feel much better. You have to be here to know what I mean. On the other hand, maybe I am a wimp?!?
12.10.2004 - Invisible Man
When I am walking around in Taiwan sometimes I speak chinese to Kate sometimes I don't. When I don't understand something, then I usually ask her in front of others in English, this way it makes me feel as though I don't look as silly~. (Yes Sam/Giscard/Others I do speak Mandarin, but it is not totally fluent and vocab is a little limited in many places so :P~ to you).
Sometimes I deliberately try to use chinese so that I fit in like any other Taiwanese person. When people can't tell the difference between me and others it sometimes makes me feel like I am invisible. Why? Foreigners get a lot of attention in Taiwan, usually in a good way. I read somewhere recently that only 2% of Taiwan's population is made up of foreigners, so they are looked upon with much positive curiousity. The country is english crazy with many foreigners having published one or more english language books.
To me it seems like most ABCs (American Born Chinese) or those that have lived abroad for some time and now have fluent english have returned back to become some boy/girl band and are seen on Host/Guest Interview programs all day.
11.10.2004 - Touchdown! Quick Update
since arriving
Comments Made:
GrantJ: How come I was not mentioned to be at the airport that day? -- Grant was at the Airport that day, and took a photo of my parents and I together
I caught the 10am (Brisbane Time) flight on Eva Airways to Taiwan on the 9th September 2004. I was supposed to arrive in Taiwan around 7:15pm (Brisbane Time). However, the plane did not land until about 8pm Brisbane time. There wasn't heaps of turbulence that day, but in a couple cases there were strong short bursts. When I left the Brisbane airport it was raining. When I arrived in Taiwan it was raining. I believe there was a typhoon which had just disappatted a few days before my arrival. The flight left Brisbane a bit late that morning. My parents said bye to me quite a few times that day, I guess they were worried about me, as I have never left home before for such a long period of time, being mum's boy and all.
When the plane was nearing the Chiang Kai Shek Taipei Airport which is actually not situated in Taipei, but in Taoyuan, go figure, there was heaps of turbulence. For the last 10 minutes of the flight it felt like we were circling down for about ? an hour. Some people on the plane were not feeling well.
There was one particular girl who went to the toilet a few times with her paper bag as she was not well. When she came out, she sat in the chair diagonally behind me. I turned around and saw her dying there in her chair. I felt bad for her, as anyone who knows me well enough knows I myself, hate flying. Everytime I fly, I feel like I am going to hurl. I offered her a piece of sweet dry ginger. My mum said that ginger helps when you get motion sickness (some Chinese remedy). To my surprise it did help a lot, as although I did not feel great I did not have any major outbreaks on the plane that day either.
Anyway, the girl says to me in Chinese "Is it dried plum?" and I said "What?" because I was not ready for a line in Chinese. She repeated herself, and I said "No", it is "Ginger". Not expecting her to take it, since I was a complete stranger offering an already open packet of some strange substance, she grabbed a piece from the packet and put it in her mouth, and said "Thanks". She later went back to her own chair a few seats down, and filled in her arrival card.
The plane while going through slight turbulence did 2 slight dips/drops, like the plane just gave up on its engines and then instantaneously started again. It totally scared the 'poo poo' out of me, as I nearly coughed up some human fishing burley, luckily the plane did not do the second one straight after. The time between the first and second drop allowed me to keep my breakfast and lunch down. Holding the soft but coarse covered 'Eva Air cushion' and 'Eva Air blanket' tight to my stomach to warm it up a bit more definately helped me pass through my flying experience. I arrived safe in Taipei. I mean Taoyuan, Taipei, Taoyuan, Taipei, T... Time for John Laws "Taoyuan, you know what I mean".
There is a 2 hour backward time difference in Taiwan from Brisbane, which does not give any jet lag when you arrive, but makes it difficult to talk to some people back home when you get home from dinner, as everyone is already asleep.
People in Taiwan usually get up early and go to bed late. As we all know the stores here also open quite early and close very late. Some of the breakfast stores here open around 5am usually, and close around 11am. Their main aim is to sell breakfast only. Most department stores open everyday around 10am and close at 10pm. have been to see 2 movies since being here in Taiwan. One of of the movies being "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" and the other being "Alien VS Predator". The movie cinemas here in Taiwan are pretty much the same as in Australia, with the only difference being that you can choose the seats you want. This has advantages and disadvantages. I don't know why the 'Predator' in the 80's version had to chase the 'Californian Governor' around the bush because according to this new movie they had already put Aliens on the Earth for fun?? For anyone who has not watched the movie, I just ruined the show for you. Surprise! Want to kick my ass for that? Well, come to Taiwan, and I will welcome you with smog and crazy traffic.
A lot of people already know that when I came to Taiwan, I was in a big rush due to other duties. On my list of to do items, one was to burn the data on my HDD to DVD before I left; something I did not have a chance to do, and guess what? I go out to 'Sunfar' it is like a Taiwanese 'Harvey Norman Computer Store' and get myself a caddy. When I stick my 1 year d Gig HDD into my 3.5 Firewire Caddy and plug it into my Notebook, it decides to have some fun with my MFT and kill it. After lots of painstaking fun with various free and shareware data recovery software I finally find and save an old Resume and an old Cover Letter.
So here I am just telling myself that my Resume and Cover Letter needed updating anyway. What
about all the other stuff?? I lost all my photo collection since purchasing my Canon IXUS Digital
which is about 3-4 years of photos, not to mention photos I scanned by hand previously before
Digital Cameras were popular, and Utilities and Music files I have been collecting, since owning my
first computer back in High School. When I think about all those late nights I upgraded and copied
all the CR*P to my newer and larger HDD, and it now being all gone, I feel totally S**T.
Oh well, like I always say.. "Life goes on".
I will update again soon. Bye for now.. going to the local teaching college for some exercise, they have a running track there. I have put on 2 kilos since being here.
Give us a quick email one day or a message on the MSN. I don't use my ICQ as much as I used to, as I am on a slow computer here, so I hardly open both at the same time. You can check here for updates if you want. I am not too sure how often I will update it.
Now here is a good reason for a boring black and white TEXT only website. It loads faster.. so you won't waste as much time waiting for it to load, if I don't update the page.
09.09.2004 (We have Liftoff)
I left for the island of Taiwan~