Flying Monkey Theme - The Wizard of OzFlying Monkey Theme - The Wizard of Oz
So, I flew to Taiwan on China Air. Bad idea. The door
right next to my seat was not closed all of the way, so we made
the trip partially de pressurized and with the wind whistling in
my ear. I thought that any moment, it would fly open all the way
and suck me out. It was the longest two hours of my life.
When we finally arrived in Taipei, Kelvin was there waiting for
me. Great! Kelvin is a good guy, and very responsible, so perhaps
this trip will be a bit more organized.
The owner of our business partner is at our hotel waiting for
us. He wants to have dinner with us and talk about the schedule
for the next day. Good. But dinner is godaweful. He orders
for us (I can't read the menu; it's in Chinese only), and we get
"Drunken Chicken", some dish with earthworms, some soup
that looks like radiator water (and tasted like dishwater),
another soup that seemed to simply be blobs of pork fat floating
in vinegar, and fried fish heads.
To make matters worse, I got the distinct impression that he
would rather not have had me there at all.
The next morning, Kelvin and I are waiting for our host to
show up, and he's way late. He calls on Kelvin's cell, and
requests we take a cab over to China Telecom and meet them there.
To get into China Telecom, I have to leave my passport with their
security, because I am a foreign devil. This makes me
uncomfortable, as the US has no official relations with the ROC,
and thusly no one to help if there is trouble. The Chinese fleet
was currently parked offshore doing war games, and later on we
heard the guns from the battleships. Eery. Not a good time to be
a foreigner without a passport.
The visit at Telecom dragged on, and on, and on, and on for days!
I could not speak slow enough for them to understand my English
(I suspect that many of the didn't really speak English; but
would have lost face to admit it) So, Kelvin translated much of
the time. Kelvin could have done the presentation himself, and
saved a lot of bother.
We eventually finished, and headed out to another customer. This
was even worse, as they wanted me to use their machine for my
demo, and it was running Chinese Windows! I couldn't drive the
demo, as I can't read Chinese, And it was made worse as the guy
driving the computer couldn't understand A word I said (his
English sucked).
But apparently, they liked the technology as they asked us to
stay pretty late.
That evening, Kelvin and I were invited to go out to dinner
with the whole office. We headed out of Taipei, to some hot
springs in the mountains nearby. The food here was even worse
than the night before, and our hosts were not even familiar with
most of it. I eventually asked Kelvin if this was normal, and he
said that most of the dishes were ordered especially for me, and
no one there had ever had any of them before. They all thought it
would be a hoot to see me eat the weird shit.
On the way home, we stopped at a scenic overview of the city, and
one of the girls asked if I would like to go with her to
"watch the planes land"
Ok, I ask Kelvin "What did she just say?"
He replies that the airport is a favorite make out spot, as the
planes come close to the roofs of the cars, which gives the girls
an excuse to hold their escorts tight and claim that they are
afraid.
Today is Saturday, and our business partner wanted us to
attend their company picnic. Kelvin begged off, as we had been on
the road for nearly a month now. So, that left the day free for
Kelvin and I to explore Taipei. We walked all over the place,
went to the national museum (real cool) and generally enjoyed
ourselves. Taipei is full of scooters; they appear to outnumber
cars. From my hotel room, I saw a parking lot the size of 3
football fields dedicated to Scooters. From the height I was at,
they looked like motorcycles, so I emailed my friend Tayward (a
raving motorcycle enthusiast) and told him about them.
The Taiwanese are fond of their heros. We saw a whole complex
dedicated to Sun Yat Sen, and then wandered over to a memorial dedicated to Chaing Kai Shek. We
spent a good amount of time there, and watched the changing of
the honour guard. All in all,
Taipei was a lot like a keyed down Singapore with bad food.
We're
not in Kansas any more! (Part I) |
