Taipei, Taiwan - Random Sites

During our trip to Taiwan we actually didn't get the chance to see that much. Since we went there during Chinese New Year, a national holiday, most of the tourist sites were closed. We were able to see a few landmarks - at least from the outside.

This is the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. It is a memorial to the Republic of China's National Father, Dr.Sun Yat-sen, and was completed on May 16, 1972. As the hall was opened in the very beginning, its main displays were revolutionary events of the national father at the end of the Qing Dynasty. Recently it became a multi-purpose social, educational and cultural center for the Taiwanese public.

I was impressed by the bright red colours only to discover it doesn't always look like this. Most of the time it's a basic concrete grey colour. The red was added due to Chinese New Year.

Although the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall was closed due to Chinese New Year, I was able to take this photo of the Dr. Sun Yat-sen statue through the window. It's a huge statue and deserves your respect! If you doubt this, look at the sign at the base. It reads, "Salute, Please." How many statues deserve this kind of respect?

Behind us in this photo is the 101 building. The 101 was the world's tallest building. It was overtaken in height on July 21, 2007 by the Burj Dubai building in Dubai. The 101 has a 360 degree observation floor at the top. Due to the lousy cloudy weather during our stay in Taipei we decided not to take advantage of the 360 viewpoint. There's nothing exciting about being on top of the world's second tallest building and seeing only grey clouds.

Behind us here is the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. It is a monument erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of Taiwan. A new name for the structure, National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall was announced by President Chen Shui-bian on May 19, 2007. In subsequent legal wrangling, the legislature repealed the regulations supporting the new name. In effect this annulled the change, though legislators generally declined to declare the old name preserved. Legislators belonging to the President's own Democratic Progressive Party attacked the annulment move as infringing upon the power of the central government. The new name remains, as you can tell by the photo below:

The monument, surrounded by a park, stands at the east end of a large square framed on the north and south by Taiwan's National Theater and National Concert Hall. The entire plaza is located within sight of Taiwan's Presidential Office Building in the Zhongzhen District of Taipei.

As you leave the plaza (or enter the plaza depending on your point of view) you're greeted by this huge amazing arch. As we walked out of the plaza and passed the arch I noticed a friendly kind old man feeding the pigeons. What a nice old man, I thought, taking time out of his busy day to feed the poor hungry pigeons. My group and I stood there for a while watching the nice old man. This kind gesture made me feel at peace with the world. As I stood there thinking happy thoughts and started daydreaming I got dragged back to reality when someone in the group yelled, "that man just stole a pigeon!" I looked over to the 'kindly' old man and saw nothing out of the ordinary. He was still standing in the same spot feeding the pigeons. I said, "I don't see him stealing pigeons." After some debate I grew bored of the topic and looked away. Once again, a member of our group said, "look, he took another one. He grabbed it, put it into a paper bag and threw it into his car." I looked over again. I didn't see the evil pigeon stealing old man that everyone else saw. I just saw the kind old man feeding the poor defenceless starving pigeons. Was I blind or is the rest of the group insane? Sadly, for the sake of pigeon, I soon discovered I was blind. I finally saw what everyone else did. I saw him quickly (very quickly considering his age) grab a pigeon, throw it into a paper bag, and then toss that bag into his car. A friend of ours who lives in Taiwan said the old man is probably stealing the pigeons to train them to race. I hope that's the case. I hope these pigeons are given a better life training for the pigeon Olympics and not becoming this evil old man's next dinner.

The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum in Taipei. It holds one of the largest collections of Chinese artifacts and artwork in the world. Thankfully it was open so we were able to go inside and see the awesome collection.

Here's Aimee, with her usual photo standing pose, standing in front of the National Palace Museum.

Rain. It was wet and it was miserable. Thankfully the happy baby blue umbrellas we were given made the weather experience slightly more tolerable.

Here's the clan walking around and seeing the sites.

Everywhere we went I saw arcades/shops filled with these prize machines. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hooked on putting money inside and attempting my skill (or is it luck?) with the magical grappling claw. With the amount of money I wasted on these machines I could have just went to a store and bought my own stupid cheaply made toy.

Look into our eyes. Play the machine, play the machine, play the machine...

On the Taipei subway I was amazed by the amount of safety signs plastered all over. The sign above is only slightly funny but the sign below really made me laugh.

OH NO! The baby might get blown over during a freak subway wind storm!

Yeah yeah, I know there can be harsh wind in the tunnels as the trains approach, but this warning sign still made me laugh.

Toilet Heaven & Toilet Hell

Now I'm not the kind of person who makes a big deal about toilets. You use them privately and you don't generally talk about the experience with others. I'm breaking the 'unspoken toilet rule' for this blog.

Upon checking into our hotel in Taipei I noticed we were given an executive suite. A beautiful and spacious one bedroom hotel room that had a separate living room area, bedroom area, walk in closet, and two bathrooms. The master bathroom even had an amazing shower with separate bathtub. If all this wasn't amazing enough I was totally blown away when I went over to use the toilet.
The toilet was computerized! It had a heated seat that was temperature controlled!

On the control panel you adjusted the temperature. Once you completed your messy business there was a choice between either a front or a back spout of water that came out to wash your backside. The water that came out of this spout was also temperature controlled with the added bonus of being able to control the pressure of the water. If that wasn't thrilling enough there was a temperature controlled blow dryer that dried the water off your freshly washed bottom. It's like a spa for your bum!

Normally all this awesome bum spa treatment is something I'd talk about privately with Aimee and only Aimee but I bring it up here because once we left the protective fortress of the posh hotel bathroom I had to use the toilet below:

What the hell is this? No heated toilet seat. NO TOILET SEAT AT ALL! No temperature controlled water kindly washing your nether regions. Nothing. The only water that comes close to washing your backside is the water that voilently splashes everywhere once you flush the damn thing.

The next time you're in a public washroom and the toilet seat is slightly dirty, consider yourself lucky my friends. You're in the world of luxury in comparison to THIS!

Taiwan - Food

Taiwan like most international cities has a wonderful diverse selection of foods to chose from. During our trip there we ate in Korean restaurants, Japanese restaurants, Chinese restaurants and most importantly, food from street vendors. I say 'most importantly' because street food vendors were everywhere. It's amazing the diversity of foods you can get off those small carts. Most of the foods you buy are portable. 'Food on a stick' is the easiest way to describe it.

Fishballs (on a stick) and fruit stands.

Interested in some meat? This vendor had every species of animal on a stick you could possibly ever want. I opted for the tofu and squid selections (on a stick of course!).

After you chose your selection this guy starts BBQing your meat. After a couple of minutes on the grill your snack is ready - piping hot!

Meat on a stick isn't enough? This lady is selling corn ... on a stick.

More stick food. What I found interesting about the street food vendors in Taipei is although you can find them everywhere, it's actually against the law to sell street food. While we were eating our meat on a stick we noticed large groups of street food carts were quickly rushing in our direction. Suddenly the guy we bought our food from grabbed his cart and started pushing it quickly in the direction all the other street food vendors were going. Some of the vendors continued to cook while their carts were being pushed. Think of it as a massive caravan of food carts racing down the street! At the end of this caravan there was one police office on a motorbike forcing the food vendors to leave. We stood and watched this interesting site (occasionally biting into some meat on a stick) until all the vendors were so far in the distance we couldn't see them anymore. Five minutes went by and then I noticed the carts were all coming back! They came back, parked their carts at the same location as before, opened up shop, and started cooking again. Another five minutes went by and the police officer came back! Same as before, the caravan of food vendors grabbed their carts and started rushing away. Guess what? Once again they came back, set up shop, and continued to cook food.
I found out later that although it's illegal to sell street food the vendors never get punished. There's no tickets ever written or jail time ever served. The most the police ever do is chase the vendors away knowing full well they will be back. I guess the police know that these carts, for most of the vendors, are the only income they have. If you take that away they have nothing. So everyday there's this cat and mouse game played. The police come to chase them away but the food always gets cooked and eaten!

This shop was selling various snacky food in front of their store. The huge mound of yellow stuff is actually dried squid.

We stopped off for at this restaurant that specialized in wheat grass deserts.

The black stuff is the wheat grass. The other things in the bowl are flavoured tapioca.

This desert is called aiya. It's made from a type of seed (sorry, I don't know what the seed is). It has the consistancy of watery jello and served cold in a bowl with ice. It has a citrus type taste to it.

More eating! Yes, we did a lot of eating this trip! We stopped off at this famous restaurant that serves only oyster noodle soup.



This video shows how amazingly fast this guy was serving out the soup to the customers.



The restaurant had no tables or chairs. It was just a store front. After buying their soup, customers had to eat it standing up on the sidewalk and street. As you can tell by this video this place is pretty popular.

Next stop, an underground cocaine processing factory!

Just kidding, these guys aren't cutting and bagging cocaine, they're making dumplings.

See, dumplings! Would I lie to you?

This photo was taken at the Chiayi Distillery. It's famous for it's rice wines.

All of their wide selection of wines are packaged in special artistic bottles.

I was excited when I found out we were going here because it brought back memories of the great times Aimee and I had on wine tours in the past. Well, rice wine and grape wine are two different worlds! As we sampled the wines I felt my insides slowly being dissolved away.

And after a while, I couldn't handle the taste anymore. This photo is showing me sampling their rice wine that's fermented with ... chicken fat! Yes chicken fat! It apparently has health benefits. Health benefits or not, I wasn't enojying my chicken fat rice wine. It was pretty hard to swallow.

The distillery had a great informative museum attached to the wine shop. It documented the history of not only the distillery but rice wine as well. How rice wine is made. How it's aged. How it's bottled... There was even a section that showed a timeline of all the bottles used over the years.

As you can tell, they've had a wide diversity of bottles over the years!

Before we returned back to the Philippines we ate our last meal in a Japanese restautant. All of the food courses came out beautifully decorated. I really liked how they displayed this desert. I loved the chair. I was debating on hiding it in my coat and leaving the restaurant with it. It would make an awesome cellphone holder. Thankfully good Kenn beat out evil Kenn and I didn't steal the chair.



The finally posting on this blog is the awesome techno sounds of sushi. Now I know there's nothing original about a sushi conveyor belt. We even have them in Vancouver. I just thought watching the sushi slowly creep by with the sounds to techno music in the background is actually quite relaxing. So if you're feeling a little stressed, here you go! Watch the sushi ... all your troubles and fears will melt away!

I think I gained 5 pounds during this trip!

Happy Lunar New Year

Happy Chinese New Year!
This Chinese New Year we had the pleasure of celebrating it in Taipei, Taiwan. Here are some photos I took during the celebrations:

Year of the rat! On the first day of the Lunar New Year Aimee and I went to visit an old famous temple in Taipei called Lung-Shan Temple. This rat was sitting outside the entrance.

When we arrived it was obvious we weren't the only ones who decided to visit the temple this day. There were long line ups to get inside.

We got in line and slowly shuffled our way closer through the front doorway. The air was thick with incense smoke. It was actually pretty difficult to breath at times.



This video shows the crowds and smoke in the temple.

Once inside I noticed hundreds of people were moving around and briefly stopping with their incense to pray at various points all over the temple. Because of the huge crowds, I found myself being lead by the masses of bodies to these various points because it was difficult to move away from the main direction people were going. Most people in the crowd were holding the incense well above their heads so they wouldn't burn people in the crowd. This may work for most people but for me I found myself dodging these incense sticks because above their heads is my eye level. Hundreds of sticks in incense threatening to poke out my eyes! Thankfully my eyes are safe and my clothing ended up with no burn marks.

Lighting the incense sticks.

This fire container was used to burn the incense sticks once people were finished with them.

At night we went to a different temple. It was much smaller but it had its own unique character.

At night the lanterns were an amazing site.

Who's this Canadian-Pinoy-Boy celebrating Chinese new year?

Yeah, I know I already included a photo of some lanterns but I figured since everywhere I turned I ended up seeing lanterns you might as well see more than one photo of them. See, it's amazing site!

I never really thought of neon as something you could mix with religion. I always thought of neon lights as things you see in bars and restaurants. But when you mix blue neon lights with larger than life statues decked out in red patterned clothing you end up with something nothing short of a religious experience. The sites, the smells and the buzzing sound of neon oddly brings you closer to God. Or at least the feeling of God.

Fireworks! They were everywhere!

We even had some!
These sparklers were fine, but unfortunately some of our other fireworks were faulty. Our group bought a standard roman candle type of firework. It had three feet on the bottom which allowed it to stand on the ground. The roman candle worked well enough but it was one of the feet that had an issue. You see, once the flames of colour started shooting out the top one of the feet broke and the whole roman candle tipped over. Out shot colourful fireballs into ... crowds of people! Yes people. Like World War III our firework was blasting fireballs into the crowded street. People were screaming. People were shocked. People more angry and yelling at us... Especially this one woman. Boy was she pissed! I'm glad I didn't understand enough Mandarin to know what she was saying because I'm sure it wasn't polite. I'm sure she wasn't invited us out for tea. I'm sure she wasn't congratulating us on our fine show of fireworks. I'm sure she wasn't asking us to be the Godparents of her next batch of children. She was rage incarnate. After a while she calmed down and we all went off in our merry way.

Next time we'll stick with the sparklers.

Canadian Soil

Today I was in Canada!
Or to be more precise, today I was on Canadian soil.
I went to the Canadian embassy in Manila to renew my passport.
Walking into the embassy felt like walking into any government building in Canada. There were Canadian flags everywhere! There were posters on the walls (in English and French) talking about various information about Canada, and there were video screens showing beauty shots from every Province. Interestingly enough, 'every Province' usually seems to mean BC, Alberta, Ottawa, Ontario, and PEI. I saw video showing the mountains and lush forests of BC, the wheat fields of Alberta, the government landmarks of Ottawa, the amazing sites of Niagara Falls in Ontario, and various shots of lighthouses in PEI. I didn't see anything from Quebec, Manitoba or the remaining Provinces. And nothing from the Territories. Doesn't poor misunderstood Nunavut Territory deserve some respect? At least show a shot of an Eskimo (or Inuit if you prefer). Maybe I'm just being picky because I used to edit tourism videos for Canada. And after a while, my trademark became always adding an eskimo into the mix. This trademark became difficult to fulfill once I started editing tourist videos for Vancouver. You'd be hard pressed to locate an eskimo in Vancouver; even when the weather gets really cold! But enough about my anal viewpoint of tourism videos, back to the embassy!
I brought my PSP with me so I could occupy my time while I waited. Bad idea, I should have brought a book. All electronics were temporarily confiscated at the door. So once inside, I was forced to read the supplied Canadian propaganda pamphlets. While I sat there I was serenaded by the beautiful sounds of Loreena McKennitt. A good relaxing choice for a Canadian embassy's waiting room music. I probably would have gone postal with Celine Dion or Anne Murray. There's nothing more embarrassing than being thrown out of your country's embassy because you start attacking people with propaganda pamphlets. So I waited, and I listened. The number being displayed on the screen was 2001. My number was 2005. Numbers 2001, 2002, and 2003 ended up being old, fat white guys needing to get legal documents that will allow them to marry their young, skinny Filipino girlfriends. I guess I shouldn't be too critical of them. 4 years ago I too was sitting in the embassy needing to get legal documents to marry my young, skinny Filipino girlfriend. The only difference in my case is I'm not old and fat (unless I'm in denial). Getting this legal documentation is pretty easy. So 2001 to 2003 were in and out of the counselor's office pretty quickly. 2004 has some issues because she kept leaving the office (which got me excited because I assumed I was next) and then immediately running back in. She did this at least 4 times. Finally it was 2005, meaning me! Success! Passport will be ready on March 8th.
Thank you Canada!
I only wish they were handing out maple syrup and poutine at the door to make it a real Canadian experience!

Sex Sells

Sex sells.

It's proven.

Stick an attractive model or actress (or actor for that matter) with your product and you will sell more.

Works wonderfully.

But here in the Philippines the chosen products are just a little bit weirder.

Using sex to sell cup noodles? Corned beef? Spam? FLOUR???

Just weird.

Look at the photo below:

Need a closer look? Okay, here you go...

Now I'm not much of a chicken eater but somehow this ad isn't making me rush out and eat more chicken. Isn't this kind of disgusting? I've always thought how attractive girls look so much more sexy when there's a huge chunk of meat hanging from their lips.

Slap on the bbq sauce baby because this meal is getting sexy!