Motorcycle, or Another Reason for my Mother to Worry

I bought a motorcycle. I'm probably going to die on it. Test driving (riding?) it, I almost got hit by a scooter. I'm sure I've said this before, but it bears repeating-- traffic here is insane. (By the way, Mom, I'm just kidding-- I'm not going to die!) My bike is a Yamaha 150. The dealer said it's seven years old, but I suspect it's a little older. Runs well, though. Not my favorite style ever, but I think it'll work. The price was good. I can't afford the time to keep looking too much, anyway. And the trouble of not having a quick form of independent transportation. I don't have any photos, but I'll post them when I do. I pick it up tomorrow. The dealer's supposed to put new mirrors and saddlebags on it. Sweet.

By the way, bikes, like everything in Taiwan, are smaller than they are elsewhere. Most scooters are 100s or 125s. There are 50s, too. To ride a 50, you need only pass the written test at the DMV, not the riding test. Over 50, you need both. And 250 and over, you need both and another special riding test, the details of which I'm unsure. They classify these bikes as "light," "regular heavy," and "huge heavy motorbike." Yeah, "huge heavy."

One tricky thing about motorcycles here is the gear pattern. Apparently Taiwan (and maybe China) use a different gear pattern than the rest of the world. For example, in the US, a motorcycle uses this pattern:

5
4
3
2
N
1

Starting from neutral, you shift down to first, and when you're in motion and you shift up hard, you skip right over neutral. Then you shift up and up, etc. If you hit a stoplight or need to stop for some reason, you can gradually shift down to lower gears, and shift all the way down until it won't go shift again, and you know you're in first for an easy start when the stoplight turns green. When you need to put the bike back in neutral, you generally start from first and lightly pull it up until you feel it slip into neutral. Easy enough, right?

Here's how it's done in Taiwan:

N
1
2
3
4
5
N
1
2
3
4
5
N
1
2
etc....

It's a loop! You start in neutral, and shift down for first, down for second, on and on. Once you hit fifth, if you shift down again, you're back in neutral. Shift down yet again, and you're back in first. This could take some getting used to. It seems a bit dangerous to me, as there's no absolute top and bottom to the gear pattern. If you're in motion, you can't be exactly sure of what gear your in. It could be trouble if you accidentally shift into neutral, and even more trouble if you shift into first from fifth, or something like that. I'll just play it safe until I get the hang of it.

End Act I

Act I has drawn to a close, as we officially ended the orientation today.  Tomorrow, many of us will spend the day at our schools with our co-teachers, preparing for the students' first day, which is Wednesday.

This morning we had a member of the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange introduce us to a new website the FSE set up specifically for the ETAs to share ideas, files, photos, lesson plans, etc.  There's an upload/download function as well as forums, bulletins and a couple of other features.  I guess that could be handy.

We had lunch, then a brief discussion of some loose ends, and then most of us headed to Holiday KTV in Luodong.  Karaoke tends to be a little different here.  Holiday is a chain, and like most other joints, it's of the rent-a-private-lounge-and-DJ-your-own-party variety.  Most karaoke I've done in the US took place in smokey bars.  It's a bit harder to loosen up sans spirits and in the middle of the afternoon.  We did our best, however, alternating between tacky American songs and melodramatic Chinese pop.  I think I'd do it again.

Wherever you go
Whatever you do
I will be right here waiting for you

Surfin' USA.

And by special request, here's a photo I forgot to post.  I was excited to discover this restaurant had my favorite drink!  File under "O" for "Oops."

Weekend in Luodong

I spent the weekend at home, getting a little more settled in and exploring Luodong.  Viktor moved to Yilan, Zach moved in.  Zach and I both wanted Viktor's room, which is the biggest, has a nice wardrobe and a dresser, and a small balcony with a great view of the sports park and the city, all the way to the coast and Turtle Island.  Of course I can see that from my room too, but my bed is right below the window, and even if I clamber around on it, I kind of have to gaze around the ugly building next door to see what I want.  So Zach and I flipped a coin for it, and he won.  That's the second time I lost that room!  I guess it wasn't meant to be.  Que sera...  The good news is, I'm pretty happy with my room as is, and it has the only A/C and dehumidifier in the apartment.  So it's pretty fair either way.  The options are cool and cramped or spacious and sweaty.

Friday they had a couple of buses get everyone moved into their new apartments, so I loaded my bicycle onto the bus from Yilan to Luodong.  This weekend was the first time I had my bike in Luodong, so I tried to expand my exploring range a little bit.  Saturday I rode down to the train station and perused some stores along the way.  I wove around off the main road (Gong Jheng) coming back, and found a few points of interest, like a decent grocery store and the computer/electronics store.  I also found this video game arcade, which seems to include regular coin-op video games, an internet cafe exclusively for gaming, a pachinko style casino, and somewhere there's a bowling alley, which I didn't see.  Not that I'm into any of that, except bowling, but it was a surprisingly large place.

On my way home, I stopped at 85C, which is a chain of coffeeshops in Taiwan.  It's ok.  I ordered a drink, finally just standing on my toes to point at the menu, which was bilingual, when not one of the several staff members could understand me.  As I was sitting outside drinking, a tall, skinny white guy biked up and sat down at my table.  We introduced ourselves and talked a while.  His name is Kyle, 23 years old, from Denver, Colorado.  He's been in Taiwan only two weeks, and he's teaching English at a junior high school.  Both the school and his apartment are very near our apartment.  I think he was a little excited to see an American, but so was I for that matter.  It'll be nice to have a friend or at least a contact from outside my own program.

Later Saturday, my roommates and I met up with Joel, Ben, Julian, and Sienna at the Luodong night market.  They had taken the train here.  It was raining, so I bought an umbrella.  We decided to head toward a couple of restaurants closer to the apartment, and Conroy proceeded to stress everyone out by wanting to know exactly where we were going.  We settled on a covered, outdoor place that looked kind of like a beer garden but was more of a restaurant.  We managed to drink a little, however.  Ben's birthday was the next day, and neighboring tables sent over a couple of bottles, for no aparent reason.  Xia xia!

Today, I slept in and then struck out on my own.  Had lunch at a little Buddhist lunch joint.  Basically, if I'm on my own and don't want to eat from a 7-11, I have a few options:
1. Find a place with a bilingual menu.
2. Find a place with a picture menu.
3. Take my chances by gesturing and using the few words I know.
4. Or look for a sign with a big swastika.
See, ironically, the swastika is a Buddhist symbol, misappropriated for intentions a little less benign than those of the enlightened one.  Taiwan has a large Buddhist population, and the more devoted followers are vegetarian.  They also avoid onions, garlic and other foods which are considered sexual stimulants.  So I know the food is animal-free, even if it can be a tiny bit bland.  I managed to order some tofu and fried rice, which was fantastic.

I wandered around until I found the particular salon I'd seen days ago and liked.  Tata, a place on Gong Jheng Rd.  Like most salons I'd peeked at, it was chic and minimalist and cute.  The whole experience was nothing like getting a haircut in the States.  First, I walked in and a young woman started speaking Chinese to me, so I managed to only ask her how much for a cut, because the place was pretty posh and looked expensive.  $500NT, which is about $16US, so I went for it.  First she sat me on a chair and proceeded to speak lots of Chinese at me, to which I shook my head unceasingly.  Budong... budong...  Dui bu chi.-- I don't understand... I don't understand...  I'm sorry.  Finally a young man asked me to please follow, so I went to the back where the young woman washed my hair.  Wow-- I thought people were exaggerating when they said a haircut includes a 30-40 minute shampoo/head and neck massage, but they weren't.  This was insanely relaxing.  Apparently people sometimes just pay for this portion, and now I see why.  After all this, she sat me back in the front room, where I got stared at a little bit.  Finally a young guy came over and asked me in some painful English what I wanted done.  I could tell language was hopeless, so I just gestured with my fingers, "short on the sides, longer on top," and he got it.  There seems to be a real heirarchy in these places.  I think the woman who washed my hair was at the bottom, training to be the apprentice type person, who gets to do things like blow dry and tend to the actual stylist.  So the guy who cut my hair, Kenny-- I gathered from the huge letters tattooed on his forearm, and I asked him-- was the stylist.  He had an apprentice, who waited on him, carting around his scissors and trimmers, etc., and even served me coffee while I got my cut.  The actual cutting took almost an hour.  I'm not sure if they're always so meticulous, or just excited to see an American in their store.  Either way, it was probably the best haircut I've ever had, so I think I'll go back.
Here's a photo, which is kind of too dark to show you anyway.  By the way, that ugly multicolored thing behind me is a dilapidated wardrobe.  It's just a flimsy metal frame covered in a cheap, tacky, printed cloth that zips up.  It came with the room.  I think I'm going to strip the material off and try to just bolt the frame to the wall, because it's the only space I have to hang clothes.

Tonight we had a housewarming party here, with our co-teachers bringing lots of food.  Perhaps I'll write more about it later, but it's midnight and I need some sleep.

Oh, and what's this?  What-- you've never seen a Chinese baby with a light-saber before?  I have no idea, really.

Odds and Ends, Part Deux

A few more pics that got neglected...

Believe it or not:
It's funny to see which parts of everyday American culture exist here, and which parts never made it.

Bad pic, but this is the entrance to the night market we visited in Taipei. They call it snake alley, because the shopowners are also snake charmers. They use this as a gimmick to attract people into their stores. There were probably 200 or more vendors, but only about 5 snakey ones. And snake charmers is a bit of a misnomer. They actually just pull the snakes out of a cage with a hook and then smack them around with it. I don't find this very charming at all. The men then yell into a microphone like a carnie, in either Chinese or broken English. Mainly they sell this three-part drink-- snake blood, snake venom, and snake marrow. Supposedly it's good for your health, immune system, and libido. Great, right? After watching this for a couple minutes, I realized that the man was missing a couple of fingers-- cobra bite, anyone? I also realized he'd keep beating the poor snake until we stopped watching...

A park near Longshan Temple in Taipei.

How I roll... We rode this bus around Yilan County the other day. Visited the traditional wooden clog/shoe maker you see below, using of course, the traditional band saw, and the other pic is near his workshop in a small village.

Viktor and Kelly. Goodbye Viktor!

These rest are shots from the National Traditional Arts Center, which is on the periphery of Luodong. We only spent an hour there, so I need to go back. It's quite nice.

I can't believe I live here. Look a the fog rising off the mountains!

A temple inside the Center.

I think these are prayer tablets.

This is a recreation of a traditional merchant/artisan street, where you can buy lots of arts and crafts stuff.

A stage facing the temple. Traditionally it's for worshipping or performing for the gods, not for a audience.

More shops.

Lovely ladies, L-R: Irene and Anne. They are local English teachers who also run special English programs for the county. They've been running the orientation/training.

This was a food court, and home to the only Starbucks in Yilan County. Note to self...

The other end of the merchant street. The guy with the camera was a security guard there, who apparently got tapped to follow us with a camera. "Look, white people! This'll be great for our publicity materials. Get the camera!"

Odds and Ends

I have lots of pics I haven't posted yet or written about.  I hope you enjoy them.

These are from the pool at the Luodong Sports Park.

This is the view of my building from the pool:

Excuse me, where is the cripple's restroom?  Oh, right over there?  Thanks!

Here's my new ride...

Here's Master Chen and his entourage:

Here's Joel, feeling him up.  Just kidding-- they were demonstrating how Chi Gong masters breathe from their lower stomach, not their chests.  It's supposedly healthier.

But it ain't no lie, Baby bye bye bye!

Last week we celebrated Anne's birthday:

And we had an art show with all the crap we've had to draw in teacher training.  That's my raincoat he's pointing at-- winner of the Best Clothing Award:

I don't know what this is-- a delicious octopus food stand?

Taipei 101, tallest building in the world.  Spent some time there last weekend.  These are views of and from the building.

Hi!  I think I see you from here.

The giant mall inside:

Longshan Temple in Taipei, also last weekend:

The faitful:

The exterior gate, and us posing at a waterfall, and then the fish in the water below...

Some art deco building, i dunno.