World by Noelle

Nonexistent Wandering in Taipei

Posted on April 8th, 2006 by tallgirl.
Categories: travel, taiwan.

I have decided that Taipei is not my most favorite Asian city I’ve been in (granted, I’ve only been in one other LARGE Asian city - Bangkok, but you know what I mean.).

I also did not have the chance to really wander around on my own. There is much that I would have liked to see, but our schedule was so jam-packed with everything we had to do with the General Assembly office in TPE. You would not believe all the meetings they set us up with. The problem with this is that most of the stuff we were meeting about, we already knew about. We had been told what the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan was doing, through meetings with the General Secretary and a few others, Stone included. Stone is very well plugged in, so he knew most of what the church was doing. And our journey around Taiwan was designed for us to see what the PCT was doing.

As we used to say in the 8th grade after we learned the meaning of “saturation,” my brain was indeed saturated. I had never had as many meetings at the same time before. I have not been to General Assembly in the US yet, so I am not accustomed to it. Such is life. I’ll learn.

Needless to say, I was kind of frustrated. We were driven everywhere, and not given a chance to wander and explore, at all! I will get back to Taipei and make the most of it, the next time. Perhaps with Kuan or someone else! We went to the 228 Museum, where we learned about the events around 28 February 1947 - which is when the Kuo Min Tang party brutally put down a rebellion in Taiwan, which happened because of rules banning the sale of tobacco and the killing of a woman who was selling it. The museum wasn’t far from the YMCA and we were able to walk (hallelujah!) there and around the park the museum was in.

The streets are broad, at least the ones that Chiang Kai Shek had to drive down to get to work! They are fully “boulevards” in the truest sense. We made a journey to Carrefour, after the most delicious noodle dinner (our last with Steven), which wasn’t nearly as exciting as the one in Ping Tung. This one was much smaller. It boasted giant frogs, though, which I did not see in Ping Tung. At one point, while trying ot take a picture, one started ribbiting and hopping around. Scared the pants off this girlie!! The darn thing also splashed water onto my camera - it’s fine, though.

After our journey to the market, we went to find Laura a teapot. It was a wonderful experience, and we all received tea while there. Laura is a big collector of art or other things that come with a story. She likes to know the artist, or to know the story that is behind her artifact. She got the story with this teapot, and was given the teapot by this owner of the shop. It was a wonderful experience, even if we were all falling asleep.

We all went back to the Y and I went on my last journey to email before I returned to the States. This is when I discovered (as y’all did) that my blog had fallen down. And when I was greeted (upon entry) by the Taipei police when I walked into the internet shop. Very odd - I wasn’t sure what to think. I’m not sure what they were doing, but they all (four of them) had their flak jackets on and one was carrying a briefcase. It’s like they were writing out tickets. Someone said that it could be because of a curfew… very curious. The best part about this internet place was this, though: there was a guy who came in and went to use a computer in my sightline (thank goodness, I never would have seen this if I hadn’t been where I was!). When he sat down, he went about wiping down the entire keyboard and mouse and monitor with some sort of pad, I assume it was like an alcohol wipe, or an anti-bacterial wipe. At this time, I noticed his hair! He had one of the worst combovers I’ve ever seen! I think he was close to completely bald on top and combed the left side over the top of his head. And around the bottom of the back. When I saw his face at first, it looked like he had a super-slicked pompadour. Instead, it was an awful combover!! When I got back to my room, I started crackin’ up - it was so bad. And it IS so bad of me to still be thinking of it… such is life.

The final day in TPE, we went to a church that reminded me a lot of my own, in its Social Justice way. It deals a lot with various social justice issues of Taiwan, and its leaders are very vocal. Similar in many ways to my own… Yet another fantastic meal was to be had. There was only one thing I was unable to eat: pig knuckles. It was with sea cucumber, and that I ate. But the pig knuckle was too far outside my comfort zone. Our journey to the airport was long, longer than I thought it would be, and along the way we saw an escort of BMWs and unmarked vans. We had no idea what it was, but they were obviously very important.

I think our entire group was ready to get home, and our time at the airport couldn’t come to an end quickly enough. I had a window seat on the new Boeing 747 and there ended up being NO ONE between me and the person in the aisle seat - apparently there were 10 empty seats on the plane, and two ended up being between me and Laura and our aisle people! Good times.

Now I’m back and trying to catch up on everything!!

0 comments.