Taiwan... it begins!

Taiwan is awesome. Let me just say that right out of the gate. Of course, a part of that excitement could be seeing Ying. But I can make a list of awesomeness outside of that:

1.) Food. Dear God, the food. For breakfast I had scallion pancakes mixed with corn and tuna. For lunch, bitter melon soup, fried tofu, pork marinated in fermented vegtables, and chicken soup with chicken on the bone inside. The kind of chicken that melts right off the bone when you bite into it. I know they get that by soaking the meat in the broth for hours ahead of time, but part of me can't help but imagine a farm full of liquid chickens, rolling around like overripe grapes whereever the wind blows them.

In between: Pork Buns. PORK BUNS! Nature's most perfect food, plucked fresh from the pork-bun-tree and de-snouted by trained professionals.

Understand that this is the caliber of goodness I will be supping from every day, if I have my druthers. Between you and me, I have druthers aplenty.
Also, when I did ate like this last year, I noticed upon my return that I had *lost* weight. This is no-guilt food, people.

2.) Cities that feel home-y. Every residential building, no matter how high-class, has restaurants and shops built into the first floor. This intermixing of residental and commercial districts enacts a curious change in the urban mentality. Now, the people you see in the streets are no longer strangers...some of the anonimity is lost, especially around where you live. You wave to the people you get breakfast from...they live right down the street, after all. Are there compelling reasons for separating business and reasidential city-portions (i'm looking at you, steve, mr. public policy)? Because the convenienace factor can't be beat.

3.) Interwoven culture. I visited both a Daoist and a Buddhist temple today, one in the city, one overlooking a mountain. In the Buhddist temple, there's a wall that's honeycombed with thousands upon thousands of tiny cubicles. Inside each, a tiny Buddha overlooking a tiny electric candle. Hand crafted. No lie. On the glass covering each, a three-character name. It's awe inspiring; and like a putz I left my camera in my bag. I asked Ying's uncle what the names were for. Apparantly they're the names of the people that keep the temple going, sometimes monetarily, but often often in tangibles. The builders, the food providers, the teachers. Neat stuff. I think my guides were amused that I found it so interesting.

In walking thorugh the city I've found a bunch of stores that exist in Taiwan that don't exist here. Tons of post-school schools for grade-schoolers and prospective-college students alike, working throughout the evening. Buildings whose floors are huge pools, where you can pay by the hour to fish freshwater specimens from elsewhere on the globe. Strange, small stores with glass walls in which girls in revealing clothing sit next to tools that look like they belong in a dentist's office. I've been too wary to approach and find out the truth of it.

It bears mentioning that I almost didn't make it here; I had packed my bag of essentials a week before actual packing, and then, three days later, scanned my passport and left it in the scanner. Cort did a hero's job of keeping me from freaking the fuck out in the hours it took me to figure out where my passport had gone, and provided a car ride that nobody planned on. Too often he's been my emergency driver in times of stress; so everyone who reads this (all two of you), buy him a drink when you see him next. I myself owe him an expensive day of dim sum, indian food, and expensive duck. So it is written, so let it be done!