Taiwan - May 2002

Taiwan - May 8, 2002

I'm now in Taipei, Taiwan..and I can't remember every detail about Korea, so let me pass on some of the photos to you. You can see all photos online, inside the album named "Korea" : http://photos.yahoo.com/sarajunel

Hotel California was my karaoke song. That's all I have to say. HAHAHA! Actually karaoke here is very different. They give you private rooms and you drink (thank God) and eat with only your friends. But the Koreans loooove to sing and they're pretty good at it. So they basically make you drink until you don't even realize the damn microphone is right in front of you. If you look at the pictures, I was sooo drunk and tired that I fell asleep on Dal-ju, my friend's fiance.

May 1st was Korea's Labor Day, so we all got a free day off of work. I went with my friend/coworker from the KR office, Betty, to go pick up her traditional wedding dress on the North side of the Han River in Seoul. That was really cool. She even had me try it on. Basically we went to a seamstress' family house where they had converted their livingroom into this beautiful office. Betty taught me how to tell them "you have a nice house" and I just imitate like a monkey and somehow the Koreans understand me. Apparently they were kind of excited to tell other customers that an American had been there. Betty and I thought that was pretty funny.

From there we went to do the tourist stuff. We went to the Insadong market. We first went to a gallery where a friend was the artist and you could actually take a piece of the exhibition. So I chose this funky little black painting with green and blue fortune cookies on it made out of wax or something. I know probably no one can visualize that....

Then we went with a group of friends to a restaurant that I never again could find if my life depended on it. You go through these small cobblestone streets and it's like a maze. Then some obscure door and you enter and HEY!!! it's a restaurant!!! We had Pa-chaen (like a thin omelette with seafood and green onions inside it) with Su-je-bi, a soup that even Betty had never had before -greatt..make the American eat it! - which is some kind of noodle soup with oysters. Anyway, it was all very good. Pa-chaen is one of my favorite Korean foods. After lunch we shopped our hearts out while eating greentea ice cream.Yum

We decided to have Thai food for dinner for a change. I had had nothing but Korean food for 3 days, and two times I had barbeque, when I knew the next day we would have a "business dinner' with even more barbeque. Betty and her fiance "Dal-ju" took me to a farmer's market that is like a Chinese Costco, and I bought some candy there. You guys wouldn't believe the market. It was immense. One room entirely for rice, one for veggies, one for fruit..you get the picture. Then we go to the fish aisle. WOOOOOOOOOOOW they had stingray, live shark, live octopus, live eel (hundreds of them). Then they have an aisle with hundreds of types of Kimchee - a spicy cabbage side dish. AMAZING.

Next days -May 2-4 : First Asian Production Conference. 9-6 everyday with lunch and dinner included. Some days you fight to stay awake in the meetings because there were no scheduled breaks and you are jetlagged. After dinner one night I met up with my friend and ex-coworker david at a bar, with a whole bunch of other yahoos. Everything is a blur. Karaoke again with CEO's and General Managers...TOO FUNNY. You really could not do this anywhere else in the world.

On to Taipei:
I arrive to Taipei on Sunday night May 5. At least in Korea I was learning the basics of the language. Here in Taiwan I know diddly-squat. I can say "hello, thank you, and you are stupid". Doesn't help much.

The hotel room is awesome. I think it's better than my living situation right now.lol. The first night we go to some night markets. There you can buy tourist stuff and there's lots of vendors on the street with weird looking food that I'm not ready to try yet... We then went to the "Snake Market" where snake is apparently offered on some of the menus. The dead snakes are hanging from their tail, and there are turtles and a boar ..almost looked like a zoo except you know they are going to kill them. Anyway, it was definitely interesting. The one thing that I'm still not accustomed to is how many scooters there are here. Everytime I turn around I see that a scooter is ready to pass me and is waiting for me to move out of his way.

Monday May 6: work , work work. I went out for noodle soup and dimsum with my coworkers. By this time I'm feeling extremely fat from the Korea trip. Oh well. have fun...live it up! After work we go to a fancy shmancy restaurant. I'm feeling like a fool because I got used to the Korean chopsticks: metal and thin, and now I have to try to use the Chinese chopsticks: ceramic and long. Atter dinner three of us dotcommers decide to go to a bar/club named "Juliana". It's a bar where you can always order food, alcohol whatever and dance if you want to. Oh yeah, and it's open til 5am.

So here's the best part of the Taiwan story. Mom, sit down.

We're drinking at this bar, and by this time Bruce our friend from Taiwan joins us. Two long island teas and he's buzzed. We get him a third, which he continues to drink. Now the boy is sloshed. We're all dancing to a mixture of english pop/trance music and then mandarin music. It's 4am and we want to go back to the hotel...Bruce's car is outside the club and he'll get a ticket if he doesn't move it before 8am. So we need a designated driver. MOI. I'm the most sober of the group and I find myself driving stick in Taipei at 4am in the morning. It actually wasnt' that bad but I was scared at first. I don't know their laws, and I have a drunk Chinese dude telling me how to get to the hotel. Considering he was drunk, it took us twice as long to get to the hotel as it should have! He'd point to the right and yell "LEFT LEFT LEFT" and I'd ask him which WAY....he'd finally look at his hand and realie that he meant to say right. WAYYYYYYYY TOO FUNNY!!!! All of us dotcommers were laughing histerically in the car because we just couldnt' believe that I was driving in Taiwan. I lived a YEAR in Argentina and never dared drive there...and I'm here 2 days driving like a natural, waving in and out of scooters. LOL

Mom..please, you can breathe now. We all used seatbelts too, in case you were wondering.

Last night -we went to Jau Fan ( ╓E╔В ) to have "old man's tea". We went to some tea house on the top of a mountain (you also have to walk through these small streets that are like a maze) that overlooks a beautiful bay. Bruce joined us but he was completely sober (recovering I'm sure) that night. I'm really tired of typing, and I don't think I can explain how the host makes the tea in traditional style..so you can make up your own story. But it was very nice. You basically drink tea for 2 hours or more just talking to friends.
Today is my last day in the office, and Customer Care will have a party to welcome some new hires. Of course....we are going to sing again! Any suggestions on songs?? LOL.

Tomorrow we will go to Tokyo. My main objective there is to have some quick meetings during the day and eat sushi whenever I can.