Pictures!

Know thyself in Kaohsiung

It's a cliche, but traveling is a good way to get to know yourself. For instance, in the last couple days I have learned that:

- despite how much I like eating yams, a sweet potato soy latte is not as good as it sounds. It's literally liquefied, hot mashed yams.

- I haven't travelled with longer-ish hair before, and it goes bonkers in this humid climate. I look like something furry crawled up on my head and died. No wait, EXPLODED, then died. Fused to my scalp.

- I can learn to drive a scooter, even in the heavy and chaotic traffic of an Asian metropolis of 2.5 million people. Admittedly, swimsuits and flip flops was a sub-optimal wardrobe choice for such a lesson, and I did nearly lose a flip flop, a limb, and a life, on a couple occasions, but otherwise I managed quite well for a first time out. Near as I can tell, there are 5 basic rules of traffic here - dodge, dive, dip, duck, and dodge, which keeps you on toes for sure. But beaches be calling so on we hopped and off we went, Christine (the one of us who actually has experience driving a scooter but too many brains to do it here) on the back of Kristen's motorcycle and I (not nearly enough brains) following on said scooter. To be honest, it was a blast! Drivers definitely are far more aggressive here, but there's enough that recognize an out of place ginger and take mercy on his soul that you can make it work, even during the somewhat stressful rush hour return trip.


Otherwise, having an awesome time! Kristen has been a great host - we had a nice day in taipei on our own (went up the Taipei 101 tower, with the fastest elevators in the world (89 floors in 37 seconds), and ate 1-Michelin star pork pot stickers), but I'm loving the local experiences you can only get by staying with someone who actually lives here. We've done some touristy things (Chijin Island, swimming in the straight of Taiwan), but also some non (scooter riding, delicious street vendor sushi, and an open air beer garden with live bands covering English songs in Asian accents, where we met other local expats - every single one converted into an English teacher).

Tomorrow we'll hop back on the bikes and I'll get to practice my highway scooter driving as Kristen is taking us hiking to a waterfall an hour out of the city. I'm very much looking forward to the scenery - even driving around town is amazing with new modern financial buildings, old authentic local areas, and thick banyan forested mountains and rivers intertwining it all. Kaohsiung is a beautiful city, despite it's industrial origin and nature - when you buy something made in Taiwan, good odds it came from here.

A few quick observations to close:

- stinky tofu, a taiwanese delicacy, is rancid. Haven't tried eating it yet (Kristen said we have to), but I've come close to gagging when we pass it and can now recognize the oder easily - similar to horse manure, but worse, and with a far greater range of attack.

- everything is 1/3 the price here. Food, fares, beer, rent, salaries. Except Starbucks, that's full price. But still has lines.

- my former employer, 7-11, dominates the convenience store market here. Hard to walk 2 blocks without accidentally ending up in one.

- outside expat hang-outs, I can count on one hand the number of white people I've seen each day. We're like D-list celebrities here... often ignored, but with ample curious staring and occasional photograph requests. Christine is heaven with all the tall Asian dudes. :P

Touchdown in Taipei

We're in Taipei now. Flight, as expected, sucked and I long for the day when they finally invent teleportation. Not much else to note, other than Christine sleeping the entire flight. Oh and that I finally had my first squatter-rainbow experience. Odd that with all my traveling to strange places it would happen in the Tokyo international airport.

We're headed downtown to explore for the afternoon, then catching the high speed train to Kaohsiung to meet Kristen tonight. Just wanted to let everyone know we're still alive. So far. Taxi is here!

The Agenda

What? Didn't you just go to the Middle East? Haha, yup. And now it's off South East Asia. I can't complain about life much.

This time, I'm joined by my friend and co-worker Christine Harris. We've done a couple weekend-long group excursions together but never anything quite like this. We'll either return as best-buds or mortal enemies. Over-under on that is too close to call. :)


Itinerary for the next few weeks is as follows:

• Head to the family's for 2 days of Christmas with the nephews
• Get up well before the crack of dawn Boxing Day for a sure-to-be-enjoyable 24 hours of airports and planes to Taipei, Taiwan. Fall down in airport lobby for 12 hours of sleep.
• Figure out how to get to the south end of Taiwan where we'll meet up with Christine's friend Kristen in Kaohsiung - which, to be honest, I didn't know existed until I googled her address this week. Apparently there is more than 1 international airport in Taiwan. Oops.
• New Year's day, figure out how to get back to Taipei in time for our flight to Hanoi, Vietnam, where we'll grab a bowl of Pho and pass the night away.
• 2 day, 1 night cruise onboard a Vietnamese junk boat in Ha Long Bay

• Back to Hanoi but straight to the airport to fly to Luang Prabang, Laos. Here we'll hang out for 3 solid days, and as long as I ride an elephant and take a dip in Kuang-Si Falls, I'll be happy.

• Fly to Pakse in Southern Laos, where we'll head deep into the Laosian (is that a word?) rain forest to sleep in honest-to-goodness tree houses and do this (watch whole video for full jealousy effect)

• From there, we have 8 free days and no plans, other than needing to end up in Bangkok to catch our flight home. Not sure what we'll get up to but I fully intend to: 

• pass through Angkor Wat

• chillax on a beach in Thailand

• and maybe eat one of these tasty guys

And of course, post a few blog updates enroute. See you in the new year!