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