Best Places to Eat the Next Time You're Hungry

I didn't travel anywhere this weekend, so it's time to recapitulate. There's a bit of an incentive issue with working at an airline, in my mind. Most people who start at an airline do not have kids, so its very easy for them to travel. However, they are at the bottom of the seniority list and new employees have the least amount of vacation. My coworkers who have been in the company for a few years now have families, and although they have more vacation timel, they have no way to use it because their 2 year old son will cry throughout the flight, wherever they go, and the stress of traveling is unneeded.

Well I've used up all of my vacation and am relegated to weekend trips, which usually turn into Saturday day trips - getting back on Sundays can be difficult because flights fill up very quickly. Which got me to thinking - what are some of the best one-day trips I've taken over the past year or so? But most day trips are made for the purposes of eating - so what are some of the best restaurants I've visited in the last year? Here are a top 10 for best restaurants I've visited in the last year. Rankings are based on taste, value, experience, etc. Non-breakfast cuisines only:

10. Rendezvous Room - Memphis, TN

I went to this restaurant because it is arguably the most popular rib joint around. But the ribs were disappointing. They are dry cooked, and served dry. You add sauce as desired. I just didn't get the wonderful stick-to-your belly experience I was expecting. Price: $10-20 per person, depending on how much beer you drink.

9. Anthony's Pier 66 - Seattle, WA
Well, this wasn't a trip taken for the food, but to get away from the cold of Minneapolis for a day. The view of the Puget Sound from this restaurant is amazing, and the seafood was good, but overpriced. This place will impress, though, if you're looking for that sort of thing. Price: about $35 per person.

8. Taste of India - Rochester, NY
Hands down the best Indian buffet I've had. It has a lot of variety and all the food is well made. There are a lot of Indian restaurants in this town, so there's pressure for quality and affordability. I wouldn't say that this is the best restaurant in Rochester, but it's the restaurant I visited on my day trip last year, so it's the only one that qualifies for this list. Price: about $10 per person.

7. Giordano's - Chicago, IL
Deep dish pizza! So much better than what you can get outside of Chicago. It's filled with cheese, if you want it, and it's made with tons of butter. Yum. Price: a pie is around $25, but I dare you to eat more than two slices; very filling.

6. La Marée - Montreal, QB
I was told to visit this place for the lobster bisque, and at just over $9 per bowl, you may wonder if it is worthwhile. And I'll tell you - it was. The salmon in a boysenberry sauce wasn't bad, either. Price: about $40 per person, but no need for a large tip in Canada!

5. Dintaifung - Taipei, Taiwan (also in Los Angeles)
Great food. Simple meals that taste very good. I wasn't as impressed as I should have been, mostly because this was one of the last restaurants I visited while in Taiwan, and all the food I had in Taiwan was good. Price: not sure - the bill was not in English!

4. Arthur Bryant's - Kansas City, MO
Best BBQ place I've been to yet. It's cafeteria-style, complete with a waiting line that extends outside the building. I ordered my meal to-go, which was great. They took my beef brisket, complete with my fries, and wrapped it up hoagie-style. It was more food than I possibly could eat in one sitting. Price: less than $10. Slip a $1 to the guy taking your order and your food will double.

3. Safari - Minneapolis, MN
A Somalian restaurant in the Twin Cities. I've had nearly everything on the menu and I still haven't found a dish that I disliked. Most dishes are a concoction of either beef or chicken, vegetables, and a special sauce. Can be spicy or not, and everything is served with a banana. Free refills on the Mango Juice. Price: $10 per dish, including mango juice.

2. Saburo's - Portland, OR
If you like sashimi at all, you really need to try this place. Everything is fresh, the portions are large, and they have a wide variety to choose from. Everything is served cold, and the rice is never dried out. Make sure to come early because the wait has always been 2 hours or more when I've gone. Price: depends on what you order, but it's probably half the price of what you would expect. You can easily fill up on $15, or you can go crazy and spend $40, but you won't be able to finish your food.

1. 草山松園 (I Think) - Taipei, Taiwan
I have no idea how to say this name in English - sorry. It was a bath house that has been converted into a restaurant. The view is very scenic - it's on Yang Ming Mountain - and the food is so fancy, some would refer to it as "exquisite". I won't bother describing the style, but if a restaurant can serve me 8 dishes that are completely different and they all taste good, then something must be done right. Did you know that vinegar can be served as a drink? I didn't either, but it was a good experience. You need to book your reservation two weeks in advance or else there's no way to get into this place. Price: $40 per person, and they choose your food for you.

Tasting Notes: Describing Wines

Admittedly, I am not a wine affectionado. I want to be, but I know nothing about wine. So how do I start learning about wine without spending hundreds of dollars on bottles of liquid that may or may not taste like rubbing alcohol?

The only way I've found are:
1- To rely on friends' opinions. This is usually the best approach, since friends' opinions are least likely to contain any bias. But it can be difficult to find the wine they recommend. At least it is for me, when most of my friends live somewhere other than Minneapolis.
2- To rely on experts in magazines. This is the approach I use most often. And these guys know what they're talking about right?

Well, according to an article entitled "Faking It"in the March edition of Forbes Life, a famous winemaker admitted during a blind taste testing that, "he couldn't tell which [wines] were his...and he doubted his colleagues could consistently identify their wines among a bunch of others either." That bit of information is extremely reassuring to me. I might be able to tell a good Chardonnay from a bad one, but I don't have to sweat it if two good Chardonnays taste the same. Okay great.

What I have noticed on my own is that, although the adjectives used to describe a wine are laughable, amount of adjectives adjectives used seem to be correlate with how good the wine tastes. It's also important for these adjectives to be specific, and a description with many adjectives tends to be more specific. Take this one for example:



2004 Bodega Norton Reserva Malbec
From the winemaker - Intense red colour with purple hints. Round and velvety, ripe black fruits, violets, species and tobacco. Long and complex finish.

Travel guy says - See? The description is vague at best. What kind of taste is "round"? It doesn't say what fruits, it just says "ripe black fruits". It doesn't say what kind of finish, but hey, it's long and complex.

Well, if you couldn't guess already, this wine sucks. It tastes like a red wine I can get on a first class domestic flight on NWA - which means it already tastes like vinegar. It starts this way, it ends this way, but after you initially taste it, the teases with a slightly smooth taste, but it trails back into mediocrity quite quickly.

Some might say I'm just crabby after my vacation because I'm back in snowy Minneapolis...

Google Shopping result: $15; I bought this wine at Costco for about the same price. When shopping at Costco, I often use the "if it's at Costco, it must be good" heuristic because I don't like to think when grocery shopping. This was one of those rare occurrences where that assumption was wrong...

Hell's Kitchen Cont'd

Taipei

Behold. These are the images of my in-law's kitchen in Taipei:

And honestly, what more can I say? My mother in law is perfectly content with her kitchen. If you ask her if there's anything wrong with her kitchen's setup, she'll be completely forthcoming and tell you that there's nothing that should change. No irrationally there...

If I offer to clean up, my mother in law will get upset. I can understand that - we all want our personal space. If I offer to buy an organizer, she will get upset - why waste the money? The irony of it all is that the floor throughout the house is completely spotless. There's not a spec of dust on the white linoleum floors.

Al's Breakfast

Minneapolis

While I am back in Minneapolis, there are still places to see and things to try that may be unknown to others living here. I've been living in the twin cities for nearly two years now, and it took a year for me to find a decent restaurant. It took so long partially because I was living in Eden Prairie for the first year - a beautiful suburb with nothing but chain restaurants scattered throughout - and partially because I really liked the food in Rochester, NY. Rochester really has nothing going for it; it's cloudy, dreary, cold, snowy, and dying. The only way people enjoy themselves in Rochester, it seems, is with food. And they do a great job with food. It's hard for any other place to live up to the restaurants in Rochester.

Now when it comes to breakfast food, the east coast usually wins out because of the abundance of diners. Diners are simple, cheap "restaurants" that may qualify as "dives" anywhere else, but on the east coast - and Rochester is no exception - they are great places to get simple, consistent foods made right. Hence, they're great at breakfast.

So I was skeptical when I heard about Al's Breakfast.

You'll find Al's Breakfast in magazines and on Food channels. But as you drive by the place, you'd easily missed the damned thing. The restaurant is located along a set of strip stores that use awnings to distinguish themselves from one another. Al's Breakfast has a 10 foot awning. Al's Breakfast is literally 10 feet wide inside, maybe less.

I walked into the restaurant about 40 minutes after it opened. Well, I tried to, but the line of people waiting already flowed outside the restaurant. The restaurant consists of a long bar table with 12 bar stools. Everyone else has to wait, and at no time were there less than 15 people waiting while I was there.

So there are all of my first impressions. My wife and I ordered tex-mex hash browns (some sort of spicey sauce with chicken and hash browns) with poached eggs, eggs benedict, and two blueberry pancakes with walnuts. And honestly, everything was delicious. What makes this place so good is quite simple - fresh ingredients, and unique foods like the tex-mex hash browns, and walnuts in pancakes. It's fairly cheap too, since you can eat a full meal for under 6 bucks. Our bill came to $21.

So not only is Al's Breakfast an interesting experience while you wait, it's food makes it worth the wait.

What You Say About My Momma? Politics in Taiwan

Because the presidential election for Taiwan is on March 22nd, I found out some interesting things about the politics in Taiwan. The Taiwanese are political fanatics - the soccer hooligans of politics, or maybe worse. Americans are typically criticized for not caring much about politics, as evidenced in our low voter turnout. How are we different from Taiwan?

I follow elections and politics, but I usually take the election process for granted because, well, my one vote has a marginal impact on an election involving more than 100 voters. I also know that, regardless of how I feel, or who I desire to win, the next president of the United States won't destroy our country. Even if an idiot was elected - or George W. Bush - there will be enough people around him or her to help make the proper decisions. Any party elected will have economic and political advisers to steer the country in the same general direction. And if they try to pull something like Hugo Chavez has done and kick out of the foreign companies, then I'm pretty sure a presidential impeachment would occur.

Now let's take a look at Taiwan. Well, the problem stems from how you even define "Taiwan" as a political state. Is it a subsidiary of the Republic of China, as China would claim, or is it a separate country entirely that would secede from China if there weren't missiles already pointed at the small island. Therefore, there are two parties that exist:

The Kuomintang (KMT), who wouldn't mind establishing a relationship with China

And the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who generally believes that Taiwan should be completely independent of China

Why does this matter? Because the more friendly Taiwan becomes with China, the more foreign investment that will occur (good for economics), but the less likely that Taiwan will remain independent. The fear here is that China will use Taiwan's resources until the country is in shambles (bad for Taiwan). When people think of the KMT, they think of this option. If Taiwan embargoes all business relations with China, then Taiwan is independent, but the economy suffers a great deal. This is the DPP's platform.

(yes, the positions of these parties are very oversimplified, but there's no need going into detail about politics in a travel blog)

And no one likes each other. I mean, that's the impression you get when you read about an all out, bench-clearing brawl between legislators of both parties.

And they're willing to die if their party isn't elected.

So, to develop a culture that takes politics very seriously, take a country with a growing economy and place it next to an oppressive superpower. Thanks, but I think I'll remain complacent with American politics.

"Auto Show" is to "Detroit" as "???" is to "Taipei"

Do you have a bike? If so, see where it was made. Chances are, it was made in Taiwan. And even if the bike frame wasn't made in Taiwan and the assembly was not performed in Taiwan, I guarantee that there are parts that were made here. Even the high end bikes - especially the high end bikes - outsource their parts making to Taiwan. So when I found out that there was a bicycle show at the convention center in Taipei, I had to go....

You know, I hate when I have a good build up and then have no punchline for my entry. I should have thought this through a bit more. But I need to pack and get ready for the airport, so you'll just have to trust me - the exhibit was really cool, and as you would have expected, it was filled with bikes, bike parts, and more Americans than I had seen all week - I no longer felt unique.

More Random Thoughts During My Last Day in Taiwan

• Green tomatoes not only are edible, they're tasty! They won't give you food poisoning because they were genetically created to remain partially green, or so I'm told.
• If you hear a lot of courtesy flushes coming from the bathroom, you know there's an American in there. As I've mentioned before, most toilets in this country will clog if a bunch of toilet paper is flushed at once. You are left with two options: either throw your dirty toilet paper into a one-gallon trash can located in nearly every bathroom here, or flush a small amount of toilet paper at a time (hence the five courtesy flushes by Americans refusing to change their ways - thank goodness)
• Beginning April 1st, chicken's blood no longer will be shed iin front of everyone shopping at the day market. It is now safe for Chick-Fil-A to introduce their Taiwanese fried chicken and dominate the market.
• I'm going to miss having great sashimi whenever I want. You can buy it from almost any food store here.
• The forecast called for rain every day this week, and every day was sunny for most of the day. The most rain we had was for 12 hours between Monday night and Tuesday morning. So don't be deterred from the weather forecasts in the spring.
• Walking on the trails around Yang Ming mountain may be one of the most memorable experiences here. On a suny day, we climbed a few thousand feet into the fog of Yang Ming mountain. You really can lose yourself on the walking trails. The only thing you need to pay attention to are the huge piles of cow dung from the wild cows that roam the hills. You won't get this kind of detail from Lonely Planet guides!
• I will not miss the driving in Taipei. The scooters have a lane on the right side of the road, and they weave through traffic whenever they are moving faster the cars. Because of this, I have closed my eyes and prayed while changing lanes more times than I ever have in any other driving situation. I not sure why you don't see pile-ups on a daily basis.

The Day Market

In the states, most cities will have some sort of market on the weekends during the summer months. At these markets, you can buy all sorts of crap, from fake jewelery to knock-off purses and ties, to fruit and vegetables, as well as some fish and meats.

Taipei seems to have these markets on a daily basis, and they are much more of a focal point to the day to day purchases of the city folk than they are in the US. And why not, everything is incredibly fresh. I bought a pineapple that actually made my tongue hurt because it was so acidic. Orange juice is fresh squeezed. The fish was just plucked from the waters the day before. And the chicken - well, many of the stands have crates of chickens and a wooden barrel for all to see. Use your imagination, but let's say that the live chickens are placed inside the barrel for some time and metamorphize into a perfectly roasted chicken when they are removed. Did I mention that I'm attempting to become a vegetarian for the next month?

Seriously...

The market vendors, like most stores in Taipei, don't start selling until 10-11am. BUT, stores stay open late, so I feel this is a good thing for my lifestyle (I am not a morning person at all). So I called this entry the "Day Market" because the market is opened well into the evening, but it evolves into the "Night Market". I have not yet been to the Night Market, but I hear that it involves more sweets and snacks than the Day Market. Hopefully no chickens will be harmed in the making of the Night Market.

Gimme That That That Nut

I took a trip to the eastern side of Taiwan the other day, and upon entering the city of Keelung, I noticed something on the side of the road. It was a small, free standing room made completely of glass, with green neon lights decorating the corners. Inside was - can you guess - a scantily clad girl who would run over to the cars that stopped in front of her little store. It turns out that shops like these are all over Taiwan and they all sell betel nuts. Yup, just nuts, nothing else. These nuts are stimulants and are often consumed by taxi and truck drivers to keep them awake during their job. I'm sure the occasional businessman will make a pit stop after work as well, but he may throw away the betel nuts after the transaction has occurred because this stimulant is known to cause oral cancer. Otherwise it seems to have the same effects as coffee. But hey, I'll take a scantily clad woman over Juan Valdez as my stimulant's spokesperson any day...

(the title comes from the lyrics of an Easy E song - the rapper from the group NWA; since I work for the airline NWA, and the title fit nicely with my misperception of what the green neon lights signify, I thought it worked well here.)

Icewine Goes Great with....Fish?

We went to a Japanese restaurant last night and ate a ton of seafood. Eating Japanese in Taiwan is way better than what you get at a Japanese restaurant in the US, maybe that's obvious, but the reasons why may not be. The obvious reasons why are Taiwan's proximity to Japan and that, like Japan, Taiwan's main sources of food come from the ocean. The less obvious reason is that Japan occupied and befriended Taiwan during WWII, leaving behind a culture in Taiwan that is distinctly Japanese. This is unlike the Japanese restaurants in the US, which quickly realize that they need to Americanize themselves in some way to be successful, usually resulting in smaller food portions, higher prices, and less availability of foods.

There were 7 of us who went to this restaurant. Here's a breakdown of what we ate:

• An appetizer, 3 plates, of salmon roe and sweet beans (not sure what they were, they were black)
• 4 dishes of sashimi. A "dish" would consist of 6 pieces of fish, and we had salmon, tuna, and some mystery fish.
• 4 dishes of baked eel. Each dish had two pieces that were 4" x 6".
• 2 mystery fish, completely in tact, with a mean looking snarl on their faces. Tiny fish that were maybe two inches in diameter and 8 inches long. Tasty but bony.
• 1 Shrimp roll. 8 pieces in total.
• 4 dishes of Misoyaki, which is a fish of unknown origins, baked in soy (I think).
• Yet again 4 pieces a mystery fish, rolled in some mystery roll, served in some mystery broth (try ordering that).
• Two huge plates of vegetables.
• 4 plates of Shrimp Tempura: each plate consisting of 3 large pieces of shimp, deepfried, and served with deepfried vegetables.
• Two hand rolls: 1 sea urchin, 1 asparagus and shrimp.
• A hot pot of food. A clay pot filled with miscellaneous vegetables, fish, and tofu.
• 7 teapot soups. They literally serve you a teapot and you drink the broth. When finished with the broth, there are miscellaneous pieces of fish inside that you eat. Apparently this is a very popular and traditional Japanese dish, but I've never seen it before.

And the bill? $130. I've eaten for two at a Japanese restaurant in the US and easily spent over $100. I can't imagine what this bill would have been in America.

We also had a fantastic icewine, served somewhere between the 5th and 6th servings of fish. It had to be fantastic because any sweet wine that was less than fantastic would have ruined an appetite if drunk during this meal. My father-in-law receives gifts from customers all the time and he usually leaves the gifts to sit in his office and rot (I'm going to teach him ebay this week). One of the items was an icewine, and he wanted to drink it as soon as we sat down. Luckily I was able to have it chilled for 15 minutes before we unleashed the dessert wine onto our pallets.

2004 Peller Estates Vidal Blanc Icewine; Private Reserve

From the winemaker: Lemon yellow colour with enticing aromas of honey, caramelized sugar, spice and golden pineapple. Intense flavours of mandarin orange, peach, marmalade and sponge toffee. A medium to full-bodied dessert wine with lingering notes of honey and candied orange all perfectly balanced by firm acidity.

TravelGuy says: yup yup yup, the description is spot-on, though I think the "intense flavours" section is a bit much - I didn't taste this, but then again, it could have been the omega 3 fatty acids from my food that was inhibiting my palate. Yeah, that's it. I did love this wine and wish I could try it again with something sweeter than fish.

Google Shopping result: $50; and that's for a 375ml bottle. Ouch. Worthwhile? Maybe, but I am not worth that much at this point. Glad that this bottle was free.

Hell's Kitchen

Unfortunately I did not bring the cable to connect my camera to my computer. So I'm reserving this space on my blog for a site that is not easily described in words. I'm talking about my in-law's kitchen, and although I am told that almost no other kitchen in Taiwan looks this way, I feel it is a result of the very Taiwanese notion of frugality. So the description belongs in this blog.

I will add the pictures later.

A Can of Worms

I had a grammar school teacher who made us memorize all the animal phylums. At the time, I think there were 17 and I remember the "worm" phylum making no sense. My college biology professor pretty much explained that the worm category isn't supposed to make sense - it's where scientists place everything that doesn't fit neatly into the other phylums. Hence the phrase, "a can of worms" (it's also my feeble attempt to include a link to something no one in Rochester has heard of but will find this interesting). So I give you the random things I've noticed in the past few days that weren't substantive enough to write about on their own:

• Three sheets of toilet paper will clog any non-commercial toilet in Taipei (read the "Bathroom Etiquette" post for more insight on this one).
• Public toilet seats are heated. This is so very important in a place where the temperature in March is already above 70F.
• Dentists wear sandals without socks (I think this would be a health code violation in the US), but wear the standard mouth guard. Maybe this isn't such a terrible thing.
• People driving on scooters will wear a fairly heavy winter coat and sandals...?
• People shopping indoors wear scarves. It's 70F, I'm wearing a tee shirt and I'm sweating.
• Taiwanese recycle everything. I'm not clear how this works yet, but the kitchen trashcan only holds a gallon or two and the trash bag hasn't been replaced since I arrived 3 days ago.
• "Go" is a popular game played by the father-in-law and looks like a bastardized version of "Othello". I play the simplified version against my wife and lose 3 times in 5 minutes.
• I'm not going to get much sleep tonight. The shopping district across the street from where I am staying is celebrating the spirit of their market. That means two things: bad karaoke and firecrackers. I love that they celebrate on a Sunday night. At least I would have if I went to college here.

Tasting Notes: NWA Wines

I hope to have more than one wine post. Anytime you see "Tasting notes", I'm probably referring to wine. About two months ago, a few friends and I decided to become more serious about wine tasting. We are former alcoholics from our college years that drank way too much Pabst, Milwaukee's Best and Natural Ice than any of us would like to admit. Now I don't have a very particular pallet, so if anyone reading this blog has any additional comments to the wines in discussion, please let me know and I'll be sure to post (and yes, I am talking to the three of you who actually read this blog).

These wines were offered on the flight DTW-KIX last week and I wanted to jot them down for my own knowledge and for the benefit of others who may want to try something new:



Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut Sparkling Wine, Non-Vintage:
NWA says - a blend of hand-harvested Napa, Sonoma and Mendocina county Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes. Green apple and jasmine fragrance filled out by tropical fruit notes. Bright citrus entry on the palate ending with subtle honey and caramel cream.

Travel guy says - I was given this drink when boarding the plane, and I must say that it was very refreshing. Nothing amazing, but it was sweet and smooth, with no bitterness.

Google Shopping result: $25; maybe worthwhile, though I don't have a lot of champagne comparisons



2004 Artesa Meritage
NWA says - an intriguing blend of red Bordeaus and Rhone varietals, this wine is predominately Merlot sourced from Napa and Sonoma Valleys. Bright cheery and raspberry flavors predominate. cinnamon, clove, leather (wtf?), cigar box (okay, this is getting stupid), and chocolate provide counterpoint to the red berry fruit.

Travel guy says - okay, I don't know where these descriptions are coming from, but this was easily my favorite wine of the day. It was flavorful and contained a sweet and sour appeal while remaining a dry wine. I don't know about all those flavors mentioned in the NWA description, but the wine is certainly worth a try.

Google Shopping result: $14; I'd say a bargain



2005 Alexandar Valley Vineyards Estate Syrah - Alexander Valley
NWA says: Heady aromas of blueberries, sandalwood and a subtle nose of violets. On the palate, rich flavors of blackberries, allspice, and a hint of menthol and black licorice. The whole package is underscored by notes of vanilla which dissipate as the wine opens up in the glass:

Travel guy says - Menthol? Do you really want to drink a wine that tastes of menthol? I don't, and I thought this wine was quite unimpressive. Terrible aftertaste without much flavor. Maybe it was the overwhelming inclusion of methanol that doomed this wine. Menthol?

Google Shopping result: $21; go ahead, waste your money



2006 Bouchard Pere & fils Pouilly-Fuisse
NWA says: a chardonnay varietal produced in the Proully Fuisse-Maconnais region of France (no shit). Typical aromas with fruit and floral notes. A perfumed, silky and elegant wine good on its own with fish of all kinds.

Travel Guy says - what happened. All the red wines had at least five descriptions of the taste. This description is vague, as if to say "we had to add one more wine, this one was as cheap as hell and it has a funny sounding French name, so let's add it to the list". I would say that the wine was average. I didn't notice an oakiness to the wine (is that a word?), and it had a nice taste upon hitting the tongue, but I wouldn't say it left the best aftertaste. I wouldn't buy this to impress the girl.

Google Shopping result: $25; my favorite chardonnays are in the $40 range, so my guess is this is a good wine for the price.

Rules of the Road

My father-in law flat out can't drive. He hits the breaks when everyone around him is speeding up. He makes wrong turns. He often is honked at, and is inevitably overtaken by nearly every car that pulls up behind him (which is, to say, many drivers). There are many narrow two-way streets in Taiwan that require a car to move towards the curb to let another pass by. He turns onto one of these streets and notices a car already at full speed coming towards us and says, "that car was here first, it should wait first". The other driver must have thought we were playing a game of chicken. My in law didn't notice anything odd about the other driver's sudden swerve out of the way. Screeching tire noises mean nothing to this man.

I don't blame my father in-law, really. He has a few things working against him. One is that he didn't learn to drive until 5 years ago. His home is within walking distance to work, so he never needed to drive, and today, he only drives occasionally on trips to the countryside, or for shopping at the RT Mart (the Taiwanese version of Wu-Mart, while Wu-Mart is the Chinese version of Wal-Mart - try harder, people). So very little driving experience is one factor.

The other factor is endogenous to big cities such as Taipei. Like any other major city with heavy traffic on the city streets - New York and Boston come to mind - people drive a bit recklessly. There are few universal rules you need to follow:
1 - never hesitate or else everyone will pass you and you will get more flustered
2 - never leave more than 2 feet of space between you and the car in front of you or else you WILL get cut off

And that's pretty much it as I see it. Everything else is every-man-for-himself where the most aggressive person not to get into an accident is rewarded. Now there are two main differences between driving in the east coast US cities and driving in Taipei:
1 - There has been an emphasis in the US to give priority to pedestrians. That's not the case in Taiwan. If you step out onto the street, cars will drive faster to pass you.
2 - The scooters. Oh how I hate the scooters.

I had a chance to drive around the city and it's pretty obvious that the scooters follow almost no rules. They drive between cars, on the shoulder, and at a stop light, they drive past all the cars if you give them space.

What I found most interesting is that I was honked at only once in the hour I drove. Now I'm pretty sure I scared the hell out of a lot of scooters and other vehicles because I like to claim my territory. Scooters like to drive besides you in your own lane. I like to push them into the line of parked cars along the side of the road. Cars would try to cut me off, but would find themselves stuck when I didn't allow space between me and the car in front of me. I also liked crossing three lanes of traffic to make left turns. And none of this extremely aggressive driving elicited a honk. Only when I slowed down well before my turn because I was unsure of where I was did I get the horn.

So I think Taiwan encourages reckless driving, while it penalizes conservative careful driving. For my father-in-law, he never stood a chance because he would start out by driving conservatively, get honked at, and then he would speed up and miss his turns.

My Dog Ate My Homework

Did you ever tell the teacher that your dog at your homework in grade school? A good many of you have, which is why the excuse never works. Teachers are expecting it, and very likely, they will scowl at you, maybe even make an example of you by making you lead the discussion in class that day.

In third grade I used a variant of this excuse. It was the "cat peed on my homework" excuse. The truth is, my sister's cat really did pee on my homework, so instead of having it sound like a poor excuse, I brought the evidence with me to class. I put the Ziploc back with the yellow, wet, still smelly papers on my teacher's desk and I was excused from all class discussion for that day. I might as well had the day off.

But the dog eating stuff is what has destroyed my ability to see over the past month, and it has eaten a hole in my wallet because Ive had to buy two new pairs of glasses in that time. I visited my parents in New Jersey about a month ago and stayed overnight. When I woke up, I found my rimless glasses in shambles. Apparently, the German shepherd, Maddie, knocked my glasses off a chair and proceeded to run them over while chasing the cat around the house.

Fast forward two weeks. I wake up on a weekday ready to go to work, only I can't find my new pair of glasses. Oh that's because my corgis have found them on the living room table and decided to play the wishbone game - you know, let's snap them in half and whoever gets the larger piece has good luck for the day. Due to being underage, the corgis in this crime shall remain nameless.

So what does this have to do with the theme of this blog? Maybe nothing, but I decided to go out and buy a pair of glasses while in Taipei. And if you purchase glasses, this should amaze you: I received an eye exam, frames, and lenses with glare reduction for $100. The two pairs of glasses destroyed by the vengeful dogs had cost $750!

To be fair, the frames aren't all that cheap. I got lucky and found a pair of frames that were on clearance and were good quality. It's the free eye exam and the $30 spent on the glasses (with glare reduction as a standard) that is amazing. Next time, I think I'll go to framesdirect.com, but the frames, send them to Taiwan, and have them complete the glasses. Unless shipping is $100, this has to be pseudo-arbitrage.

Non-English

My wife's family doesn't leave the house until 1:30PM on weekdays. Well, the dad works a regular job, so he leaves in the morning, but the mom is a day trader and watches the stock market on TV until it closes. Thank goodness for her that it closes earlier than 4pm I guess.

Stocks are flashing across the screen and I really have no clue what's going on. To be honest, it's not much different than watching CNNMoney, and although I do understand finance, I never understood CNN Money. Why waste time day trading when you can throw your money into the S&P 500 and pretty much gaurantee a 10% return? Well the in-laws seem to make good money doing this, so maybe I'm out of touch...

Anyway, I decided to walk around town while the market was still open. To my suprise, anyone I walked up to would start speaking to me in Mandarin. I'm thinking, why the hell are they trying to speak to me in a language that I probably don't know? Why aren't they trying to speak to me in English?

If the situation was reversed, my thinking wouldn't be. Why the hell would a foreigner in the US try to speak to me in a langague that isn't English? Don't they know its rude to expect me, an American, to speak a different langague?

Idiots.

A Beer Dispenser Worth Having

I think every (normal) guy wants to have a kegerator in his home. A friend borrowed a kegerator for his birthday party a week ago and I know he's sad to see it go back to its rightful owner. He's sad to give up a kegerator filled with Miller High Life, so I think that's saying something.

Well I have found the ultimate kegerator, and it is a must have for anyone who...well anyone. I had a layover in Osaka en route to Taipei and went to the worldclub, where I got myself a glass of Kirin beer on tap.

Observe

You push a button and the rest is automated. The dispenser actually tilts the beer to reduce foaming, then returns the glass to an upright position and adds the head to finish off the pour (notice that "foam" and "head" are completely different things). I had a hour-glass shaped glass in Osaka, but the result was the same. The glass was filled exactly to the top. Awesome.

Running Around the Block

Did you ever go for a run and everyone you pass is staring at you? Maybe in a bad dream. Very likely if you're female (and if you have a good figure, I'm sure you've gotten even more extreme reactions), or a guy running through Dupont Circle. Ahem. Well it happened to me today. I'm the only pale white guy I've seen so far in this part of Taipei, so I am the strange looking one.

How do you say "hey ladies" in Chinese?

Bathroom Etiquette

Okay, a quick post about my shower in my in-law's bathroom.

What I mean to say that I took a shower in the shower room, which happened to have a toilet and a sink. Let me explain the layout.

The room is roughly 6' x 3', completely tiled, and the door into the room is waterproof. On one of the 3 foot walls is a towel rack. The door is located at the corner of the 8 foot wall, and two feet away on this wall are shower controls and a the shower head. Directly across from where the shower is pointing is the sink, AND ELECTRICAL OUTLETS.

I also noticed the toilet is called the "shower toilet". No, this isn't because it's located right in the middle of a freaking shower (though ironic). The toilet actually sprays you in the ass with water to clean up after you poop. I guess this makes sense - a wet cleaning probably is better than the dry clean you get from toilet paper...

But I keep imagining a lazy guy taking a shower while doing his business on the toilet, getting "showered" in every direction.

Oh, and as an aside, aparently the pipes cannot handle toilet paper. This is even better - a guy steaming up the shower room (let's not even bother calling it a bathroom) with his toilet paper sitting next to him in the trash can. That's what you call fresh.

What Everyone already knows about Taipei (besides most Americans)

Before I keep going with this blog, let me just say that my observations aren't news to most people (and that's why I expect no one to read this!), and they are my impressions, from an American who likes hyperbole way too much. Enjjoy!


The trip from TPE airport to my in-law's home gave me my first glimpse of Taipei. For a city of 10 million, the skyline is rather low - and yes, as an American, everything is benchmarked to New York City. My wife tells me that the city was built this way because of the frequent earthquakes in Taiwan.

If any of you are familiar with the world's tallest buildings, it brings us to an interesting question: why the hell is Taipei the home of the tallest building in the world? Yes, the irony of the skyline is that practically everything is 5 stories tall, and then you end up with this building that towers over everything else. Does recent technology make this building immune to earthquakes? I really don't have any answers, so I guess this is a flaky post. I'm going to have to do some research on this one and update.

The other noticeable feature of the city are the homes. In Manhattan, everyone lives in high rises. In North Jersey, some people live in high rises. When you get even further away from New York city, to Morristown for instance, almost no one lives in a high rise. In Taipei, it doesn't matter how far away from the city you are, everyone lives in buildings clustered together to hold thousands of people. It's crazy, and its EVERYWHERE.

And I've Arrived (in Taiwan)

I arrived in Taiwan last night and instantly noticed that I must start a blog. I travel a lot, and when you travel, you notice many differences between the American culture and everyone else. Well I am in Taiwan now, so that will be my focus. Let's see how good this goes. Let's see if I ever make more than one post...