Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Drove it to Indiana with no gear oil......That was the end of that!

Well, the trips over. I'm sitting in a Tokyo airport, waiting for my flight to LA. I have very mixed feelings about coming home. I've traveled quite a bit in my life, and have often romanticized while out, about how I would like to move to the place I was traveling in. But in the end, I was always happy to come home. This time, I'm seriously considering moving abroad. maybe to Taiwan. Maybe somewhere else. (still trying to figure out getting my Dutch citizenship.)
I'm tired of the stagnant and placated feeling of being just ok with what I'm doing. Just getting by and haunting the same places and driving down the same roads countless times. I love Grand Rapids. I love so many people there. So I'm a little torn. It's definitely something I'm going to give a ton of thought.

Anyway, here are some things I learned about Taiwan.

Dogs are welcome almost anywhere. They even sit in chairs at the table with their owners at nice restaurants. People drive with them on their scooters.

Half the population drives scooters. Don't call them mopeds. Nobody knows that term.

Driving scooters there is a little insane. Only major intersections have traffic lights.  Any other intersection is a free for all. No signs at all.

99.9% of the women there have great legs. (Calm down P.C. Police! I'm not objectifying anyone. People can still be individuals that I don't threaten and have nice legs. It's just an observation)

It's easy to find awesome vegetarian food. Thanks Buddhists!

A lot of foreigners that hang out there are tools. All Jason's friends excluded.

Dentists are cheap.

Never place your chop sticks in your bowl when you finish your food. It's considered very bad luck, and will offend people. Lay them across the top of your bowl.

There is a built in system of doing favors for each other that is taken for granted called Guanxi. A "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" and everybody knows about it and everyone follows it. Check it out here.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi

It's beautiful and I really want to go back.

Thanks for reading, anybody who ended up reading any of this.

Maybe I'll start it back up on my next adventure.    



Sunday, May 26, 2013

"You don't want pizza? What are you? A teenage mutant ninja vegan?"

We drove five people deep in a small car for an hour and a half and I'm pretty sure I had a smile on my face the whole time. I kept laughing at random intervals, triggered by memories of internet videos, or inside jokes, or our bizarre behavior, and I ended up laughing very hard, out loud, for no apparent reason. I felt a large swell coalesce in my chest as we drove. The sun was shining, and some unfamiliar indie song was playing and we drove along the country side as I tried to discern the swells purpose. I think it was my whole body and mind collectively sighing as the final clinging elements of depression passed through. (don't worry, I'm not turning into a hippy) For a few moments I felt nothing but positive and content. It's been a long time since I could truly say I felt that. I knew in that moment, as I know right now, that it was transient due to the ephemeral nature of moods and emotion. But I felt it, and that means I'm still capable of feeling that. And so that sigh must of been one of relief. I swam in a pool of water under a waterfall, outside of a small town in Taiwan. I'm not writing that to brag or showboat or showcase my vacation. I'm saying it to myself. So I can put it up there and pull it down every time I need it to cheer me up. I don't need people or scenes or anything to validate me, because I'm an alright dude. Not the best. Not the worst. Not the brightest. Not the dullest. Just another cog, spinning in a giant, confused machine. My grease is travel. What's yours? I swam in a pool of water under a fucking waterfall.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Hard job for a nice tea.

We had travel plans for today, but given the symbiosis of Jason and I's relationship, we ended up getting drunk and staying up too late. (by the way, I'm now Facebook friends with a 40 year old Taiwanese dude I met while drinking beer in front of a 7/11 at 5 in the morning.)
Jason's attempts at waking me failed repeatedly, and by the time I dragged my sorry self out of the sack, it was too late to do much adventuring. Jason stated something that many have claimed, but none had yet proven. He knew the perfect hangover cure. We arrived at a pool that had a concave enclosure with what looked like various shower heads, all blasting water out at concentrated high speeds. We waded in waist high water, ............fuck it. I feel it's pertinent at this juncture to inform anyone reading this,  that I have taken a six hour break in writing this post, and I'm drunk now. I feel like maybe I should start over and try and make this more cohesive, but I'm going to just go ahead and finish what I started, only in a different state of mind. Now I'm equal parts agitated and elated. I hung out with so many different types of people tonight. White/Asian/gay/straight/French/Israeli/men/women, and I loved it. And on the way home, I had a long conversation about the hatred and misconceptions and bad attitudes so many people hold. It infuriates me. And for some reason, outside of my norm, I can objectively perceive my faults, and how I perpetuate bullshit back into the world. But this blog is supposed to be about my travels, not my angst. So I will save the tangent that's hanging on my tongue. The doom and gloom and self-pity that has plagued me for the last half year, has dissipated. I hope it stays that way when I get back. If not......maybe I'll just move here.      



Thursday, May 23, 2013

That was 5 years ago........When's he going home?

So I'm back in Taiwan after our Malaysia excursion. The 4 days we spent in and around Kota Kinabalu were amazing/surreal/depleting. Snorkeling, rock climbing, drinking with the locals, hanging around markets, a riverboat trip, hiking, and tons of food. I'm too tired to attempt humor or feign intelligence. I don't want to waste a second, much less a whole day, but sometimes you have to stay at an Inn, so you can save your game, replenish your teams health, and grab a snack. Adventure beckons even in exhaustion. I'll answer its call tomorrow.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Don't you worry about an inherent dislike of your nationality from the indigenous people of a foreign country. Let me worry about blank.

Today was exactly what I was hoping for from this trip. We charted a small boat to a close island and just started walking. There was no one working the kiosk at the end of the dock where we were dropped off, so we just started looking for a trail head. The person we talked to about where we should go seemed preoccupied with the fact that we shouldn't be in the seemingly exclusive, members-only scuba diving club we had walked into. She just pointed us in a direction and said go. So we did. A few minutes into the walk, a dog, seemingly of black lab persuasion, joined us, and we started our journey. The trek took us at least 4 hours, and the dog stayed by our side every minute. We walked through Shire-esque flora, and over rickety bridges and through intermittent rain. Monkeys screamed at our presence, but remained hidden in the canopy. We walked and talked and went down every different path we saw. Eventually we came to a series of high-wire wooden bridges and I ran across them (with my ever-present neglect for personal safety) as Jason and Poochy (our new travel companion) seemed more skeptical of their ability to support our weight. We ended up at a swanky, exclusive resort and spa on the other side of the island. Our presence was met with stares and questions. Two sweaty foreigners emerging from the jungle with a dog was apparently  a strange sight to the employees of this establishment. We were told our presence would be tolerated, and we looked around for a bit. Eventually a man came out to talk to us. I can only assume he was the manager of the place. His English was great and his disposition was equal parts friendly and inquisitive. "Who are you? Where are you staying? How did you get here? Is this your dog? We responded to each question in kind and asked him how to get back to the trails. He walked with us for quite some distance, even back into the jungle with us for a ways. He told us he couldn't believe we were walking around by ourselves, and it was very strange we didn't have a guide. "Everybody gets a guide." He said "You're not supposed to walk around here like this."  We said thanks and started back off onto the trail. We had to meet the captain of our small boat, and we knew we were already late. On the way back, our journey was stalled by the appearance of a family of monkeys. They screamed at our intrusion, and seemed alarmed by our canine companion. The alpha male dared himself closer and the babies and mother stayed in the trees. We sat and watched them for awhile and then started our trip back to the port. On return, it was raining and our captain had a sour look on his face and just grimly nodded when I said "Late?".  We rode in silence back to the mainland and rewarded our days physical expenditure with gin and veggie burgers. Sorry I can't post a photo. I'm in our hotels lobby, hogging the computer and receiving some resenting and annoyed stares.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Your Angel Of Death Is Malaysia

Today, ignorance prevails. A sort of willing ignorance sure, but ignorance all the same. I arrived in Malaysia with zero preconceived notions of the culture or people. As we walked through a food market, one of us accidentally kicked a bucket and one of the merchants yelled something at us and his buddies laughed. I calculated out loud that it was something to the effect of "Watch where you are going, you clumsy white people!", and we laughed out of confused embarrassment. We had a brief conversation about, if we were able, what would be yell back. What stereotypes did we hold about Malaysians? None. We were to ignorant to be ignorant. So we went to the local 7/11 (which are ubiquitous around these parts) and got a few brews and continued our march through the various and vast market scenes. Hoping to dispel a little ignorance with each step.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

The Guru On Mt. Woe

After finishing up the first part of my travels in Jason's Taiwanese hometown of Taichung, we ventured forth to the capital city of Taipei. We spent the day in museums, memorials, and hiking up a mountain called Yangming. The clouds hung low and damp and we mixed our sweat with their mist as we ascended. Jason gave his best efforts towards schooling me on speaking Chinese (along with the help of his wonderful girlfriend, Bella), and after I exhausted my memory capacity with new, foreign words, we fell into familiar conversations of comics, video games, and what our weapons of choice would be if we were warriors of old. (his being a mace and mine being a war hammer)

Tonight we are going to check out some of the local musical talent. Failing to find a punk show to attend, we settled on an indie/shoegaze show.

Tomorrow we head off to Malaysia for four days. I'm not sure if I will have access to a  computer there, so I will update this when I get back.

Like anyone gives a shit

Thursday, May 16, 2013

啤酒,素食,辣妹 (beer, vegetarian food, babes.)


In my ignorance, I had assumed Taiwan would be almost identical to China in terms of culture and people. Wherein I reveled in the chaos and lawlessness of China's lax social culture, I find myself watching my manors here. In China, you can smoke anywhere, drink anywhere, spit, and yell, and scream at wait staff, and generally make an ass out of yourself, and  it's socially acceptable. I thought that was going to be the case here, but it's certainly not. I learned that this is attributed to Taiwan being a Japanese colony for the first part of the 20th century, until Mao took over China and made a mess of things and the old regime fled to Taiwan and it became infused with Chinese. So the Japanese behavior became the social norm, even though it's no longer under Japanese control. People are friendly here, and more outgoing than what is normal in Japan (so I'm told), but don't have the abrasiveness and inhibition of the parts of China I was in five years ago. Nobody seems to care that I'm a westerner. In China, people would constantly shake my hand and take my picture as I walked down the street. Here, they just nod and smile, if anything. As for me, I'm biding me time for a few days as Jason finishes up his work before we go exploring. I went on his roof yesterday and climbed up the tower to the tip top of the building and started reading Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World. Bringing a little of Japan back to Taiwan.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

It's only just begun...NOW!

After my 20-some hours of travel, I was greeted at the airport with the embrace of one of my closest friends. An esteemed gentlemen by the name of Jason Schuurman. We took a taxi and a train and a walk and ended up back at his place. Located in Tai Chung, Taiwan. After a brief discourse, we decided it was of the upmost importance to get drunk. We walked a ways and ended up at a quaint bar by the name of Bandit. During our walk, Jason enlightened me to the the history of the bar scene in his fair city. About 2 years ago the mayor decided to crack down on bars. Closing almost 200 locations in a very quick period of time. The genesis of this decision, was based upon an occurrence, in which a drunk man stuck a roman candle between his legs, acting as if it was his genitalia, he thrust his pelvis about shooting flaming balls in the room. It sounds hilarious until you hear the result. The bar caught on fire, and 9 people ended up burning to death. Damn. So we sat in one of the few remaining bars that managed to bring itself of to the scrupulous new bar codes. We drank beer and sake, and quickly made friends with the Taiwanese men drinking there. We put on Mariachi El Bronx and talked with these fine men for the remainder of the evening. Eventually, we discovered that one of them shared the same birthday as Jason. Same day. Same year. As Jason excessively hugged his new friend, I spoke, in a very limited capacity to another, trying to explain that I thought basketball was boring, and the only sport I cared for was boxing. He didn't seem to know what I was talking about, so I started miming boxing moves. Jason saw me acting as such, and put his hands up to meet me. After a sort stint of shadow boxing each other, I punched Jason in the mouth. On accident of course! On accident. After a few more beers and much more sake, we were politely asked to leave. The next day we took our hangovers on a long scooter trip to the ocean, where we walked a mile out on the mudflats and watched the sun set.