10 days in Taipei
Apparently the scores to the complete works of Mozart are now available online for free. In related news, the garbage trucks in Taipei play Beethoven's Fur Elise as they drive around. As it turns out, so do the garbage trucks in Iran. Apparently in some countries it is the theme for ice cream delivery rather than garbage pickup.
I saw two live Taiwanese bands the other night at a music club here in Taipei. A club where live music is played is called a "Live House" here, which I mention only because I have encountered the term a lot and had no idea what people were talking about. I thought it referred to some sort of electronic music genre presumably with even more bass drum than any one person can reasonably handle. I jest, I have the utmost respect for those who can mix two different songs together in order to create a smooth transition between them while simultaneously wearing sunglasses. So the first band was quite bad, sort of your average high school quality vaguely rock-like band, but the second band was substantially better, probably moreso than the average rock show I've seen in New York, or let's say at least as good as. Both bands sang in Mandarin and on Wednesday night there were about 30-40 people in the place at least some of who were friends but not bad considering in China they don't even really have venues for that sort of thing outside of Shanghai and Beijing. Apparently there are maybe 5 places or so in Taipei to see live music. I hope I can catch a metal show before I depart, I really need to experience something heavy and screamed in Chinese.
It has been raining here for a few days. We've managed to go out despite that. I went to a karaoke place with Joy yesterday. It's a pretty serious enterprise here. The place we went is across the street from her apartment and the lobby is like a nice hotel with chandeliers and soft chairs and marble floors. You go to the front desk as if you were checking in, then they direct you upstairs where you are led into a private room with a large flatscreen tv, a computer interface to the karaoke machine, large sofa, table, menu for food and drinks, and your own bathroom attached to the room. The entire building can hold 1800 people and places like this are quite commonplace. It would appear they take their karaoke very seriously here though the English song selection was slightly more limited than one finds in New York but of course that's to be expected. First stop today is a giant vegetarian buffet which I'm kind of excited about. I actually have been doing a lot of winging it at local restaurants rather than visiting explicitly vegetarian places just due to circumstances of meeting up with Joy and her friends to hang out, though I have done fine. Every place here is very vegetarian friendly and getting food is no problem. Even at 7-11 they had a rice ball with soy tuna or something inside, which actually tasted disturbingly like tuna and yet somehow was not.
Joy is around through the weekend and currently planned to leave Monday. I believe I'll be transferring back to the hostel for a night or maybe two to organize my trip down to Taroko Gorge which isn't really too big of a deal, I just need to sort out where to stay once I arrive and the best way to actually explore the gorge itself which is decently huge. I'm kind of excited, the scenery on the way down there and in that area is supposed to be extremely beautiful. It's only about a 2-3 hour train ride from Taipei and it is supposed to be a nice ride. I'll probably go down the east coast to the southern tip of the island and then turn around and come back up the west coast. I'll have just about two weeks to do that before coming back and spending New Years in Taipei, my first out of the US. Not exactly sure what I'm doing yet but I'm going to try to watch the fireworks that they shoot out of Taipei 101, the tallest building in Taiwan and actually in the world depending on which test the countries are using that day to decide. Since I am feeling better, I will probably start planning my onward journey soon since I have spent plenty of time in Hong Kong now and don't need to linger there once my return ticket drops me off. I'll probably stay only a night there before moving on to a new country yet again, but where will that be...?
I saw two live Taiwanese bands the other night at a music club here in Taipei. A club where live music is played is called a "Live House" here, which I mention only because I have encountered the term a lot and had no idea what people were talking about. I thought it referred to some sort of electronic music genre presumably with even more bass drum than any one person can reasonably handle. I jest, I have the utmost respect for those who can mix two different songs together in order to create a smooth transition between them while simultaneously wearing sunglasses. So the first band was quite bad, sort of your average high school quality vaguely rock-like band, but the second band was substantially better, probably moreso than the average rock show I've seen in New York, or let's say at least as good as. Both bands sang in Mandarin and on Wednesday night there were about 30-40 people in the place at least some of who were friends but not bad considering in China they don't even really have venues for that sort of thing outside of Shanghai and Beijing. Apparently there are maybe 5 places or so in Taipei to see live music. I hope I can catch a metal show before I depart, I really need to experience something heavy and screamed in Chinese.
It has been raining here for a few days. We've managed to go out despite that. I went to a karaoke place with Joy yesterday. It's a pretty serious enterprise here. The place we went is across the street from her apartment and the lobby is like a nice hotel with chandeliers and soft chairs and marble floors. You go to the front desk as if you were checking in, then they direct you upstairs where you are led into a private room with a large flatscreen tv, a computer interface to the karaoke machine, large sofa, table, menu for food and drinks, and your own bathroom attached to the room. The entire building can hold 1800 people and places like this are quite commonplace. It would appear they take their karaoke very seriously here though the English song selection was slightly more limited than one finds in New York but of course that's to be expected. First stop today is a giant vegetarian buffet which I'm kind of excited about. I actually have been doing a lot of winging it at local restaurants rather than visiting explicitly vegetarian places just due to circumstances of meeting up with Joy and her friends to hang out, though I have done fine. Every place here is very vegetarian friendly and getting food is no problem. Even at 7-11 they had a rice ball with soy tuna or something inside, which actually tasted disturbingly like tuna and yet somehow was not.
Joy is around through the weekend and currently planned to leave Monday. I believe I'll be transferring back to the hostel for a night or maybe two to organize my trip down to Taroko Gorge which isn't really too big of a deal, I just need to sort out where to stay once I arrive and the best way to actually explore the gorge itself which is decently huge. I'm kind of excited, the scenery on the way down there and in that area is supposed to be extremely beautiful. It's only about a 2-3 hour train ride from Taipei and it is supposed to be a nice ride. I'll probably go down the east coast to the southern tip of the island and then turn around and come back up the west coast. I'll have just about two weeks to do that before coming back and spending New Years in Taipei, my first out of the US. Not exactly sure what I'm doing yet but I'm going to try to watch the fireworks that they shoot out of Taipei 101, the tallest building in Taiwan and actually in the world depending on which test the countries are using that day to decide. Since I am feeling better, I will probably start planning my onward journey soon since I have spent plenty of time in Hong Kong now and don't need to linger there once my return ticket drops me off. I'll probably stay only a night there before moving on to a new country yet again, but where will that be...?
posted by Dan at 8:03 PM
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