I did not fall into the abyss

A few have inquired so fear not, I have survived what I believe is my first earthquake without even realizing it was an earthquake at the time. For those of you who didn't know, an earthquake struck off the coast of southern Taiwan I think a few days ago. I heard it was a 7.something on the Richter scale but it wasn't that strong here in Hualien. I was upstairs in my room at the hostel sitting on my bed and there had been some wind that evening so I'd been hearing that quite a bit outside buffeting against the building and then I looked up and it seemed as if the room was shaking quite a bit. I thought at first the building was rocking from the wind somehow but then that seemed impossible. My second guess was that I was having a seizure of some kind and that my head was about to blow off my shoulders like the famous scene in Scanners, but that didn't happen either. It lasted a few seconds and I went downstairs briefly afterwards and was informed that the earth had in fact quaked. Alas, no steaming fissures opened up in the earth into which parked cars fell, horns blaring in their death throes. Neither did buildings collapse. Mostly I was just confused.

I spent the last few days wandering around Hualien visiting various temples and otherwise wandering the streets here. In the evenings I spent some time with three visitors who had arrived not long ago here at the hostel, one American guy at the beginning of a 5 month around-the-world trip and two English folks taking a brief vacation trip to Taiwan before they return to Chiang Mai, Thailand where they are currently living and studying the Thai language as part of a university program back in England in Southeast Asian studies. They'll be spending a year abroad and then returning to England for two more years of study there. They're all nice and we went out to dinner the last few nights, yesterday in particular being our chance to try the Pakistani restaurant here in town which had tasty food though the menu was certainly a bit atypical. The curry was tasty but none of the standard vegetarian items such as chickpeas, lentils, or even potatoes. It was an enjoyable change of pace though. That Pakistani fellow who runs the restaurant has been living here for 14 years. His friend brought him here to Taiwan originally and in fact owns a Pakistani and Indian restaurant in Taipei where I am pretty sure I've eaten. Last night after dinner we ventured into a billiards place and played a few games as the people around us stared, mostly at the white girl and at the white guys not so much.

A word about personal space. I have noticed throughout my travel that the notion of personal space isn't so much observed here. People pass much more closely to each other and touch each other on a regular basis, or so it seems to me. But that's not so much my point. The notion of personal space extends to vehicles as well. Also between vehicles and people. Since vehicles here drive on the sidewalks on a disturbingly regular basis, there is much more occasion for interaction between the two. So quite often I see people come very close to being obliterated by an oncoming or rear-approaching truck and nobody seems to stop and reflect that they almost just died. So far I haven't seen anyone get creamed but it seems like it most only be a matter of time. Bill Hicks talked about the pedestrian-right-of-way law in California. He said I'd like to see them try that in New York. We just step on the gas and turn on the wipers.