K.

Yesterday I was walking in Mt. Horeb and saw this cloud. In the shape of a person's face. Above the graveyard.

p.s. the sky is gray again today, not sunny like the two days previous.

These past 9 days (Sunday to Sunday) have been deer-hunting season. boo!! It's almost considered a holiday in Wisconsin (to some), and is always the week of Thanksgiving. Hunting season meant I couldn't leave the house without wearing orange, and be cautious about walking too many places outside. It scares me to hear gun shots and to see trucks cruising slowly down country roads with blaze orange-clad hunters inside, guns at the ready. On some of the very gray days we've been having, it wasn't such a punishment to stay inside most of the time--- when the sun doesn't seem to have risen all day, and the air is damply cold against a slate-gray sky, what's the allure of going outside anyway? But on the nice, beautifully sunny days, oh I wanted not to be scared about going outside.

But that passed, and I didn't end up like this poor deer, surrounded by gloating hunters.
~
The book I'm reading now is hunters & hunted of a different kind. It's called Border-Crosser: One Gringo's Illicit Passage from Mexico into America, by Johnny Rico. And despite his last name, he doesn't speak Spanish. It's the Mexico-US border issue examined from all sides, by infiltrating not only the border but all the groups associated with immigration / the border. I'm mid-book, but I highly recommend it. Rico tells his story with seriousness and insight, but a lot of humor too. It's very readable, with first-person narrative and loads of descriptions.
According to this interview, Rico's next (current) project is spending a year infiltrating religious cults. He doesn't seem to do anything halfway.



Relatedly, I've just gotten from the library a movie, begun this summer on the roof of Sham Shui Po [HK], with what turned out to be a faulty VCD. It's about the Mexico-US immigration issue too, but told from the perspectives of a mom who immigrated to America, and her young son left behind in Mexico: "同一个月光下"。
~
Now with Thanksgiving past, 'tis the season for the full barrage of exhortations to begin, from commercial & non-profit directions alike: Donate now!!, Buy more!!! We want your moooneeey. (Aiya.)

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, my favorite American holiday. It embodies all the nice family-and-friends-togetherness of the idea of Christmas time, but in a secular way. Without any biological family in a 1000-mile+ radius, my family always gets together with 3 other families, and they are our Thanksgiving people. And right now, it's even snowing. :-)

Last year in Hong Kong I was stressed trying to figure out what (and how) I was going to cook a big dinner for everyone in my hostel (Hall F)--and it would've turned out much, much worse if I hadn't teamed up with Hall E next door, and had Melanie to be the 2nd-year, experience planner. Ultimately we got the turkeys ordered and picked up from a department store, got students to help and to come eat, baked pies in over-sized toaster ovens, and had 100-ish eaters. In my daze of gladness that it had all come together, I ate a bit of everything glommed together in a rice bowl, with chopsticks--the cranberry sauce mixing with bits of corn bread, broccoli, and pie.

On the radio this morning I heard an interview with a Pakistani author nominated for the National Book Award. When asked whether he'd come to like Pakistan, having gone back after university in America, Daniyel Mueenaddin said:("all the governor and i are saying is that we shouldn't have to watch these [gay] people flaunt their alternative death style [...] they need to be dead the same way we want them to live: invisibly.")

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Skeletons in the Closet
www.colbertnation.co
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

These days I hang out a lot. Usually with cats, sometimes with deer, and often with coffee. After all, now that I can't watch neighbors and other city people living their lives (ah, the density of Hong Kong), I'm left with deer and cats.


(from November last year in Nara, Japan. The deer just go wherever they want!)

I'm still seeing people too of course!---last "weekend" (4 days) I was in Beloit, visiting the college and seeing people. Saw so many good people! Went on a fieldtrip to a marsh, watched a dance concert, played battleship; lots and lots of hugs and good conversations. It was my first time going back to visit since the summer after graduating, the summer when our vanfull of farm interns would intermittently converge on campus for a night.

Today I did things I used to do well but still like: writing Chinese and playing trumpet.
Also unicycled, bicycled, and read a 3-year-old copy of the New York Times. It's still interesting even though nothing in it is "news" anymore. But I still learn things. And it's funny, too, because in that issue of the NYT, Bush is still president, as is Chirac; Sarkozy, Obama, Hillary Clinton, and McCain are all listed as running for office.

Finally uploaded photos from the Philippines trip! Now I'm uploading Japan pics. They're on Facebook, so ask if you want the link to the albums.

Truth be told, it was so hot in Thailand / Laos, I forgot Halloween was happening imminently. But then this year I ended up doing something I've never done for Halloween: be in Madison. And so I was, from Saturday through Monday, couchsurfing and hanging out.

Apparently Madison's celebration is the largest in the Midwest... though since some riots a few years ago, it's become corporatized, with police a-plenty, barricades, and an Official Music Line-Up, and an entry fee to get onto State Street. pshh. Authorities laud this year's "Freakfest" as a success, in that fewer people got trampled and that there was less property damage; and in this I agree. But it's definitely lost some of its spirit by becoming relegated to a large-scale chaperoned event.

So I walked around State Street in the daytime, before the construction-orange barrels and fencing sealed off the rest of the street. (After that, you could only go through the "enter-only" & "exit-only" breaks, on the entire 5-block street.) Usually it's Madison's downtown, pedestrian-only (+buses & bikes) street, and b/c it's a fave, and where people usually hang out, that's why it got to be the official site of Freakfest.

Instead I went to much better, less corporate party at the co-op where I used to live. Saw a few people I knew but hadn't seen in a long time, had good conversations, and met some other cool people too.

But I'm getting distracted from just as real of a point: regardless of venue the costumes remained awesome. Well, some were store-bought or un-creative, but many others were fantastic. Look at the slideshow under the link to get a taste of what people dressed as. Oh, and it was even better---because, finally, I could talk to everyone. Casual conversations. Questions. Eavesdropping! Slang. Ah, English! (not that I don't miss Chinese, but...)

And so what did I go as? I who'd forgotten it was even going to be Halloween? The long answer for what I was "supposed to be" can be provided on request. The short answer is that I was wearing a a "Beware of Falling Objects" sign I pinned to the back of my bright-green shirt w/ a rocker lady on the front. The sign looked basically like this:



Bright green shirt had a hood, but If I'd had a hard hat, it would've been even better. Then I'd have had green nylon + hard hat.

Just over a week ago, I was here (in the air):                    and here (in Korea):

    

Last year (!!!) at this time, I was also in the Korean airport, on my way to Japan. On the way back from Japan, amidst a 6-hr wait for the flight to Hong Kong, I saw a flight leaving Incheon Airport for Seattle, USA...and as I watched people walk through that magic door onto the plane, it seemed like on the other side of it lay the US. And I wished I were going with them. This time, ~a year later, I felt much less desperate: after being away, it was much too big to being going back to dare to be excited.

On the plane when they handed the immigration forms, I thought I might be cracking up. I'd forgotten you had to fill out forms to go into your own country! First I laughed; then I almost cried. Also, I couldn't answer three or four of their questions right-off:
-Is your trip for business or leisure? (does this mean my trip away, or my trip to the US?)
-Country of residence? (um...Hong Kong? uh...guess I should put US...)
-Countries visited on this trip? (ha!)
-Items purchases while abroad and bringing back into the US? (hmm, let's see, in 14 months, do you really care that I bought jeans? I'm bringing back shampoo and a unicycle.)
And then, my perpetual favorite, something along the lines of: Are you carrying explosives, poisons, endangered species, or rare plants?

I also almost went into the "visitors" line at Chicago immigration. After all, I've officially been a visitor in countries since mid-June! (4 months.) If anyone had asked, I could've said my disorientation was due to the 3 hr + 12 hr flights. Or the 3 1/2 movies I'd watched in 1 day. Or the 13 hour time difference. But fear not, I swerved back towards "residents" before I actually made a fool of myself.

And it was all worth it. As I stepped out of the car at my family's house and breathed in the air, it was good to be back. I said, "I've missed this air."
And it's true, the air in Wisconsin is so nice and fresh. Oh yeah, and the fall foliage too. :-)
Look at how much space there is in these photos! And the colors...... I just keep stopping and staring at trees. (yes, really.)

   

I've been back in the US for ~3 days now. Everything is extremely familiar, but I also keep doing double-takes at things I probably shouldn't. Thankfully my family is understanding about that I constantly seem to be on drugs... "Look, trees!" "Wow, hay bales!" "Hey look, a farm!" "Look at all this open space!"

Pre-America, I went back to HK for 2 days. A short 2 days. I owe HK an apology for previous bashing (perhaps), since I was actually really extremely excited to be back and to see people & places again, and to have it be familiar. 2 days is a short amount of time...so I only saw some of the people I'd wanted to. But it was still worth it, from seeing people, to picking up unicycle (see below), to going running next to Plover Cove Reservoir--a place I'd been meaning to go back to anyway, and conveniently close to where I was staying in Tai Po--to eating 红烧豆腐反，蛋塔，& other HK delights. Couldn't find bubble tea, though.
[As an aside, if I ever live in HK again, I'd probably live in Tai Po. Already: -the wasteland of the western New Territories, -the density of Kowloon; next would be -mountains/sea. Not saying I will, though.]

Right now I'm sitting in the hotel lobby where I'm staying with my parents. We're visiting my sister in Minneapolis. Almost everyone (not quite everyone) is white; except almost all the workers are black or hispanic. It is very strange to see again. And instead of signs being in both English & Chinese, or English & Thai, they are in English only, or English & Spanish. All the food is made out of refined flours and sugars, and in styrofoam cups/plates/bowls. [what happened to conservation?]

The temperature outside is 5-8 C. This is a drop from being used to 25-35 C!! [for Farenheit users, this = COLD.] I'm doing okay with driving on the right side of the road again, and with car/driving culture. Still, I'm getting messed up everytime I hear someone refer to a "restroom" [toilet], or quote the temp in Farenheit. And seeing prices in US$, they mean nothing unless I convert them into either HK$ or Thai baht. It is a small measure of comfort that my computer's clock says it is 9:18 p.m., instead of it "actually" being 8:18 a.m. [I've been sleeping a lot.]

Even so, it's good to be back. Weird?--definitely. But to see family again, and friends, and places, and cats. More later. But, I made it. 一步一步来。One step at a time.

Thailand's interesting in that it's maybe one of the only places where there are an openly large number of transgender/ transsexual/ cross-dressing people, nation-wide.  In Thailand they're called kathoey, but most people say "ladyboy." So: whether it's official or unofficially official, in Thailand there are 3 sexes: male, female, and kathoey. For the most part ladyboys seem to be accepted in society, though I've heard a few jests made too---but heard significantly more jests made by foreigners than Thai people.

For whitening...
You probably already know, but in Asia people are wanting to be whiter, and in white countries people are trying to be darker/tan. Bleached-blonde hair and whitening creams, okay, seen that often enough. But today at a pharmacy there were 2 products I'd never seen before--really, really weird...but I guess not completely surprising:
--tit-pinkening soap [in a suggestively illustrated box],
--armpit-whitening cream

So, you know, all-told, just another day in Thailand....

Hello again! And where am I today? (Always the question of the day.) And so, a map of Thailand, and where I've been, in this month-ish (including the venture into Lao). If you look at the path I've taken, it doesn't look logical whatsoever!! Lots of zig-zags and double-backs. After a night spent on an overnight bus...I am even less sure of where I am! And so:



Since I've arrived, I've been to:
1. Bangkok
2. Chiang Mai [in the north]
3. Koh Tao [just above Koh Phangan, in the Gulf of Thailand] (via Bangkok and Chumphon)
4. Kanchanburi [west of BKK] (via Chumphon and Bangkok)
5. Bangkok
6. Vientiane, Laos! (train Bangkok -> Nong Khai, and then directly across the border is Thanaleng, then Vientiane)
7. Luang Phrabang, Laos [9 terrible bus hours north] (but a nice city)
8. Mekong River, for 2 days, on a boat
9. via Pak Beng village, then Huay Xai at the border.
10. Across the Mekong, to Thailand at Chiang Kong
11. --> Chiang Rai.
12. Ayutthaya [NOW].
(13. Bangkok.)
(14. Hong Kong :-] )
(lucky #15. Chicago. ;-D )

Or, that's the plan, anyway!

I've been thinking about "home" a lot recently--Hong Kong, the US, and the other homes I've known. There's a song I've been listening to by Audioslave called "Doesn't Remind Me;" I got it off my CS host in Bangkok when I replaced all the music on my i-pod with his. (it was time for a change.) Of course, everything reminds me of something else...it's how we place things into our frames of reference.

Anyway, the first time I heard the song was when I'd just gotten on the train from Bangkok --> Chiang Mai. It was the first song I was listening to on the train, and was apt timing. The first lyrics:
"I walk the streets of Japan, 'til I get lost / 'cause it doesn't remind me of anything."

What does, and has been reminding me of things is a book I got in Bangkok, by HK writer Xu Xi, Hong Kong Rose. It's set mostly in Hong Kong, with bits in New York City and Malaysia. I hadn't expected to miss Hong Kong, but I did come to love the place (even if I could never live there forever). Amidst travel to all these new places, it's nice to read about a place that started out as completely unknown, but now I can visualize: the districts, the harbor, the food, places, society.

More about Laos in the next entry. Many stories already, of course. But:
-too hot here!
-more laid-back than Thailand; slightly more expensive.
-nice people; more beggars and kids working.
-terrible 9-hr bus ride north.
-possibility of a riverboat escape.

First, a funny (?) thing from the CDC website, about anti-malarial drugs:

"A Special Note about Antimalarial Drugs

You should purchase your antimalarial drugs before travel. Drugs purchased overseas may not be manufactured according to United States standards and may not be effective. They also may be dangerous, contain counterfeit medications or contaminants, or be combinations of drugs that are not safe to use."

Thanks, CDC, I'll get right on that...I'll go back to the US and buy some, before going to Lao! Geographically this makes great sense....

And, speaking of geography, a railway map, c/o Seat61.com:



Bye, Thailand! At least for now.
Cue the 10-hr overnight train ride to get there.

I'm no longer on Koh Tao. After 2 weeks there, either it was time to decide to stay more serioulsy, for longer---a dive-master internship? a marine conservation program?--or to leave. And so, with a week left on my visa, I left. But before I left, I turned 24 years old. Not a bad place to have a birthday---beautiful scenery, and with people I knew and liked. It meant, too, that I was 23 only in Asia.

Now I'm in Kanchanaburi, 2 1/2 hours west of Bangkok. It's the site of the Bridge on the River Kwai. And, well, the river Kwae. My guesthouse looks out directly on the river. It's peaceful here, and I wish I had more time.

Yesterday I went to the optimistically-named Death Railway Museum, commemorating the WWII-time building by the Japanese of a railway between Thailand and Burma. Today, to Erawan National Park, with huge multi-level waterfall. (http://www.dnp.go.th/parkreserve/asp/style1/default.asp?npid=107&lg=2)

And, for my 10 American(-ish) hours in Bangkok? Well....
-the uncomfortable overnight bus from Chumporn port to Bangkok (after 3 hr ferry from Koh Tao, and 4 hours of waiting) got into town an expiditious hour early----at 4:30 a.m. instead of 5:30 a.m.! (yuck.) As I stumbled through the traveler ghetto of Khaosan Road, all the streetfood vendors were packing up for the night; people were still drinking in bars and playing pool. I wanted coffee.

The only other things open? An expensive coffee shop, Burger King, and McDonalds. "Obviously," I chose McDonalds. The coffee was terrible, and I'd gotten it as part of a combo with a broccoli pie. yum? Nonetheless, a place to sit and wait for the sun to rise.

-Sun risen, I needed to try and go across town to the US Embassy, to get more pages added to my passport. Luckily I met someone en route who took me on a free local bus and then a canal boat, but even so I had to walk a realllly long way to try and find the blasted embassy. (I was so glad to see it, I would've taken a picture of it, had it not been for the patrolling guards.)

-Lots & lots of walking, and long local bus rides later, I finallty made it to Bangkok's southern bus station. I followed the other people across the maze of parking lots and up into the station building to buy a ticket to Kanchanaburi. But first---what's this?! Aha-- Dunkin' Donuts! Coffee and a donut. Brilliant. (well, 22 oz coffee not so brilliant on a 2 1/2 hour bus ride, on a bus without a toilet; but.... it was still delicious.)
~~~~~
My visa for Thailand ends on SUNDAY. Where should I go?

Okay! Internet on Koh Tao island is a whopping 2-baht / minute (so, US$1 per 16 minutes) (shh, I know that's cheaper than the US, but it's more expensive than elsewhere in Thailand...). Anyway, yes I've been online and have thought about updating, but obviously I have not. Until now.

I've now been on Koh Tao for about a week, having arrived last week Tuesday. Probably I will leave on this coming Monday. It's beautiful here. Were it not for scuba diving, I might be bored by now. But as it is.... nah. For 4 days I took the entry-level Open Water scuba diving class.

So the past week has been:
When I arrived on Koh Tao, I thought: Brilliant! It is beautiful here, and more peaceful than either Chiang Mai or Bangkok.

On the 1st day of the course, I hyperventilated underwater in the swimming pool while trying to clear water from my mask, &  thought: Why am I stoopid. This was a non-well-thought-out idea, per usual..... though by the end of the session I could successfully do things.

On the 3rd day of the course, when we came up from our 4th dive in the sea, after a series of skillz tests and generally swimming around, I said to the instructor: "Perry, I did everything!" "Of course you did."

And then, on the last day I really started to nost freak out and to enjoy looking at the schools and schools and schools of fish (bat fish, banner fish, butterfly fish, moray eels, blue-spotted rays...) and coral, and was sad to have finished.  But aha, it was possible to take the next level of qualification: the Advanced Open Water scuba course. So I did. And feel much better having done it. Now I am qualified to go as deep as 30 meters (99 ft?)!!

The coolest thing at 30 meters deep was that colors change. One girl had cut her finger, and when she squirted it, the blood looked a drab green. No one in my group realllly got nitrogen narcosis, but apparently sometimes at 30m people start to try and give air to the fish, and drunk/stoned-type things like that. :-)

Oh and I went on a night dive. Who thought up scuba diving at night? Some of the fish were sleeping. It was a little weird (okay really weird), but some of the fish were sleeping! And at one point I had to look at the direction of my bubbles to know which was was "up." We had 'torches', of course. Another cool thing was during the "peak buoyancy" class we had to go vertically head-down toward the bottem and nudge something with our head.

Yesterday I went on my first "fun dive." The other dives?? Not officially fun. ;-)

p.s. Either no one's paying attention, or your sense of geography is as bad as mine. The Andaman Sea is on western Thailand's coast; I am instead, in SE Thai, actually in the Gulf of Thailand.

That's probably my favorite Thai expression so far--- "Same-same, but different." I hear it often... at the market, during the cooking class day, our instructor told us that everything we were seeing was "same same, but different," Yes. Similar to Hong Kong markets, and the US (well, only a little), but different.

In Chiang Mai on Saturday I ended up going whitewater rafting. It reminded me, actually, of last summer on the farm---the day near the end of the summer where Amy, Martina and I drove down to Madison and went to Dig'n'Save and Taco Bell, since we'd been let off from work at 8 or 9 a.m. We hurried back when we heard that, instead of working in the evening (as previously promised, though they were fairly scattered with doing arrangements) we'd be......canoeing! And why work when you can go on a canoe trip. Yes. So on this boat trip, I thought: same-same, but different.

Anyway, it was fantastic to get out of the bustle of Chiang Mai and drive 1.5/2 hrs north, into the lush greenery of the jungle, and go rafting down a (sometimes-white) river, amidst the banana and palm trees. In my boat were two Israelis and an Irish guy who'd lived in the US for eight years. But, just to drift down the river like that, sometimes in rapids, and at times swimming or just drifting. Beautiful.

Now-------Koh Tao. And trying to breathe underwater. Today maybe I'll see some fish.
Everything's more expensive down south. Hopefully I'll be online soon again, though, and then will put more. :-)

3-ish days into Chiang Mai now. It's a lot bigger and more bustling of a place than I'd been expecting. From peoples' comments about CM being "green," "in the mountains," "lots of classes to take," lots of expats + locals, I expected it would be much smaller---more like Dali, in Yunnan Province (China). Apparently it's the 2nd-biggest city in all Thailand. It also has a quadrillion temples, with almost 1 per block.

Today I took an all-day cooking class on an organic farm, and learned to cook "like a Thai." Not too sure about that, but I'd definitely reccommend that people go take a class here: www.thaifarmcooking.com. The people are friendly and professional, the pace is quick, location is beautiful, and the price is decent.

For 3 nights I was couchsurfing with a couple, where he's 72 year-old American, retired now to Thailand; she's 28 years-old, Thai. As an almost-24-year-old, it was a little awkward sometimes. Nonetheless, they were friendly, they did let me stay with them, I did laundry at their place, and they fed me coffee and breakfasts (and some dinners). Now I've moved to a (highly-reasonably-priced) US$4/night guesthouse, where I'll most likely stay until Monday.

Actually, it's reaallllly common here to see older, retired white men with much younger Thai girlfriends or wives. hmm.

Monday I go waaaay south, and will learn how to dive. Seems surreal at the moment.
More on that--and everything--later. But then again, that's always the way of it, and the reason I named the blog "Everything and Nothing." Because 'everything' is impossible, but 'nothing' is also never the case. Until next time.

Yesterday to today I went by train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai---from around the middle of the country to the far northwest. Theoretically, I'd leave BKK at 7:40 p.m. and arrive in CM at 9:45 a.m. Sleep overnight, wake up, meet up with couchsurfing host, hit the roads to explore Chiang Mai. But no. The 15 hour trip got delayed by an engine issue, meaning we rolled into town at 2 p.m. instead--a mere 18 hours after leaving. A bus would have been significantly shorter and cheaper, but I was tired from the Taiwan-HK-Thailand whirl, and wanted an actual bed for sleeping. I also shouldn't be complaining too much... after all, in January I did an 18-hr train trip in China, from Guilin to Kunming, before hopping on a 10+ hour bus. This time: no bus. Still: a long trip.

I rode 2nd-class sleeper. It was comfortable, but different from trains in China. (Had I done more research a la Seat61, I would have already known that.) When I first got on, I was confused, since I only saw seats---no bunks. How it ended up working out was that overhead, airplane-storage-looking compartments folded down to be the top bunk, and the two (facing) seats folded out to become the bottom bunk. Spiffy. And comfortable too, aside from that they left the lights on all night. Something impressive was that staff went down the train, making every single bed with crisp, folded sheets and precise movements. that's a lot of beds.

As the day wore on, I hung out in the dining car for awhile. Women workers started dancing down the dining car aisle to blasting music, and staff plied us with fresh (spicy!) papaya salad. I had a beer and met my trainmates. And every time we asked "how much longer??", the answer: "two more hours." (aiya...)

-In Chinese and Kazakh trains there were train compartments, and bunks within the compartments.
-Same as in Kazakh trains, in the toilets, all the...detritus dropped straight onto the tracks.
------------

Next up: interesting people met, and peoples' stories.

Well! After going back to Hong Kong from Taiwan, and being there for 2 days (and unicycling, yay), I've now made it to Thailand, if barely.

I left late for my flight, just managing to catch the bus to the airport, and then checked-in only a few minutes before it closed. Usually HK airport is very easy to navigate and is smooth-going, but this time--wow! It was the most convoluted, long way to get from the main entry hall of Terminal 1, via long hallways & escalators, to the check-in at Terminal 2. After that, a whole more mess of hallways, escalators, 2 trains, more hallways...until finally getting to my flight. The flight was supposed to stop boarding at 8:20 p.m., and I arrived at 8:17 p.m. after running most of that way. Oh, and of course there was security and immigration en route too.

On the plane when I was filling out the immigration form, I had a chiling moment at the "Visa Number" box. "Wait a minute.... I don't need a visa to go.....right?! Or do I? Well, too late now!" Thankfully, yes, no visa needed (I'd been right).

And now I'm in Thailand, with fantastically little preparation for what I'm doing or where I'm going, or how. I do know I'll be seeing a Thai HS friend today and an Indonesian friend tomorrow, plus a few people in Chiang Mai. In that way it's very nice, as a loose framework. Otherwise, I have couches lined up in those two cities, which at least is a start! But stil.... Then again, it's not so unusual for me not to be prepared.

After all, I <strike>came</strike> went to Hong Kong without shoes. Yes, really. ("Hello, I am a young professional relocating overseas for what could be construed as a highly lucrative position. I hope that you don't require for me to own shoes.") Actually, between February and November 2008 I didn't own any shoes that didn't have holes. I know that's extreme, especially considering that in the interim I graduated from college (university), and moved to Hong Kong. But I also worked on a farm.... and you don't want to be wearing good shoes while working on a farm....right? (right...) So it was only when I was going to Japan in November that for some reason I decided I couldn't not have shoes for Japan.

Similarly--and this is (ahem) really fantastic for traveling--the pockets of most of my shorts and pants have ripped, somehow, meaning I basically don't have pockets. Oh well! You might say I should buy new ones or fix the ones I have, and I'm sure at some point that will happen. Anyway, it'll all come together and work out. Maybe this is naive. But I don't have much else to go on. And now, with that, back out into unfamiliar Thailand. Stay tuned.

Well, after a post that devolved into complaining about some Taiwan things, here's a positive one.

I really like the Taiwanese focus (or: advertising & public transit focus, anyway) on biking and hiking. It's possible to take bikes onto the MRT, and there are tons of bike trails around. If it hadn't been so unbearably hot while I was in Kaohsiung, it would have been a nice city to bike around. They even had a spiffy automated bike-rental system.

Also, Taiwanese people tend to be very helpful, which is good---since I get lost a lot!

I'm now on the East coast of Taiwan, after spending the past week on the west coast. Unfortunately I leave on Thursday... though it seems I've just gotten to the best places! Today I spent too much time in transit (read: 7 hours), but on the up-side, saw some gorgeous scenery--at some points, there was an ocean view to one side, and lush mountains to the other. Now I'm in Hualien, and tomorrow will hike in Taroko Gorge, which everyone says is incredible.

Actually, while searching (in vain) for unicycle groups in Taiwan (I miss unicycling!), I came upon this story, of troubled youths unicycling all around Taiwan! In the first link, scroll down for English---and also pictures of Taroko.
On a not-so-beautiful note, on the bus between Kaohsiung and Taitung I saw some of the damage from Typhoon Marakot. Yes a highway across the island has been fixed/ modified/ created, making transport possible, but the damage still exists. I won't see the Dalai Lama, though he's in southern Taiwan now. In my motel stint in Kaohsiung, I watched the first stages of his visit unfold, via BBC-World and CNN. And as my mom put it: "China not happy."

But that's life. After all, Taiwan is Republic of China, not the mainland; it has a distance it's kept historically, and continues to maintain, reconciliation-talks and missiles-pointing-at-it-from-the-mainland aside. Something I've noticed since being here also is that sometimes the date is listed with us being in the year 98. What's with that? Has Taiwan forgotten that it's "actually" the year 2009? No, (and, thank you Beloit), what it means is that this is the 98th year of Taiwan as a republic. Pretty interesting.

Firstly, on the question of language, Mandarin is useful again! Hurrah. After a year of struggling through Cantonese, and finally (finally) managing to somewhat speak a little of it, it's nice to feel I have at least some capacity for asking people questions again, or talking to people. Apparently a lot of people in Taiwan--and esp. southern Taiwan--speaking Taiwanese, which (people say) is close to Cantonese. But so far straight-up Mandarin has been working just fine.  One interesting thing is that the MRT [metro] announcements happen in 4-5 Chinese dialects. This surpasses HK's announcements in "only" its 3--Cantonese, Mandarin, and English.

Definitely not as much English here as in HK. Some Japanese. (Thanks, colonial & war-time histories.) And HK absolutely, hands-down, wins for clear signage. I've been looking for signs saying, "MRT, this way!", or clearly-labeled bus stops and routes; and while they sometimes exist, they don't exist to the degree of HK.

Something strange with Chinese in Taiwan, though is the romanisation. It's a mix of current Mandarin-standard pinyin, old-style zhuyin-fuhao, and maybe Wade-Giles. Also sometimes bopomofo accompany the characters--a syllabary I can't read but that is fun to say. So on the same street there will be signs for "Zhongshan Road," "Jhungsan Road," "Zongshan Road"....etc. And/but they're all the same road. Yikes. Here's where the prep of trying all year to interpret Cantonese comes in helpful.

So, Taiwan is somewhat boring, also interesting. It's much more low-key than Hong Kong, that's for sure! When I commented to someone that Taipei was "calm," or "spacious," he looked at me like I was deranged. Why? Because yes, of course Taiwan still has people and cars and noise and builidings, and... But! The streets are much wider here than in HK---I mean, in all the places I've seen on the island so far--and the buildings tend to be low-rise. It's refreshing.

Cars drive on the right here! How "strange."  ^_^ I keep looking in the wrong direction when crossing the street yikes.
 

I got to Taiwan on Tuesday afternoon, and will be here until next week Thursday.

There's been so much I've thought about posting, but ambition and thoughts don't always translate into posting during frenetic-internet-multitasking-time. So....here's just something brief.

 

Before coming to Taiwan, I'd heard that it was like -the best of China, -combined with a cheaper version of Japan. This seems to be true, e.g. going to hot springs last night---for the, ahem, prohibitive cost of US$8, vs. in Japan [I didn't even try, but] I assume it would have been much much more expensive.

So far I'm impressed with / by:
-open space! fewer people!
-bike paths, emphsis on hiking, the ability to take bikes onto MRT [metro].
-street food.

I'm staying with a Couchsurfing host in Taipei now, and will be going south today to Taichung area, to see college friends who are living there (Ivy & Sam!). That means I need to get off-line. :-) More later, I hope... so stay tuned. (And sorry I haven't been reading most of other peoples' blogs! It's not for lack of desire.)