Ok, so this has nothing to do with anything at all, but I need SOMEWHERE to post this.
You know those ads that pop up on the side of your facebook? Mine turned Chinese recently, which is just as well since I despise those ads and usually X them out and mark them as offensive. Today this one came up. Ok, what on earth is this advertising for?!? I copied and pasted the text into google translate and this came up.
Phoenix! WASHINGTON mud horse as a pet is out of date, a number of recent Watch young woman haunted day and night depths of flowers in full bloom. Competing to get the Phoenix mount fly ... "brilliant full text please click read"
Saturday night after work I jumped on a train to Taichung, which is a little over 2 hours from Taipei. Another Hess worker, Victoria, and I arrived at around 7:30. We signed up to go paragliding with a South African guy named Yuri who runs an adventure business in Taichung/Puli.
Yuri met us at the train station and took us out to an Aborigine pub. We sipped beers and Yuri ordered us "some meat" off of the menu since we didn't know what to order. The waiter brought out a mystery meat-like item and placed it in front of us. I felt hesitant but ate some of the mystery rubbery and spicy substance. We then found out later we ate snail. WHAT.
Oh hey, no big deal, just accidentally eating some spicy snail in Taichung...
The next morning we headed out before lunch to get in some paragliding action. Puli is located an hour away from Taichung and we arrived there around 1pm. There were at least 30 paragliders up in the air.Victoria went up first. They suited her up and they jumped off!
After an hour of waiting, Victoria and Yuri came back. I asked how the paragliding went and they told me the wind had died and they were only up in the air for a few minutes. I looked up in the sky and saw that there was hardly any paragliders left.
So we waited. And waited. And waited. After three or four hours had gone by and no one was able to stay up in the air, we were ready to head home to Taipei. We were dissapointed because Victoria went up for only a few minutes and I hadn't even tried it. We found Yuri and told him we wanted to return, but he wanted to wait another 30 minutes. We saw a few people attempt to fly but not stay up for very long so Yuri asked if I wanted to try it, knowing that we probably couldn't fly for very long. OF COURSE! (We had to pay him even if the weather was bad, so I might as well try it...)
Suited up and ready to go
I'm flyyyyying!
This is actually Victoria in the air, not me, but obviously I couldn't take pictures of myself flying. You wouldn't have known if I didn't tell you anyway.
One more thing crossed off my "shit to do before I die" list. Paragliding, done and done.
I went to Taipei Main Station the other day and, as usual, wandered around aimlessly until I found what I was looking for, except I found something better: Taiwanese Happy Hands club.
What is the Happy Hands club?, those with little culture or little knowledge of classic movies like Napoleon Dynamite might ask. Here's a refresher:
In the middle of this train/bus/MRT station was a group of middle-aged Taiwanese woman performing a sign-language dance of a Chinese song. So much win.
As my life is becoming more stable and I am becoming more immune to the oddities of Taiwan, I find myself having less to write about my activities. The rest of this blog post is going to be dedicated to a part of Taiwan I have yet to describe: the night market.
The Taiwanese feel a great sense of pride for their night markets. These markets sort of help define what IS Taiwan. Just like you ask a Chicago tourist if they've seen the Sears (/Willis) Tower or a Paris visitor whether they've seen the Eifel tower, natives frequently ask if I've been to the night markets.
A night market basically is a clusterfuck of people and vendors in a giant, outdoor market where really cheap shit is sold. The biggest and most famous Taiwanese night market is the Shilin night market, where I have been to a few times, though there are also several local night markets that are much smaller. It's fun to visit on occasion and a must see for tourists.
You can find a variety of things at the night markets. There are many clothes and shoes stores that I've checked out. Food stands and sometimes actual restaraunts also are part of night markets, though after one rough night after eating night market food, I've decided to not partake in this aspect of the night market. Really, you can find most anything at a night market - I even saw iPads being sold. Sometimes they have weird combinations of stuff being sold at one store - today I went to a market in LuZhou that sold raw fish and shoes in the same store. I made a mental note of that place so when I'm in the mood for salmon and Adidas, I know where to go.
Entering a night market means you must leave American customs at the door. As many travelers know, what is deemed polite and inpolite by American standards does not hold true in other countries. For example, when I visit clothing stores, sometimes the sales clerks follow me and breath down my neck while they hold up ugly shirts they think I might like. In the States, a worker who follows your every move is one who thinks you are stealing. In Taiwan, it's someone who genuinely wants to help you and earn your money. It still creeps me out and generally makes me leave the store. Another difference is how the Taiwanese regard size. When I walk into clothing stores, the sales workers point out the clothing that is "big enough to fit me". Here is another huge culture difference. Here, stating that a customer is "big" is just as offensive as stating that their hair is brown, whereas you'd practically get a lawsuit for that type of action in the US. I've even had workers take clothing out of my hands that they think is too small for me. I try not to take it personally because this doesn't happen to just me. A friend of mine who has an athletic body that would be considered "hot" by our American perception was handed a plus size catalog upon entering a night market store.
When I get past the annoying store clerks throwing fat lady shirts in my face, I have purchased some awesome clothing items. By awesome, I mean awkward, of course. Taiwanese clothing shops offer so much ENGRISH. Engrish is bad translation of English by Asians.
Here are some examples of amazing Engrish clothing items I have bought.
We can't fly the world so bitch with multi-colored bananas. Makes perfect sense!
Let's gat it start in here! My friend and I bought matching shirts with this phrase; hers is white.
Though this hat has no Engrish on it, I still look like a tool in a bedazzled trucker hat made for obnoxious tourists. Of course I bought this.
I've seen some pretty interesting English phrases on clothing items here. From bad grammar and spelling or just awkward phrasing, the shirts can be pretty hilarious, especially depending on who is wearing them. Sometimes our kindergarten kids come in with innapropriate English phrases on their shirts. Ohhh, Engrish.
Though I'm laughing at the awful English -> Chinese translations, it works pretty terribley in our favor also. Many Taiwanese have told me about all the stupid Chinese tattoos we get that we think say "peace and love" when they really say "spicy chicken and gnomes". And tattoos are more permanent than a stinkin' t-shirt.
As this blog comes to a close I leave you with this piece of advice: beware long skirts.
Victoria went up first. They suited her up and they jumped off!
Suited up and ready to go
I'm flyyyyying!
As my life is becoming more stable and I am becoming more immune to the oddities of Taiwan, I find myself having less to write about my activities. The rest of this blog post is going to be dedicated to a part of Taiwan I have yet to describe: the night market.
