"Two posts in a week? Weg, are you ill?"

If you're looking for photos, this entry will be lacking. When I was in China, I think on my month anniversary I took a time out to summarize my initial thoughts on the country. As I was walking home today, I realized I had not done that yet, and thought now's as good of a time as any. Even though I've been here for a month and half now.

So for starters, Taiwan, I don't mean to be insulting, but you are 95% China. The few differences I can point out are pretty superficial. Although, it may be more accurate to say Taipei, you are 95% the Hangzhou-Shanghai area. Taiwan isn't as diverse as China is, though I do hear the south and the north are on opposite ends of the spectrum, politically. Regardless for the most part, I think(?) my thoughts and observations on China carry over pretty well. So I'm going to focus on the 5% that's different.

For starters, Taiwanese have the incredible ability to be more and less shy than Chinese at the same time. Chinese people were more hesitant to start a conversation to begin with, but once you cracked the ice, they had a tendency to speak more. Here, the transition isn't as extreme. They have their guard up less at first, but are not as talkative once you get going. Which is funny really, because this country has free speech. They are more open to talking about controversial subjects, yet somehow they talk less overall. In short I have to say socially, I like how Chinese handle themselves a bit more. As long as you take that initial first step, it's like you're one of their oldest friends. Here it's a gradual thing. It may be because Taipei is such a world class city, but Shanghai wasn't exactly like this either.

The politeness I've mentioned before, but it's a mixed bag. On the one hand, all the pleases, thank yous, non pushing to get on and off public transit. It's nice. But on the other hand, it just doesn't feel right. I kind of enjoy being caught up in the rat race. It makes life more exciting. The subway doors are opening? Well yippee ki yay, it's go time. Old ladies and strollers be damned, you are not going to let lumps of flesh get in between you and the crowded corner of a metal tube. Here people queue up, shuffle in an orderly manner, and say excuse me.

Just not as fun.

One thing China and America can definitely take a lesson in though is how conservative they are here. I don't mean politically, I mean in terms of resources. They turn off the water when lathering their hands for christ sakes. They turn off the lights in the room even when they will only be outside of it for a few seconds. They don't have windows with drafts so big you could drive a truck through them.

And yet, their trash system is the most fucked up, insane system I have ever seen. Want to throw something away? Too damn bad. Hold onto it when the musical garbage truck comes around. When does it come around? Either at 8:30am or 6:30pm. Give or take an hour each way. On what days? Ya got me. I tried to write it down, and after two weeks I saw no patterns emerging.

What, you wanted a dumpster that the trash man could easily pick up and take? No, fuck your common sense and fuck you. Keep that smelly trash in your room. Also it has to be in a special pink bag you can only buy at certain places. Finally, separate it out into food waste, plastic, paper, and metal. When the recycling truck comes around, you can deposit it on that specific day. When does it come around? I don't know, because I don't try and live my life around when I can throw a bag into a musical dump truck.

You know the drill. "I never update, but I did something exciting so here's what I did, what, you wanna fight about it?"

I had a very stressful 1 hour of work today, playing Eye Spy and Chutes and Ladders. I mean honestly... no human should have to play games, err, work, an entire hour each day. My new coworker Joanne had mentioned there is a curiously tall ferris wheel somewhere on the Wenhu subway line. I decided that was as good a reason as any to venture out, and friend April volunteered to come along.

I had planned to take the subway the whole way, because subways are awesome. But she had a better idea. We could go to Shilin, then take a bus on over, cutting the time by about 15 minutes and the cost by about $10. Seemed like a literal win win, so why not? We took the bus over, and it turns out this ferris wheel is on the roof of a big gorram shopping mall. We explored the overpriced stores for a bit (seriously, $50 US for a shirt? DIAF) and popped on up. I was excited to see the ferris wheel is not the only thing up here. They also have a life size Batman (awesome), a LEGO store and merry go round, as if you needed anything else in your life. LEGOs are pretty expensive here as well. I mean, they are in the states too. But even a basic, small set that should be $300 TWD is $700. I just feel that at this price you are depriving kids of LEGOs, which I believe is banned under the Geneva Conventions.

My UK student ID has again served me well as it saved me $50 on the ferris wheel. ALSO, April was able to use it to get me a student transportation card. That means now all subways and buses in the city are half(?) price to me. This is beyond amazing, considering I use public transit 4ish days a week.

Listen, I'm a student of life. It still counts.

So yeah. It's a really high ferris wheel. We waited on the clear cabin, because how often are you going to come out here? I also knew there was a restaurant nearby called the 5 Dime Driftwood Restaurant, which photos on the internet have showed me were crazy awesome. After a detour to the MRT to find our bearings, we walked the grueling two blocks or so. The photos on the internet or my phone do not do this place justice. It's kind of a mix of Native American, New Age, and China all rolled into one. We sat next to a lake with a canoe in it, filled with white koi fish who became my eternal friends when I threw a piece of food into the water. They pretty much never left the side of the table since. Also there were carvings of wooden boobs everywhere. But they made a great marinated chicken, and April's shrimp and noodles weren't half bad either.

Afterwards we stopped by Shilin Night Market, which I've written about before but never ceases to amaze. We went to a part I had never been to before, which had 18% more absurd T-Shirts than normal.

And now I'm having a beer while cobbling back together the pieces of my laptop. Mom sent me a cable to fix my screen, which is working, but the screen is on one side of the desk and the keyboard is on the other. So, progress?