Saturday - January 18, 2003
Since they had
begun building the lantern for the upcoming Chinese New Year at the CKS
Memorial, Michelle, Chu-Wan and I walked there in the morning. Michelle was in
her stroller and we walked down Jinhua Rd, a medium sized street that
leads to the memorial. Jinhua Rd. doesn't have a usable sidewalk and we, like
everyone else, just walked in the street. This was a lot more dangerous than
we'd expected - many of the scooters practically tipped over and they pointed
and craned their necks trying to get a better look at Michelle. She generates
an abnormal amount of interest.
 I got my first pictures of the under-construction lantern. At the
moment, there's nothing really there except a platform, but I expect it to
begin taking shape soon.
Yesterday, our new cell phones were apparently
only partially activated - we couldn't send SMS messages.
Today, while we were relaxing in the park, both our phones rang simultaneously.
A pre-recorded message in Chinese informed me of something, but I haven't
got a clue what. I assumed, and had Chu-Wan confirm, that it was a "Welcome to..." message.
That gave me the idea they'd figured out they had new customers, and, sure
enough, all the phone features were activated. I spent some time annoying
Chu-Wan by sending her text messages while I was in the toilet. Such fun!
Meanwhile
immediately outside my stall, two cleaning women were have a heated debate
about something. I'll never get used to that.
Chu-Wan contacted her
friend Nora and arranged to meet her in the afternoon. In
the meantime, we took the underground to Eslite bookstore
near my favorite Taiwanese Round Table Pizza restaurant.
I was interested to note that the Taipei Rapid Transit System (TRTS) appears
to have been renamed "Taipei
Metro." There are lots of signs
that the Taipei government is trying to improve their international
image. Many of the street signs have been converted to the
Pinyin romanization system, which makes them more consistent
with Chinese as it is taught in books elsewhere in the world and the sidewalks
have been redone. Are these changes substance or just superficial trappings
- it's hard to say, but what isn't hard to say is that the
mayor of Taipei wants to be President someday.
I
forgot my pocket map of Taipei, again, so I bought a new one at the book store
- at least this one contains the new Metro stops. (Well, I assume that it does,
one well-established stop that I've used several times in my past trips is
completely missing from it.)
We then hunted up and down for the Round
Table Pizza with no success. I even pulled out the GPS and tried homing in on
the previously stored location, but it just wasn't there. By now we were
exhausted and hungry - the nearby McDonald's gave us a filling, if
unsatisfactory lunch. At least McDonald's Taiwan still has their Fried Chicken,
which actually tastes like fried chicken - something I wish they'd adopt in the
states.
When I tried suggesting that McDonald's in the US adopt
that menu item from Taiwan (and Singapore) I got an automated message saying, "We
won't read messages from customers that suggest new food items for our menu." Dumb
SOBs, I'm sure that's something their lawyers insisted upon to avoid liability,
but it's a McDonald's product already. I guess they hire their customer
service help from the same pool they hire their burger-flippers.
We took the Metro back to Technology Building station,
and it began to rain along the way. We had no umbrellas and, more importantly,
nothing to cover Michelle. Chu-Wan headed towards Nora's nearby home for
shelter. Nora wasn't home, but her mother graciously allowed us in out of the
rain. I noticed that the prepared feast for the gods was on the family table.
When Nora arrived, the rain had stopped and we walked back to the
house. While the girls caught up, I took a nap.
Sometime during my nap,
Chu-Wan's friend Judy arrived and, after I awoke, we went
to Taipei city center/financial area. New malls and department
stores have cropped up there since our last trip, and construction
of Taiwan's tallest building, the new Taiwan World Trade
Center (also called Taipei 101) is under way. Apparently,
there's some confusion as to how many stories the finished
building will have. Originally envisioned to be the world's tallest building
it got shortened, but later approval came in to make it the tallest again.
Now that we're here, the latest article I read indicated it would only
be the 3rd tallest in Asia.
Our goal was not to stare at the building, but to eat at a new
restaurant franchised in Taiwan by the same guy (bless him) who franchises
Round Table Pizza, Swensen's, Ruth Chris and Trader Vics. The new restaurant is
Chili's.
 The place was packed and
we had to wait 20 minutes for a table. In the crowd, Michelle was drawing
an amazing amount of attention. Strangers stopped in their tracks as they
walked by her and just continued to tell us how cute she was, poke and
pinch at her, call their friends over and, in many cases, ask if they could
hold her. One woman took her away just to show her friends. Like a paranoid
American parent, Chu-Wan only allowed if it she could go along. It bugs
me a lot, but it seems completely genuine interest in what is clearly the
cutest baby in the country.
It's tough to convince people you're being objective when you
tell them your baby is the cutest ever. Fortunately, I can maintain complete
objectivity and say authoritatively that Michelle really is the cutest baby
ever.
The food was great and I had an enormous chicken fried steak and
gravy and ceasar salad. In fact, it was a little more than I could finish, but
it was a great surprise.
Afterwards, we walked to one of the two
next-door Shin Kong Mitsukoshi's department stores and looked
around. The cell phone paid off as I could leave the women
behind and go look for toys and not have to look at clothes
and jewelry. There wasn't much to be found, but I did run across one of
the Taiwanese puppet action series on VCD. I'll have to come back later
to pick it up if I cannot find it on DVD elsewhere.
Saturday
night traffic was, if anything, even more ghastly than ever - it was quite a
ride. Despite the obvious fear factor, I am determined to take the ride again
when I have my camcorder to videotape it.
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