Monday - February 17, 2003
Our day was thrown into disarray before it even got
started.
Our plan had been to go to a movie in the morning at the Living
Mall, use the afternoon for shopping and go to Costco with Johnny and Tiffany
to pick up a few items for the return trip in the evening.
My sights
were set on my return expedition to the Kuandu station and searching for
the Kuandu Nature Park, but I woke up a little later than planned. I had
hoped to get out shortly after 6:00AM when the trains start running. We wanted
to leave for the movie at about 10:00AM, so I was on a tight window of
time.
I got going at almost 7:30 and when I consulted the map, I
realized that the Kuandu Nature Park is approximately 1km from the
station. The distance isn't a problem for walking, but it would take time. I
decided on something faster.
Another mysterious green patch on the
Taipei map is Nangang park, near the Kunyang station - the
eastmost station on the Metro's Blue line, and one of the few stations I've not
been to.
With everyone at work or at school, only senior citizens were
in the park, and not too many of them. The park is one of those lush green
growth areas that seem to sprout up effortlessly in Taipei's climate, but even
at this park, like all the others I've visited, old women were pulling the
weeds in the flower garden and other garderners were raking up the dead and
fallen growth. If there's one thing to say about Taipei's parks, they're given
constant attention which belies the illusion of effortlessness.
It
really refreshes my energy levels when I can spend time in these quiet, green
parks. At this particular park, some windchimes on a nearby highrise gave a
constant, pleasant tinkle that just added to the feeling that time had stopped
for a while.
Too
soon that little fantasy came to an end and it was time to return
home.
I timed my return perfectly and arrived only minutes before 10:00.
What I didn't know, having gotten up and going before there were any other
signs of life in the house, was that Chu-Wan's grandmother had to be taken to
the hospital. It wasn't an emergency situtation, but it was something that had
been building for several days. Chu-Wan's father had taken her, so that left
only Chu-Wan's mother to babysit Michelle while we were going to the
movie.
Chu-Wan's mother was concerned about babysitting alone, so we
scrambled to re-adjust our day. It turned out that Tiffany could not go to
Costco in the evening but Johnny couldn't take us to Costco in the morning
because the car had been used to go to the hospital. Chu-Wan's father had a
speach to make in the evening, so the movie was out then, too.
While we
scrambled to re-adjust the jigsaw puzzle of our last few days in Taiwan,
Chu-Wan's mom changed her mind and we were off to the movies, but 20 minutes
late. I hadn't had breakfast, and had been expecting to go to MOS for possibly
my last MOS Cheeseburger and bit of fun with the MOS staff.
Neither of
us had eaten and going without food wasn't an option, so we took a taxi to the
Living Mall to eat in their huge food basement. I knew most of the food was
typical Chinese food, but they had, as the very last resort, a McDonald's. It
turns out they also had a Gold-In Tex fried chicken place, so I had that. It
was too early in the morning, though, so I had to wait 10 minutes for the
chicken to be ready and by the time I was done my chicken was half uneated and
we were running for our seats.
Movie seats are not General Admission in
Taiwan and each seat is assigned. Not that space was a problem, only 7 or 8
other people were watching the newest Jet Li film, Hero. Jet Li had
originally been slated to be the star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
but, for some reason, pulled out at the start of shooting. No doubt he's
kicking himself about that one now, since it went on to be such an
international hit.
Hitting back is Hero, another grand
historical, martial arts epic set in China's ancient times. Although the film
has apparently been nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar, the reviews over
here have been unkind. "Plodding", "pretentious", "incoherent", "bad
performances" and just plan "boring" are some of the various qualities
attributed to the film by press and people who've seen it alike.
Knowing
that most people and all critics wouldn't know a good film if it kicked them in
the stomach, I was determined to go anyway.
The film is... interesting.
Not great. The films content could be interpreted as "pro-unification" with
China, a message which would not sit well with most Taiwanese, which may
account for the luke-warm, at-best, reviews the film has received. It's
stylishly filmed (if the technique is somewhat forced on more than one
occaision) and uses the natural scenery of China to good effect. The English
subtitles are excellent - a rare treat. Another virtue: it's fairly short - but
not as short as the newspaper said it was, so it took us longer than expected
before returning to the house.
Luckily, that wasn't a problem, but
Chu-Wan's mom has to go out, so we took the baby with us shopping. We had Beef
Noodle soup at a vendor near the house and it was really good. They even had
the "secret" of great beef noodle soup painted in English on the wall of the
restaurant. I cannot tell you what it is, of course.
Went to the underbridge PC DVD/CD
market to pick up some hard-to-find programs for one friend and look for some
Japanese pornography for a co-worker.
Chu-Wan wanted to spend more time
with her mother today, so we returned so they could have dinner together. I was
going to hit the road and look around town some more, but Chu-Wan's mom
insisted that we take Michelle to the family doctor. The mosquitoes around here
have been fierce the last few days and during the night, Michelle must have
been a feast for one of them because she had 5 or 6 bites on her face.
Chu-Wan's mom, though, was afraid she'd caught some disease. That cut my time
short for walking around time down considerably.
I went to MOS and
practices my burger-ordering. I'm getting pretty good at it. I suspect this
won't be my last MOS burger because tomorrow night Chu-Wan and Phoebe are
ditching me to go out. That's just fine with me.
Without being able to
stretch my distance out too far, I went back to the CKS memorial to see how
busy it was and to see if I could get my "final" pictures. It was still busy,
but not the sea-of-humanity type crowd of the first night. The show is too
short and the pattern is ever changing on the horns to get both shots during
the show in similar fashion, so I took them when the horns were "at rest" where
they just glow a bit.
I also managed to walk through the award-winning
lanterns. They fell into two sections - individuals (children) who created
lanterns and schools. Some of them were quite good - as good as some of the
commercial lanterns on the other side. Spider-Man lanterns were a surprisingly
popular theme this year.
When I got home, we bundled Michelle up and
headed off to the Hsinpu station. Hsinpu happens to be the
farthest west station on the Blue line, so I managed to travel from end-to-end
today.
At the doctor's office a careful examination of Michelle's
mosquito bites revealed that they were: mosquito bites!
Well, it wasn't a completely wasted
trip, the doctor's office happens to be next to Matone, a novelty
restaurant that Chu-Wan had wanted to visit. Their novelty: They serve their
food in bowls fashioned to look like squat toilets and use toilet paper rolls
for napkins. You can imagine what the remains of a curry dinner look like at
the bottom of the bowl. Matone means "toilet" but I question the
spelling used.
Tomorrow we need to start preparing for the return trip.
We have a lot of things to pack and quite a few things to ship back. |
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