urban surprise

one of the things i love about the taiwanese is how they throw in unexpected little breathtaking galleries of photographs and paintings along their money-making corridors.

what it says on the shirt

disclaimer: this is a biased stereotypical profiling kind of one person non-randomized opinion.

the point is this. there is a difference.

you can tell.

love affair

taiwanese love their dogs, i've got to say.

summer hols

all four of us just hanging out together.

it's been a good break.

dinner out

hole in the wall. hokkien songs blaring.

rough and ready as they come.

heartland cooking.

mmmm.

dietary staple

the national dessert in taiwan must be watermelon wedges.

diff'r'nt strokes

so HOM and J1 go off to explore the city and get haircuts.

J2 and i stay in.

our ideal vacation, we realize, is a hotel staycation.

weather must-have

this must surely be the national accessory.

post-soulik

call it crass commercialism.

or rugged resilience.

or routine.

but life surely picks its old rhythm back up pretty quickly.

travel options

the thing about being the only people in our tour group is that we are pretty much on a private family vacation with someone to tell us where to go what to eat and what happens next. not to mention someone to buy us the tickets and tell us to go to the bathroom and check us into hotels. also to drive us everywhere.

not so profitable for the travel agency, but great for us. you can have your free-n-easy, i say. give me a guided, driven tour at mass travel prices and no one else who wants to travel at this time.

itinerary

our trip into the mountains to visit the hot springs gets derailed by the impending typhoon. that's okay, we tell the tour guide.

we'll still bring you to visit the aboriginal tribe, the guide says. we'll look at sun-moon lake and ride on the boat. we just can't get to the mountains. 

that's okay, we tell him. we're not too hot on lakes and boat rides. or tribes.

oh. we'll arrange for a hot spring in taipei for you then, he says.

that's okay too. we're not too hot on dipping ourselves. can you get us to a massage?

which is how the bunch of us end up getting thai massages the day before soulik makes landfall.

soulik

on vacation in taiwan and we are holed up in the hotel waiting out the super typhoon. why? J and J ask. why do we get the drama? hanna snowmaggedon atypical earthquakes and the derecho to name a choice selection.

look at this way, we tell each other. now we get to add a typhoon to the list.