I simply had to take a photo of a cup of tea I had the other day. As you can see from the top it says: “Familiarity Breeds Contempt” …
Familiarity Breeds Contempt – I think they thought it meant ‘content’
Month: November 2004
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Familiarity Breeds Contempt
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Street Walking
Feeling slightly worse for wear from the previous night, I met up with Lorenzo. He was in a very relaxed mood, so we decided to street drink our way across some new parts of town. It is kind of like skateboarding, but with beer. The idea is that you save lots of money that can be spent on food and blinking products, you see more and in general strange things happen.
This time we went to the Shanglian area near to Main Station and had a look around. This is more or less the old area of town and it has an amazing character too it – more like Hong Kong, or perhaps a littl feel of NYC, Milan or London. Anyway, a bit more run down and relaxed with itself, rather than inmost places that are straining to be something higher class. We got some great chat off the street vendors and and some of the girls on clothes stalls.
Shanglian Market – underground world
Astonishing old bike
Evil cat, mounted in a harness on this lady – apparently she goes out to the night market every night with it.
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Glas Vegas
Robin Smith from 4C Design in Glasgow visited for an evening – an old friend off my university course, PDE at the Glasgow School of Art. He was doing business in Taichung and swung by on his way home. It was a real pleasure to see him and we had some good fun.
He had visited Taipei before, visiting Tim (also from Glasgow) when he was designing here. I persuaded him to wear his kilt and we headed off to Shilin night market. We got some good food (although we got shouted at for not finishing i!t – food is seen as more precious here) and had plenty of photos taken of us, or at least Robin, as young girls came bouncing up to have their tourist photos taken with him.
The Glen of TranquilityMany people were pretty amazed by the kilt, but I think there are so many whities in Taipei these days that they are less fazed. Still, cool to have these girls running up to us! No complaints.
Markus had his Betel Nut party which was great fun. Plenty of fun and drinking and Robin got a great reception. Markus had done an amazing job of decking the place out and had put little packages of presents in Betel Nut packages – very cute. Our Taiwanese colleagues were on good form, though they really regard Betel chewing as a lower class activity – only Fukan admitted that his dad ate them. I think there is a real desire to move up the class structure, in the same way as 1950s Britain, perhaps.
In typical Weegie-style Robin challenged Mike and his friend to a Ryder Cup of drinking – USA V EU, downing pints in a small boat race. Anke started our team off, but did not realise we had started so we had alot of ground to make up! Luckily, she did her job, Robin did a strong middle leg and I managed to deliver a victory, with enough time to see the Americans choke on their juice. What can I say? Those years of training have paid off.
Fallout
Yi-Ju and I rocking out with face paints
Anke ‘Betel Pimp’ Schabuschabu, Jonathan ‘Coughing Tiger’ Biddle, Mike ‘The Lethal Grin’, and Lars ‘Strike a Pose’ Torkhul
I can see you!
Robin and I went out later on the hunt for a late bar or club, but we got dumped in the middle of nowhere by an embarrassed cabbie, then we could not get into Luxy (though it was 4:30 in the morning!). Here is me with my street drinking Bar Beer.
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Model Shop Boyz
I visited the model shop today to get my phone model ironed out. As ever (and this only seems to happen to me) it turned into an episode that of course everyone in the office found hilarious. It brought back delightful memories of my previous visit to Sun Li – which you can see here.
So I rock up to meet Adam at Che John Models (who is alarmingly non – Taiwanese in immediately expressing his views without holding back) and we cruise out to a really rather nice wee Italian restaurant where I have the very best Lasagne I have eaten in Taiwan so far (ie: bad). We shoot the breeze for a while and go back to discuss business. Before we got into it he showed me around and introduced me to the team of model shop workers, who immediately took an intense interest in me and fed me a pile of betel nuts. These things are common place on the streets of Taiwan – the “betel nut girls” post is a post for another time, though.
Anyway, they fed me a couple of these things. You bite the end off, chuck it in your mouth and chew away. You spit out the horrific blood-red expectorant and continue chewing, and after a while you get a pretty strong hit of nicotine and this coincided with beginning to discuss the details of my proposal. A spinning world does not help in this and I think I approved all the short cuts they suggested – very smart of them, eh. They then presented me with a large pile of porn and suggested I take it before also giving me a book of fake blank Taxi receipts that I could make some nice money from. I managed to escape at this point with only sporadic feelings of weightlessness and gentle involuntary acrobatics.
Perhaps I will make the following week my ‘Betel Nut Special’ – Markus is planning a Betel nut party for his birthday – it promises to be… blinky.
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Chilin in Shilin
I had a quiet weekend (relatively speaking) and saw the Bienniel at the Contemporary Art Museum. I was quite impressed, and I plan to go back to catch the permanent exhibits as well. The building is pretty mental, in a modern Taiwanese mentally modern way. I’ll take some shots and you can judge for yourselves.
On the way home I swung by Shilin night market and took some shots of the food area. It is an amazing place, truly, and at the heart of Taiwanese culture (ie: food) . My favourites tonight inclide this mini shrimp fishing zone. You may have seen my first shrimp fishing effort… if not, go here.
As before, the general idea is to tempt the shrimps with tasty morsels of liver and shrimp babies, then you whip ’em out, ram a stick up their back-side, and burn them alive until cooked well.Doing a quick zoom in on the background you can see the kid fishing for something a little different … turtles. They each have a paper clip attached to their back (held on with some alarmingly-coloured tape) and the guys ‘fish’ for them with magnets … not quite sure if this is in the spirit of things, or if good old dynamite would be fairer. I will have to ask the guys at work on Monday if people eat the things… after going to Longshan market I know they do quite a bit more.
Ninja Turtles
And a quick one of a lady cooking oysters in a sort of Omelette – quite tasty.
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The worst coffee in the world
This coffee was so bad it was worth taking a photo. It was completely undrinkable. You can see the Hundreds and Thousands sprinkled on the top, which I have no real problem with. No, it was the white sugar slime that is usually found on top of cheap cakes in the 1970s that was so terrible. But I liked the cup.
Officially the Worst Coffee I Have Ever Had
A fairy keeps watch in the Ximen district
Wufenpu clothes market in the east of the city – an amazing place to shop, since this is where the other night markets buy there goods from
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Ele in Taiwan
A quick few extra fotos from Tanja… Ele in Taipei, during the moon festival (and hey Ele, if you have more photos please send them to me!)
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We Reach for the Sky. Neither Does Civilisation.
One of the most distinctive aspects of life out here is the transport. A day never passes without seeing something head-shaking strange. It could be a fork lift truck on the motorway, glass being transported by bike, food vending machines on the back of motorbikes… I have an ever-growing list of strange observations, but for now this is a wee summary.
So above, we have 1. heavily modified scooter for disabled access, 2. & 3. ingenious parking methods and 4. SCOOTER ENGLISH which is a great hobby to have in Taipei as the tag lines on the sides of scooters make you stumble for superlatives.
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Taipei Tourist – The Return
I am at the 6 month point out here, and have reached a transition point somewhat. Work has felt like a drag of late, I am getting a bit tired of not being able to meet people so easily (what with my 4 year old’s Chinese skills) and in general I am at the bit between knowing the place and feeling comfortable, but not having the infrastructure of friends and scenes to be part of.
This weekend and the last I have lurched from some slightly irresponsible behaviour and have come back down to earth. I have started looking things with curious eyes again, have some of my more typical vim back (and vigour at work I hope too!) and overall am a bit more happy. So that’s nice, for all you folks back home. Anyway, I took some photos this weekend of things that interested and amused me – esp. while looking for art museums with my friend Luisa. The Taipei Artist’s Village was a bit of a let-down (no exhibits) we lost the Chang Foundation of Fine Arts (it must have been really fine) and wandered to the Hua Shan Arts District to see some slightly mediocre environmental art. Next week I will check out the more controversial Bienniel and hopefully walk away more impressed.
Near to Main Station there was frantic activity where they had recently finished building an attractive small temple. What I did not understand was why they were preparing to wrap this in steel (see the frame). Will it be in glass? Bricks? Concrete (most likely).
Bored on the job – an enthusiastic policeman near Sogo + laser sword
Some cool stripes that caught my eye in an underground car park near to the Breeze Centre (another over-priced shopping mall)
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The Bright Lights of Taipei
This week I have made a concerted effort to get back into exercise – it is too easy on this island to slip into a routine of staying until ever more impossible hours at the office.
Tonight, while riding on my way home from the gym at work I spotted an old man selling disco lights by the side of the freeway. I had to stop, and to make it extra-Taiwanese the Lau Ban got on the phone as soon as I turned up.
Disco FeverIt also reminds me of a couple of other recent photos, or at least June! These are from near my house where a guy was selling lamps on the street.
‘Ave you got a light, boy?And finally, a rather nice effect outide on of my local bars along Jhongshan N Road (Bat 75).
Happy trees