Hello Darkness My Old Friend

I'm ba-ack. 

Or, more accurately, I'm gone again. I guess life is only worth reading about when it involves me embarrassing  myself in foreign countries, right? 

Turns out Becca's Soiree in Taipei was a wee bit short-sighted, so I changed the name to something equally ridiculous. This time I am taking on the Balkans for the next seven weeks and we'll see how this goes. I have no computer, less reliable internet, more things to do - so this may be the first and last post. It also means there will be no pictures, so if you were only reading to look at the pictures, it's time for recess. AND spellcheck is questionable, and if you know me and my spelling, you know that means this whole exercise is pretty questionable. All of this is to say that this blog probably wont live up to its predecessor - I honestly wont have enough time to really makes this sparkle and/or proofread, and even if I did, an additional year of formal schooling between Taipei and now has probably stifled all the creativity left in me.

Before we really get into things, a few notes to set the tone:

Reasons why this trip is dubious: 

1. I am traveling alone. At least right now until I decide to become a hanger-on to someone I meet. 

2. The Balkans may or may not be a safe place to travel alone.

3. The world may or may not be a safe place for a woman to travel alone (but, much like Wendy Davis, I'm lacing up my sneakers and taking a stand against the patriarchy).

4. I was totally gonna plan this trip, but then finals and graduation and packing happened. So now I have embraced not really planning it. So there's that. 

4. SOME people tell me this is crazy. Some being most. 

Reasons why this trip is da best:

1. I have been doing important and grown-up things every summer, fall, winter and spring for a long time, so maybe it's time for a break. 

2. I have travelled alone before. 

3. SOME people always say I am doing something crazy.

4. If not now, when?

In other words, if you are under the age of 25, have three months with nothing to do, have some small amount of money and something waiting for you upon return, then a better question would be, "why aren't you backpacking alone through the Balkans right now?"

1 Part Autocracy, 1 Part Democracy, 3 Parts Calories

First, since I don’t think anyone actually read my last post, I am copying this again: Four short days after my return to Colorado, I am climbing Pikes Peak with my mom in support of Brain Injury Awareness. Sea level + 14 hour time difference + no time to run means that this is indeed a dubious undertaking. So if you feel bad for me, or think I’m crazy, or have extra money, or hey, maybe want to support those with traumatic brain injuries, you can sponsor my climb here. Furthermore, apparently my mother and I are in competition as to who can get the most money. Think of it as a battle between old money and new money (does that even exist?). Or a battle between social media and old school fundraising. Or just picture my lungs starving for oxygen and give me some pity dollars.

(At the risk of sounding incredibly pretentious, can I just say that my opening witty plea for money was totally inspired by Ira Glass on the This American Life podcast?)

Public art at Fort Canning Park

Alright now back to more serious matters:

FOOD.

There is no other word that I can use to accurately describe my trip to Singapore.

Nasi bryani. I think.

Singapore skyline. 

I departed on Thursday night, carrying with me a computer, a camera, one change of cloths and an empty stomach. Things did not start well, as I struggled mightily to find the bus station to go to the airport. Apparently the fact that I have “lived” in this place for a few months does not disqualify me from getting completely and utterly lost. If not for the overwhelming kindness of a young woman who spent half an hour helping me find the bus – upon arrival at the station I found out she wasn’t even taking the bus and was just super nice – I would not have made it. My flight was delayed but otherwise uneventful and I even had the whole row to myself so I was able to sleep a decent amount. Also, did you know you have to declare gum when going through Singapore customs? My b Singapore, my b.

After that, I was ready to roll. And by ready to roll I mean ready to eat. I should be clear here, I came to Singapore mostly to eat. I watched the Anthony Bourdain show on Singapore and that was truly the main inspiration for my trip. In preparation, I even made an extensive list of all the things I wanted to eat (using the advice of Bourdain and a few Singaporean friends). In total, I had about of page of information on my trip, and 80% of that page was dedicated to food.

And by ready to eat, I also mean ready to drink. A lot of tea.

Here were the things on my list (crossed out means I was successful):
Hainanese chicken rice: Looks like something you could get at my elementary school cafeteria – a lump of white rice and a pile of boiled chicken. But oh my god it is so much more that that.

I always take my black and yellow mystery lumps over ice.

Hokkien prawn noodles
Lor Mee: fat noodles thick gravy so tasty
Wonton mee: thinner noodles thick gravy yummy meat
Laksa: Coconut milk, curry noodle soup. This was one of the best things to eat of all time. Of. All. Time.
Yong tau foo
Fish head curry

Roti prata: I like bready things I like dipping sauces so this was definitely right up my alley.
Nasi bryani: spiced rice served all fancy on a banana leaf

Dosai
Mee goring: fried noodles with seafood

Bandung... adunk

Teh tarik: frothy delicious tea, apparently to make up for the fact that alcohol is super expensive because of high tax rates. Let me tell you, though, I would much rather be “iced” with Teh tarik than Smirnoff Twisted V Mandarin Orange.

Durian. All wrapped up. As I wish it would remain. 

Bandung: another drink. Not sure what’s in it, but it looks like pepto bismal and tastes like I’d imagine pepto bismal would taste in heaven.
Dessert soup
Ice kachang: multi-colored icy treat. No idea what’s in it.
Ching tng
Tau sua
Kaya: Sweet coconut spread. I totally smuggled some home in my suitcase.
Oteh: Unclear. Something with fish. Also up there with most wonderful things I have ever eaten.
Satay
Oneh Oneh: Sweet potato balls filled with some kind of sweet sauce, cooked, and coated with coconut.
Mutton curry
Durian: Yeah… well I guess Brett Michaels was right, every rose has it’s thorn.

So I was pretty successful. And let’s just take a moment to consider how much I ate over the course of 60 hours (including time spent sleeping). A feat indeed. Now to my favorites:

Actually, I just tried to figure out what my favorites were and that proved to be impossible because they were all so delicious. In fact, basically everything I put in my mouth was beyond comparison. Part of what I really liked was how unique all of the dishes were. A lot of them are a mix of Chinese, Malay, Indian and Middle Eastern cuisine, meaning this is stuff you really can’t get anywhere else. (Sidenote: in general I really appreciated the diversity. After living in a, shall we say, uniracial place for a few months, it was cool to look around and see some new faces. Singapore subway cars look basically like New York subway cars, once you get out of Manhattan.)

Multiculturalism at the market. New children's book title?

I also liked how easy the food was to get. Singapore is famous for hawker centers, which are kind of like giant outdoor food courts, but instead of the traumatizing mall food court experiences of my childhood (maybe that could help explain my dislike of shopping), these food courts were likely as close to heaven as I’ll ever get. The hawker centers could stretch for blocks and have multiple stories. Each stand was well marked, with prices and dishes in English. Each stand also had a letter grade to assess their cleanliness and hygiene. Not that I particularly care about such things, but it is comforting. After getting your food, you just join the rest of the country and sit down to eat amazing food at clean tables. And just when it can’t get any better, someone comes and buses your table for you.

Hawker center. Best place on earth. 

If you don’t enjoy reading about food, 1. Are you a robot? and 2. Hopefully you have stopped reading by now. If not, be forewarned that I am going to continue on this topic for a while.

I was particularly fond of several less obvious things about the food in Singapore. First, it’s cheap. In a country where many things are not cheap, by Asia standards as least, food remains a terrific bargain. Most of my meals cost between $1-$3. Granted I ate about six meals a day, but that’s beside the point. Second, I like that all of the stands are open all day. Maybe I do want to eat laksa for breakfast (in case you are wondering, yes, I do), and maybe I want my ice kachang at 11am. Roti prata with egg and ham is a suitable dinner, and wonton mee with noodles and pork is a suitable breakfast. Just because it’s the middle of the afternoon doesn’t mean I can’t eat a meal, right? Right?

Finally, the attitude of people towards food is serious business. I think the quality of all food is so high because people really care about it. When asked for recommendations for things to do in Singapore, I mostly received a list of things to eat. At the end of each day, my host parents first made me discuss exactly what and where I ate, and then moved on to sightseeing and activities. Everyone was a food expert and gave unsolicited, but appreciated, advice on everything from the best drink to accompany my meal (sometimes the best drink came from an entirely different cuisine) to the perfect mix of condiments.

Clark Quay. Pronounced Clark Key. Some British mixup I think. 

So after about 900 words on eating, you may be wondering if I did anything else in Singapore. Well, yes, but to be honest my day basically consisted of me eating, then walking somewhere to speed digestion so that I would be ready to eat again. I did get to do a lot of sightseeing, but again, the purpose was mainly to decrease the time between meals. The limiting factor on this try was definitely the size of my stomach.

Chinese shop house. 

On Friday, my tour guide was Martin. He is basically a friend of a friend, but more specifically the former student of my older brother’s former violin teacher. Anyways, it was great to have a tour guide. We took a boat cruise along the river, visited an amazing reconstructed shop house in Chinatown, and ate some great curry in Little India. He left to go to a concert (…violinists…) and I headed to the National Museum of Singapore. I arrived and checked out the place, which was a beautiful building. When I went to go get tickets, the woman at the desk told me that if I waited thirty minutes I could get in for free because there was a museum festival that night.

Publicly created artwork on display at the National Singapore Museum.

So I killed some time in Fort Canning park and admired the dazzling urban art there. Between Taipei and Singapore, I swear I have seen more terrific urban art in the last three months than I have over the course of my life proceeding it. When I got back to the museum, the festival was in full swing.

I’m not sure why, but for some reason I expected a museum festival to include h'ordeuvres and a string quartet. While to do love both of those things, this festival went in the other direction. There were food carts. There were experimental percussion performances. There was a hipster puppet show. There were creative interpretations of old movies. There were Belgian folk singers.My favorite part of the festival was this dark circular room with movies of the ocean projected on the wall. In the middle, there were four “DJs” and they were recreating the Oddesey in “music.” I sat on the bean bags and tried for a awhile to figure out which part of the story they were on, to no avail. But nevertheless, a cool idea.

I also had a chance to see some of the exhibits at the museum. There was, of course, an entire exhibit dedicated to food. And some other boring stuff. AND one of the best photography exhibits I have ever seen – Abbas: 45 Years in Photography. If you ever get a chance to see his photos, highly recommended. Besides that, there was a also a nice propaganda-ish style exhibit on how successful Singapore’s economy has been over the past 50 years. Just like Hello Kitty, semi-authoritarian government’s can sneak up on you.

Speaking of things that might sneak up on you in Singapore, I also happened to visit during the presidential election. If not for the newspaper and my hosts talking about it, though, I might now have known it was happening. It’s hard to know how exactly how I feel about Singapore’s political system – I know far too little about it to make any judgments – but it’s was pretty clear that the place is thriving and the people are happy (or at least pretend to be happy. They say that the first signs of a solid government are increases in public grievances because people can finally express themselves. I don’t know).

I made it to the beach!

The presidential election happened on my second day in Singapore, Saturday. I escaped from all the political madness (of which there was none) by visiting a giant amusement park beach resort island called Sentosa. I skipped the theme park, the indoor skydiving, the zip line, the aquarium, the giant swing, the mountain luge, the tower of doom, and the giant merlion, and instead just walked to the beach. It was tropical and palm tree-y. Also the closest I have ever been to the equator. Also the most southern point of continental Asia – a highly dubious claim that appears to be totally false based on every map I have ever seen. But most importantly it meant a lot of walking which meant a lot of digestion which meant more room for food. Unhealthy relationship with food? Probably.

The bridge to the "Southern tip of Asia"

After Sentosa, I met my friend Sam and she showed me around a bit more. We walked through somewhere between two and four malls (it was hard to say because they were all connected). Singapore loves malls. Maybe it’s because of the air conditioning or maybe the society is just insanely consumerist, but every single MRT station I got off at was attached to a mall, sometime two. The malls were connected to one another, and I think that it might be possible to cross the entire city without ever leaving a mall. Sam and I found that at one point there was no way except through a mall for us to get to our destination. We visited the Esplande, which is a durian-shaped arts center. There we saw three art galleries and two jazz concerts in about 30 minutes, and that is why I love Singapore. Then we walked across a beautiful bridge and caught terrific views of the Singapore skyline (man, that place had some economic boom).

What used to be the business center of Singapore.

What is now the business center of Singapore.

After our walk, we met Sam’s parents and went to another hawker center where we listened to covers of U.S. pop hits of the early 2000s and ate more and more delicious food. On the surface, it actually looked and sounded a little bit like my middle school cafeteria. Though I don’t think West Middle School has yet added Oteh, Lor Mee or Satay to its menu. In time, my friends. (But not really because I think West Middle School is not actually a middle school anymore. Sad times).

 My final day in Singapore I spent mainly trying to cross more things off my list o’ food. That’s impossible without some physical activity so I decided to walk around the botanical gardens and some markets as well. Then too soon it was back to the airport. I loved the Singapore airport upon arrival, but it turns out I had only been to the worst terminal there. I took a short trip to Terminal 3 where I watched part of a free movie screening, checked out Singapore’s highest slide, ate some more food and visited a butterfly refuge. What was that? A butterfly refuge in the airport? Huh? Yes my friends, a butterfly refuge in the airport. I don’t know who thought of putting it there, but it is the best idea ever. Entertaining for cranky children, relaxing for cranky adults and a good photo op for a wayward college student.

Yes, this is an airport. You can kind of see the planes out the window

Hindu temple. A new sight for me. 

As I went through immigration in the Singapore airport I was told the U.S. State Department had a special message for me. I though it might be Hillary just saying "hi," but alas it was a warning that apparently every U.S. citizen in and around Taiwan got regarding the impending typhoon. Part of me was impressed by the globalism of the whole thing – someone from Singapore giving me a message from the U.S. for people in Taiwan. That feeling quickly departed, however, when I realized that I would be flying into that typhoon. It was… bumpy. Real bumpy.

After a miraculously safe landing, I sprinted off the plane (probably taking out a few people) so that I could catch the last bus back to Taipei and avoid the expensive cab. I just made it. However, the bus dropped me off about 20 minutes away from my apartment and the public transportation was closed because it was 2am so I was forced to take a cab from there.

These ladies were helping me out. 

You can mock me all you want, but one of the few things I am a little wary of in Taipei is taking cabs alone at night. I think a guidebook said something about it and that got me all concerned. But it was pouring rain horizontally and I really had not choice. I hailed a cab, and low and behold, upon opening the door saw the first female cab driver I had ever seen in my life. She was very nice and felt terrible that I couldn’t exactly communicate where I wanted to go. It’s pathetic because I have lived here all summer, but upon getting in the cab I realized I couldn’t actually say my address in Chinese. I guess that’s what happens when the public transport is so good that you never have to take a cab anywhere.

So confused at the botanical gardens. An arid garden in Singapore makes about as
 much environmental sense as the existence Las Vegas. 

I was soaking wet when I arrived, but all and all it was a terrific trip. I really cannot thank my hosts, tour guides and Singaporean friends from afar enough for all of their overwhelming generosity and advice. I will not soon forget my time in Singapore, and neither will my taste buds. In fact when I hear the word “Singapore,” I’m basically one of Pavlov’s dogs. Psychologists in the room – discuss.

And speaking of psychologists, this is likely my penultimate blog post. For the masses of you who live and die on every word every word I write, you might want to start thinking about psychological help to ease the transition once I am no longer blogging. Or you could, ya know, just stop procrastinating and get back to work.

Little Boxes made of Ticky Tacky

In the last post, I talked about my grand plan to run four miles each day. Hah. I bring this up again if only to justify to myself (over the next several paragraphs) that I have legitimately been too busy over the last two weeks to have any time at all to work out. But wait a second, Becca, you are writing a blog post, aren’t you? That means you must have some spare time. Wrong. I am two weeks behind and writing this post on an airplane on my way back from Singapore. Maybe you will get to read about that trip in, oh, two weeks.

(A note one this plane ride, though. JetStar may be cheap, but what you save in dollars you lose in legroom. I have short legs, yes I know I shouldn't complain. But these seats are so close together that I cannot actually open my laptop all the way. As I type this, my wrists are actually touching my belly button and I have to kind of crane my neck to see inside my laptop. Also, there is a typhoon outside.)

(And also a note on something barely related at all to anything in this blog. Four short days after my return to Colorado, I am climbing Pikes Peak with my mom in support of Brain Injury Awareness. Sea level + 14 hour time difference + no time to run means that this is indeed a dubious undertaking. So if you feel bad for me, or think I’m crazy, or have extra money, or hey, maybe want to support those with traumatic brain injuries, you can sponsor my climb here. Furthermore, apparently my mother and I are in competition as to who can get the most money. Think of it as a battle between old money and new money (does that even exist?). Or a battle between social media and old school fundraising. Or just picture my lungs starving for oxygen and give me some pity dollars.)

Piece of the Berlin Wall.
Climbing Pikes Peak will be like scaling 1000 of these. Chew on that.

So now that I’ve jumped from the present to the future, let’s go one week backwards….

Sometime you literally stumble upon this kind of thing.

The conference that I had been organizing all summer, the 2011 Assembly for Democracy in Asia, happened last Monday and Tuesday. I assumed that I would be spending the entire weekend making preparations, a la GOTV. But on Friday at 7, I was done. A weird feeling indeed. No printers broke, no computers malfunctioned, no crisis arose whatsoever (these are all things I associate with the days immediately preceding an election). I left in a bit of a haze, simply because I was confused that everything was going according to plan.

So instead of spending the weekend working, I spent it shopping. Honestly, though, this was almost worse than working. I don’t like shopping. To be fair, window shopping is okay. What I hate is shopping with a list of things to buy. Awful, absolutely awful. But at some point over the last month I realized that I have very few grownup clothes, and if I am pretending to be a grownup, I figured it was time to ante up and actually get some real cloths. (Specifically, if you didn’t know, I am spending next semester living in DC and working for the Department of the Interior. U.S. Government, people. They do not mess around).

I also figured that Taiwan is the place to buy these clothes, considering that they cost about ¼ the price of the same thing in the US. I made a list of literally the most boring things ever: pencil skirt (I accidentally bleached my old one my first week here), collared blouses, tailored dress, cardigans, low black heels. Where did my childhood go?! Always in search of a good deal, I went to Wufenpu, the discount wholesale fashion district.

Basically Wufenpu is a three-block area filled with very narrow alleys and chock full of every type of clothing ever. The clothes were packed into racks, and each rack had a price, most between $3 and $5. Classy place. Finding nice clothes in here was like finding a needle in a haystack, but with a ton of patience and perseverance, I was relatively successfully.

I was not aided by the fact that clothes made for Asian women really just do not fit me. The size of my boobs, small to average by US standards, basically disqualified 80% of the clothes there. Then, of the 20% of things that actually fit me, I would say 95% had one of two problems: they were either incredibly inappropriate, or were incredibly over-the-top. Most were both. I really did not need a low cut blouse with lace and ruffles and jingly Hello Kitty charms, or a mini-skirt with a gold belt and a rhinestone hem and jingly Hello Kitty Charms. Or four-inch black open-tow heels with oversized blue bows, attached ankle socks and jingly Hello Kitty Charms. Almost everything had jingly Hello Kitty Charms attached somewhere, some more discreet than others. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to find some attached to the clothes I bought in a couple months while I’m going to the bathroom in my office building. Hello Kitty just sneaks up on you like that.

Once I did manage to find some clothes that I thought would fit (you weren’t allowed to try anything on) and were only mildly inappropriate for work, I had to deal with actually paying for the things. I’m pretty sure you were supposed to bargain (it’s always hard to know), but can I just say that I hate bargaining? I find it absolutely awful. I feel like I’m fighting with the owner, and I also think that my white skin means that I can’t get a good deal either way.

The funny thing is that these clothes, even at marked prices, are incredibly cheap. If I saw the same prices in the US, I would probably try to buy all the clothes I would need for the rest of me life in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, one of my best (or worst) traits is that I am unhappy unless I am sure I got the very best deal. I’m cheap not in the sense that I won’t spend money, but in the sense that when I do spend money, I have to get the absolute greatest value for my money. This attribute, coupled with my hatred for bargaining, means that I can never be satisfied with my purchases and that I hate shopping in Asia.

On the long MRT ride home, the irrational part of me kept saying “ughh, you could have bargained so much harder, those shopkeepers must love people like you,” while the normal part of me kept saying “YOU JUST BOUGHT AN ENTIRE WORK WARDROBE FOR $20!”

This hipster cat t-shirt is a perfect example of rally.
I only stopped myself from buying it when I realized I
could not think of a time when I could actually wear it.

The final comment I must make on this incredibly long and extremely whiney section on shopping is that there were several moments during my shopping trip that made me really sad that I probably wont be going back to Stanford for a long time. This needs a little background. At Stanford, we have something called “rally” which is basically just a collection of weird, crazy, bright, inappropriate, hilarious or otherwise strange clothing. Rally is suitable attire at basically any time. For example, it would not be strange to see someone sitting outside wearing neon spandex, a tutu, moon boots, an ironic embroidered denim vest, the top half of a snow suit, and a capsack. It wouldn’t really be strange that kind of outfit in class, maybe toned down with a Stanford hat or something (the only thing Stanford students like more than rally is wearing cloths that remind everyone that they go to Stanford). You can never have too much rally. That is, until you have to pack up all your clothes and move them across the country. Some of the clothes at this market were so ridiculous (hence, the perfect rally), and it made me sad to know that I had no excuse whatsoever to buy them. Instead, I stuck to my ultra boring pencil skirt and plain colored blouses and cardigans. Gross.

Tiny pianos were a theme.

The one redeeming aspect of the weekend was that one the way to Wufenpu was the Taiwan miniatures museum, and that seemed random and quirky enough to warrant a stop alone. It was one part hilarious, one part impressive and one part creepy. The perfect combination in my book.

As were chandeliers 

1:20 scale. This one was particularly impressive. 

Snazztastic.

It was actually a very good thing I bought some new clothes because it meant I didn’t have to do laundry before the big conference. Which brings me to event itself. I must say, it was pretty snazzy. I found all of the speakers incredibly interesting, and might even possibly perhaps questionably be considering writing an honors thesis based on some of the stuff I learned.

Oh hey Premier of Taiwan

With that said, the conference also reinforced some of my skepticism of high-level NGOs and the work they can do. While I got a lot out of the event, I’m pretty sure (read: completely and utterly convinced) that this type of conference is not the best way to promote democracy in Asia. If you want people to vote in Thailand’s elections, I think you should go to Thailand to organize and educate people about the importance of voting, not sit in an air conditioned ballroom in Taipei and talk about why it’s important to vote. This shouldn’t be mistaken as a disillusionment towards theory or discussion or research. I think that it is incredibly important to talk about, perhaps, the challenges specific to increasing voter turnout in Thailand. But if that talk remains amongst scholars and high level leaders only, I don’t think it’s of too much use. I guess what I am trying to say is that I wish the conference, and more generally internationally pro-democracy bureaucracy (sorry, but that’s what it is) was more focused on action and less focused on business class airfare and banquets.

The banquet was sweet though, I'll admit.

I was highly impressed with this part of the conference.

The view from dinner.

Rant over. I don’t know that this is a good thing to publicly blog about, but considering that it is one of the huge takeaways from my work this summer, I figured I should say something. I have more to say, if you are interested. You probably aren’t though, because you would rather hear the stories I am about to tell about the business drinking culture of Asia, how I fell down the stairs into an MP, and why I went running several blocks though the streets of Taipei in heels looking for a book.

1. It is not just appropriate to get drunk in business settings, it is a sign of professional prowess. My boss spent the entire first night making rounds and drinking a glass of wine at each table. My table had probably 15 different toasts, and if you could chug your entire glass of wine each time, you were the cool kid. My stuck up American ways meant that things did not get out of hand for me, but wish I could say the same for many of my coworkers. I will say, however, that this was one of the most fun and entertaining banquets I have ever attended. And I have a attended a lot of banquets.

You can probably see the bruises if you look closely

2. Following the banquet, my boss was leading my favorite MP (I won’t say who, but he is from Lithuania and awesome) down the stairs. The other intern and I were following behind, and because I was wearing three-inch heels for the first time in probably seven months (I have no need to wear them at school, heels are not par of rally gear), down I went. Yup, fell down the stone staircase into Mr. MP, his wife, and my boss. The bruises to my legs were bad, but not as bad as the bruises to my dignity. Immediately following that, I attempted to take the bus home. I asked the bus driver if he was going to Gongguan, my stop. He said yes so I hopped on. After a bit, he stopped and indicated that I was supposed to get off, but when I departed I was nowhere familiar. Turns out I wanted to go to the Gongguan MRT stop, but I was at the Gongguan branch of the National Taiwan University Hospital. Not the same, not even a little. I asked for directions and ended up walking about 30 minutes home in the middle of the night. Luckily, I had brought other shoes so the three-inch heals did not get an encore performance.

3. On night number two, my favorite MP, who now knew who I was (because I always forced myself into conversations with him? Or because I fell down the stairs into him?) presented me and the other intern with a book on Lithuanian folk art. So cute. I took this opportunity to tell him how I had visited Lithuania once and had bought a cookbook there. This was, of course, entirely unrelated to folk art but I was trying to make conversation. Less than ten minutes later, he and his wife returned with a Lithuanian cookbook for the other intern. To be clear, these people had just been carrying around a Lithuanian cookbook all day, waiting to give it to someone. Well then I decided we should repay the favor by getting a Taiwan cookbook and giving it to them. It was the middle of dinner, but I though it was a good idea to run four city blocks to a bookstore to find an English book. In retrospect, such a ridiculous idea. But magically, it was successful. I returned, sweaty and with my sweater on inside-out, where I presented A Taste of Taipei. I think it made up for taking him out on the stairway the night before.

The book is presented.

So that was the conference, basically. Since then, work has been filled with paperwork and celebratory dinners. After two days of heavy drinking people are moving slowly and taking it easy. Except for me. Redeye to and from Singapore + moving out of my room and into another + last weekend in Taipei + coming home = will I ever run four miles again?

This mysterious object? Just the world's smallest working TV. NBD.

P.S. Does the blog title make sense to anyone? It's like a triple extended metaphor or something and requires a lot of imagination on your part. "Little boxes made of ticky tacky" is a part of the Weeds theme song. It refers to the Taipei miniature museum (literally, little boxes). It also references my disinterest in shopping (in the vein that the song goes on the criticize how we all buy the same cloths and look the same). And in the most extended and vague way possible, it hits on my general malaise for the old school democracy promotion old-boys network. You can hear Elvis Costello sing the whole song here . In the mean time, I should probably get a life. 

The Seagulls Flock, Part II: Ode to a Seventh Grade English Teacher

“Where one adventure ends, the next begins.” – Frank Thomason. This quote is made up. I was all out of opening lines, and remembered that my seventh grade English teacher told me that a quote is a great way to start an essay. And if there are no suitable quotes (or, perhaps you are in a place without access to the internet, like, say, a CSAP testing room) you should feel free to make up a quote and attribute it to a made up name. Needless to say, this prepared me to both ace every standardized test and simultaneously violate every honor code and plagiarism rule out there. Kind of like Atlanta public schools.

Anyways, our biking adventure came to a dramatic finish, but just a few short hours later, we had returned our bikes and were off on our next adventure. I’ll admit, I was sad to see my little white bike with no granny gear (curses!) go, but I was excited to wear more than one set of cloths for a week.

We boarded the train for Tainan, in the southern part of Taiwan, and arrived by lunch. After some very incorrect information from the visitor center, we were off to explore. Tainan is a small city, a lot smaller than I expected. Maybe I was used to China where you can show up in a city you have never heard of, only to find out 32 million people live there (examples: Chongqing – 32.3 million, Shenzhen – 13.3 million, Dongguan – 8.8 million). Or maybe it was the Tainan just has a lot of sprawl and a very small city center. I thought Colorado Springs kind of had a lock on the whole “growth without development” game, but Tainan might be right up there. On the bright side, this ensured that we could walk almost everywhere we wanted to go. On the downside, it was incredibly hot so we might have preferred to take a subway or cab.

We headed to what we heard was the best temple in Tainan, the Confucius Temple. I liked the grounds a lot, and there was even a concert going on outside with about 150 people watching. The singer was not really singing, mostly talking, and when she did sing, it wasn’t particularly good. We were in the very back making snide remarks, when I hear over the PA system “Oh! Ni hao waiguo pengyoumen! Dajia, jian wode waiguo pengyoumen!” This translates to “Oh! Hi foreign friends! Everyone, look at our foreign friends!” By the time I realized what was happening, 150 heads were turned our direction and everyone was waving enthusiastically. Disarming, embarrassing, and kind of sweet. However, we did not want to stick around for the concert, and now that it was very clear to everyone who we were, we knew it would be tricky to get from our location to the temple because that involved walking directly in front of the concert. We ended up making a run for it and sneaking in the back way.

The temple itself was… underwhelming. Not much else to say. But when we went back outside to sit in the shade, the concert was still going on, and before we knew it “Oh! Wode waiguo pengyoumen hui lai!” “Our foreign friends have returned!” Again, 300 eyes fixed on our sorry, sweaty selves. Again, endearing, but also annoying. After talking to a some very friendly folks who wanted to greet the waiguo penyoumen in person, we made another sneaky escape.

Then we walked. And walked. And saw some more temples. A lot more temples. Honestly that was a week ago and it’s all kind of blending together. I guess the whole point of keeping this blog was for this kind of thing not to happen, but that’s what I get for falling behind. I do remember that we went to a pretty awful vegetarian restaurant for dinner, which was sad because it was my mother’s first and only chance to be able to eat anything she wanted, and unfortunately no one wanted any of it.

Made out of paper. I was highly impressed.

After a leisurely start the next day, we headed to the Chihkan Tower and then took a bus to some other part of town. There we visited something called the “Tree House.” I was expecting, ya know, a tree house. This was more of a tree attack. This house clearly messed with the wrong Banyan tree, and things did not end well.

We carried on, stopping to eat some delicious oysters, check out a fort, and visit a riverside park. Mostly we were trying to get to a restaurant described as a must-see by our guidebook. We got somewhat lost, or maybe it was just the delirium brought about by the insane heat and no shade, but at one point I was sure we were going to just shrivel into a heap and die. That’s not true, I knew we would make, but were really confused as to our whereabouts because it looked like we were strolling around the suburbs.

Eventually we did make it to the restaurant, though too late for lunch. Maybe the air conditioning gave us an overly-positive view of this place, but I think we could all agree that the guidebook was right. We also realized that the maps we had been using were definitely not drawn to scale. Not even a little.

Inside the restaurant. Pandemonium. 

The processional...

So that night, instead of walking what looked to be about a mile, we took a cab about three miles to the enormous night market. The guidebook did not mention this place (the oyster sellers tipped us off. Nothing like one food seller recommending another. Or like planning dinner while eating lunch – a favorite Siegel-family pastime) and the guidebook got it WRONG. It was an amazing scene, with row after row after row of food stand. I actually think the scene outmatched the food, but we also didn’t exactly know what to buy so I’m sure we missed some good things. The place was absolutely packed (it was a Sunday night, by the way), and so we spent most of the time moving in a very slow processional through row after row of stands. My brother insisted that we look at every single stand before we purchased anything, just to make sure we knew all of our options, so it was about 9pm before we got any food.

My favorite thing we ate was actually some sort of ice cream concoction where you got to pick out several kinds of frozen fruit and then it went into this little machine and came out like a delicious sherbet, 50% tastier than when it went in and probably 150% worse for you.

As we ate, we decided that this little machine should be added to our list of things that we want to take back to the United States and market as health food. Of course secretly it wont be healthy, but it will taste delicious and we will become rich and famous. Back-story: my mom apparently heard a story about how these two guys first discovered acai berries in some foreign country and took them back to America to market as a health food, citing a few dubious scientific studies on the way. We figure that a store selling shaved ice (a big pile of ice with “fruit” on it. But actually the fruit just provides a healthy shield for milk custard, condensed milk, and ice cream) and this fruity ice cream stuff (which we would call frozen fruit smoothies or something) could make us tons of money if we market it right. So, who wants to invest?

This is how he felt about the temple crawl.
Hopefully hotpot made up for it. 

Anyways, back on track. I took the train back to Tapei Monday morning in time to get to work by 9am. That was a pun. My seventh grade English teacher did not specifically recommend we use puns in our writing, but man those CSAP prompts were boring. I had to do something to spice it up, and this was just adding to my “voice.”

For dinner, we fulfilled all of my brother’s wildest dreams by finally getting hotpot. Flashback: walking around Beijing for hours looking for a hotpot restaurant. Never found. This time, however, there was a recommended hotpot restaurant just a few minutes away from my apartment. And not just any hotpot, and all you can eat hotpot. I don’t even know how to describe this place except to say that I really really want to have my birthday party there.

You get to take a tray and tongs and just go at this giant wall of food. Servers walk around bringing you slices of meat, and then you throw you meat, veggies, fish, seafood and other assorted items in bubbling hot broth for a few minutes (or seconds… who’s counting? I was impatient) and then eat. And eat. And eat. So delicious. So much food. Unlimited drinks. Unlimited beer. Coke out of the glass bottle. Do-it-yourself Hagen Das in every flavor. Two hours to eat. $15 US dollars. For my sanity, please open a franchise in the United States. Please.

(This was also on our list of things to market in the United States. We were thinking of calling it meat fondue, opening a restaurant in a place like Aspen and charging $100 per person.)

On my family’s last day in Taiwan, we finally ascended Taipei 101 to take in the sunset. Did you know that you can purchase three million dollar giant coral on the 89th floor of Taipei 101. Don’t worry, we couldn’t pass that great deal up, so we bought some for each and every one of you. Just wait for the holiday season. Our night ended with a boisterous resturant where we sat at on the street and ate deliciously fresh seafood and goose (the restaurant was actually called Seafood and Goose. No joke). Finally, we went to a tea house so my brother and father could stock up on their supply.

No too shabby. Thanks pollution!

After giving my parents all of the jackets and pants that I brought to Taipei (they were taking them home because I never ever wear any of them. Literally the last time I wore my jacket was on the plane), I bid them farewell. Thanks for coming, family. Since you’ve left, I have gotten a lot more sleep, but am having much less fun.

Part of this is because I am working a lot. The conference that I have spent all summer planning is coming up on Monday, so it’s crunch time. Though my experience has prepared me well. I was expecting this to be like GOTV (Get Out the Vote, which is the final push for the last four or five days before an election). During GOTV, you are lucky if you get a couple hours of sleep each night. For some reason I mentally prepared myself for 22 hour workdays, and am now confused that I only have to work ten hours a day. It’s making me a little uneasy. #campaignlife

It ain't natural, but it's sure pretty. 

Old Man Karaoke. This is why I need a visa extension.

It’s not, however, making me as uneasy as I felt when I realized I really needed to renew my visa ASAP in order to remain here legally. (That, my friends, is a transition that my seventh grade English teacher would have been incredibly proud of). I attemped to aquire the appropriate documents, only to find that my last bank statement was from June 30, just a couple weeks after I arrived here. All I could do was print it out, kind of fold it in a weird way and strategically highlight certain parts to draw the eye away from the date and to the amount of money I had (keyword: had). I was expecting, and had been told to expect, to spend a good chunk of the morning doing all of this. It didn’t help that I slept through my alarm. But I got to the office at 8:30 and was out, with a renewed visa, by 8:40. There was one bad moment where the letter of intent I presented insinuated that I was working, which would be illegal. I tried to explain that I wasn’t actually making any money. If they had been able to see my current bank statement, that would have been highly evident. Instead, they gave me a piece of paper and told me to write “I am in Taiwan for sightseeing. I am not working here because I cannot legally work here.” And that was that. Cool as a cucumber and legal once again.

Overcrowded fish. It's like they are on the Taipei MRT. 

This is my pleading face.
Also my dying of heat face.
Also my food poisoning face.

I felt like the ease of the renewal process was like Taiwan was saying: “we love you Becca! Stay with us forever!” But just a few hours later, I came down with my first case of food poisoning. I knew it was serious when my friends went to get bubble tea and I had to pass it up. I felt like Taiwan was saying: “Becca, we do not want you or your weak western stomach here! Get out!.”

Taiwan, make up your mind. By the way, I am fine now. The food poisoning incident conveniently came on day two of my indefinite challenge to myself to run at least four miles everyday. So, that challenge lasted for awhile. But after a few involuntary ejections, I was basically back to normal, and ran five miles today to make up for it! The challenge lives on, until tomorrow.

It’s really a sprint to the finish here, though. (Another terrific transition, am I right?). The conference is next week. I’m going to Singapore from Thursday through Sunday (those who have been/ lived in/ visited Singapore, tell me things to do. Mind you, I mostly just want to eat). Then I am back at work for a week and return to the US the following Monday, September 5.

How shall I end this blog, oh seventh grade English teacher?

In conclusion, insanity. Also (restate intro, restate intro, damn I made up a quote for my intro), in the words of Alison Dutcherson (made up person) “your adventure has only begun” (made-up generic quote, success).