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| Here I am arriving at Taipei Thursday night (after waking up at 5 AM; after going to sleep around 1; after dinner at Annie's, searching for a club, and playing a few hands of poker). There are many more English speakers in Taipei than in Beijing, and the official grammar is much better; there are no "please do not letter up" signs, and no stores called "numeric laser water" [if anyone got a picture of that, could you please send it to me?]. The city is very clean - a nice change from Beijing - but still has the same height problems that Preston, Jose, et al. experienced - in fact, my shower is only about 5'10" from floor to ceiling! |
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| Every city should have a scenic overlook like this. The view is from the campus of a small college in Taipei. Graduates of the college call it "the top university in Taiwan"... based on elevation, not quality of education. | My hosts in Taipei: Prof. Hung Cheng-Huang (left) and Prof. Wang I-Lin (right). Cheng-Huang was one of my best Ph.D. students at ISyE (and also one of my students who is older than me). I-Lin also got his Ph.D. from ISyE, but with a different advisor - I was a member of his Ph.D. thesis committee. Seven years earlier, when he was a Master's student at MIT and I was just starting graduate school, I-Lin was the TA for a class I took! | We weren't allowed to take pictures at Chiang Kai-Shek's resort. The more I learn about him, the less I like him. He and his cronies owned (stole) all the nice real estate in Taipei - anyplace there's a good view, he or his political party (KMT) owned (or still own) the place. He was apparantly a very paranoid guy - every room had 4 or 5 doors, there were secret escape tunnels, and the grounds of the resort had hidden holes for men armed with machine guns! The nicest part of this resort is a big sundial-like clock made of flowers. |
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| Outside the National Palace Museum. Cheng-Huang came back from parking the car and found me talking to these three girls. When he found out I was just taking a survey, he seemed disappointed: "Oh, I didn't know - I just figured maybe you were very charming." | Forget about the antique markets in Beijing - if you want to see great Chinese antiquities, go to the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Chaing Kai-Shek brought (or stole, depending on who you ask) all the best stuff with him. They have 6000-year-old knives, 1300-year-old books, 1200-year-old ink art on silk that still looks better than the factory-made fakes sold in the market (of which I bought two, unfortunately... one of them is for my godson, who luckily is only 3 years old and won't know any better), and some incredible sculptures including the Jade Cabbage. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures of any of the cool stuff in the museum (this picture is from their web site). One of my personal favorites had nothing to do with its artistry - the museum has a 250-year-old report from a court official to the emperor, with the emperor's response. The response has nothing to do with the content - instead, the emperor spends his entire reply correcting the official's bad grammar. I bet that official never lettered up again in his whole life! | This restaurant (Shin Yeh) beats out Annie's for the best food I've had on my whole 2-month trip. It's an all-you-can-eat Japanese buffet (cooked dishes, sushi, and sashimi) and the food - especially the sushi and sashimi - is delicious! |
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| Me (about 1/2 story tall) and 101 (the world's tallest building, 101 stories tall). Unfortunately, they're still working on the inside so it's not open for tourists yet. | Before going to sleep, I walked down the street from the hotel to a big bookstore to see if I could pick up some stuff to read on the plane ride home. Apparently, the bookstore is well-known in Taipei for three things: (1) it's open 24 hours and has a lot of English books, (2) therefore, it attracts many western visitors, (3) therefore, it attracts many Taiwanese women who want to hit on western visitors. Nobody hit on me, though... I guess I was more charming back at the museum. |
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| I got the student's seat in Cheng-Huang's office. "Professor Hung, can you explain the shortest path problem to me?" | The 21-hour bell at National Taiwan University. It only chimes 21 hours, because "the day only has 21 hours - the other 3 hours are for thinking." I should use that line the next time I give a final exam. | The view from the huge Chiang Kai-Shek memorial. The yellow people and dots in the background are part of a Falun Gong gathering. Outside the memorial, there was a drum line practicing. They weren't very good though... I'm guessing Mike and Jorge could teach them a thing or two. I looked around for an accompanying horn line, but couldn't find one. |
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| Outside the presidential residence, there were some protesters. Their party (KMT) lost the election by a very small margin (sound familiar?) but instead of finally giving a mature, responsible concession speech like Al Gore, they're still protesting the results. They even claim that the winning party faked an assassination attempt on the president, even though the bullet came within several millimeters of killing him! We couldn't take any pictures, because they're notorious for beating up people they think might disagree with them - so the safest thing to do was walk quietly past. | We all went for a walk on the Danshui boardwalk-type area. It was like the Jersey shore - lots of carnival-type games, performers, food sellers, etc., with young people all around. If we weren't heading to dinner soon, I would've bought a 55-cm (almost 2-foot) ice cream cone. | The view from the back of the boat we took on the return trip. It was a very nice ride, but something in the water makes my hair look grayer than it really is. |
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| At dinner. Here I am with I-Lin and his family. Of course, being as bad with names as you know I am, I forgot his wife's name and his son's name within 5 seconds of him telling me. So he told me again. And I forgot again. And I was too embarrassed to ask a third time. | Me with Cheng-Huang, his wife, and his two children. (Again, notice the lack of name memory.) This restaurant beats out the one I went to with Prof. Zhou (next to the communist party school) as the best Chinese restaurant I've been to on this trip. It turns out it's owned by the same people who own the Japanese buffet from last night, and it even has the same name (Shin Yeh). I feel awful for remembering the restaurant name but not my friends' wives' and children's names. | My excellent hosts - the best Taipei tour guides ever! |