#166 Taipei is incredible

Transcript

Alright, let's begin Taipei City Mall. So this is still the same day as when I first arrived in Taiwan and I was walking around the outside of the airport, ranting about how great it was and how easy it was to get in. So I took the train to the Taipei Center. I already forget the exact name, but like the main station and it's connected.

To the Taipei City Mall. So I was like, alright, let's go in here. First thing I see, PlayStation Store. Nice. Well, I guess it's called Games Pro. Like Game Pro with an S, an Elden Ring poster for the DLC, a Fate Game, something on Nintendo Switch with New English, Dragon Quest X offline, Rest in Peace, Toriyama.

Anyway, right away. Instantly, this is more interesting than the nothing stores in freaking South Korea. Right away, video games. I can get down with video games. Let's walk in for a bit. I wasn't gonna, because I have my voice recorder, but whatever. No one cares. Yeah, this feels very Japan-y. A big PlayStation fight stick. Racing wheel. Yeah, a lot of PlayStation stuff. Although I guess that's not surprising. Xbox is not even doing well in North America. Of course, it's not doing well in the East. Amigos, games, controllers. Yeah, it's, you know, it's your basic game stop, except this is Games Pro, but that's nice. Oh, some Gacha machines right out of the gate, too. Man, literally all I've done is get on one train. And already, just things are more fun. Way more Japan feeling in that sense. I mean, I came to like South Korea quite a bit, but it's seriously lacking.

I mentioned while I was there, but very utilitarian place. So first off, it took a couple of tries for me to get an ATM that worked, because I don't know, I found one and I pressed something called Visa Advanced, which I don't know what that was. It just gave me an error and said you can't do it. But I also put in the maximum amount, because the maximum amount is usually in Japan. It was like $200, maybe 300. I did find some 300 places in Korea, but a lot of them were 100. So I just figured whatever the maximum is. That's probably fine. Turns out I asked for like $800. It's way too much. But I still went with the $400 option when I found a proper ATM meant for foreigners. Here's a store with action figures, a lot of Gundams. As the V-Tuber Chibi Doki would say, we're all just Bacteria Gundams. There's just Bacteria controlling us and we're the robot.

There's a moon dragon ball, street fighter, awesome old school, some Godzilla, Nekke Godzilla, Camira, all that type of shit.

Oh, it lost in this robot next to Ultraman. This is already right away when I filled out the immigration form. I learned a bit from my experiences this time. Maybe I shouldn't leave on the very last day. I did claim I was going to leave a day before my 90 days or up. I'll have to check my passport actually and see what day he put. If he put that day, then that's what I'm leaving. But I already I can feel like, yeah, I want to spend my whole time in Taipei. Why wouldn't I? This is fucking cool already.

Yeah, I had to make myself a little cheat sheet for the money. So this is going to take me some time to get used to. But basically, with a new Taiwan dollar, I'm not sure how this related to the stuff I bought in China. Yeah, that was all just random prices a couple of times. I only went to family mark twice. That's all I bought, but I have no idea what that all came out to. But basically, I got a wallet full of $1,000 notes.

I think that it's actually dollars correct in this case. I think it is called the new Taiwan dollar. But the $1,000 note for me is about $40. It is like 42 or 43. But just if I'm to have any help of ever knowing what anything costs, we'll say $40. I bought an easy card, the transit card, and I got some change. So I've got some 500s. And the 500s are approximately $20. And then I've got a 100, which is how much my Airbnb guy wants if I use the air conditioning for a night, which is $4. I feel like it's a little much. 5:00 I feel like you should charge me like a buck 50 to use air conditioning. But maybe I just won't have to. But yeah, then that's when the first weird thing happened. I think I'm going to have to give up my claim for the time being of Canadian politeness. It's definitely slipping after all this shit in the last few days and sleeping overnight at the airport and being all stressed out and being exhausted. Oh, a dedicated Nintendo switch store. I mean, I'm not rude. But I'm just not tactful like I normally am. Where there was a little kiosk that sold these easy cards. Which again, I don't know what you use them for. I assume it's the same as normal where you can use them for transit, but probably also at convenience stores and maybe vending machines. And that's probably it. So the lady sold me one. And I opened the whole package and it was like a Sanrio thing, a little egg character, some Sanrio egg guy. So there's a little egg guy, which is just a little cardboard thing shaped like an egg. And a little pamphlet in there. And I unfolded that and I tried to translate it a bit of it, but it nothing was making a lot of sense. Wow, another action figure store. Game satellite. Holy crap, this place is full of game stores. This is another one. So I had to go back to the lady and I was like, okay, so there's like QR codes and stuff on this. Is that what's going on? Do I take this to the metro station and scan the QR code? And it gives me the easy pass. And she said, no, this is the easy pass. And she held up the little egg man. And this thing, it's not rectangular. It's not card shaped. It's shaped like an egg. It's like half the size of a card and it's roundish. It's a fucking egg. So that's what I mean about where I'm losing my tag, where I just said, like, without thinking. I'm just like, do you have any rectangular ones? Like ones that look like a card? Because this thing, like, it doesn't fit in my wallet. It disappears. If I put it in the card slot, it just sinks down in and I have to try to pick it out. And she showed me the other one that you had. And it was not much better. It was a bit taller, but it was shaped like a dragon. And I was like, that's all right. Never mind. It is like $4. This is just, you know, an unloaded card. But then I went to the MRT station and the machine can just spit you out a card. And I was going to do it. I was like, I'll just keep the little egg man as a weird memento. Like I bought a $4 little Sanrio keepsake. And I was going to get the normal card. But then I was thinking how, you know, the card it's all right. It's just a little white card and it's got the symbol for easy card on it. It looks kind of like an old school, super Famicom logo. But even though I grew to like my South Korea card just because I used it for six months, it's ugly. My South Korea card is awful. It's just like the most touristy card. It just says like tour Korea across the top and it's just the laziest graphic design. And it is the definition of the tourist card because it's the only card I could find.

Here the airport in Seoul. You know, other people are getting BTS cards and all this cool shit. I had the ugliest card in the world. So then I thought like, you know, as long as I keep this stupid little egg man wrapped up like the pamphlet that came with it, it is card shaped. It is rectangular. It's a little, you know, just a little sheet of paper that you can unfold. If I keep that folded up and I keep the egg man inside that, I can just pull out the paper, pull out the egg man. And I guess, you know, I'm sure I'll just get used to the egg man and I'll just start using them all over the place. But I guess what got me is I was thinking like, you know what? Just never mind using it at convenience stores. Never mind using it around people. Just use the egg man only for transit and fucking, maybe this is cool. Some lady for some reason gave the 43 year old tourist man a goddamn Sanrio egg, a goddamn card that is the worst shape in the world.

It's completely not convenient and just the dumbest crap. Maybe you should just go with it. Maybe you should take this as a fun opportunity to have the weirdest transit card of your whole life. So I kept the egg man. I put 40 bucks. I put a thousand new Taiwan dollars on the egg man.

I'm not saying it. I refuse. Sorry, beatle maniacs. I won't say it. You're saying it in your head. I know you're saying it. I should find out what this Sanrio character's name is. I don't have to call him the egg man.

I've moved beyond the action figure video game part. Now this is more like the underground mall in Busan. Now it's like closing stores and hats. This is more South Korea feeling. Just the average stuff. But this is kind of cool. I don't even know if I'm walking the right way or not, but my Airbnb is like 20 minute walk from here. I have not been yet.

But yeah, I figure I'll just since I have no plans at all, I kind of figured if things in Taiwan suck, I'll just go to coffee shops a lot and do some writing like I did in Seoul. If things are cool, I'll go out and explore and do cool stuff. On the way here, it did seem pretty mountainous and lush and verdant and beautiful. I think there might be stuff to do. Fail, just stop in as stuff happens in Taiwan. But I guess yes, so far. I just wanted to mention the money does not line up to the Canada dollars at all. But it could be kind of cool. If I go into a convenience store and I pull out a dollar, but it's actually worth $4, you know, and buy a lot of shit with a dollar. You know, like it's always going to feel that way in my brain. I guess I shouldn't even think of it as a thousand, right? If I think of the thousand as a 10, I know that's weird, right? That's like, why am I making extra steps for myself? But thinking of a thousand being $40 is not going to work for me. But if I think of it as a 10, Japan style, you know, move the decimal too over. And then multiply by four. That might actually work. I might actually be able to wrap my stupid head around that.

But then yeah, I just wanted to mention the Eggman because like what in the shit? Like I've seen plenty of like cool designs for transit cards, but I never in my life have seen a transit card. Like I just can't imagine being on the Toronto subway and pulling out my transit card that looks like a goddamn egg with a face on it. What the fuck? Oh yeah, man. Again. You're doing okay. You're doing okay, Taiwan. Here's the guy singing. I don't know if he's the singer or if this is just karaoke.

But let's fade out on him.

I think it's karaoke. No offense pal, but I'm guessing karaoke.

Oh, and here's people in cosplay taking pictures. I almost almost recognize one character.

It's like a chick with red hair and she's got like a suit with a tie.

I bet I could figure that out with a little bit of research.

Blind person massage.

Yeah, I guess that must be what it says on the tin.

And now here's just a little sign.

For the Taipei Metro. Oh, and I guess it's like explaining that you can use your card or your smartphone. But yeah, this card is just, it's a card. Fucking beginner. The kitten, your card looks like a card. What the hell is that all about? You should get one that looks like a rocket ship. Like even that's the thing with the egg guy. If there was like a hole in his head or something. So I could put him on a chain like a keychain or something. It's just a fucking egg. It's the weirdest. What am I supposed to do with that design?

But anyway, yeah, keeping him, keeping him folded up in his birth pamphlet. It seems like that'll work. All right, I got to go above grand and figure out where this Airbnb is.

It was raining a bit earlier, which I guess there was a typhoon as recently as two days ago. But I think it stopped.

I just did a little quick googling. I went again. It's like, ah, the mall. The mall probably has Wi-Fi, right? You have a little free mall thing. I didn't even read the, you know, it's got the splash page. I didn't even have to click, like, accept or anything. I didn't even read what it said. I just pressed the button at the bottom. And it's like, thing, here you go, have internet. Oh, see, that's how it's supposed to be. Anyway, here's a quick 15:00 Google. I saw four cosplayers, and the only one that I was like, ah, I know that one character. It's Makima from Chainsaw Man. Back in my day of working at a comic shop, I wouldn't know that. Nowadays, I just like, I'm like, I should know that. It's as good as I can do. Oh, but also, I saw the squat toilets. It was in a washroom that had two squat toilets, and then one accessibility toilet. And it's like, oh, that doesn't bowed well. That's kind of the only thing that's not 10 out of 10 so far in Taipei, is that I'm not out on the outskirts right now. I'm right in the middle. I'm right at the main station. I'm right in some kind of main mall. And they're like, yeah, man, squat toilet it up. That's what all your kids like these days, right? With your Nintendo switches in your PlayStation 5s and your Gundams, you're like squatting. Go to the bathroom. Well, don't worry, we got it. Gotcha machines, squat toilets. Man, yeah, there are just tons of anime stores. There's Inuyasha, good old Ray, there's long hair, long hair version of Ray Ianami. Oh, that's fucking the dish go from Yuru Camp. There's one I actually know.

I get that reference. A bunch of one piece. My dress up darling, I still know too much, too much of this. Oh, Rem from Rizero. I'll start to watch a med show. That goes some places.

But yeah, it just seems so super apparent right away that this place is just full of anime and video games and like, why wouldn't it be? Who the fuck doesn't like that shit? That shit's awesome. I wonder if in Korea, like if it still ties into, I found out that back in the 90s in particular, they basically were afraid of Japanese culture taken over. And there were some people in the Korean government still pretty salty about the horrible barbaric past between the two nations. So they basically banned the import of Japanese stuff. So back when we were playing Nintendo and Super Nintendo, they were not. But at the same time, South Korea put tons of money into internet infrastructure. So they had awesome internet and for video games, they had PCs. And that's why, if you used to play original Starcraft back in the day, one day you were on BattleNet and you're playing along. And somebody with a Korean name showed up on the server. And maybe it was a two on two battle and their partner dropped out. So you say, hey, we can just, you know, call it a draw. It's not fair to handicap you two against one. And maybe they say, no, that's fine. Let's play it out. And maybe they crush you and your friend handily, easily. And then maybe that goes on to be the pattern for the rest of your fucking life that you could never, ever, ever beat a Korean person at Starcraft. So that's why that happened because they banned imports on Japanese stuff for, I don't know how long. And they went to PC instead and dominated that shit. But I wonder if that's why it still feels that way now. You know, this would be like specialty shit in Korea. If it even exists, it's very hard for me to conjure up a memory of seeing anything like this anywhere in South Korea. And here, here I'm in, now I'm in Gachupon fucking row. What are these gadgets? I'm not looking too close at them. It's definitely a bunch of these sort of generic ones that are just, you know, camping gear and stuff. And then I think the rest are Japanese properties mainly. There was one Gachupon machine in Saegwapau, one place that sold Gachupon stuff. But yeah, it's like very uncommon in South Korea, where holy fuck. I feel like it's, maybe I just got lucky. Maybe I just stumbled off the train into the greatest mall of all time, but this just never stops, even in Japan, this level of saturation. I don't even know if Akihabra is this packed in with anime and video game shit. I mean, obviously there's way more in Akihabra, but Akihabra, you know, splots and blocks. This is just like an underground mall passageway. And that little bit that I passed through, I thought maybe I was in the little video game anime park and then I would just pass on to like, oh, here we go now. We're just in the park where they sell purses and they sell, you 20:00 know, hats and stuff and boots. But no, I think the part with the hats and the boots was the outlier. Because now we're back into anime zone and it's just fucking everywhere.

Gargura. Look at that shit. Hollow live. Man. I gotta admit, of the V-Tubers that I watch, Gargura is weirdly funny. I'm mainly an iron mouse and a chibi doki guy myself, but Gargura is fucking funny. Wow, I need to just, whatever, I just need to put this recorder away, it's just yet I use another store. Oh, spy family. I know that one.

Yeah, it's just store after store after store. Fuck me. I guess this is maybe when I was just, because I didn't know much about any of these countries. Besides whatever I picked up about Japan from, you know, pop culture, but after I went to Japan, I did kind of have that thought. I'm like, well, I guess if Korea's got 7-Eleven and stuff, like maybe going to Korea would be like a surrogate Japan, like a second Japan sort of situation. And it was not. Korea's very much its own things. However, and I say this with great affection, so far Taipei is absolutely Japan junior. Absolutely. I mean, I've only been here a little bit. I've only been to this one place, but this is fucking out of control how much anime shit is here.

Every once in a while, like an incredible Hulk or a Wolverine sneaks in in a little action figure. Oh, okay. I think I got turned around, because there's the Nintendo Switch dedicated store. All right, so maybe I took a loop. So I was making, it was making the anime saturation seem a little heavier, but I mean, there is like two hallways. So I guess I am still in the anime zone. I was just in the other hall now. But man, man, man, what the fuck?

Oh, and on the way out, I just picked a random exit. It was like at right time to head above ground to get out of here. They've got ads for Xbox Game Pass games. Microsoft Flight Simulator, Game of the Year, Guardians of the Galaxy on Game Pass. Minecraft, Java and Bedrock. Good fucking luck as old as Master Chief. So I guess Xbox is trying, but I did not see a single Xbox thing in any of those stores. So yeah, I don't know, man, do your best. Do your fucking best.

So I'm in the Airbnb, and man, this is a weird as hell. I don't really quite know how to, how to pinpoint the place. He said the first two floors were like rented out to someone else. So it's maybe not necessarily related to him, but it's like you go in and it's all this like red mood lighting. And I don't know, it feels like an opium dead. As I was coming up, there was a guy just kind of a sleep on a couch on the second floor. But I think it's some kind of like, it has like a Buddhism vibe, maybe little weird spiritual symbols and phrases in. Well, like for instance, this sign here in my room, tack TAKK, Furrier, FYRIR, Goda, Oled, and then it signed Vili, VILLI. Like what the fuck does that mean? I don't know. Anyway, the place is kind of cool in a weird way. The only one of his rules, though, I immediately feel like I need to break is that he's like, hey, put on the, you know, the house slippers, of course, leave your shoes here. But make sure you put your shoes high up on the shoe rack so that the guy who lives on the first floor, the first floor tenant, so his cat won't pee on them. And there is just that very vague pee, not pee smell, like pee sense, like they did their best to clean it up, but cat pee is a menace. And there was no room on the shoe rack anyway, but I'm just like, I can't do it, man. I hope he doesn't have cameras in here because I'm gonna bring my shoes up here, you know what? I'll make sure I put them on. Well, probably just today's gross shirt that I wore for the last several days. That'll be my new, put my fucking shoes on this 25:00 place mat. So it won't hurt anything. I won't make anything dirty, but I cannot leave my fucking boots out there with the cat pee. I won't do it. But the neighborhood is fucking really cool. This location is really close to the center of everything. And yeah, just walking through the whole place is like, this place is cool as fuck. And arguably, arguably the Airbnb is cool, but it's still cool in like a creepy kind of way. It's got some kind of a vibe going on that it's just like, hmm, like the guy said, this is the year's supposed to check in at nine o'clock place. But because I'm two days late, and I paid for the other two days that I wasn't even here, he nicely, he just let me in. But it's just a door at the bottom that is just unlocked. It's like just, there is a key, but don't use it. Just leave the door open, but it's like a cool feeling. You're just walking down some random alley and I'm like, is this it? There's some dudes smoking outside restaurant next door and a little park across the street. Weird little narrow alley and it's like, yeah, this looks like the little YouTube video. He said, me, just push on the door and the door opens and just walk in. Like, there is that cool feeling of like, oh, it's like a secret place. I know where to go.

But yeah, I guess the guy who sort of maintains the property, I guess he works or whatever, until nine. So I'm supposed to meet him at nine, you know, just to check in or whatever, you know, just they know who's here. Have a face to face. So I got to skip that. I don't know. It's only it's not even six o'clock right now. Maybe I'm sure I'll see the guy. But part of that was supposedly, well, I can tell you, let me just see what this listing said. Like, he's supposed to give me a tour of the property. Like, but dude, I just need to know where the bathroom is, where the shower room is. I know it's on the third floor somewhere. I'm sure I can find it.

On the schedule check in day, it'll be provided an introduction to each floor's history or to the floor's history. After the check in guide, the black enjoy the complimentary historical tour. Staff will guide you through each floor, starting with the first like, I don't care. I don't care. I don't care what you got going on here. I don't care what you're into. They made me out of it, dude. You just need a fucking room. So I don't know. Maybe I'll miss the historical tour. But if I get it, I'll let you know. Maybe it's interesting. But even like, he's got the unfortunate do not flush the toilet paper rule. Just put the toilet paper in the garbage. And you know, I first ran into that in Amsterdam. I just don't know how that's supposed to work. I don't know how anybody lives like that. That's when you get that just pervasive, weirdly, grossly sweet smell of poop on the air. It's horrible. But I am in a follow-up rule. But what I'm going to do, I'm going to seven, eleven right now. I'm just going to buy a bunch of little baggies. And every time I use toilet paper, I'm going to put it in its own little baggy and seal it up immediately. And throw it out every time I leave the fucking building. None of this, like, just putting your toilet paper in the garbage can. That's fucking insanity. That does not work. Doesn't make any sense. Because I was thinking like, you know, I bet if I just flushed one little square at a time. But I'm not going to fuck with them. I'm not going to risk his plumbing. But yeah, if this is what we're doing, I am going to quarantine every little piece of toilet paper immediately. Or I don't know, I guess we'll see how the neighborhood is. But I'm not that far. I'm like a 20-minute walk away from that huge mall with all the anime and the toys. I mean, if it's not an emergency, this could just be a pee-only toilet, man. I'm definitely going to trend that way.

Use toilet only in emergencies. But anyway, the other thing is he wants me to sign this piece of paper. This is what I got to do now and then let him know that I'm here. Tenant, in this case, Keith McNally, leases a bed space. Starting from a period above a blah, for a period of 30 days, the tenant agrees to restore the grounds of a blah, blah, blah. I can hear someone shuffling around. So I do have a neighbor. So that answers that question. Then it says, please keep a copy. If encountered by Taiwanese government authorities during the tenancy, kindly respond truthfully that you pay monthly rent as per this lease agreement. And then he clarified in his message to me, say that I was recommended this place by a friend. And yeah, that I'm renting from the owner. You know, I got to assume this is some way to circumvent something about Airbnb in Taiwan. I guess maybe I'll learn more about this as I go. I don't know. But this serious vibes of in the Simpsons, hey, if the building inspector comes, this isn't a room. It's a window box. What is this nonsense? And I'm only here for a couple of weeks. It's a fucking, it's got, what's the word? It's got personality. That's for sure.

And yeah, I presume I won't be encountering any members of the Taiwanese government. I don't know. This brings me back a little to the olden days of Airbnb, not just because of the smell of cat pee, but just the wacky shit, man.

But yeah, I mean, the room itself is pretty nice. It's got all these cool posters, movie posters and stuff set up all around. And I mean, it does have toilet, even if it's only a pee toilet, generally. Still better than no toilet at all.

All right, here's kind of an example of this cool neighborhood that I'm in. I still don't know what's going on in the building I'm in. That's a mystery, but there's like two clothing shops next to me. And it's a bit rainy, so everything's extra pretty. There's a bunch of scooters coming down this street. I guess the big and just scooters in this town too. Right on the corner, near this little alley. Man, shitloads of scooters. There's a neon sign for coffee geek, so I guess that's a coffee shop. And it's got like graffiti all around it. And then the sweet trap beats. I don't know what that song is, but it's kind of cool. And then this has nothing to do with the neighborhood. I think this is city-wide.

It's all the ones I've seen anyway. The walk light. Oh shit, I'm around the corner from a movie theater.

That's a weird. It's nice that movie theaters still exist. And we got some Marvel movies. We got a movie with Asian actors, and we got not one, but two anime films. Yeah, they're in the anime man. No question. But yeah, the walk lights. The little red LCD hand is just a hand. But the walking man, he actually walks. There's this little walking animation that is really cool. He's got this cool little strut. He's like kind of super animated, like overly animated, like how old school classic animation looked. But I tried to take a video of it. I'm sure somebody online has a video of this little man. But with the camera on my phone, just something about, you know, like when back in the day when they would take video of computer screens and it would look all whacked out, it's that type of thing. Something about the frame rate just doesn't work. I can't see the little man. I can only see parts of him. But in real life, there's one right now. I'm looking right at him. What a cool little man. Just walking. He's just walking. He's just just just trucking his way across the street.

What the fuck? That's literally like 10 scooters all driving together, like a scooter gang.

There's a lot of goddamn scooters around here man.

Oh, and cicadas can't escape them, motherfuckers. Although that's like, that was like a 10th as loud as Busan. There's a big ad for Persona 5 on the side of this bus. Legitimately, there's more animation just everywhere than there is in Japan. Like way more.

Man, that made me think though. I mean since I don't know anything about this place, I'm sure the subways will do me just fine. Wherever they go is probably just where I'll go for now. But if this trip does reach the point of taking the bus, what? This is like 15 scooters this time. There's something going on here. Oh, and here's like a shit ton of scooters all parked all along the road. It's like I'm making this up. Why would there just be scooters everywhere? Here comes some more. Maybe this is some magical scooter day and it'll never happen again. Or maybe this is the scooter capital of the fucking world.

But yeah, if I do get to the point of taking the bus, I gotta pull out my little fucking egg man. One of my friends in Toronto looked him up, looked up the Sangria character. He's a lazy egg man. I forget his name, but his deal is that he just takes it slow.

That's me getting on the bus with my egg man.

You know, that reminds me too of, you know, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what was coming. I'm extremely happy with how everything worked out. But when I was just running off of what they were telling me in Shanghai, and I was really hoping that Taipei wouldn't be all up tight like that. And it's just so not. It's like incredibly laid back. But now that I think about it, I'm quite sure I've seen porn from Taiwan. It's like only literally one time. It was this fucking forum that I don't know if it still exists, but it was called Simpsity. And you know, they would just fucking basically steal people's only fans content and post it on this forum. But it had different categories. And I'm pretty sure I saw Taiwanese porn. Because I remember the dude in it, he looked so Chinese in the sense that he was just so handsome and his hair was like super quaffed. And he did not look like a male porn actor in Japanese porn, even a little. This guy looked like a final fantasy character. And I do remember that stuck in my mind a little bit, just because you'd never see Chinese porn in a million years. And even Korea, like there's little weird, you can find some sort of skirting between the lines type of, I don't know, like live streamy type shit, a little bit, but essentially not. And it's not the worst metric, you know. You can kind of gauge how laid back a country is by its porn. If they have none, if that is verboten, that is not a laid back country. And then when they do have porn, then it's just a matter of where do you draw the line. And sometimes it doesn't make any sense, you know, how Japan will blur genitals, but if you just want people to throw up everywhere, you're all set.

So is it less hardcore than America or more? You know, I have to be holder, but the point is, I should have held on more scooters. I should have held on to that. I should have just held on to like the trust that it's like, no, I've seen it before. I've seen Taiwanese porn. I know I have. There's no way. There's no way they're going to give me shit at the border. And they didn't. Man, they didn't.

The scooters have not relented even a little. I'd say the traffic is like, comfortably 30% scooters. That's just a thing around here. It's so weird going to a new place, like just, I mean, I don't know why that would come up. Why would I know that? How would I ever pick up that information? But just as soon as you get somewhere, you're like, oh shit, anime and scooters. It's totally undeniable. I do feel like, though, if there's anywhere where I'm going to get hit, get struck by a motor vehicle, this is it, dude. If there's a, you know, pedestrian walk light, it does not remotely stop the traffic. I mean, it stops them in the sense that, yeah, they'll try not to run you over, but they're, they're ready to turn. Apparently, that's how it is around here. It's the opposite of Montreal, where in Montreal, when it says pedestrians walk, that's it. And in Korea, they're pretty good about it. It was only speaking of the scooters. They're the ones who would just break the rules. But yeah, no, here, anytime there's a walk symbol, if there's scooters or taxis around, they're all like, as soon as you're out of my way, I'm turning. So, be wary, man. Don't take it for granted that you've got any kind of pedestrian right away.

But just one dumb little thing, I guess I've been kind of meeting to bring up. This is only interesting at all, if for anyone, for like mega lifers of this podcast, who've been around since the start, and even y'all might not care either. But just to bring it up, just to close a loop, close the thread, way back, probably the second episode when I flew to Montreal. I was talking about how I was a little worried about long flights because during COVID, I unfortunately, just a random event that happens as you get older, I developed a cyst. And like my lower abdomen, where basically if I bend to my leg and keep it bent, it develops into a stinging pain and it was really bad and scary too when I didn't know what it was.

It's not dangerous, it just sucks. But yeah, I made it through all the flights to Japan and stuff and it wasn't that bad and I feel like it's been getting better, just slowly getting better. But it, you know, it's not going to go away, it's just a thing. But it's been so little of a thing that it's only like if I sit for too long in the wrong position and suddenly I feel a little sting and it's like, oh, okay, do something about that. That's about it. Nothing major.

Oh, here's a, some kind of a bus with an LCD screen on the side. Taipei 12, it's advertising. And they spell it Taipei 12 ELV. Taipei 12 number one. And it's like a cool chick with like pink pigtails, long pigtails and a ball cap. Dance it. Cool.

Does this truck do anything else? I don't think so. I was thinking like would it be, it'd be funny if that was a garbage truck somehow that's all super stylish, but I think that truck just tries their end to advertise. Well, you did your job, buddy. Now, I'm spreading the word. I've been hearing on the wind, too, just coming from the distance. I've heard it like three times so far. The, uh, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Whatever that song is called. So some kind of vehicle or something, play in that tune and I have no idea what that's all about.

Man, it's just because I made me think of it because I was just listening to a podcast where they were talking about squatting. It's a better way to sit. People should be squatting more and I was like, yeah, yeah, I know you're well-meaning and for some people that's probably true, but because I have this cyst, I can't do that if I squat. It is the pain. But I guess I just wanted to bring it up in case anybody remembers that from way back because it's mainly better. What? Oh jeez, the advertising truck has been stuck at a red light for a bit and he turned down the volume. That's nice. Yeah, if you're just stuck here at a red light, you don't need to fucking carpet bomb the whole intersection. And then once he gets moving, I'm sure he'll fire up the volume again.

But I was thinking about it because after sleeping at the airport, I woke up, you know, I had a lot of weird aches and pains from that. It's weird, right? It's like you'd think it was like my hip when I'd sleep on my side that was digging into the ground, so that kind of hurt, digging into the floor. But then it would cause like a pain, like pull a muscle in my chest. It was just weird. But I did wake up the next day with the distinct stinging pain to a degree I have not felt in a while.

And it must just be that while I was asleep, I was just, I had my legs bent and I didn't realize it. But anyway, if anybody cares about that, even a little, there's the update. Things aren't so bad. It's basically, I'm basically better as long as I'm careful, but it turns out sleeping on the freaking floor of an airport. That ain't the best. This advertising truck guy is still stuck here. No wonder everybody's so anxious to turn and to get going even if it's a pedestrian walk sign. Is there a stuck at these intersections for some time?

More scooters lined up four of them at the lights like a scooter gang. I just stopped in a family mart and at first I thought they had the perfect thing because they have a... There's a lot of random beeping and stuff around here that I am not sure what the heck is all about. But they had fragrance sanitary bags, you know, like little garbage bags that have a fragrance to them and I was like, oh, that's actually perfect. If I need bags that put fucking toilet paper in, what can be better? But it was like three of them, a pack of three big rolls of these things and it's like, dude, I'm only going to be at this place two weeks and I'm going to endeavor not to ship my brains out while I'm in there. So I mean, I might get that, just, you know, leave them for the next guy or whatever. But it's a good excuse to try the other places and see what they got. Although, is it just family mart 7-11? I've seen a million family mart in a million 7-11 and I don't know if there is anything else. 45:00 There was that one Lawson's in Shanghai. Did Lawson's make its way to Taiwan?

Is this shoe store? I'd say so far the music is a lot cooler here than anywhere, but I can kind of give South Korea a bit of a pass because you can tell South Korea is playing their own stuff, where I think why the music is cool around here is they're just playing fucking North American music. But anyway, let's go check out 7-11. See what they got in the

shipbag department. Man, I just saw a kid go by. This guy couldn't have been more than 14 and he was wearing a mega death countdown to extinction shirt, which back in those days was probably when I was like 12. That was the first metal album I ever got into. And, you know, it's just thrash metal. It's like catchy as fuck, but that's what surprised me about it. I just presumed heavy metal was just like unlistenable like, blah, blah, blah, you know, as a little kid, I didn't really understand that all music is still just verse chorus, verse, catchy shit just with a different veneer put on it. So I was like, oh my god, heavy metal is catchy as hell, this rule. And, you know, it's all relative. One of my older cousins, he was a mega death like down from day one, motherfucker, and he already thought mega death had gotten soft and lame by that point. But I thought that album was awesome. And it's just like, why is that kid wearing that shirt? That's so fucking cool. That is seriously at a day. Definitely not cool now. And probably wasn't really that cool back then. I mean, I think that album peaked at number two behind Metallica. Those are the days for old thrash metal.

Yeah, just when this place can't get any cooler, it just gets cooler. So I stopped in 7-Eleven. They didn't have any garbage bags that I could find. So I was like, yeah, I took family mart for granted. Went to a different family mart. They had a different fragrance of scented bags. And I actually downloaded an app while I was on the metro on the subway today. Took convert stuff because I'm not even close to being able to figure out what anything costs. And yeah, this thing of scented garbage bags is like $3 in a bit. So it's like, wow, fuck it. I'll just buy it. Like I said, leave it for the next person who's stuck in this predicament. But it is so confusing. Like I walked by him at Donald's and they had like a Korean style. Well, there was two of them. There was the Korean style double burger squid, something squid burger. But then I think there was a Japanese katsu squid burger. Also, like pretty cool shit from McDonald's. But it was like over $200 because they do literally use the dollar thing. And they're like, that's $217. And I don't know what that fucking means. Man, you know, these garbage bags were $79. It's going to take some good news to do. That's for sure. But yeah, the convenience store, it means it's going to take a little while for me to get a full handle on it. It does seem though way more Japanese style, even just in the layout and stuff. Oh, and there's Mr. Donut. I've seen a couple of those. And there was a second street, which is a second hand store that there was a bunch of in Fukuoka. That's here too. Ah, Moss burger, I saw. But at the convenience store, they definitely did have some suspiciously Korean like sandwiches, you know, like the triple sandwich that I'm like, hmm, but exactly are all those ingredients. I didn't look too close though, but I'm like, okay, hmm, well, you do have some of that. But overall, it's a much smoother vibe for me. And they really are everywhere. That is, I mean, it's so stupid, but that's why I decided to come here. I saw somebody on TripAdvisor something say, like, yeah, there's a 7-Eleven on literally every block in Taipei. And it's pretty much true between 7-Eleven and Family Mart. Almost every block. It's kind of fucking remarkable. And the only thing that was a little weird when the guy was ringing things up, I got like a salmon roe on a giri. And that's the one item where he stopped and he like pointed at me. And he's like, hmm, and I'm not really sure what he was trying to get across. But then I realized, like, it is the only thing I bought that wasn't either just a household 50:00 item, you know, bottle of water, hand soap, or something kind of candy-ish because, ah, fuck it, you know, I'm tired out. It's a bit late at night. I just bought a lot of whipped cream nonsense, blueberry and whipped cream sandwiches, some tiramisu thing. So maybe he was like, you sure you want this? Like, this is like an actual item that an Asian person would like. I don't know. I don't know if that's what he was insinuating, but that's all I could think of. And as I get, I mean, thumbs up right on. Nice to have him to look out for me. Maybe he thought I would think it was gross. Anyway, I just thought I would like capture some little moments here and there. And they would build up and eventually I'd get a podcast, but just literally just come into the Airbnb and then realize, and I needed a couple of things and just want to grab some snacks and going out for a walk. Like, that's an episode, man. Like, I remember thinking this when I first got to Seoul, that saying of like, you know, you can't have your first experience a second time. Your first time somewhere is always like, so get in because that's like, that's not going to happen again. And I remember being a little let down about that in Seoul, like a little let down about myself, that I was not absorbing it well and not just feeling like I wasn't fitting in. And I was like, I just, man, I don't like it. The feeling. I don't like the vibe. Not, not having fun and not digging it. But, you know, what can I do if I start faking the funk? Then what would it mean when something is cool, you know? I can't do it. I just got a fucking go with how I actually feel and how I felt was like, I don't know about this. But then, you know, stuff like Busan as soon as they get to Busan, I was like, whoa, whoa. And I think maybe my initial entry into Jeju was a little more subdued than Busan, but I still really liked it. And this is just full on pedal to the metal, man. Pedal to the fucking metal. 90 days. Yes, fucking please. Yes, please. I mean, I might not do all 90 days in Taipei. We'll see what I do. But I'm taking it. I'll take everything you got to give me. This place is fucking, it's just fucking cool as fuck, man. It's just fucking cool as fuck. So there you go. In case you're ever wondering, should I go visit Taipei? I guess so. I guess fucking so. So for more adventures in this part of the world, say fucking tuned, man. The scooters, I can't get over it. I'm in a little alleyway right now. And a couple of scooters have gone by. What is up with the scooters? What is happening? Man, even the fact that it's raining a little just makes it even better. Looks so cool. Everything looks so cool.