#171 Finally realizing I'm in Ximending, Taipei

Transcript

Nice and rainy today. There was a little bit of thunder earlier, but I haven't seen that lately.

But I guess I shouldn't stay out here too long because it's raining pretty hard. Oh, just heard some. There it is. Thunder time.

Bam, I'm just walking around my little neighborhood because it's just nice. It's just kind of fun to walk in the rain.

And this is just kind of cool because I'm also just in a t-shirt. This is the kind of weather that was super duper rare in East Coast Canada. But I have really fun memories of big heavy rainstorms, but where it's also warm out. It's literally like walking through a bit of a shower.

You know. It's just kind of, it's the most comfortable you can be walking through the rain. But the more I'm looking around, I guess I like my shoulders are getting wet. It's actually coming down. It was coming down straight before. Now it's coming down a little sideways. Yeah, this is probably a bad idea. Into an awning.

But still nice. Yeah, so I probably probably not much to report on today. I'll just take this little stroll and then just stay inside today.

But I made kind of a breakthrough with the money, which if you're just a more, you know, someone who uses, you know, I know it's all very basic math, but just uses math more in your day to day. All of this probably seems super obvious and like ridiculous that it took me a few days to get to this point. But yeah, I just can't remember the last time I really did mental math, like math in my mind.

I always just use a phone and a calculator, but even just for low level calculations, I still basically like count on my fingers just to make sure I don't fuck it up. So like for example, so I realized that what I need to do here is I need to ignore the dollar thing. That thing is fucking me up just that they call it a dollar and they use the dollar sign. Never mind that. You know, the yen sign didn't fuck me up. The one sign didn't fuck me up. There, outside of the awning, back into the rain. Just pretend it's a different symbol. That'll help. Nothing is 311 dollars when you go to McDonald's. That's just not true. That's not really how it is. And then I realized the little one coin, the one quote unquote the one dollar coin, you know, it's basically a penny. But in Canadian terms, it's basically four pennies. So you know, that's all. I just realized I just need to think of these as pennies. You know, essentially the same as in Japan, just move the decimal place over to two spots and then multiply by four. But this is what I mean about counting on my hands.

So if something costs 30 dollars, I need to think of it as 30 cents and then I need to multiply it by four. Obviously, three by four is just 12. But I still do that on my fingers just to be sure. I always go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and just count it off on four fingers. Just because why not? You know, even if it's a very easy calculation, I just prefer to make totally sure that I did it right. Rather than trust my mental math.

I suppose computers are probably goofed up a lot of stuff as far as spelling and math and whatever. I'm just not doing it in your mind anymore. But yeah, I've fallen victim to that for sure.

But that's a good baseline. And then in reality, it's actually a little off. It's like not quite. The one cent actually comes to a bit more than four cents. So by the time you get it up to McDonald's amounts, the 311. So just think of that as $3, multiply it by four. It's about $12. But in reality, it's a 13. It's a little over 13.

And I think that's probably as high up as it's going to go. You know, I don't think I'll be buying anything that costs an extra decimal point over. I guess maybe the vitamins I bought the other day, but I already bought them, so that's all covered.

So yeah, 311 dollars at McDonald's. That's really $3.11. Multiply it by four. Add a little touch to it. 13 something.

I can do that probably just so I have some sense on the fly because it was just so weird how much I was floundering. I'm just like I just honestly cannot figure out for the life of me with anything costs. I was making it way too hard, way too complicated. 5:00 Pretend it's Penny's Times 4 Bigity Bam. So I'm learning. I'm slowly learning. I did go back to McDonald's today. I got another squid burger. And I actually paid proper. I paid the proper amount. Or I bought a bottle of water last night and just paid for it with coins.

It's starting to come together, but yeah, no question. It was a lot easier in Japan and South Korea.

Anyway, this rain really is a little on the hard side and it's not stop at any time soon, but it's a...

It is sending the temperature down. I think the little temperature reader in my room was only at 32 and then it went down to 31. Last night it never did drop below 30. But who knows, man, maybe I'll even get down to 29 tonight. I'll be living like a king. I'll be living like a fucking king. Anyway, that's all for today. Let's fade out with some rain, some pitter-patter of rain on an umbrella.

Oh, well, here's a little something. I just stopped in at 7.11 before I went back to my Airbnb because I just wanted to grab a little can of coffee just for the morning. If I get up in the morning and I do some computer stuff, just nice to have a little coffee at the ready. But as I've been discovering, there's not a ton of coffee in Taiwan. It's not a huge thing. So instead, I got chocolate milk tea. Wait, is that what it's called?

Yeah, that's exactly what it's called. Chocolate milk tea. I think it's actually a 7.11 branded thing. So I can't tell you what it's like yet. I won't have it till the morning. But that's kind of neat because it's essentially, you know, I like them poor man's mocha's, you know, that are just chocolate milk with some coffee in it. And this is essentially that except the tea version. Yeah, there's just way, way, way more tea options around here. So I'm starting to think maybe, maybe I should just go in that direction. Why fight it? If tea is the name of the game, then why not?

Oh, I also noticed it McDonald's today. I was saying last episode that, you know, I got stiffed a latte. That there was a mistake on my order and I didn't get a latte. I just got a normal coffee. But I actually kind of realized McDonald's lattes here are actually terrible. They make like real lattes in other McDonald's and other parts of the world. But again, this is not coffee town. So yeah, the latte is only, well, I guess I can use my math. I think it's less than a dollar to upgrade to a latte and it's not a real latte. It's just basically a coffee with milk in it.

But yeah, perhaps, perhaps it is time for tea. I got nothing against tea. Tea is pretty good. What's the difference? I mean, I'm just drinking this stuff as medicine anyway.

But the other thing is the little button that you press to see if you win. It's like the little button on the screen at the 7-Eleven. It's like a little slot machine thing. And I was like, oh yeah, right. Just, you know, hit one of the buttons. Because again, there's four buttons. I don't know if it matters which one you press. I think I saw some lady trying to play it like a game, but I don't know if that's even a thing. Oh, little bit of lightning. There's some lightning that just went by overhead. But anyway, I got a deal. Instead of 98 new Taiwan dollars, it went down to 85 and I got better coins back. Instead of a couple pennies, I got a diamond nickel.

Because yeah, with my mask discoveries, I realized the 10 cent ones, they're not 10 cents. They're like almost 50 cents each. And then the 50 cent ones, I mean, they're like a super tuning. You know, in Canada, we have the tuning, the $2 coin. The 50 cent pieces here are a little bit more than that even.

Just to touch more, I guess. I guess I wouldn't call it a super tuning. It's basically just a tuning.

Well, I've entered this song in a while.

Well, even that, just to hear like a radio station ID. 10:00 I guess we still have that in Canada, but I can't remember the last time I listened to the radio. The last time I listened to it regularly was when I worked at a porn store in Vancouver. But it was right as I was discovering podcasting in like 2005.

Oh shit.

Classic.

What even is this fucking restaurant? Some kind of diner.

But anyway, just yammer in the rain. Fuckin', it's all I wanted to say is chocolate milk tea. And yeah, the little win a discount game at 7-Eleven, I won a discount. Cool.

Now I suppose in classic gambler fashion, I'll start to think like, oh, now I'm always expecting I'm gonna win. Or then you think like, oh, it was only a, you know, that order was like 350 or something. What if that had been a big order? What if I had gotten a discount on like 20 or 30 bucks worth of shit? But of course, the only way to proceed with any gambling is to not just ignore it. If it happens, it happens. Cool. That's all.

Thanks for watching. Thanks for watching. You What the hell is that? Is that thunder?

Like that's been going on long enough that I heard it through my headphones. And I thought about how much it's been going on. And then I got up and I got this recorder and then I went to the window and it was still going.

It kind of reminds me of back in my hometown on whatever, whatever weird random Canadian holidays where they would fire off cannons.

That's what that shit sounds like. I assume that's thunder, but I honestly don't know. I don't know what the fuck that is. I've never heard, never heard this before.

Yeah, I guess it must have been because it seems like it's moving farther away now. I guess it's like in old movies, you know, where they would make the thunder sound by just waving sheet metal. That's what it sounds like.

Or like quiet gunshots, like it's a lot quieter than cannons or gunshots, but that's also what it sounds like.

I don't know. I mean, it is still 30 degrees. The temperature hasn't gone down any, even though it's dark out now. It is super humid. It's been raining really hard. I guess this is just crazy ass weather that just doesn't happen in Canada, but this is so weird. It's just so weird that I can't for sure identify that that's just nature making that noise, because that's just not how shit sounds in Canada, man. It's just the consistency of it that it just keeps going. I guess rolling thunder, right? I guess that's where that term comes from. It just keeps on fucking rolling. That's crazy.

I kind of want to go outside, but I don't know what I would see. Just go outside and get hit by a lightning bolt. It's probably better to stay inside, but... Because all I can see from my window is the building next to me really. I can't really see anything. Which is good, I think, for helping to keep the room a little cool. There's not a lot of direct sunlight that hits my window. 15:00 But yeah, I can't see much. I can just see the corner of a building and other people's windows, so I'm just here in it, just imagining.

And just like that, maybe it's over. So I mean, I don't know. I mean, I honestly don't know. Maybe that was fireworks.

It just, I don't know. Story in my life, man. I don't know.

I don't know.

Oh, feels like a bit of a hot one today. Since the next day, my little temperature thing in my Airbnb room's up to 32, I think it went up to 33 once, and I think that's as high as it went. But it's still pretty early in the day, so that's worrying. I think I kind of realized too, just coming in the other day, that I think it is worse in here than it is outside. You know, you'd think being outside under direct sun and stuff would be worse, but you know, it's just a weird little Airbnb room in an old building. I think it's trapped in the heat. And even if I do just go out and wander, shut up, bird. Oh, there you are. That's kind of cool, even though all I can see outside my window is the building next door.

There's a little birdie right there. Yeah, she may be going out and just walking. Isn't the worst? Maybe there's rivers on like three of the four sides near where I am. Maybe that would be just just an experiment. Just go try to cross a river anyway. To start the day off, I select the 7-11 brand. I never really understood that. Like some of the 7-11s in Japan are called 7 and I holdings, but they seem to be exactly the same. So that's why I'm pretty sure I select is just the 7-11 brand, even though it doesn't say 7-11. But this is the chocolate milk tea, and I mean it's just going to be, you know, tea flavored, probably very sweet, and you know, somewhat chocolatey. It's just going to be like sweet chocolate tea milk. But I've technically never had this before. I've never even seen it. So let's test it out.

It actually doesn't taste like tea at all. It just kind of tastes like watery chocolate milk, kind of like a yuhu or whatever.

Yeah, it just tastes like chocolate milk. It's actually a little disappointing, I was hoping there'd be more of a tea kick to it, just to give it something a bit different. Okay, I think they're a little bit, a little bit of tea aftertaste, but it's super subtle.

So yeah, just chocolatey sugar wider, but hopefully it's got some caffeine in it. Give me a little get up and go. I think I'm going to do a little computer editing stuff.

Yeah, now that I've realized, like especially this being the land of the awnings, being outside in the breeze, and just not being a under direct sun all the time, because I guess that is the thing. I'm still in the mindset of walking around Jeju Island, where I was just exposed to sun all day every day, had to buy the big floppy hat, which did not make it with me. I think it was only a $5 diso hat anyway, but that thing was disgusting by the time I left South Korea. It didn't smell good. Oh yeah, and I broke the strap when I was on Goonsan, and that fucking bug flew into my head. Man, that's a nice thing, that when my mind just kind of drifts back to Jeju Island, man, like, you know, if I think about Seoul, there's like, you know, I don't know, like 10 different places that kind of come to mind. With Busan, there's more. A lot of the beaches that are coming to mind with Busan, and Jetchon, you know, here and there, hiking path near the fucking golf course, stuff like that. The man, when I just idly think about Jeju, man, the amount of places and the 20:00 variation and the different kinds of stuff, fucking crazy. That would be like, if I ever got, you know, incarcerated, and I'm just finding a way to pass the time or whatever, that would be like a mental exercise I would do is try to actually remember each stage as I walked around Jeju in order. I don't know why I'm imagining being incarcerated. I could just do it at night when I'm trying to fall asleep, and it doesn't have to be like, I'm in shashank for the rest of my life. But yeah, dude, I built up some motherfucking memories, fucking Jeju Island. No question there.

So I'm actually mega close to the river. I never noticed because there's a big wall that I assume is probably. There's like an overpass kind of street connecting to a bridge. I'm kind of in between two bridges, and there's a big wall that maybe is to stop noise or something, although I guess it doesn't really work because there's traffic on both sides of the wall. But because of the wall, I never realized I was by the river. I don't know what the name of the river is.

It just says Taipei City and New Taipei City. So is that the split? Am I in Taipei City? And over there is New Taipei City? I don't know. Either way, this doesn't look very approachable on foot. It's kind of pretty though, because yeah, like I haven't really had a lot of good view into the distance from where I am. Like I just see city everywhere I go. So this is the first time I can really see the mountains in the distance, and they're pretty fucking big. This is one of these days where it's quite clear with just nice, fluffy Simpson's clouds, the direction I'm looking at. But behind me, it is ominous, scary rain clouds.

Not a huge river, like a medium river. Much, much bigger than your average Japanese river.

But much smaller than an enormous Canadian river. For whatever that fucking description is worth. I'm not sure if walking is even really, maybe, is that a walkway?

Maybe that doesn't look so bad. Oh wait though, the stairway up to the walkway is on the other side of the wall. I think I've trapped myself. I don't think I can even get up to the bridge.

Anyway, probably I should be, probably I should be taking transit if I want to go over there.

Walking probably doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm just passing under the Zong Ching. Damn it. Now it's a new country where I don't know how to pronounce anything. It's Z-H-O-N-G-X-I-N-G bridge. And there's more bridges and more Taipei.

Off in the distance. This is kind of cool. Just getting a bit more of a sense of the place overall.

It's quite pretty and at least at this time of year, it's just become August. The pollution levels were really low. Below 50 in the green.

River itself, kind of muddy. Not the best, not the worst. This is an utterly average river.

What I do think is kind of interesting is that this takes the, the scooter, scooter vacation of Taipei to a different level where now I'm splitting off for them a bit, but I'm walking along where there's a little walkway and there's a, a little road for bicycles, but it's not used very much. There's one bicycle coming toward me, one bicycle behind me. There's one more bicycle person in the fire distance. So not that many bicycles, but the other little road on the other side of this this river wall is definitely scooters only. It's nothing but scooters. And as you can hear from the sound up to this point, now it's finally I'm moving away from it. Non-stop, constant scooters. Now I'm wondering if my, the traffic is half scooters estimation. Again, I think maybe I was wrong. 25:00 I think maybe, because I mean at this particular part of town, it's 100% scooters. It's a lot of scooters. I don't know, it's just interesting is all, just because it's something I never heard about before. Nor ever experienced just a land of scooters. And that's just one thing I like about, you know, it's just silly little stuff, but it's so neat to travel, even if it's sort of pedestrian details. But just that I knew nothing. I knew nothing about Taiwan at all, really. And maybe all I know so far is there's not a lot of coffee, but they make up for it with tea. You can get chocolate mocha tea. There's scooters fucking everywhere, and they're really into video games and anime and Japanese pop culture in general.

And you know, there's obviously a Chinese vibe, seeing as everybody speaks Chinese.

Wow, it's amazing though, how fast that calms down, just getting a bit away. I guess maybe it's because scooters they don't really make a ton of noise relative to cars. So when I was right over next to them, it seemed loud, but now that they're just kind of on the other side of a park, I can't hear them at all, really. Wow, that's kind of cool.

It's neat too, having the little temperature gauge right in my room, because I've been finding this a lot pretty much the whole time I've been in Asia. Well, at least especially in Korea and here in Taiwan, that looking up weather online, it's just not, it's just rarely seems accurate. It's really kind of all over the place. It seems to tend toward exaggerating the heat. Having a little temperature gauge right in my room is kind of cool. So yeah, previously it went up to 33, and then back down to 32, Celsius. Today, it did in fact get up to 34, and I was like, oh jeez, 34, that's starting to feel pretty bad, but then it went back down to 33. And it's like ah, but I'm just kind of stuck in this little limbo in a way, because if we really did have a heat wave hit, if it got up to like 36, God forbid 37, then I would just amble downstairs, pay the guy for turning on the air conditioner. I really would have no choice. It would be like dangerous not to, but I'm right on the edge. I'm right on the cusp where it's like I probably just should do it. It's like $4, like who cares? It's not like I've been doing this every day. You know, I guess if I turned on the air conditioning every day when I'm here for two weeks, maybe that would be like, jeez, I kind of did add on a fair amount of cost to my Airbnb, but I haven't used it at all yet. I've easily earned a day, and I'm sure I'd be more comfortable if I just went and did it. But I'm still right on that lip where I'm like, yeah, but do I really need to? Is it really that hot? Oh, some actual bicycles. Oh, I see, it's like kids. It's like one growing up and a bunch of kids taking somebody, taking some kids on a bicycle excursion. Yeah, bicycles though definitely fairly uncommon, not that many bicycles in the city proper.

But yeah, I'm actually a little surprised how well I've been dealing with the heat and the humidity. You know, everyone's always like, oh god, you can't come to Asia in the summertime, you can't deal with the humidity, it's insane. But I think it just helps that I am just, I'm just skinny as fuck. I really think that helps. But I just kind of didn't expect it because I grew up in Canada and I prefer it to be cold. I love cold weather, but I mean, I wear a lot of layers in the winter. But yeah, I can handle the heat way better than I expected I'd be able to.

All right, I guess I'm, yeah, I've obviously the park I was at that split me off from the scooters who's obviously ended him back in Scooterville. So perhaps this would be a good time to shut the fuck up.

All right, I moved back into the interior of the city away from the river. Stopped at a 7-Eleven, bought some water, got a nice coconut popsicle. Oh yeah, high life, by the way, does seem to be the third brand of convenience store, but I stopped in one the other day and all I bought was a big bottle of water. So as for how it actually stacks up, I have no idea yet. But 30:00 yeah, I've started to see them around. It's like a distant third for every pair of 7-Eleven and Family Mart. I mean, it seems like there's like easily 15 of each and then you'll see a high life. But yeah, then I saw a little street market and I was like, yeah, let me just wander in there. And yeah, just again, being under and awning makes such a difference. Or this shopping street, you know, had like the, it's like the Japanese shopping streets where it has a roof over top. Man, it really cuts out the intense, terribleness of the summer heat. It just really makes it seem not that bad. But I realized something. I just turned on to this little shopping street and I was walking down it and I just realized how super comfortable it felt. And that made me realize something because this is the first time I've been to a country that is culturally kind of the foundation is China. You know, all the writing is in Chinese and the basic style is the Chinese style. I always kind of thought I was most connected to Japan, but again, only because of anime and video games, but I did grow up with them, you know, like my whole life has been, you know, alongside Japanese culture to some degree. So I think culturally, I do have the best grounding in Japan. But when I got to Japan visually and the way it felt was pretty unexpected. And I was like, oh, this is delightful. Like once you're really there, it is different than you kind of imagine. Or it feels different than when you just watch it on a video. And it was great. And I loved it. Where with Korea, I knew way less. In fact, the first time I remembered directly coming into contact with something that I knew was the Korean neighborhood wasn't until I moved to New York. And that was when I was in my like late 20s. And I lived in flushing. And I would just walk all around. I'll walk to Jamaica and I'll walk to, I think it was called white planes. It was white something the other way from Jamaica.

And I went through a neighborhood where that's the first time I saw Korean lettering on a lot of buildings. And it was so distinct, you know, it was very clearly not Japanese and very clearly not Chinese, although I guess those two things kind of intersect. But it was definitely its own thing. And you know, just the the way Korean lettering looks, it's very simple compared to other Asian languages. So at least from my perspective of not being able to read it, a lot of circles, you know, like just to put it in the dumbest way. It looks like little stickman sometimes. So I looked it up and realized, oh, that's Korean. And I always just kept that in my mind. Any time I saw that writing, it's just so easy to identify. Ever since then, I was like, oh, this is a Korean neighborhood. But that's like it, you know, that's all I knew until slowly Korean dramas and K-pop. And like things started to creep in, Korean comic books, but very slowly, much, much less than Japan. And obviously I soaked in a lot just now, you know, just these last six months living in South Korea. I hopefully absorbed a thing or two. Hopefully I understand something or other about Korea now. Where I never thought much about the China side of things, because like I said, I'd never been in a country where Chinese is the base. And you know, a doubt I ever will go to actual China. But when I turned the corner into that market and I just realized how instantly comfortable it felt. And I realized like, yeah, it just kind of feels like that pretty much everywhere. I haven't gone to any neighborhoods. You know, there's details where I'm like, oh, look at the scooters. It's primarily scooters. Right now I'm walking through a park toward a temple. And it's just like everything just feels pretty comfortable. And that's when I realized like, oh, you know, like even though culturally, I know the most stuff about Japan, of the Asian countries. Visually, and as far as architecture goes, and just the general surface level visuals, it's totally China. Like it just suddenly hit me that, oh yeah, like every city I've ever been to my entire life has a Chinatown. And they're just smaller versions of this. You know, except like I was saying before, this one's nicer. Taipei is a very, very clean city. I've been to some bad Chinatowns in my life, man. Take the Chinatown bus from Manhattan to the Chinatown in Philadelphia. But it was the cheapest bus. We're here. I left my Airbnb and I was just walking around the corner by the 35:00 coffee geek to go toss out my apartment garbage in the public garbage can, which is a bit of a weird thing to do. But that is all I can do. That's what my Airbnb lady wants me to do. And it's only like, you know, a block that I have to walk. But somebody dropped a plastic bag with an empty bubble tea cup in it. And that's so rare here. Super rare. Like just that general, like, oh, just toss your garbage somewhere. Just, you know, here's a cup laying on the ground. Here's a plastic bag. Here's paper blowing around. Like it's very rare. So I picked that shit up. You know, I'm not generally that much of a good Samaritan. I'm not generally walking around picking up other people's garbage. I just look after my own garbage. But around here, it's like, man, they're putting their back into it. People really care that this city looks nice. I'm going to help them out. I mean, it's the least I can do since I'm using the public garbage. So let me pick up some public garbage. Add it to the fucking collection. You know, again, who cares? I picked up some garbage. I'm not trying to say like, oh, I'm, I'm Mr. pick up the garbage guy. It's just that I wouldn't do that. Like a city really needs to be pretty fucking clean for me to start having those thoughts. Like, but I guess that's what's so interesting about litter theory in general. And, you know, Canada's pretty good about not littering, but not as good as it should be. I still know a lot of people who just litter right in front of me. And I'm just like, oh, not all Canadians are tip-top. I really try hard not to litter, though, myself.

But it is. It's like a herd immunity thing. It's like, if nobody cares, then nobody cares, you know, just take as an example every city in America that I've ever been to, every East Coast city to be fair, I guess. It's just all fucked up. Take soul. It's all fucked up. If nobody cares, then nobody cares. Self-fulfilling prophecy. There's one of the endlessly beeping buses. How nice. But yeah, then you get to, you know, just Japan in general. And apparently, Taipei, possibly all of Taiwan, but at least Taipei. And it's the other side of the coin. It's as long as everyone is caring about picking up garbage, then everyone is caring about picking up garbage, you know? I mean, now that I'm saying it, now I'm like, my eyes are like, I now I'm looking around a little more carefully. And it's like, yeah, if you want a nitpick, like, okay, here's a little plastic wrapper for a straw. Here's a little, you know, a little receipt or whatever. There's little things. There's a cigarette, but it's so like, to me, oh, it's just somebody making a tea on the street. To me, this counts as zero garbage. Like, this is really as close as you can get when you've got a city full of people. You know, like, there's always going to be somebody who liters. This is so little that to me, this counts. Like, this scans as just like, perfect. I would give this like, a plus 10 out of 10 grade. And I just, I want to participate. I want to help you pick up your garbage. But yeah, not just architecturally and stylized, but also just even just the street I's just walking down a second ago. Just walking by any kind of store and just seeing whatever, like, random miscellaneous stuff that they sell. I mean, I don't know what everything is. In fact, I don't know what most things are. But I don't really see stuff that I'm like, oh, but I've never seen that ever. Like, I don't know. I just walked by a place that was just selling like little, it's like a little six pack of like little jelly things. They're all different colors and probably different flavors. And I think they're for kids. And they just come in like a little flat cup with a little plastic film on top. And you're probably eating with a little spoon. I don't know. Like, I've never had it before. But I've seen that before. And a bunch of different China towns and a bunch of different cities. You know, I don't know. I just didn't realize I didn't realize how much surface level China knowledge was in my brain. And yeah, it suddenly just occurred to me like, yeah, not only is there a bunch, there's probably more by a lot than any other culture besides North America. You know, like it's just, it's just feels so super duper normal. Where like I said, with Japan, I thought I knew quite a bit about Japan, but Japan didn't feel normal. That's not the right word. It felt comfortable. It felt exciting. It felt neat. But it, it still wasn't like, it didn't feel like something I had experienced before. Because whatever I had experienced through 40:00 anime and manga and video games, it's like not, not enough. That's not the real experience. Where I have had this real experience before. For sure. Many times in smaller forms all around the world. I don't know. I think that's interesting. That's neat. That had never occurred to me till just now.

Oh, here's the little street market street where I bought that fan. That fan has been saving my life. Man, saving my fucking life. I still have, it's kind of remarkable because I was so worried about deodorant. I still have not used up my Canadian deodorant. I'm still, it's shocking to me. I mean, there was just a lot more of it left than I thought. So I haven't even needed to use the Korean deodorant that I super overpaid for. I'm just been carrying it along with me. There was literally no need for me to buy it. It turns out. Very surprising. But somebody's just selling deodorant here on one of the tables. That could have been another salvation. What if I had never found that deodorant at the E-Mart in Korea? Right about now, I'd probably be worried about my deodorant situation and I would have saw that and I would have said, fuck yeah, hook me up with that. But instead, instead I have 20 bucks worth of deodorant and just sitting in my bag back at the place at the Airbnb. That's what was fun too about buying that fan in a way. I super duper needed a fan or I was going to die. But yeah, it's like hard for me to buy stuff. It's very rare because I don't have room for it. What am I going to do with the stuff that I buy? So I'm like walking along and there's all these just things laid out on little blankets and stuff and it's like, oh, like so much interesting stuff. But I can't buy it. I literally just can't because I can't do anything with it.

Wow, laptops. That could be handy. I was thinking about that, especially with the heat. My laptops ain't doing so good. They overheat like crazy. I should get a fan for the laptop, actually. I'm really worried that something's going to melt in one of my laptops before long and it's time on this earth is limited. But then I'm like, now, then what do I do? Do I even get a laptop? Maybe I could literally just come here and buy just buy a shitty netbook or something off the fucking street just to get me by. That would be kind of cool. Oh man, they have one of those little like like you flip it up like a clamshell and it's got a little keyboard. I used to love shit like that. I wrote an entire book on a smartphone that had a slide out keyboard like the physical keyboard because that's kind of a rare thing. You don't see all that often. But yeah, I wrote this book about the video game, The Last of Us, that you can get for free at KeithCourage.com if you're curious. But I wrote that whole book with my thumbs just pressing with my thumbs on a physical keyboard and I didn't realize you're not supposed to do that. That's for like light texting. You're not supposed to write a whole book. I started developing pain in my thumbs that would not go away no matter what stretches and techniques I tried to use. Then I just stopped. I just stopped typing with my thumbs and everything was fine.

Now I just type on a touch screen. I miss the buttons. The buttons are better. Touch screens are a pain in the butt. But you just can't do that shit. Oh little MP3 players and just random smartphones. Like there's so much stuff that theoretically if my phones break, if my laptop breaks just whatever. If I just need to come get something to bridge the gap, there's so much stuff but unfortunately as it stands right now, there's just nothing that I need. It's too bad. Buy and stuff is fun, especially when you don't understand the money quite right yet and you overpay for your fans because it's just like whatever. It doesn't feel real. But this guy's got random vitamins and stuff, not in boxes. Yeah that might be a step too far. But this is good to know, just if I do need kind of anything from just a pair of socks all the way up to a laptop, this fucking street man. The street has got it all. Wow this one guy has like 20 phones, Samsung's and stuff. Yeah just good to know. Man though of all the stuff you know, excto knives and scissors and glue and beads like all kinds of useful stuff. But of all the stuff 45:00 on this street, if I have to vote for the one item that will never be sold, that'll just sit on one of these working blankets forever, it's a bootleg DVD of Robin Hood men and tights. Who and the fuck is ever gonna buy that? No offense, carry hellways. No one is buying that ever. No human being. However we have to eight billion yet, we're definitely up to seven. No human being on this earth wants a bootleg DVD of Robin Hood men and tights. Not one. Not fucking one.

It's so nice to go into the convenience store and just buy whatever and it's just good. I feel like I could just go in with a blindfold on and reach around randomly and get stuff that I would like. Like I'm literally just sitting here in my little Airbnb room and it's dark and I had a couple of bread things and they weren't like, uh, chilled or in like a cold section of the convenience store. I think they're basically non-perishable. I'm sure I could probably save them till the morning but I was like, I have them and eat something. I should maybe eat those tonight. You know, I don't have a fridge or anything. Let's just be on the safe side. Let's eat these bad boys and it's like, I don't even know what they are. I'm just opening these packages in the dark and one of them was just bread with like peanut butter. I think they had a jam on too and I was thinking if I bought them both, that actually could be all right. And then this other bread thing is like, I don't even know what it is. I'm just eating it and it's just like, yeah, I'm new.

I'm so good. So then I had to hold it up to the light. California cranberry cheese bread. Does that sound fucking delicious or what? And it is, man. It's really fucking good. So yeah, maybe I won't eat them too much now because my mouth probably sounds gross. It sounds like, uh, I'm eating. I found it, by the way, because I was at that station. X-I-M-E-N. Suddenly it occurred to me because I keep saying I don't know where I am in town. I don't know enough about Taipei. I don't know where anything is. I was like, wait, well, that's probably it then, right? And I saw a park that had that name and I looked it up and I believe, you know, I would pronounce that X-I-M-N. But I think it's X-I-M-N. But of course, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, you know, probably I'm wrong. But... But yeah, then I went on Google Maps and just zoomed in just to double check and it's like, yeah, there it is. X-I-M-N. And it's just funny because I could have done that at any time. I had the answer in my pocket. Every second of the day. It didn't need to take several days to figure this out, but it's just more fun. It's more fun to figure it out through context clues and station names and park names and start to piece things together. Maybe I would have looked at that name and it wouldn't even have stuck in my mind, you know. But because I've seen it places, I'm like, oh, that's where I am. So then I looked it up because I wanted to see that pronunciation. And yeah, the first thing I saw is many people consider this the Harajuku slash Shinjuku of Taipei and it's like fucking right on. No wonder I like it so much. That's fucking cool. I mean, I don't know about the Harajuku part. I feel like that's not accurate. Because all the clothing stores here are just corporate clothing stores.

But whatever. Cool Japanese type place.

So the fact that I just ended up here by accident in my first Airbnb. Pretty cool man. Pretty cool. She men. That's where I am. But yeah, I just thought that was so funny that I'm just literally in the dark. I'm just reaching at my pile of stuff on my little side table like, ah, what's this? Just put it in my mouth. Yeah, I put it in my mouth. If I did this in South Korea, if I just bought random items and then ate them in the dark, I just think that's a recipe for a very odd time. Maybe not a bad time, but maybe a bad time. We're here, yeah, it's way more the Japan feeling of, you know, particularly with sort of the sweeter type stuff. The dessert more, the more dessert type items you can just, it's just all. It's so good. It's also good.