#172 Escaping the walls of central Taipei

Transcript

Hey, here's that. The distinctive sound of skateboarders. I found some skateboarders, which makes a lot of sense because there's a lot of graffiti and just cool hip-hop shit going on in Shimen. But I hadn't seen anybody do actual skateboarding, but it's Saturday afternoon today. Another crazy hot day. I don't think I'll be out here for too long. Yeah, they set up little ramps and stuff. And they're doing skateboard stuff. That's cool. And realistically, it's about the amount of skateboarding you'd expect to find even in a cool neighborhood of a cool city. Skateboarding's just not that popular. It had a moment in the late 90s and the early 2000s. Well, I guess there was a period in the 80s, too. But I feel like big-time skateboard revival never really happened. But I always thought skateboarding was cool, even though I'm not good at it myself. I could never properly awli. But that's just nice to see skateboarders. You also notice now that it's Saturday, the day after party time Friday. Since it is so hot out, there's the occasional person just splaid out in a park. You know, clearly just kind of hung over and passed out from yesterday. Not a ton of people, though, just a bit. But I heard it's kind of like that in some parts of South America, too. Like, you know, the day after drinking night. There's people just passed out. And definitely nobody cares. Nobody minds around here. There's even I just passed a security guy. I just passed a security guy over by the skateboarders. I saw a sign saying there was increased security because of recording. So there aren't those warning signs everywhere like South Korea warning about recording people near bathrooms and stuff. But apparently it is still an issue. It's less. It's mentioned less here, but apparently it's still a thing. But anyway, that security guy, he didn't care about the skateboarders. He didn't care about the passed out guy. So that's kind of nice. It's just sort of a nice casual vibe. It's like the security doesn't seem like they're overbearing.

You know, the opposite of that feeling in Shanghai and the airport. And last night as I was walking around, that's the most police presence I've ever seen. But again, it's just they were just kind of standing around just being a presence, but not seeming to mess with anybody. Because yeah, that park last night, the more I walked around, the more I started to notice. Like, oh, there's actually a lot of prostitutes. Kind of just all over the place. And also, that is where I first noticed. I guess there's like, I've noticed a little bit of homelessness around here. Just people on the street asking for coins and stuff. But really not a ton. Last night was the first thing I noticed that was, you know, like I call it an enclave. It was like a lot of people, a lot of homeless people sleeping in the park. But again, because it's so warm out, you know, it's like the earth is your blanket. Everybody I was just kind of just sort of laying in the park. And the police weren't bothered by him. Just let them stay there. And I mean, this is going to sound flippant. Obviously being homeless is miserable and not fun. But it did feel a bit like I walked into a weird sleepover, like a slumber party. Everybody was just hanging out. It really is a different situation when the weather is not going to murder you. Or if it is going to murder you, it's a different, it's a different, slower dehydration death than, you know, Canada. It just doesn't work like this. You cannot be outside. Homelessness is just a different type of thing.

So I don't know. I guess it's just kind of interesting that I'm slowly starting to notice this stuff. Slowly starting to notice security. Slowly starting to notice prostitutes. Slowly starting to notice homeless people. Slowly starting to notice scape orders. Just everything is slowly coming into focus.

But yeah, I mean, I guess I'll just keep trying to catch little moments if anything interesting happens. I've been out here walking around for a couple hours, just soaking in the neighborhood again, trying to build up my mental map. But yeah, it's real fucking hot, man. It's real fucking hot.

Oh, here's a little something just on my way back to get out of this heat. Stopped in a family mark to buy some water. I'm not sure what the drinking water situation is.

It's probably fine, but I really got into the habit on Jeju because they gave me a big 24 pack of bottled water at the hotel. 5:00 I just started drinking bottled water all the time. And it's like, yeah, maybe that's not a bad idea anyway. I'm used to drinking tap water back in Canada, but I don't know. I don't know what the situation is all around in different parts of the world. So anyway. Stopped in a family mark by a big two liter water. Just get a whole bunch of other miscellaneous stuff. And I guess because I was walking around the outside edge of Jeju Island, I was very used to people not really speak in English. And I think that's a good assumption to have in general. You know, I don't want to be like entitled and expect anybody to speak English. But in Seoul and in Busan, you know, people did generally speak English. I guess in Jeju because I was there for quite a while. I think my mindset kind of shifted without me really realizing that I was kind of in the mode of just presuming people don't speak English. Just assuming that if we're going to do a little transaction, it's going to be pantomime time, which is fine. I'm just buying stuff. It's easy enough.

But yeah, I just had a little moment in the family mark that made me switch back. I felt a little flip in my brain. Because I had a big shopping cart full of stuff. Just wondering, well, let me do my little thing. So this came to $351 Taiwanese dollars, which I was just donating my pennies away into donation boxes and stuff. But I realized it's actually important to have a little pocket full of change. Like I was at McDonald's the other day and it was 302. So just to be able to give the two cents makes the change you get back way more reasonable. You know, you get back change in bills, not just as coins. In this case, it was $351. So just having that one penny meant I got back a 50 cent coin and not just a handful of coins. I mean, this is not new. This is the same as North American theory. We just haven't been cash based for so long in North America. I never get change. I never pay for stuff with cash. I'd like never. So I just kind of forgot about this world. But yeah, just being able to round off those little pennies here and there. But let's see if it was 350. So if I think of that in pennies, so as 350, then multiply it by 4. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Add on the 50 sensors. So 13, 14. Add a little bit to that because it's not quite. It's always a little more than that. So I spent like, you know, 14, 50 or something. And that's how I do math in real time. Lots of counting.

But yeah, since I had all this stuff, the guy behind me was literally buying one drink. So I just said, oh, please, go ahead. And it was, I guess, kind of the perfect level of, you know, I've heard a lot about, you know, I had a friend who taught English in rural China for several years. And he told me all the stuff that, you know, I've heard many times, but like, people don't line up, people just kind of crowd around the stuff. I mean, at the extreme level, sometimes it's like kids will just take poops in the street. You know, rural China, I've heard, is a bit lawless. Where it's not at all like that, you know, again, everything in Taiwan is baseline Chinese. All the writing is in Chinese. The style is Chinese, the language is Chinese, but nobody acts in any way that I've heard of as like these stereotypically negative aspects. To China. And of course, stereotypes are unfair and they're not true of everyone, but I am a firm believer that stereotypes also don't just come out of nowhere. I've never heard a stereotype that's not somewhat true. Like, come on, come on. They're not just made up by bigoted racists. Instead, they are propagated and exaggerated by bigoted racists. But they originally came out of stuff that people actually notice. That's what the deal is. What is the deal with cultural stereotypes? That's the deal. Anyway, none of those stereotypes are at all apparent here because this guy, everyone's been so nice and so polite. And yeah, this guy did the, oh no, please, you go ahead. And then I had to insist, no, look, I have too much stuff. You go. And then he did go. So that's where I feel like that's the perfect balance. He wasn't at all entitled, like just, you know, brusquely going ahead. He did the little song and dance of like, oh no, I couldn't. But he didn't do it too much. Because then if you refuse someone's offer more than once, then it's not polite anymore. Then it's annoying. If I had to keep saying, no, you go. Suddenly it's not a fun thing anymore. Now it's fucking annoying. 10:00 This guy, perfect. He turned it down once. I insisted. He went ahead. And yeah, again, that guy, it took him one second to buy that. It was the, it was just best all around. But that guy's English was a tippity top spot on. Then I got to the guy running the store. And he had a stronger accent, but his English was still super good. Like this, this two liter bottle of water I bought. You know, there are little deals and little buy one get one freeze and various stuff going on in these stores, but it's all in Chinese. It's not easy to follow like it is in Korea, or Korea, it's just a big number. Two plus one equals you buy two, you get one free. One plus one equals you buy one, you get one free. I would have to actually pull out my phone and translate all these things. I just, I just don't care. I just, I don't need the deals. It's too much effort to figure out what's going on. Don't worry about it. But he told me, hey, this big bottle of water, this is a buy one get one free if you want to go grab another one. So I was like, yes, all right. I'm going to need the water eventually. So yeah, I'll go grab another water. Thank you. And then yeah, just the little ins and outs. Do you need a bag? Now I got this bag. Should I leave your ice cream bar outside of the bag? It's like, yeah, cool. I'll eat that right now. Anyway, as I left the store, it just, that's when my little brain flip flipped. Whereas like, wait, that was two people directly back to back who both just super easily talked English to me. Like at a high enough degree of little fiddly stuff that we were talking about. That it's like, yeah, they just spoke English. That's all. There's no question. So this is all circumstantial. It's all just random. Who knows? Maybe I could have just easily bumped into two people who didn't speak English. But, but it feels like that's the feeling in the air. I think it has been that way. I think I've been surrounded by people that more or less can speak English. It just hadn't clicked with me yet.

It hadn't occurred to me. But it makes sense. I mean, I don't remember exactly how many people live in Taipei. I think just under three million, though. So, yeah, again, it's just. Seoul is like ten or eleven million. Busan is three or four million. Here is two or three million. Seiguopo is fifty thousand, you know. This is of course, of course it's different.

How many was jet-chon now? I don't remember. Anyway, yet another pointless observation of limited value to anyone. In big cities, more people speak English. In small cities, less people do. But, I suddenly became aware of this thing. Yet another thing that's just happening all around me that all of a sudden I'm like, wait a minute, that's how things are now. So that's kind of nice. And again, like I was saying, I'm not going to flip-flop to just expecting people to speak English. I feel like I should never expect anybody to speak English. But it's okay if I just have to do a pantomime. I mean, that's fine. Nothing. That's never really gone too poorly. If I just did a convenience store, it's not a big deal. But it is a different feeling. Like in Japan, I definitely felt like, ah, there's a good chance no one's going to speak English. And then in Seoul and Busan, it was the opposite. It was a good chance someone would speak English. And I feel like I'm back there. The needle has swung back over to, ah, I can probably, I can probably assume that I can communicate with people. You know, I guess that's why it's important, I guess, to know this or to have this mindset is because it will just make it a lot more comfortable for me to just go do stuff, you know. It will expand the sphere of influence. Obviously, I guess it's clear at this point, when I do travel, I have like a narrow band.

There are a limited number of things I actually do. But it gets even more limited, you know. Because yeah, this is another weird thing where, you know, I was initially a little, you know, apologetic that it's like, why am I not learning Japanese? I think Japan's so cool. Shouldn't I try to learn some Japanese? But there was something in me that was just like, yeah, but that's not really the path that is for you.

And then I started to do, be a lot more comfortable with that when I got to Korea where it's like, yeah, not only is it difficult to do, I actually kind of enjoy illiteracy. I'm just looking at some signs right now across the street for me. I don't know what they say. And I don't want to know. I don't like the media blast of just being able to read stuff, being able to listen in on every conversation. It's like overwhelming to me. I don't like it. I like being illiterate. And now that I'm here, not only that, but it's like, yeah, it's not just one language. It's not like I just put all my eggs in the Japan basket. If anything, this trip has taken a lot of pressure off of Japan, because now it's like, yeah, next time I'm in this part of the world, yeah, I'll go to Japan. 15:00 And I'll go to Korea. And I'll go to Taiwan. And who knows what else I could add onto this. But now it's not just A language. Now it's like three languages. It's just not going to fucking happen, man. It wasn't going to happen anyway. And it is triple not going to happen now.

So anytime that English is around and people can speak it, that's a bonus. That is a beautiful gift that I appreciate. So I've started to notice and realize that that's how it is here. And I appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right, this is kind of interesting, so I'm just in the old Airbnb and I heard the classical song for Elise. It's called, I never would have guessed that. I didn't know. Even deep in my brain, I did not know the name of that song. Though apparently that is German for Elise. There you go. But as a little disappointed, I've never used this technology before, but I tried the little Google thing that you know, you know, you're hama song. And I mean, come on dude, if you don't know... It didn't know. I tried it multiple times. I tried telling it. It's a classical song. I don't think that works, but fuck right off. I think it's just given me a weird pop song, so I used that same melody. then didn't fucking work anyway. So I just searched time when he's classical music fucking song instead. And it's garbage trucks, which I guess when I the other day, I guess it was last episode, when I did catch a bit of that, I do remember seeing a garbage truck in front of me and I don't think I mentioned it. And it's the whole point of this podcast, just say what I see, but I think I didn't in that case, because I just assumed it was probably not that. I wouldn't be that. But it is. And I learned some sort of interesting things. So supposedly the garbage problem was so bad in Taiwan, you know, going back to, I don't know, before the 70s. I guess like they called it garbage island. So they started a decades-long garbage removal system that apparently works, because yeah, I've been talking about how super duper not garbage island it is around here. I was really impressed with how clean everything is. But yeah, I guess that's part of it. Somewhere in the 90s, 97 I think it said part of the system is that the garbage trucks play this song. And the theories are maybe it was some government official that heard his daughter playing that song, or maybe just that the trucks came pre-equipped with that being one of the songs. And I mean, that sounds like the most likely, like your Casio keyboard, the presets, you know. And yeah, apparently some people complain that it's too loud. It is really loud. I hear it all the time. But I don't know, it's kind of cool, man. It's just let you know. I guess there's not like normal garbage pickup day, which is good, because like that was a huge thing in Manhattan. There's just garbage on the street all the time. And it wasn't as bad in Toronto, but it was still bad. Like you could tell when you're walking through a neighborhood, you're walking down a specific part of Dundas or something. And it's like, oh, this is definitely, you know, tomorrow morning must be garbage pickup night, because today there's garbage fucking everywhere on the streets. And as far as I know in Manhattan, garbage pickup is every day, but that means there's garbage on the streets every day. And it was a problem in general, but then apparently after COVID and stuff, like it became a real big problem, like rats already secretly run New York, but they openly were taking over when all the people were inside. You can just, you can't leave garbage on the street. You fucking can't do it. It doesn't work.

It's not a good system. And yes, so that's the idea here in Taiwan. You don't leave your garbage out for the garbage man. You hear the jingle and you bring your garbage then and there. And if you don't, then you're hanging on to it. It's awesome. It makes sense. And it clearly works. And it's just, I don't know, it's a nice jingle. Apparently there's stories of dopey foreigners like me who think it's an ice cream truck, but I don't know. That didn't even cross my mind. I can't remember the last time speaking of New York. I think that's the last time I remember ever hearing an ice cream truck jingle was like New York in 2000, fucking nine. I don't know if that is still a thing. But that's what it is here for Elise. And it's garbage trucks. So nice, mystery solved.

Ah, a nice laundry day. I always enjoy laundry day. So it turns out there's a lot of laundromats near me, which is nice. A lot of options. And I was thinking back to the main place that was a problem with jet-john. I couldn't find a single place in jet-john that had a dryer. The place I was in had a washing machine at least. But I don't even think, yeah, just like no, no coin laundromats anywhere that I could find in that whole city. And I looked, there's got to be one somewhere. But yeah, that's not a problem here. Tons and tons of options. And this one that I met is kind of weird because it has all the signage is white people. A happy white lady out front, a white dad with his two white kids here at the back, a little white girl just underneath staring at the machines. I wonder if this is like, oh yeah, dexter laundry. So it's this one brand. So I guess these are all just the signs you can get from this company. Here's a mom with her kid. But yeah, they're all white people, which is kind of funny and they're big, very prominent. But I couldn't help but notice. I thought maybe that's like, hey, tourist, come on in, foreigner. We'll make it easy for you. But there's no English. I get all in here. And yeah, all the signs on the walls for how everything works, everything is in Chinese. Apparently, you can use the line pay to pay for your laundry. That's pretty cool. Yeah, not a stitch of English in here. And I realized that when, you know, just waiting for my laundry, I was like, I'll go explore this little piece of the neighborhood, found a family mart around the corner and went there. Then I went to a high life, the Taiwanese chain. And it seems pretty good. It seems very comparable to all the other ones. But I noticed at both those places, like there is definitely less English on all the packaging than anywhere else. I started to notice that, I guess, like when I bought and see the midifins and vitamins the other day and nothing was in English. But yeah, just made me realize like in Japan, most of the packages say something in English. And in Korea, I don't remember that being a huge problem either. I guess there's like a little bit, like I bought vintage style tea. And it does say, I mean, that I know it's vintage style tea because it says that, or brown sugar milk tea, original flavor craft. So this one, this tea I bought at least has a little bit of English. But yeah, tons of stuff that has none at all. So I really did break out. I haven't been using Google Translate much. Today I really broke it out because I had to make sure I know how these machines work. Just to, you know, make sure I got the, I guess the washer does at least say cold, warm, hot, delicate in English. It has a little bit of English. The dryer had none. So just to make sure I had it on high heat, I needed to pull out the thing. And it actually works pretty good. I just haven't been doing it. I just haven't been pulling out the phone and going through the whole rigmarole. But it seems like Chinese characters are quite easy for Google translate to translate. So that's good. And I think I figured out what the, you know, in Korea, it was buy two get one free. It was the common thing. Two plus one, if we say on stuff. Japan, I wouldn't say, was really big on deals at convenience stores. You just kind of pay what you pay. I think I figured out what the Chinese deal is. That's why I have this second tea. Why I got a vintage milk tea and a brown sugar milk tea. It's, if you buy two, you get a certain amount of one off. So in this case, it was buy two of these teas, cartons of tea, that are pretty big. They're like 500 milliliters each, but get 10 one off. And then I saw something else. It was, was there something or other that if I bought two, I got 50 one off.

And you know, that stuff kind of adds up quick, because 10 one is really 40 cents. 51 is really two bucks. So maybe I'll start looking into that a bit, but there is something to be said for just not taking the deal. Because I already drank, I drank a matcha at the family mart, then I drank half a liter of old fashion style tea at the highlight. Now I've got another half a liter of this stuff that I think has milk in it. I don't think I should like leave it in my crazy hot room. I think I need to drink it after I'm done with this laundromat. I was going to buy a couple popsicles, but then it's like, yeah, geez, I barely really want one popsicle just because it's hot. I definitely don't need two. And then some of the stuff was, you know, buy three. Maybe that's what the 50 off was, because 51 off is kind of a lot.

Anyway, the point I'm yammering about is there's something to be said for just not doing any of these deals because then you just buy what you actually want. I always was buying handfuls of stuff in South Korea, way too much stuff, cram in myself full of stuff. 25:00 And the very first time I took advantage of this system here, yeah, I'm looking at a tea that I, my belly does not need the caffeine to be nice. Liquid certainly doesn't hurt, it's still hot as fuck. But yeah, I don't know, it's nice to be starting to figure it out. Figure out that this is an option, but yeah, I don't know that I need to be doing this, getting 40 cents off stuff.

Well, this is pretty cool. I went and dropped off my laundry. It was like, all right, let's go walk around a bit more. I'm already a gross sweat machine. So let's head back out and sweat some more. Really it's gross, dude. I just went to wipe like a little drop of water from an air conditioner, from an air conditioner, fell on my phone. So it's like, oh, let me just try that off. I wiped it on my shirt. And suddenly the entire screen was wet. And I wiped somewhere else and it didn't help. And it's like, God, my whole shirt is just wet. That's the fucking gross.

But I saw just to go a little farther than I have gone so far. I saw the Taipei Botanical Garden. And you never quite know what to expect with this type of stuff. Maybe it'll be something you got to pay to get into. Maybe it'll be closed up. I got here at about 6.30 and it's open until 8. And it's pretty nice. Just a nice big plant park. There are a couple little parts that closed early. They close at 5. So I don't know what those are, but that could be a good excuse to come back here sometime. It is funny because I still don't know very much about Taiwan in general. And I've only been here like a week. But I was thinking like, am I just going to stay in Taipei for the whole 90 days? Like that would be unusual. I've never done that before. Traveling in Asia, I always go to a different part of the country I'm in. And I guess the only thing kind of leading me away from it was that I heard that the MRT cards, the subway card, may be Taipei specific. Maybe it doesn't work in other parts of the country. But who cares? I literally haven't even used it. I used it to come in from the airport and that's it. I'll use it a bit more when I'm not in the center anymore. But that shouldn't be any reason to stay here. But who knows? Either way could be good.

Are those bats? Well, that's pretty cool because yeah, it's like nearly seven o'clock now. I've never really seen a bat just clearly flying around like that. I've been like swooped by bats before at night in Vancouver going to some woods once the sun's down and bats suddenly attack you. Yeah, those were just some bats. Fairly small bats. I was like, it is that? Just like a big big butterfly or something? No, that's a fucking bat. Cool.

But yeah, if I keep heading south from here, there's the river that I only just went briefly to the river side to the west. But if I head to the south, there's a pretty big look in park next to the river. So if I make it there, check that out. It's a little hard to tell distances for me still. But I think Taipei seems pretty small. Didn't take me very long to walk here. I think this central part of New Taipei, wherever the fuck I am, by Shiman, doesn't seem that big. And here's another part open until five o'clock. And it's just like pathways into the deeper jungle looking parts. I'll have to check that out for sure. The only problem is that necessitates coming out when it's fucking the middle of the day when the sun really sucks. But hey, I gotta do what I gotta do. Oh, is that a vending machine? Nice. I passed some vending machines on the way here, and there were two of them, and they both were sold out of water. And that's all I wanted, because I'm still working on this fucking giant carton of the second carton of tea that I bought. This is a pretty good indicator that I should not care about the buy-to-get-a-deal stuff. It's just who gives a fuck. I'm thinking back to all the ice cream bars I've eaten since I got here. Did I ever want there to be a second one? I don't think so. I think one was plenty, you know, it was different. And I was walking around Jeju, because I was just walking in direct sunlight, had all of my popsicles in a cup. I don't need to. And same thing with this, this tea, it's good. 30:00 But I am waterlogged. My belly is full. I do not need this fucking thing that I'm just trying to drink it. But yeah, both those machines were sold out of water. Makes me think in the summer here. They should just forget about selling other products. Man, just fill those machines with bottles of water and nothing else. I think you'd do all right for yourself. All right, what is this thing? What do we have here?

All right, it claims to have water. Let's see.

Oh, I think it's taking my money. 20, aka 80 cents. A bargain of twice the price. Yes, water. Oh, thank you. I'm still just sweating. Just endlessly sweating. And leave in the park, yeah. It's nice that it was open in general, so I could cut through it. But definitely, there's more to see in there. But yeah, one thing that was crossed in my mind also, I was thinking about how I never paid attention. I mean, I barely paid attention to the weather in the first place, but it's like, I'll just check, you know, the temperature or whatever. Even like humidity, just generally not especially relevant in Canada, so I just didn't really care. And then it was, you know, a big shake-up in Seoul where I suddenly became aware of AQI, of the air quality index. And now that's a huge part of my life, where it's funny how much I've adapted, where it tends to hover a little above or a little below 50 here. And it's funny because above 50 is technically bad. Like, if you look on weather websites, it'll say the air quality is poor. But I've adapted to not thinking of that as poor, you know, to me, under 60, you know, 55 or something, like, yeah, I'll take it. It's not like I have any option in this part of the world, just got to accept it. And that seems fully acceptable. It was only like in Seoul when it would go above 100. And that one time in Busan went above 200. Like, that's the crazy shit. With the AQI hovering around 50, maybe if you lived here, you know, maybe that will have an effect over the course of your life. But for me visiting, I feel like it's all right. I don't need to wear a mask. I'll just, it's just fine. It's not a big deal. It's a little surprising to see it listed as poor on the weather website, because it's all relative, man. I'd actually call that great for this part of the world. 55 on the AQI you kidding? That's like, amazing.

But that made me start looking around at the other entries on the weather websites that I never paid attention to. And one of them was about seasonal allergy stuff. That apparently right now, the level of dust and dander or whatever it's called is like extreme. It was like, it is terrible out there. Do not go out there. You're going to get fucked. And I just thought about that because as I was walking here, I don't know, there was a point where a bunch of, I don't know, a bunch of stuff just blew out of a tree, just a bunch of fluffy, polleny flowery looking stuff. And I was like, is that, is that, would that be it? Or is it just an invisible killer? That's just everywhere. And it's so interesting when something doesn't affect you. You know, because I mean, I got plenty of problems. Like, I took my knee braces off, which are just, it's just two elastic band things. I got a small one and a bigger one. I put them both on my left knee and it makes my knee work normal and everything's fine. But I took those off just to wash them. And I had to put them back on before I left to the house because even just go into the laundromat and walk it around the block a few times. Didn't feel good. I do not like not having my knee brace. But if you don't have a problem with your knee, you'd never think about that.

It's kind of similar with allergies. I mean, I've heard of allergies. I'm aware of them. But I've never really known anybody I don't think that is especially affected by allergies. And I just, yeah, just never crosses my mind. I never think twice about it. I'm not really aware about what time of year things are worse. Or like, it's all so conceptual to me. It's like, would I be getting fucked over right now? Or not? Like, I don't know what causes allergies to flare up. I just have no real conception of it at all. And I don't know. I just think that's kind of interesting. Like, we've all got our crosses to bear. But if you don't have something, it's so easy to just have no sense of it at all. Like, I just literally never think about it. 35:00 And I've never thought about it. Like, in the sense that I've never really sat down and really thought about what the life of a person with bad allergies is like. I mean, maybe that's natural. Why would I? What would be the point of that? I don't know. It's a pointless empathy. What am I going to do? I can't help their life.

But I just think it's interesting to think about that. Like, to think about your blind spots. Because they really are blind until you have some reason to become aware of something or to really think about it. It's so easy to literally never think about it.

And there are a lot of claw machine places in Taipei. Not as many as their scooters. That seems like it's growing every day.

Definitely 50%. Easy. I'm sure that there's certain points where I've been walking around that it's been like 80% scooters. They're just everywhere. But yeah, surprising amount of claw machines because that was very rare in South Korea. Sometimes you'd find them, but not too often. And really not mega common in Japan.

But, you know, there's neighborhoods where it would be a lot more prevalent. But literally I saw one across the street that made me start talking about this. And I just walked by another one. As I was talking, I didn't know this was here. Like, you couldn't illustrate the point anymore perfectly. I'm just walking at random. And that one that I saw, like, as I'm getting out of the center, I'm not in the Shiman Taurus zone anymore. And there's still claw machines everywhere. It's like this very common type. It's a yellow machine. Not even sure how much it costs to play one. Because yeah, I don't know. I'm not a big claw machine guy. And if I did win one of these things, what am I going to do with it?

I saw my friend Brad win a cool water bottle. Was it Evangelion branded? It was some kind of water bottle that he won out of a machine. So I got second hand. I got to see, like, wow, you won. What is this chick's name? She's like a pink haired anime chick I've seen her before.

I don't remember her name. But it's a toy of hurting a little bikini, but the bikini is clearly removable because on the actual toy, the top is not on. So they just put a piece of tape over her titties over how big fat anime titties. How chased.

And I feel like I feel like claw machines is probably a good thing to do if you're like a junior high student or even high school maybe. And you just need to go somewhere on a date. You don't know what to do with yourself. This seems kind of fun. As just a solo traveling adult man. Yeah, it's probably maybe it's not weird that I haven't done any claw machining.

Anyway, this street layout is getting complicated. I'm not quite sure where I'm going anymore, but it looks like I'm getting near youth park. I should be able to get to youth park without too much trouble.

And then the Huazong River side park right after that. And it is getting dark, but theoretically I can walk along that park along the river back toward my Airbnb. It doesn't seem like the worst plan, but I'm going to put this recorder away because yeah, I don't know where the fuck I'm going right now. It's getting weird.

That's pretty much dark now. I made it to the youth park, whatever the fuck it's called. I'm glad to report. It's mostly old people. Yeah, it is literally called youth park. Some people, some nice middle aged people of my approximate era, and then a bunch of old people. I haven't seen a single youth, which is fine with me. This is really nice. And between those bats that I saw earlier, and there's a lot of trees around here that have vines hanging down from them, you know, just stuff that we don't have in Canada as much. Like I said, the West Coast has some bats. Maybe there's bats all over. I suppose I've heard stories of people having bats trapped in their house and stuff, but it's not something you see often. It just makes me think, I think I said this in Japan as well. I probably said this many times, but it just makes me think of Sega Master System. Since I had a Sega as a kid before I got an Nintendo, and Sega was less localized. They didn't try to Americanize the games nearly as much. They didn't have the budget, I don't think. 40:00 So they just gave us games that were very Japanese feeling.

And to this day, that's what I feel like when I'm in this kind of environment. It's like, oh man, I am inside an old Sega game. What the heck?

It's cool, and man, it sure does feel better once the sun is down a little. Oh, who doggie.

It's so hot out. That is one thing. I mean, even though Taipei is very Japan feeling in many ways, that keeps seeing more and more different stores to different chains, Mr. Donut and stuff from Japan.

But the one thing that only Japan has is drink machines everywhere. Like I'm really lucky I found that drink machine earlier with the got a bottle of water out of it because I haven't seen another one since.

And yeah, if this was Japan, I would probably be able to see like three different drink machines just from right here, just being in a random point in a park. I mean, it's weird. It's very strange how many drink machines there are in Japan. But it's goddamn handy man. You just can't deny how super handy it is.

Man, I just passed a little washroom that had just like nice little outside sink things like I should wash my hands. And I just got a look at myself in the mirror and yeah, I'm just covered in a sheen of sweat, my forehead, my face is all just perspiring. And it's like, yeah, what are you doing here? A little Canadian motherfucker. What are you doing here? Like my my theory of Canadian life is if you're sweating at all. If a single drop of sweat appears on your body, then it's too hot.

Like in the wintertime, I barely turn on the heat in my house. You know, I like it to just be cold.

That really is like that's just my my standard metric.

If you're turning on enough heat to make yourself sweat, you're doing it wrong. That's too hot.

But yeah, then I'm around these parts. Again, I mean Canada has very hot summers, you know. The planet is quite tilted. It gets real hot up there.

But it really just doesn't feel the same and it is for less time. Like this doesn't feel like something that would happen in Canada. The walking around at night and it's just not colder. You're still just sweating to death. How fucking weird. I guess to since a lot of this podcast has been about washrooms. So Japan is tippity top for washrooms. There's public washrooms all over the place. It's delightful. The only downsides are occasional squat toilets. And for whatever reason, you can assume there's not going to be hand soap. Hand soap is a rarity. It's a nice treat. Lots of times there's just no hand soap.

It's a little odd. I don't really know why it is that way. It doesn't seem to really gel with the rest of what's going on in Japan, but that's how it is.

Where South Korea, the public washrooms are a lot more rare, but still pretty good. You know, there were some times walking around Jeju where I was like, this is a pretty long stretch. I don't care for this, this is getting a little dangerous feeling. I mean, there's always a coffee shop or something you could stop in though, there's lots of cafes. But public washrooms definitely borderline, you know, there's enough, but I would certainly enjoy more.

However, they're always really well stocked. It's the reverse of Japan in the sense that it's very rare for there to not be. And so that's the unusual occurrence. And I guess what I've noticed so far in Taipei is that the buses beep incessantly all the time, way too much.

Yeah, the washrooms are not super prevalent. I guess I'm kind of surprised it hasn't been an issue yet since I'm the king of needing to pee all the time. Maybe it's just that I've just been staying in this one little neighborhood though and I kind of know where stuff is. There's an okay amount of public washrooms, but it's less again than South Korea. But whenever I do find them, they seem to be pretty well stocked. Good old hand soap is available. 45:00 And I was a little concerned, I guess, because the very first washroom I went in at the mall by main station had two squat toilets and I was like, uh oh. And yes, squat toilets have stayed pretty prevalent, but there's usually both. Usually they have a western style toilet as well. So yeah, I guess I can't, I can't give any gold stars. No extra check marks, no A plus on any front, but everything's just okay. There's not a ton of washrooms, but there's just enough. There's not a ton of western style toilets, but there's just enough. Everything seems to be just enough. So I can't complain. But yeah, in the washroom Olympics, despite the hand soap situation, Japan is still top of the class. The world's number one, as far as I've experienced, and like by double, you know, not by a little, by a fucking lot. Japan is still the only country where I feel like you can just just go walking, particularly in a city, but even in the ruralish areas, you can probably just pick a direction and just walk and you'll find a machine to buy some drinks from. And then when you're ready to pee those out 40 minutes later, there's probably a washroom somewhere. It's fucking, it's weird to describe bathrooms this way.