#175 Meeting an interesting local in Taipei

Transcript

So today, I'm still in the Shimen neighborhood, but I just left my apartment and just started walking. No specific plan today. I thought I might walk north and just see what happens, but then I saw a stairway heading up to one of the bridges and I wasn't really sure if you could actually walk across these bridges. Lord knows I'm the only one on this particular bridge, but I was like, yeah, fuck it. All right, I'll just hop up there, walk across. It's way further than I thought, because this river is two rivers. There's a little island in the middle, which I do see like a little farm stead set up down here. A little, oh, there's a rooster. And yeah, somebody's got just like a little farming shack set up down there. I guess they're growing stuff. But then behind that is, yeah, the other half of the river, which is even bigger. I didn't realize how huge this river is, but I'm on the Zong Xiaob Ridge, which again, I'm still learning pronunciations that I don't actually know anything, except that perhaps the X sound is a shush sound, but it's ZH-O-N-G-X-I-A-O bridge. And it was raining earlier today. It was pretty overcast. Now the sun's coming back out, but it's not too awful. That's kind of why I thought I'd just go for a walk. It's not a 100% crazy heat. It's just kind of normally crazy heat. Yeah, I got up here and I'm walking and I'm like, this is actually really pretty because like I've mentioned a few times being in within the expressway walls of Taipei, you can't really see to any great distance. So being up on this bridge, I can see another bridge to my left, another bridge to my right, mountains in the distance to my right, to the north, more city, to the left, city ahead of me. It's all just quite pretty. It's all city, but it's just, you know, pretty city. However, I am noticing up here, like this is something I mentioned last episode when I got to the edge of Taipei and got up onto a mountain with a cemetery on it and was looking back, that I could see how polluted the air was, where I just really couldn't tell when I was down in the city. And I'm definitely noticing that here, like everywhere I look, it's very much reminding me of how things looked in Seoul, like seeing the Latte Tower way in the distance from Bukansen and it just looked like a science fiction obelisk, you know, on the cover of like a 1970s sci-fi novel, just some weird giant building way off in the haze. This isn't quite that bad because it's summertime and that was the middle of winter, but this is pretty bad actually. I think this is like the worst that pollution has been since I left Seoul. Jatchan wasn't this bad. Busan wasn't this bad except for the one big time when a bunch of pollution fell on the city all at once that apparently happens every year, but average day to day it wasn't that bad. I don't know, I just thought I'd mention that. This is pretty but also, I mean I shouldn't be surprised. There's always traffic everywhere, all the time. The only time I've ever really been away from traffic was yesterday when I got to the edge of town and a little bit when I was at one of the parks on the other side of the expressway where it's only cyclist. Other than that it has just been traffic all the time and I mean yeah this bridge there's four giant buses I can see and just an endless line of cars and then right next to me is the scooter lane. There's a dedicated scooter lane and it's moving a lot quicker than the cars and the buses so it seems less busy but there's more people going by so it probably balances out more or less. It's not too surprising not to mention I suppose also that we are right off the coast of China and I mean China is where pollution is born in this part of the world. I mean I think all the countries in this part of the world have their role to play but there's no question the proximity to China makes things worse not better so I'm not surprised it all seems pretty normal that it would be this 5:00 hazy but it's certainly concerning because this is the middle of summer this is the time of year when apparently these things are at their lowest I have a sneaking sensation that Taipei in the winter might be really polluted yeah like man I'm just looking at these mountains to the north and like they are very fucking hazy really hazy it's like hard to make out the one that's like the farthest back mountain I can see from here it's almost disappearing like as though it's like a super duper misty bathroom like I just got out of the shower and I'm looking at a a fogdover mirror like that's how it looks and then looking the other way oh there we go now to the south I can see some now I can see that to the south there are mountains as well but they're farther away and bigger but yeah they're virtually they become invisible you know like they just disappear into the into the fog into the pollution mist I didn't actually check the aqi today so I don't know specifically what it is it's been hovering around 50 or 60 but yeah it could just be that when you see you know that 50 or 60 though that's not nearly as bad as things could be a lot of it I guess just comes down to your field of view like how far can you see because if you can only see a few blocks because you're right in the middle of the city doesn't seem that bad once you have you know once you can see all the way to the mountains it's bad man it's quite bad now I'm coming to the other side and it seems like the best bet would be just to get off this bridge and walk along the park on this side I'm just looking at where where do the subway trains go yeah it looks like I'm pretty safe either way it looks like either direction because it's pretty late in the day it's like quarter to five it seems like I can just walk and walk and walk and when I'm ready to bail out there's a lot of subway stations so that should be no problem to just bail out when it's time to bail out but yeah that's uh that's an unfortunate update but I guess you know again not surprising it all makes sense the proximity thing especially I mean I never noticed the air problems at all in Tokyo or Western Tokyo even though if you look just at the numbers you know there are some issues in Fukuoka you know again that's much much closer to this part of the world and I did notice that there but I didn't know what I was looking at you know I'd be up on a mountain and I'd say man it looks pretty hazy out there but I didn't know what that was yet then I got to South Korea closer again middle of winter big problems big problems and now I'm closer still you know I can't really be closer to China at this point without being in China I mean kind of you know I'm as close to being in China as you can be I'm in a Chinese satellite country I'm in a country that's so China adjacent that China you know China doesn't necessarily recognize the difference so yeah I mean I don't know what else to say about that there is nothing to say about it just to be just to be aware I guess just to know but yeah it makes a lot of sense it just hit up in something that I've been thinking about because if you know you just can't see the pollution when you're down in the city streets well we're right next to China and there is traffic everywhere it's just unfortunately how it is wow those mountains to the south those are some serious fucking mountains what the fuck like the ones that are really in the distance where I can barely see them that is some huge stuff unfortunately no Wi-Fi in the park so I can't check the AQI or how tall mountains are but again yes especially now that I'm away from the traffic and I'm just walking along the shore along the park it's real beautiful so at least the balance is out in that regard

well this is pretty nice I was walking along the river side for a while and then eventually I had to get past you know there's an expressway over here as well although this one on this side does not have a big wall it's just you know above ground highway you can just see right past it still a little confusing as to why it's a wall on the other side there's a huge sign you know when they put like the letters into the incline at the edge of a park so new Tai pay metro park is that what this is called there's trees in the way so it's hard to read yeah it's a little confused about which one is Taipei and which one is new Taipei so I believe where I was is Taipei and then new Taipei doesn't seem to be in a specific direction it seems to be kind of all around like you just get outside of the core of Taipei and it becomes new Taipei that could be wrong but yeah it was relatively easy to get past the traffic and now I met another little park and I'm just walking along that pretty nice man though this is a lesson that I need to make sure I have coins on me my early thing of like how do I get rid of my coins I should donate my coins I've completely turned around on that now I've learned it's more and more it's very important to have coins including the pennies because you know when you buy stuff if something comes to like I got a squid burger McDonald's today came to 302 having those two pennies really fucking helps or does it though I suppose yes I suppose maybe McDonald's would have given me back a giant handful of change but actually maybe that would have been handy because I didn't have a bottle of water you know I just left McDonald's and I was like that's fine there's convenient stores everywhere I'll just grab a water but the one place where there's not convenience stores is parks yeah and just that I went straight to a bridge straight to a park straight to another park I was like oh I think I would have had to just bail out and go into the interior city but luckily I eventually found a drink machine and then they've been popping up here and there but all I had was the one the 50 cent coin that around here is really worth a little over two bucks so it's like a toony by Canadian standards that's all I had but it was enough to buy a big bottle of Oolong tea and a bottle of water and now I'm all out again I don't have enough to buy anything else but yeah the drink machines do not take bills so just a good excuse to have a bit of coin on you just in case this is a bit of a weird situation but like I don't know what I would have done it's been getting increasingly hotter and hotter I'm sweating and sweating and sweating not finding that machine or not having the coins to buy water would have been dangerous I would have had to bail out of this plant but as it is yeah this is pretty nice walking through this park there's still like big expressways on like behind me to my left to my right but they're all at a distance from the park I can't really hear them the park itself is really pretty and again these ones don't have like you know they're not a wall underneath so you can see through them so it still seems like a pretty nice view all around and in the distance are enormous mountains yeah I think I can walk up through this park and end up close enough to it's getting dark but I think I'm just gonna sally forth even if it gets dark looks like the end of the yellow line what is it called Lujao station the LUZ HOU yeah just looking at the green the green stuff this is gonna be a bit of a walk but it looks like this will circle around and then the green literally connects to that station and then that station will connect to the red line and the red line will take me home nice yeah for just a random day I just started walking it's pretty fucking good man pretty good it is weird too with this excessive heat though or I think I'm like ah if only I could bump into a convenience store though it would be so nice if this park had a convenience store but it is a little tricky of as much as I'm sweating and as much as I need the liquids I mean I just drank a huge bottle of tea and now I'm getting started on my huge bottle of water my little tiny belly on top of the big ass McDonald's thing I just bought it has difficulty having this much stuff in it like I kind of like to stop at a 15:00 convenience store and grab a popsicle but also kind of not my belly is like fuck me man this is too much you know all these liquids I mean they're necessary but they fucking add up geez yeah there's another overhead express way ahead of me now it's literally on all sides but this is yet weird it's weird how nice this is it's weird how not I don't know I feel normally that's the kind of thing that would be kind of a downer of like ah man this park is surrounded by traffic but it's really not that loud and it's weirdly pretty just all these above ground expressways everywhere they're kind of neat looking and then way off in the distance a motherfucker of a mountain I am not even gonna guess but big real big not realistic for me to go up it kind of big which is also beautiful I guess too because the sun is on its way down it's quarter to six now things don't look polluted like they did when the sun was higher in the sky now now it actually that sort of adds to the ambiance it just kind of makes the stuff in the distance look pretty makes it look dusky

All right, I didn't make it all the way. There was a point in the park where there was like little ponds and stuff in the park, and I had to go bail out and I was like, oh, whatever. It's late in the day anyway. I don't need to figure this out today. Just a half, half-park adventure is plenty. So I'm just cutting across New Taipei City instead, heading to an earlier stop on the train. Tons of smokers on this side of the river, like enough that I'm bringing it up. I noticed too, I noticed this the other day, but I noticed it again today. They started doing this thing way back in the day on Canadian cigarettes, where they just show disgusting imagery of people with like cancerous gums and things. I don't know if they ever did that in the States, but they did it in Canada, and they do it here, and it's, I haven't seen a Canadian one lately. But the ones in Taiwan are horrifying. It's like times, I don't know. Maybe not times ten, but times eight. Just so ridiculously horror movie graphic that I mean I sympathize with trying to convince people not to smoke. Smoke is real fucking stupid. You should definitely not smoke, but obviously this is not working. I mean, at this point you couldn't show something more gross. It's not even possible. So I think maybe a new plan is in order, because this is clearly not working. One thing that's kind of neat though that I've been noticing is vegetarian onigiri stuff. The term pork floss, I've never heard before. I see it here all the time. I don't know what pork floss is. I assume shredded pork. Anyway, plant-based pork floss pops up quite a bit, and at the 7-Eleven I was just at, they had plant-based tuna. And I just think that's kind of cool, because I'm not a vegetarian, but I sympathize. I feel like the earth should be vegetarian. There's kind of no reason why why we're not doing this. If everything just became vegetarian, if vegetarian options were just all that we had, I would never complain. I just feel like that would make a lot of sense. I kind of feel like that's where things are going. But I also kind of think that change happens gradually. I'm not really interested in pushing the agenda, or even being part of the agenda. I'll just let it happen. And when it happens, I'll be fine with it. But it's interesting that there's so many vegetarian options here, which I guess is all relative. There's probably fewer than in North America, but there's way more than Japan, where there's fucking zero. You never see that shit in Japan. Amy from the YouTube channel Cakes with Faces is vegetarian. And it's just any time I watch one of her travel vlogs, I'm always reminded of it. She always needs to find the vegetarian option. You know, you can definitely do it. She's an expert, so she manages, but it's certainly not the easiest thing. So I think that's actually pretty neat that that's so prevalent here. Again, relatively speaking.

Anyway, I got another one of these cylinder coffees, where I had what was it called last time? I don't even remember now, but it was like a kind of coffee man-delling. This one, I assume, is the same thing. Sumiyaki, SUMI YAKI, not to be confused with sukiyaki. So this is probably just another type of coffee. Let's just give it a shot. So I'm actually at the train station. So I 20:00 got to guzzle this down, and I bought a plum popsicle before I head in.

Nice and milky. Yeah, they're not a big fan of black coffee around here. You can get it, but it's pretty rare, which works for me. So I'm also not a fan of black coffee.

Much sweeter. I liked the man-delling better. As a one-off, though, this is good, but I don't know if I'd go out of my way. It's a very nice taste, though. It is very sweet, but it's not just the, because I said this in Japan a bunch, but the only like sweetness I really don't like is that generic sugar crisp sweetness, where it just tastes like they just put sugar in something with no finesse whatsoever. This does not taste like that. This has a distinct flavor, but whatever the coffee part is, I have no fucking idea, because all I can taste is this sweetness, but it's kind of nice. Almost like, there's something there. It's not brown sugar. It's not caramel. There's a distinct something, but I don't know what it is. It's actually pretty good, though. It was actually pretty good. So yeah, I don't even know what this brand is that just comes in these big tall plastic cylinders, but it's not bad. They also have a tea latte I haven't tried yet, but maybe I'll get that next time. Anyway, that's today's mini adventure. I'm going to drink this. I'm going to eat this plum popsicle. I'm going to get on this train. I'm going to go to the fuck home.

All right, back in my hood. Man, just that, just the amount of time that I stood there in that last little segment, testing out the coffee. By the time I opened my plum popsicle, man, there was like a significant amount of plum popsicle juice that just poured out of the wrapper.

When you buy a popsicle in August, in Asia, just eat the fucking thing. Eat it right away. You don't have five minutes to wait. That's where I was looking again at the diagram. So I buy this one and this one, and I get a discount on this one. It's really, it's really better to just buy one. Again, unless I did that technique that I did in South Korea, where I bought a cup and put all of the popsicles in it, but they don't really sell coffee and cups here. Here's an animate store. I should go down and check this out. I didn't know this was here.

Another nice taste of Japan. But anyway, I just wanted to mention real quick, just because it's come up, you know, the talk of coffee. And there was that coffee shop right around the corner from my Airbnb. I think it was called coffee geek. And I noticed the other day when I walked by that it was all gone. It was, it's closed down. So I got to see the final life cycle, I guess, of a little cafe in Taipei. Yeah, it's just this ain't the place for that. People are not looking for coffee. And it was very small. It was just a tiny little place that just had, I mean, it did have one of those big, big espresso machines. Those are pretty expensive, you know, they're pretty serious with the steam ones and everything. But besides that, it was just a little place with like four little seats and four seats outside, very tiny little room. So I'm sure the rent wasn't that bad. As far as business is closing, it's not like a full tragedy. They had a neon sign though that said coffee geek. I feel like that was probably besides the the biggest Bresso machine. That was probably the major expense. But anyway, I never got a chance to try a coffee geek and it closed. So long coffee geek, one less in the coffee wars, the coffee wars of Taiwan. I think tea is going to maintain its dominance today. And I mean, yeah, I got a, I got a honey, honey milk tea at McDonald's that I bought an Oolong tea at the park. I mean, I'm just giving in. I'm just giving in.

Tea is the way to be in Taipei.

I have some scooters going by to fit me a gea from Shiman, even though I know there will be plenty of scooters in my new neighborhood as well. But yet today is changing Airbnb's day and my new Airbnb 25:00 actually has laundry stuff. But my clothes always smell so fucking horrifying. They hold on. Let me pick up this fucking thing. See, I don't hear my wheels wheeling. This bag. My clothes always smell so horrifying. I just don't even want to have them on me for the afternoon while I wait for the new Airbnb to open up. So I'm doing laundry, paying for the laundry. It's worth it just to have clean clothes. But yeah, I was just waiting for the dryer. I went to a high life, which is the not 7-11, not family mart. It's the Taiwanese one. Got a coffee in a mango popsicle. And I was sitting at one of their little tables nice and air conditioned. And there was a guy sitting next to me who it's always hard to tell because I feel like, I mean, I think it's a pretty well-known trope that many times Asian people look younger than they are. So I'm not sure. This guy's age is quite hard to gauge. But approximately my age, maybe a little older. Again, I don't know. But yeah, he had headphones on. He took him off and he pointed at my mango popsicle and was just like, hey, those are good, right? His English was, I mean, we talked for like 20 minutes and I basically knew what he was saying. So I'd say, I don't know, it's pretty good. I mean, his vocabulary was relatively small. His accent was pretty heavy. But it was enough, you know, it was plenty. I guess maybe as an example, he asked where I was from so I said Canada. And he asked me about some movie from the 50s that I didn't know what it was. That was his go-to for Canada. But it's a movie that had Marilyn Monroe in it. But he had to look up a picture on his phone of Marilyn Monroe because I didn't get that he was saying Marilyn Monroe. He couldn't believe it when I said I wasn't sure who that was. He's like, no, you know who that is. You definitely know. And I was like, oh, Marilyn Monroe, you're right. It's absurd for me to not know who that is. But I guess that's a good example. His accent was strong enough that I didn't understand Marilyn Monroe. But anyway, basically this guy I realized after a bit like, oh, he's been sitting here for a while because there's four big tall beer cans on his table. But he didn't seem especially drunk and he had a straw in one. I think he has just been sipping on them for the afternoon. It's a Sunday afternoon. He mentioned at one point he has, if I was traveling alone. In the laundromat, yeah, and he said he's not a fan of marriage. He applauded me being single. So maybe he was just getting away from his wife. But yeah, we did the kind of standard, oh, where you been? Whatever. He's been to Vancouver, to Jasper, then around here. You know, I told him I went to the Jankai Shake Memorial and that I was going up to the National Park. But you know, the basic, hey, what do you think of Taiwan? And I was like, oh, that's great. I love it. It's beautiful. I told them about how I kept here in the music on the air and didn't know it was garbage trucks. But then I learned and I complemented how clean Taiwan is. But what was interesting, his name was Lou, although I assume not Lou. You know, an Asian equivalent of Lou.

Oh man, I was going to do a podcast while I get my laundry. Some guy came in and sat down right next to me. Now it's awkward. Okay, let me hold on. Let me just get this laundry.

All right. Got my laundry. Got it. It was so fucking hot out today. Now just to slowly make my way to the subway and then to the new neighborhood. I got at least two hours before I can check into the new place. That's not too bad. And it's a self-check-in. Just a little, it's still a key. It's still the only place I've had a key on my journey. It's in Taiwan.

But it's a key in a little lock box, you know, a little code, so I can just check in on my own. Don't have to deal with any people. Fucking delightful. But yeah, talking to Lou, it was actually pretty handy, because yeah, so we talked a bit about the Canada stuff, Taiwan. What brings you here? Oh, just a jobless traveler, okay? Cool. But what was handy is then we just basically started talking about exactly what I would 30:00 was curious about. Exactly the kind of thing I wanted to talk about. But it was really by accident, because I don't know, it's possibly, it's one of these things I'm aware of that I do, but I don't really know how to change it. It's just my personality. Is I really don't lead conversations. Like I don't ask, I'm not going to ask about you basically. If you're talking to me and you got something on your mind or something you want to tell me, you better tell me, because I'm not going to ask. I feel very uncomfortable. I don't like prying into people's lives. I don't like asking them what's going on. Maybe because it makes me uncomfortable when people do the opposite. I remember during COVID, I got a little snippy with one of my friends, because, you know, I was trapped in my hometown for four fucking years, and he's from there. He knows how much it sucks, but he just would periodically send me messages of like, so how's things going back in the old hometown, and finally I had to be like, you need to stop sending me this message. Every six weeks you ask me, what's going on? Nothing's going on here. It fucking sucks, and you know it sucks. Fucking cut it out. Yeah, I'm basically of the mindset. I just let people tell me or not tell me whatever they feel comfortable telling me or not telling me. I think it can be kind of seen as self-centered, like how come I'm not asking about the other person, but I really don't feel comfortable doing that. I don't like it. Anyway, in this case, it's just a casual conversation at a convenience store. Maybe it's not even the same scenario.

But basically, if I was going to, you know, if I was going to commandeer the conversation, I would want to talk about Japan and China. I'd want to talk about all the Japanese stuff around here, and obviously the flip side of that coin, the China connection, but yeah, Lou just started telling me about it. Like, you could read my mind. It was great. It's like, wow, that's exactly what I want to talk about. Thank you, Lou. I really don't know how that came up. I am quite sure I didn't bring up. Oh, maybe I did. Maybe I did because we were talking about, why are you in Taiwan? So I had to explain, like, well, I didn't fly around the world just to come to Taiwan. I went to Japan, and I went to South Korea, and now Taiwan. I'm just trying out all the flavors. And yeah, he basically brought up that in his estimation, Taiwan has a great relationship and a great respect for Japan. He was definitely a tech guy. He had, even though it's the weekend, even though it's Sunday, he had a little laminated, you know, ID hanging around his neck.

His examples of cool Taiwan stuff was like chips and Nvidia AMD and stuff like that. But yeah, he said that at least from that perspective, that area of Taiwan, the tech guys have a great respect for Japan and how clever Japan is and how, basically, if you're a smart guy, if you're a brainy guy, there's a good chance that you'll head over to Japan. And I said, like, oh, yeah, that's actually quite similar in Canada, the brain drain. If you're a high level Canadian, there's a very fucking good chance you're just going to go to America. You know, it's the bigger, richer, more prominent place. But yeah, I mentioned how the Japanese influence this very clear, even just, you know, Mossberger and Mr. Donut and stuff. And he's like, yeah, definitely, like, we have a very clear connection to Japan, which I didn't bring this up. But yeah, you could, it's palpable in South Korea that they do not have that connection. And I have seen in my little bit of research about Taiwan, there are references to Japanese imperial rule back in the day. You know, Japan, basically, at some point or another, ruled everybody. So Taiwan was in a similar situation to South Korea, but I don't know the specifics. Things were really bad in South Korea. And, you know, again, my knowledge is so limited, but, you know, I did learn a lot of stuff about how South Korea is really trying to eliminate Japanese words from their day to day vocabulary, even just going into a convenience store. It's so obviously not the same as a Japanese convenience store. We're here. It's extremely the same. A lot of anger about the history books in Japan, not to openly acknowledging the terrible stuff they did in South Korea.

Where, yeah, again, I don't know the details about the relationship between Japan and Taiwan, but at least on a surface level, it definitely doesn't feel that way. It seems much more unified. 35:00 And that's what this blue guy was straight up just, he was just telling me that. He was just saying, yeah, we like Japan. We respect Japan and all the cool shit it does. We want to be part of that.

But then, once you got on this track, oh man, I was like salivating to talk about China, because it's like, dude, yeah, like China though. China is such a different scenario, such a bad scene, but everything around here is Chinese. Everyone speaks Chinese. You may have the intellectual connection to Japan, but you have this cultural connection to China. I wanted to bring it up, but again, we're just sitting in a convenience store. It's a relatively casual conversation about Jasper and the national parks around here. I can't just start talking about China, but luckily he did. He brought it up. And it's, I mean, it is just basically exactly what you would expect him to say.

He talked about heritage buildings and stuff around here, and basically that's what he said. As he said, like Taiwan tries to maintain history in the past, and he pointed out like a building. He's like that building over there. It's like a historical building. There's a government thing to not fuck with it, you know, to try to keep it going. Taiwan wants to retain history where China does not. China wants to blank out whatever it wants to blank out. You know, it doesn't want to hold on to history. It just wants to steamroll over everything.

And again, in my very limited view, the little bit that I know, I mean, I can't fucking argue, you know. The little bit I know about China and Chinese governments and Chinese, it's just I'm not for it, man. It's totalitarian and weird. I don't like it.

And this guy basically said exactly the same thing. You know, he definitely acknowledged that his culture is basically Chinese. You know, he's like, do you know any Chinese words? And it's like, I just need how? I don't know any. He's like, I never learned any. I think no, sorry, just English and French.

But yeah, I think that's actually kind of an interesting take. The idea that, you know, China is enormous. It's got a billion people. It is just, it is Chinese culture. It is carrying on Chinese culture just due to momentum, just due to the sheer size of the place. But it's an interesting idea that they don't seem to necessarily care about it. You know, they're more than happy to just whitewash whatever they need to whitewash and cover up whatever they need to cover up.

So it's like, even though Taiwan has this strong affiliation to Japan, I guess the argument as I was understanding it is kind of that even just little teeny Taiwan is in its own way more the steward of Chinese culture is like more interested in looking after it and treating it fairly than the big juggernaut that just is kind of like whatever crush whoever needs to be crushed. It was a goddamn interesting conversation anyway with this half cut tech guy from Taiwan who's just hanging out and finally I had to go get my laundry and I was just like, you know, it is that weird little moment of like, I don't know he did ask again. Anyway, I can keep in touch with you. And I was like, I just don't, I don't have a phone number. I got Instagram. He didn't have Instagram and it's just like, oh well, maybe I'll see you around. You know, I mean, we had our time. That's really it.

But yeah, it was kind of if I was going to have a conversation with a local holy jeez, he hit all the like everything, everything that on a, even though it was quite a short conversation, maybe half an hour.

So obviously we didn't get too deep on anything. And there was a little bit of a language barrier. And it was mainly just me absorbing, you know, it's like, hey, what do you want to talk to me about? Marilyn Monroe and what was the movie I did write it down? I don't even know what the connection is to Canada.

River of no return in 1954. I was like, all right, I don't know what this is all about, but hey, dude, whatever, I'm just sitting here eating a popsicle, I'll let you talk about that. But then yeah, he really stirred the conversation into exactly exactly the stuff that I'm actually interested in. And it was like, fuck yeah, dude, nice work, my friend. But anyway, he bid me a fond trip. Hope to enjoy Taiwan.

And yeah, it's just kind of neat to have that stuff confirmed because obviously the stuff about Japan, it's very well known, this weird, contentious relationship between China and Taiwan. But the stuff about Taiwan in Japan, I was purely inference, you know, all I could do was just walk around and just say what I see, you know, I just see a ton of Japanese influence around here.

So I was neat, man, just need to have a local guy be like, yeah, that is not an accident. We think Japan fucking rules. And we also think Chinese culture fucking rules. 40:00 And China itself is not helping with either of those things. Damn interesting, man, damn neat.

But all right, I got to continue on in my insane heat journey.

Mother fucker, although this place I'm going to, built in air conditioning, this thing should just be, I'm excited, man. And I don't know, this Airbnb would have to be pretty bad for me to walk in and have any problems. And getting to be nearer the national park, it's got its own fucking air conditioner, it's got its own key code so I can just go in at my leisure. It has a communal kitchen, maybe I can even start branching out a little, get some noodles and stuff, I don't know, some stuff from the convenience store that's a little, a little more elaborate.

It's a win, win, win, win. I mean, I will miss Shiman a bit, but I have been walking around this neighborhood for a couple of weeks. It's pretty good. I got a pretty good dose of it.

So all in all, not too fucking bad, not too bad of a day.

Here's a little something I can bring up as I, as good as I as I stroll through Shiman for the last time, but again, I can come back here anytime. But the last time where it's just my neighborhood that just exists outside my door, I can yammer a little bit about same-sex couples because I just saw, they were both super muscular. These two dudes, total gym bros, I was impressed with their physiques. They were holding hands, walking down this pedestrian promenade in Shiman. And I mean, I don't know how much I can infer from just seeing a couple of dudes for 10 seconds. But they definitely, they didn't look super comfortable, but I mean that could be anything, maybe they're just having a bad day, I don't know. But the, what I inferred from it was, maybe it's not the most comfortable thing to be a gay couple walking around hand in hand, because it just kind of isn't anywhere, you know.

I feel like the earth on a pass fail gets a fail on acceptance of, you know, any, anyone that's not just the straight up male, female couple. I'm not willing to give anybody, especially large points on that front. But I was thinking how here in Taiwan, I saw those guys, I definitely saw a lesbian couple the other day. And that's all I can think of off the top of my head, but let's say one more, there's probably one more gay couple somewhere in there that I saw somewhere that's just not coming back to mind. So it's a very small number, but that feels like a huge number compared to South Korea in Japan where I saw zero. Zero visible gay couple. And again, it could just be random, but I did walk around both those countries for a long, fucking time. So I've seen way more gay representation in Taiwan, just in a couple of weeks to be in here. So like I said, it still feels relatively small, and I could have been misreading those guys that I just saw. But yeah, it felt a bit like they were, you know, it's like that thing you got to do. You got to put the icebreaker on the front of the ship, and you got to push your way through. You know, like that's what it felt like, is that they're kind of maybe at that point where they're not being openly criticized or shunned for being gay, but maybe it's still not comfortable to be out in public. But again, I could be totally misreading.

But I just think that's kind of interesting. Even though I'm just one guy walking around at random, it's not much of a sample size, but it seems pretty undeniable. That if I had to guess, if I had to put down a guess on who's comfortable with what, I saw one female presenting guy in Japan. I saw a tiny handful of gay couples here in Taipei. Taiwan and I saw nothing of that type whatsoever in South Korea, despite the fact that I was there twice as long. So you know, take that as you will. I'm sure there's actual statistics and information out there, but that's what I've seen. So I think that's just interesting to bring up. So I guess like I said, you know, I'm not willing to give the big pat on the back to any country. The entire earth could be doing better on this front. 45:00 But you know, change takes time. Things will get there. It's just a slow process, but it appears that the process is farther along here in Taiwan.

Which is again, it just sort of fits with just with what it has felt like here in general that it was easy to get into the country. Everyone's been super friendly. Everything feels easier here. Where, you know, Japan is very angular, very first-nickety, very distinct in the way they behave. South Korea felt much more casual than Japan. Things did feel more easy. But there's still definitely an underlying social structure in South Korea that is downright suffocating. It must be really tough if you're a South Korean. You know, I got to skirt around it as a visitor, but there's no question that the casualness is on the surface only in South Korea. Under the surface, everything is a stress ball.

So from talking to immigration at the airport, to just walking around at random, to talking to some guy in a fucking convenience store. Things feel a lot looser in Taiwan on both axes, on the axes of just the casual feeling of the environment as you wander around and the underlying social pressures. I'm sure they're still, I mean, it's still Asia. I'm sure it's rough, but that also seems much looser than the other places I've been. I don't know, I'm really racking my brain. I feel like in six months in South Korea, did I really not see any same-sex couples holding hands while they walked around? Maybe I did, but I mean, if I did, it was literally once, and I honestly think I might just be inventing a memory now that I'm trying to visualize and I just can't conjure up the image. But yeah, I don't know. That's a little bit interesting. Stop talking about anime and giant robots for a second, or I guess more accurately, in my case, popsicles and coffee.