#181 The extreme humidity of Taipei

Transcript

Well, I'm continuing to learn about humidity. Where I've been realizing it's like impossible to dry my clothes because they just don't get dry. They just sit there for two days and become all musty and weird. So I went to a proper laundromat yesterday, so easy, so nice and easy. And just little stuff like how I've noticed if my hands are wet after washing my hands, like they just sort of stay wet, which is just strange. It's like, how come, I don't know, it's just humidity, man. And like I was saying last episode, I'm willing to admit when I'm stupid. I guess the way I think of it is like, I feel like there's two ways to know things. You can know things because you read about them and you can know things because deep in your gut you understand how they work. So you know, I've read about humidity and like moisture in the air. I know the basics of it, but I don't feel like I know it because I never grew up in a humid environment. I don't really know the ins and outs of it.

It's nice and windy right now. This is good. But I'm learning a little more because today, I wasn't totally sure what to do with myself today. I'm still kind of missing in some ways, the Ole Trail on Jeju, just knowing what I'm doing. It's like, well, I'm going back to where I stopped last time and I'm continuing to walk around the island. Now I got to make my own plans, make my own adventures again. But I came up with some things I could do, mostly that first hike I took here in Taipei. I'm like, okay, I can either extend that hike or even maybe start at the other end. It seems like the brown line on the subway kind of goes over in that direction. Maybe I could start over there and try to come back this way. But I was walking and it's not the longest walk in the world to get to Sochiha University and start things off. But it's just very uncomfortable, very fucking hot. And just like, to the point that I kind of, you know, multiple layers of the brain are going with each other. I caught some layer of my brain asking, why are we ignoring these signs? Just stay home today. It's a little late in the day. Anyway, it's not a great day to be doing this. Just go the fuck home, man. Something is wrong here. It's really fucking hot. So I'm in this little park next to a river and I stopped in a washroom and it's always extra bad. Once you're enclosed in a washroom, that must be why all the public washrooms here have the electric fans plugged in to keep stuff moving. Because yeah, once you're especially locked in a little stall, man, that's when it just becomes sweat overdrive and just like, boah, it's just like crazy feeling. Super hot box. So just out of curiosity, I checked to see if there was Wi-Fi and there was a little unexpectedly at a random washroom in a park. But I checked the temperature and it's like excess of heat warning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 32 degrees. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, none of that's unusual. Then it said feels like 42 degrees. That's like, holy fuck, all right, I've never seen that before. I have never seen it go over 40 before. That's fucking crazy. And then I saw that the humidity index for today is 88%. So again, I don't quite know what that means. Like what does 100% mean? Does that mean does that mean that the air has become water? What does that mean? What is the percentage? What is it measuring? What does 100% mean? Anyway, we're very near 100%. And then I saw the tomorrow. It's only 40%. So it's like, all right, just yeah, go home. I'm going home right now. I turned around. I'm going home. Yeah, again, I'm slowly learning about this stuff and what it means and what the various relevancees are. But even without actually understanding it, I understand that 88% is a very high percent. And I understand that feels like 42 means you're on Mars right now. Go the fuck home. And yeah, right now there's a little breeze that actually feels pretty nice. But if I go up into the mountains and into the woods that will probably cut down on the breeze considerably. It's actually amazing how much difference this makes because I'm also by not only a breeze, but also by a line of trees. So having a breeze and having some trees super helps where most of the walk here, I was just under the direct sun.

And yeah, it felt real bad. So yeah, add that to the list. Add that to the stuff that I'm checking. Oh, then I check the air quality index just at a curiosity and it's very low today. It's in the 20s. So nice. But yeah, it's just so much stuff. I don't know. I'm just so used to like back in the day. 5:00 Check the temperature, the end. Get old Canada. How cold is it? Okay, that's called the end. That's all I was ever concerned about. Now it's heat, AQI humidity. It's just like a lot of stuff has to go right. Or you, you feel like you're going to die.

But yeah, especially I guess if I had seen like that it was going to be this way forever, then I don't know what I would do. But yeah, it's like today in the 80s, tomorrow in the 40s, supposedly the next day, back to the 80s. But if there's days where it's half this brutal, I think it's safe to say that's the day. That's the day I want to use to go on a hike. Oh, also I felt an earthquake the other day. Two earthquakes. Apparently one happened when I was in Japan, but I think I was on a train at the time and I had no idea. It was big enough that I got messages about it and I didn't feel it at all. Where this one I just felt the house starting to shake. And maybe it's just one of these cases where I don't know what I'm supposed to be worried about. You know, maybe I'm supposed to be more concerned. But I thought it was kind of neat. It's like, oh, cool. I've never felt one of these before. Whoa, everything's shaking. And then later in the day it happened again. But I did a little searching and I didn't see any references to it except like on Twitter, you know. So it couldn't have been super huge. Not big enough to make the news, but I felt it. I felt an earthquake. I've officially felt an earthquake now. And yeah, I guess as long as it's not dangerous and nothing terrible happens and no one was hurt and all it does is shake stuff a little. Kind of neat, man. Kind of a cool thing.

Well, I found a nice little mountain park on the way home and there's some shrines up here. So the other day I found some shrines and I was comparing them to Japan where in Korea, I never saw anyone leave any offerings that I could that I could determine. Whereas in Japan, there's a lot of it and it's so random, you know. A lot of it is just weird little candies and seven, eleven drinks and just strange offerings that are just like, I don't know, here's some junk food.

And from what I saw, it seemed like Taiwan didn't do that, but there were bottles of rice. So I was looking that up trying to see if I could learn about the bottles of rice and I didn't specifically, but the thing I found did say that they do in fact leave offerings here, just the ones I found didn't happen to have any. But I just passed them here on this mountain and yeah, it was just just like a little dish with some some kind of individually wrapped little candies of various varieties. So somewhat like what they do in Japan, you know, reminiscent of that.

And I guess the idea according to the thing I read was I guess the idea is whoever maintains the shrines, you know, they can take these food offerings if they want. And then whatever's left over could get distributed to food shelters and stuff. Whether that actually happens, I have no idea. But you know, at least that's some logic to it.

But that's kind of what I presume. Maybe that's what the bottles of rice were.

It's like a food offering, a food donation, but not a frivolous one, you know, not like that's I guess what I find so weird about the convenience store offerings at the shrines. It feels kind of flippant. It just doesn't seem like it really mixes. I mean, it could be that I grew up Catholic and everything is all serious and dour. But I mean, if you put candy in the collection plate in a Catholic church, you'd be right out on a rail. You know, you'd be heavily shamed. And maybe that's why this seems so weird to me. But that's kind of my guess about the bottles of rice. Is that again, I don't know how how much of this process is really happening. I don't know how much of offerings that shrines are actually being distributed to anyone in this day and age. I feel like this maybe was more of an ancient time thing. But if you're going to do the ceremony of donating something, maybe that's what the bottles of rice were. It's like, all right, I'm not going to leave you a series of little plum candies or something. I'll leave something that's more of a staple, you know, more of a hardy food item. That's my guess, but I don't actually know.

This is nice though. It's very unfortunate that there's no drink machine because I really, at this 10:00 point, definitely need some more liquids in me. One drink machine would have gone a long way. But it's still only Japan that is the king of drink machines. But this mountain is right in the middle of the city. I had no idea it was here. It's actually not that far from the laundromat I went to yesterday. And it has walkways built all over it. Is this Shanyan Ouijie temple? Z-H-I-S-H-A-N-Y-A-N.

H-U-I-G-I temple is the name of this area. And yeah, it's just me and me and some old people just walking around having an afternoon constitutional. And yeah, it looks like I'm coming out on the other side. It's like a 20-minute little hike to hike all around this thing. And like I said, right in the middle of the city. So yeah, once I exit I'll immediately be able to find a convenience store. Man, speaking of old people, another reason why it's probably good that I didn't go off hiking today is I banged my shin. So when I say speaking of old people and talking about myself, I banged my shin on my bed frame this morning. And I did have that little thought of like, this seems fine, but I wonder, is that going to hurt? And now that it's a couple hours later, it's like, yeah, it doesn't hurt a ton, but it does hurt. It's like, damn, but that's the kind of thing when I'm 80 years old. That's going to fuck me up, man. That's going to be like, well, that's the end of today. I banged my fucking shin on something. Now it's over. I can't go anywhere.

The beauty of aging.

I'm just walking under an awning and saw a little, oh, there he is. He's back a little little lizard just running along the side of the wall. Man, that just amazes me. And there he goes that they can just run along ceilings and walls and just like, just like nothing. It's like they're on the ground. What the fuck? It's funny too like the hierarchy of animals, where if I see a cockroach or a mouse or a rat, you know, I really get nothing against them, as long as they're outside of my house. But they're still like, oh, you know, that's the, that's the quote unquote bad creature. Oh no, look what I just saw. I saw a bad one, where when you see a little lizard or a cool little crab or a snail or a frog, it's like, hey, cool. I saw a cool creature. I saw a good one. I don't know, it's just funny because these animals themselves, I'm sure they don't feel that way.

They don't feel fucking anything in that sense. They're just living life, man. But yeah, there's definitely a distinctly different reaction in my brain when I see a cockroach to when I see a cool little lizard. Anyway, I just made a neat discovery. Today turned out to be a kind of cool day after all, because I found, I think I found my Taiwanese equivalent to Adia coffee. Where in South Korea, I was going to different coffee shops, a Tucson place. What was the other one called? There was another chain. Anyway, I kept finding chains that cost less. You know, I went to like the most expensive one. I think it was just called it, like, tealy for something.

Then down to a Tucson place, then I found Adia, which was not only cheaper, but it had this awesome touchscreen. So I could just go in and order cool, weird stuff and pay with my card. Where my experience in Taiwan so far has been that they're way more about tea. Coffee is a lot less prominent. And that the Starbucks's were just crazy, crazy expensive, like eight bucks for a latte. And also, like, not big. If they were just huge and there were tons of seating and stuff, I would have an easier time because you can kind of justify to yourself spending eight bucks. I mean, eight bucks is a lot, but spending a lot on a latte, because you know, you get somewhere to sit. It's like paying for office space in a way. You know, I get to sit there and work on my fucking novel. Theoretically, someday when I have a novel done, like, that's worth it, right? You know, plus you do get a coffee out of it.

But, I did a little quick napkin math, and it's like, yeah, maybe you can kind of justify it here and there. But I've been out on this adventure for like 10 months now. 15:00 If I bought a coffee that expensive every day, that's too grand. That's wild. That is too much, you know? Just can't justify it. It adds up like crazy. It's just not comfortable to spend that amount of money. And I also, yeah, just don't like when coffee shops are crowded. I really want to feel like I'm not. You know, I need there to be empty seats. Like I'm not getting in anyone's way. That it's all right if I sit there for two hours because I wasn't taking up a space anyone else was going to use. So the Starbucks is here in Taiwan. They've just been failing on both ends. They're not especially available and they're crazy expensive. So I just didn't go. But I did see this place Louise that coffee. I remember seeing one early on, but I walked by one just today and it was pretty big and pretty empty had a lot of spare seats. So I just went in. And it doesn't have the cool touchscreen technology of a DIA. But that wouldn't matter anyway because my cards don't work in Taiwan. But I went through the menu and yeah, I guess this is kind of cool because the Starbucks is for a latte, we're like eight bucks. And I found a key coffee the other day, but like a drip coffee was still like 450. A lot for a drip coffee, but it was like, I don't know, that's still better. Where yeah, this Louise that place, I got a coconut latte. So I mean still a relatively fancy pants drink. A nice iced coconut latte and it was $3. So I mean win, win, win, you know. It had seats. It was nice and comfortable. I sat there for a couple hours, did a bunch of writing, didn't feel weird about it. Didn't feel like I was taking up space because I am still just, you know, I'm just still a cheap skate. I bought the one coffee I didn't buy any bakery stuff. I'm still kind of a lame customer, but as long as I'm not taking up a space that someone else could have used, I don't feel too bad about it. I still got like a kind of cool fancy pants copy. Three bucks is a really good deal. And the third win is that then I looked it up like, so what is this chain? It's a Taiwanese coffee chain and it is the number one chain. It has more stores than Starbucks in Taiwan. And I mean, I can see why. Three bucks for a coconut latte is considerably better than $8 for a hand.

I'm starting to think like I'm starting to question myself. Did I misunderstand the menu? I don't think so. I don't know.

Starbucks is just out of control here. I don't know why. But yeah, this particular branch I was at is not far from my Airbnb. And there's like two more right around here. I mean, the seating thing will be the main issue, but I might just keep going back to this one. Yeah, this just feels so much better. It feels very comfortable to go spend three bucks on a drink and sit there and get some work done. Even if I did that every day and you multiply that by nine or ten months, whatever dude, price of doing business, you know, I am buying coffee, it's got to cost something.

But there's a threshold where I start to feel like it's just way too much. And Louisa is way under that threshold, way under.

I feel like three bucks for a fucking coconut latte is an extremely good deal. And it's very tasty.

So yeah, the only kind of awkwardness, I guess, is, you know, the standard. I don't speak the language thing.

You never know where the threshold of that is going to be where that's, you know, I've never really had a coconut latte. I'm not like a big coconut latte guy. I just thought, hey, that sounds pronounceable coconut latte, right? Maybe? No. I'm afraid not. I had to pick up a menu and point at it. But that's fine. Whatever man. If that's how it is, that's how it is. I'll just do that from now on. I'll just be prepared ahead of time. I'll just start. I'll start by pointing at the menu. I'll say the word, but I'll point at the menu because why make it tough on anybody? It's my fault that I don't speak the language. I'm minor, minor road bump. Other than that, yes, sweet man, Louisa coffee.

That didn't take too long. It actually took me a really long time to find a dia coffee in South Korea. I think because there's so many coffee chains in South Korea. There's like a million. There's so into coffee there. So it actually took me a while to find the one that was my perfect fit, where it actually didn't take me very long to discover Louisa here, because there aren't that many. There's not that much in the way of coffee.

In Taiwan, relatively speaking, I mean, there's still like a lot of coffee shops and stuff. But just way less than North America and Japan and South Korea and Amsterdam and America. 20:00 But I said, does America twice? Canada and America. Everywhere I've ever been in my life. Let's put it that way.

So yeah, that's nice. I'm feeling good about that. That feels like a very doable thing to do.

Hey, whatever wacky adventure I happen to be on. Hey, on the way home, just stop by. Stop by a Louisa. Get a fucking coffee.

All right, it's the next day. It is hotter out technically, but the humidity instead of 80 is 40. And I did a little bit of research. I didn't look into it enough. Before I went to bed, I was like, oh yeah, I should fucking Google humidity. So 100% humidity is just there is no more possibility of water being in the air. It's the most water that can fit in the air. But yeah, this all just numbers doesn't don't mean nothing. I need to know like, I don't know, I need like a chamber. I need a room where there's 0% humidity. And I got to go in and breathe it in and then go in 100 and breathe it in. Then maybe I'd understand.

But yeah, I mean, I guess we'll see. We'll see how far I make it on today's adventure, but this feels better. It's like 35 degrees instead of 32, but the humidity. The humidity, I mean, I've heard that joke all the time, you know, it's not the heat. It's the humidity, but it really is shit is fucking it's a killer.

I've also started building a little index of where public garbage cans are because there are some around.

But it was nice being in that super touristy Sheema neighborhood where there was garbage cans everywhere. That was very convenient.

Here as long as I go to a park, there tends to be a garbage somewhere near parks usually.

Because it turns out very few convenience stores have garbage cans, but I guess what you're supposed to do is just give your garbage to the clerk.

And that's okay if you sit at that actual convenience store and eat all your stuff, but I tend to just, you know, chow down as I'm walking. I actually don't know. I know that's a bit of a faux pas in Japan. I never looked into it here in Taiwan. I have no idea. Am I not supposed to be eating a fucking Onigiri as I walked down the street? Oh well, I've been doing it. So then I'm stuck with this garbage. So I'm starting to learn where the garbage cans are. At least there's some. There's definitely more public garbage cans than Korea or Japan. But if you hit a patch with none there will be none.

And the other thing, it's funny how these little things come up, you know, they tie together sometimes in this podcast, just something happens. And then a further on continuation happens immediately after. So I was just talking about how cockroaches are so much less pleasant than little lizards and stuff. So this Airbnb I'm at, my first impression was that it was super nice. As I've been there a bit longer, it's like, it's not as nice as I thought. The kitchen's kind of run down. There's places where the wood and one of the bathrooms is starting to kind of fall away. Just various little things. It's like, it's not so bad to leave this place. It's fine. I like it, but it's not like amazing. It's a little more average than I first thought. I guess just because I just came from, you know, like a super old house where I literally just had a random room in a weird random old building.

This new place, you know, it's just because it's more of a conventional apartment. So I was initially quite, quite impressed. But then more and more, I'm like, yeah, whatever, it's fine.

Not a big deal to move on from here.

And as with the last place where I saw, I only saw one cockroach once. Here, I only saw one cockroach, but I saw it twice. And now it's just in the little washroom how there's two washrooms. So there's the one, the far end of the house that I usually use.

And I was in there and just one of these cockroaches from hell. You know, these cockroaches that are four or five times bigger than an North American cockroach. They're so fucking big, it just scuttled out from somewhere behind the toilet maybe.

And there's just that first moment of shock of just like, whoa, and it felt like a Rorschach in the watchman. I'm not trapped in here with you. You're trapped in here with me. 25:00 You know, that's how it felt like. This fucking cockroach is not afraid of me. If anything, it is bully in me. It's Rorschach. I'm like, fuck, what do I do? Christ, look at this goddamn monster of a thing.

And I'm not quite sure what to do. I think in a longer term, they say there's like this paste you can get that cockroaches will eat. And then they'll go back to wherever they are from and they will die from the paste. And then their friends and family will eat their body and then theoretically they'll die then from the poison cockroach carcass. But since I don't live here, you know, I'm just passing through. It's like, okay, I guess I'll just try to catch this thing. I don't know. Put it outside, you know, like you would with a spider or something. The idea of trying to kill it didn't even cross my mind because, you know, cockroaches are famously resilient. You know, they famously don't die. But it's also just so big. The idea of that thing crunching under my foot is just gross as fuck. It's just like that's disturbing and weird. But anyway, I just went to the next room to the kitchen and I found just a Tupperware container that was in there. And as I call, maybe I can just trap it in this.

But then it was gone and it's just like, damn it, like where did it go? It's like magic. This is like the sealed up closed environment of the shower room and then just a blank hallway. I just feel like I should have been able to see it wherever it went and I just had no idea. And then that just gets that disturbing thought in your mind of like, oh, there's a giant cockroach from hell in here somewhere. And I try not to focus on it too much or like, I don't make a big deal about it. It's, you know, it's a fucking subtropical country. There's cockroaches everywhere. I'm not sure how it got up to the third floor or whatever, but how it got in here at all. But that's what a cockroach does. So just whatever. Don't worry about it. But then I woke up at like five in the morning because I had to pee. And the dream I was having right before I woke up was about cockroaches. Like you just can't deny your own subconscious. My subconscious was stuck on the cockroach. And I mean, yeah, what can I can't argue that, you know? That's what my brain does when I'm not in control of it. But I noticed that in my dreams I was dreaming about small North American cockroaches. Like even my subconscious that has gripped onto the idea of this cockroach still has not like updated the information. It's like, yeah, but that couldn't have been real. Even in a dream that's ridiculous. Cockroaches aren't big like that. So in my dreams I was dreaming about little cockroaches being around.

And the room I'm in has like a sliding door that just slides closed and it's so low to the ground that I'm like, I think like maybe a North American cockroach could wriggle through. But I actually think this one is so big. I honestly don't think it can get under my door because it's too fucking big. But it probably could find a way. I'm sure it could find some way that I don't know of or some other way in. You know, again, it's the cockroach. If there's a way, it'll fucking figure it out.

Just walking under a bridge. Nice echo.

But yeah, then at 5 a.m., you know, I was like, oh, I'm gonna go pee. Go back to that washroom. And my mind was like in cockroach mode. But I was like, I'm sure it's gone. I'll probably never see it again. But I was looking around and there's this little spot at the corner of the doors where the wood has started to come away a bit. I think just from moisture. I don't know, do cockroaches eat wood, termite style? I think it's just moisture has caused the door frame to come apart a bit.

The little tendrils or whatever they're called, the little antenna of the cockroach, flitting around. And yeah, it was like in the door frame. It was still there. It's like, geez, maybe it really is trapped. Like, it would probably be better for it if I could have caught it and put it outside. It might just be stuck and it doesn't know where to go. So it's still just hanging around in this room. But I went and got the Tupperware again and it was just gone again. And I'm like, fuck, is it just like inside? The door frame? Somewhere? You know, look for such a giant cockroach. It is amazing how they could just fucking hide and disappear. So I'm just like, I don't know, whatever, whatever man. I mean, I guess I got nothing against you cockroach. I don't think cockroaches are dangerous or anything. Just a cockroach trying to live his life. I like to just, you know, live and let live. But, but it's just such an alien thing. It's just so creepy looking and the way it moves and the size of it. I'm actually this novel that I'm working on, which if you're listening to this in the fire future, maybe it'll actually be done. 30:00 But it's called Explode and it's about, it's a sci-fi book. And that's partially what it's about. It's like, you know, this Star Trek idea that all of the different weird alien space creatures are all going to be friends in the future. This is kind of the opposite of just like unfair ingrained inborn xenophobia. Like it's not like I have anything against you in particular, but I just can't be comfortable around you because you have tentacles. You're a weird looking thing and it's like a big part in the early part of the novel, especially that our main character, who's one type of alien, is surrounded by these other aliens. And she literally has a hard time looking at them. It's hard to focus on them because it just turns her stomach. It's just like queasy and weird. And it's like if you were talking to a cockroach person, I mean if a tiny cockroach fucks my day up so much that I'm dreaming about it. You know, imagine a full-sized one and then imagine all the cultural norms that come with this. This thing is going to be the weirdest fucking thing. You're not going to have any fun trying to deal with this other culture, this other creature. So, you know, I don't know. It's a tough line to walk. We'll see if I pull it off, but it's this idea that maybe it's not fair, maybe it's not the right way to be. Maybe it's not, you know, obviously it's an allegory for just the world, just humans and just have different it is to be in different human cultures. It's like, I don't know, I'm trying to present the idea that ideally, you know, we should be more accepting and understanding of each other's cultures. But I think maybe at some point you need to recognize that that's hard to do. There is something in, if not all of us, a lot of us that just naturally, like when you see something different than you, it's just tough to get over that fucking hurdle. And nothing, nothing on the planet earth exemplifies that better than an enormous cockroach. It's like, look at this fucking thing. What world is this from? But I mean, it's from this world. It was here before us. It probably belongs here better than we do, but I'm looking at this thing and I'm like, I just wish you weren't here. You fucking weirdo. Where did you go? And now you're just here somewhere.

But I think that's just, again, the price of doing business, I think I just need to accept every Airbnb is going to have a cockroach siding because it's just a really hot country. And yeah, like especially walking around, I didn't see that many cockroaches outside near Shiman, I think because there was more foot traffic. But now that I'm out in the burbs a little more, like if I'm walking around at night, it's very common to see cockroaches every block or two. Just there's one. You know, they're just all over the place. So it's natural that some of them are going to get into your house. But yeah, ooh, cockroaches, man. Just wanted to bring that up because I was just saying that. Like, yeah, why is it that frogs are so cute? And cockroaches are so gross. Well, it's because cockroaches are gross. That's why. Because they're fucking weird creatures from beyond the fucking, from the abyss. You know, they're just fucking disturbing.

And if it was a sentient life-sized cockroach, I would try my best to get along with this thing. And I would try my best to understand its culture. But I bet I'd have a hard time looking at it in the eyes for, though, you know, especially when you first meet it, it would be like, oh, geez, oh, geez, my stomach feels weird. What is this thing?

So anyway, there's the cockroach update.

It's actually, I'm heading toward the mountains and I can see it's much more overcast over there. But I figured out a pretty good way to, uh, I've got a combination umbrella and disposable 7-11 raincoat in just one of my back pockets. They both fit in there. So I've just got them in there in case the sky opens up.

But we will see. We will see. First, I got to find a convenience store before I head up there. I need some motherfucking water.

Wellie, wellie, wellie. Yeah, the overcastedness just got worse and worse as I walked toward the mountain. I was just going to continue on behind Suchau University. One of these days I'll get up there. They had started raining just a little. I was like, well, I guess we're done for today. But then I was like, yeah, but, you know, a little bit of rain. Maybe this isn't bad. You know, maybe I should go hiking through the rain just to keep it cool out here. This could be all right. But I stopped in a family mart and just it took me a few minutes to go around, find whatever I was looking for. 35:00 And the clerk, his English was quite good and he wanted to speak English. So, you know, he was chatting me up a little. And then he mentioned like, oh, rain, huh? And I looked over and I was like, oh, fuck. In the five minutes I was in here, it's raining like crazy right now. So I was like, oh, shit. Yeah, and he asked where I was going. I was like, I was going to go up in the mountain by the university because it was sunny when I left. Not anymore.

However, I see that right across the street, Boulevard Cafe, some kind of little copy shop that has like a whole second floor. And I don't see anybody on the second floor. There's some people downstairs. That's kind of perfect. Even though we'll see how pricey it is, but even if it's kind of pricey, it's right here. I believe I guess that's the new plan. No hiking. Just a nice rainy cafe day, but that's all right. That's nice in its own way.

Well, well, well. What a weird fucking day. So I hopped over to that cafe. But the fact that it seemed a bit unusual and even that like the whole upstairs was empty, it turns out it's because it's not really a cafe. Maybe this is one of those like Amsterdam type things where if you go to a coffee shop, it is not a coffee shop. You know, that's their term for a weed store. Maybe cafe just means restaurant here or could just be a one-off. I don't know.

But yeah, I went over and there were really no signs of coffee type stuff. It was all a lot of booze, a lot of bottles of hard liquor for mixed drinks on the walls.

And then, man, I love having just Wi-Fi actually work in random places. So I just did a quick Google. And yeah, it's totally a restaurant, a semi-fancy restaurant. So that makes sense why in the middle of the afternoon it's not exactly full. It's probably a dinner place.

And then I was walking through the rain, which was insane. Just kept getting harder and harder. And I never would have noticed the bus even coming because it was coming behind me and everything was super loud on that street and with the rain. Some lady coming toward me was like gesturing, frantically. And I looked over and saw that, oh, there's a bus pulling up to the curb to let her on.

I was going to keep walking. I don't know why. But then it just suddenly occurred to me. I only had that moment to think about it. But it's like, I actually have a long ways to go. I got to walk along this park. There's nothing to protect me from the rain. And I'm going to be soaking wet, fuck this. So I turned around and I jumped in the door of the bus just before he was ready to go. And the bus driver gave me like, yeah, gesture. You know, like a little fist bump. Like, good job. You did it. Good choice.

So I took my first bus, pulled out my stupid little egg-shaped card, which I still, I made my piece with it. But man, it's so much more convenient. When transit cards are shaped like cards, having to fish that thing out of my wallet, stupid little fucking egg. But anyway, it worked. And I had no idea where the bus was going, but also just the amazingness of technology. I just pulled up Google Maps and I watched on the little blue dot and just watched where we were going. But I mean, I didn't really care. Any subway station or whatever. That is fine.

And we stopped at a subway station, only one station away from my home station. It's the one that has the cool mosaic of a skateboarder.

And right now, I'm just walking underneath the train tracks, which is way better than walking in the rain, but I still need to have my umbrella out because quite a bit of water drips down through the tracks.

And just walking on home is pretty much the only option for today, because we did stop right by a Louisa coffee. And this adds to my feeling that Louisa coffee is awesome. But with weather like today, there's the best coffee shop in the world. Just can't, can't maintain. Now, there's some thunder. It can't handle this kind of shit because that basically, the Louisa coffee I was at before, it was only one floor, but it was pretty big. 40:00 But this one here, it was fully packed, but there wasn't upstairs. So I decided I would do the classic thing instead of North America style where you order and then sit down. I decided I was going to do the Asia style where I go find a seat first and then order.

So I went upstairs and they boasted 91 seats upstairs, which is like insane. That's Korea style. That is so many fucking seats. But it was completely packed. And then there was a third floor that was about half that size. So I was like, alright, let's try that. And I went upstairs and it was completely packed.

I think that would be alright on your average day. I'm sure I could swirl my way in somewhere. But because this is just insane rain from hell. Now I'm just stopping for a moment because I'm at the end. I'm at the point where the train crosses over a river. So I have to go out into the rain. But it's me and like 10 fucking people, a bunch of kids with their bicycles and some old people were all just huddled under here because there's nowhere to go. So yeah, I'm sure the second this rain started. Every coffee shop in town is probably a capacity right now. I think it's not really worth trying to find one. But just the fact that Louise a coffee had three floors. Like for real, I can see why Louise a coffee is the number one coffee shop in Taiwan. It's fucking awesome. But I think I could have 10 floors today and I would have a hard time finding a place because this weather fucking is crazy. But kind of a fun adventure in its own way. You know, it's like, oh, Alf, I get this is still cool. I took a bus. Oh yeah, that's the other thing. So it's neat to have Wi-Fi on the bus also. So I could check while on the bus. Just a little basic thing. But do I have to tap out when I leave the bus? And you do. I think it's safe to assume you just always have to tap out on buses. I'm only confused about it because of Canada. Because I don't think you do in Toronto. I think Toronto just charges you the most it can possibly charge you automatically. And you used to have to tap out in Vancouver but they took that away because it was fucking people up and confusing them and they weren't tapping out. So I think it's just in Canada. Maybe you don't tap out on the bus. But I think that's not normal. The only reason it's confusing to me is because I'm from Canada.

This, though, still doesn't really explain my questions about humidity because that is one of the things I remember reading is when it hits 100% humidity and the air cannot contain any more water, then there's a chance of rain. But does that mean then while it's raining right now, it's 100% humidity? It was 40% before. Did it just change all of a sudden? I guess so. I guess so. I remain ignorant. Anyway, I'm slowly learning. Maybe. I don't know. I guess I can't say for sure. I don't think I'm getting dumber at least. That's a bonus.

But yeah, I feel like that probably does it. That's an episode. One of these days I'll get back to hiking. But I mean, I did such an epic hike up to the top of that 600 meter mountain the other day that I think I'm good. I'm good on hiking for a while. So it'll happen when it happens. The between the heat and apparently the insane rainstorm, it's certainly not something you can plan for. It'll hopefully just happen one of these days. But that day is not today. So thank you for listening. I hope to see you next episode for more Taipei adventures. Adios.