#200 The Taipei airport is nothing but Gucci stores

Transcript

All right, travel day at the Taipei Airport. My flight leaves at like a little after 1 p.m. I got up at 7 a.m., and still just getting my stuff together in the morning. Always takes longer than you think. Everything is a short travel in Taipei. Not that hard to get to the airport. Still takes longer than you think. Not a huge airport. Still takes longer than you think. So I only got an hour and a half before my flight starts boarding. So I mean, that's comfortable. That's not bad. But yeah, that's with an extreme early start. So I know I've said it a million times, but it confirms that again. You cannot get to the airport too early. You just can't. And God, I got a sore throat starting. What are the chances? Come on, bitch. I mean, I guess it's not so bad that it literally started this morning. So as long as I just keep sucking on cough drops, I got little cranberry flavored recolus that are pretty delish. But, you know, I'm not like coughing. I don't have a runny nose. I have no symptoms that are visible. I mean, I still wish I could just stay home and not potentially be near people. But I don't have any choice. So I was just an annoying tightness in the throat. I hope it goes away though, because assuming everything goes well, I'm going to hopefully go back to the cool little Izakaya that Noriko took me to last time I was in Chiba in like four or five days. So if this is just one of these couple of day little throat problems that passes right by, I should be all good. If it develops into more, that would really suck, because I'll have to tell them I can't go. So hopefully not. Finally got cold too. Literally this last day. I mean, I guess I was also up earlier than usual. Yeah, here's my gate. So from here, I can go wander around. Don't need to just stand here for 90 minutes.

But yeah, I guess being up earlier probably put a little chill in the air. But like usually when I take a shower, I just let myself dry off, because it's so insanely hot all the time. Today it was actually cold. This is really overcast out there today. All the mountains as I went by on the subway. Couldn't see the tops of any of them. Even Yangminshen, which was visible the other day. Everything was covered in clouds. I took a shower and then I was just like a wet rat. Just like so cold. But that's a good thing, because travel days got to wear both my pairs of jeans at once, because I don't have room to pack them. And it feels fine. It feels completely normal and okay. It became fall all of a sudden in one fucking day. Because yeah, five or four or two pairs of pants. The way the weather usually is around here or has been all summer. Yikes.

I guess just with the overcastedness, very reminiscent of when I left Busan. And it was all Busan to go to Jeju. It was all overcast, but polluted as well.

It looked like that. And I had to check my bag too heavy for a carry on, just a shame. It's like nice that I don't have to worry about it. I didn't have to go through. I didn't have to put it through security, and I don't have to drag it around now. But I just always feel better having it with me, because there's something that did happen to my bag. Yikes. Yikers. It's like, whoops, there goes everything. There goes all my things that I have. My MRT card worked out almost perfect. I've got like a hundred ones on it, which assuming it doesn't wear off, it should be enough if I come back to Taiwan. That's perfectly enough to get me back out of the airport. So that's a good amount. I'm going to have an amount left on it. And money-wise, I'm down to like 600 one, I think.

Passengers on. So I did find, it was like money exchange places all over, but I assume it would be better to do that in Japan, just to be easier. I'm sure they have all the money that a person needs here, but they're obviously going to have Japanese money on the Japan side, for sure. But it's a hundred one, you know, a little over four bucks. You know, a little over four bucks to do the conversion. So since I have so little anyway, it's like I should just try to spend it. 5:00 But if a hundred one is like four dollars, that kind of adds up as far as just buy in junk food or something. I mean, I could do that. If I have to, I will just buy a bunch of junk food, I guess. But that is kind of a lot. What I was thinking I could buy is a hat, because just putting my hat through the wash, it is a fright. It went from kind of delightfully frayed, to like now it looks like it's been through a war. It looks ridiculous this hat. But I mean, I've had it since Canada, I've had it the whole time. But, man, this is this weirdness of airport. It's all high in nonsense. Say la ra, Gucci, fancy expensive liquor. Some of these high end places they do have a couple of hats hanging out. I should have bought when I was at Shima in the other day, almost bought a hat, just like a basic whatever hat. It would have been like ten bucks, Canadian, it would have been fine.

But I held off just in case, just in case I needed this money. You know, I didn't want to use up everything till the last moment. But that would have worked out pretty good. Because yeah, I don't know if I can just buy a... You know, give me a corny fucking eye heart Taipei hat, I don't care. That's fine.

Yeah, there were some more of those kind of kitschy or type places earlier in the airport. But now that I'm through security, yikes. Everything is just so high end and expensive. It's like, what the fuck? What is this? Well, weird. I mean, it doesn't even matter if I don't spend the money who cares. I can just gather up my excess money from all these countries and wait till I get back to Canada and just convert them all together.

But yeah, traveling. I don't know, it always stresses me out too. I just can't really help it. Because this time, you know, it's the stress of not having been gone a full calendar year. So, you know, I presume on the other end it's going to be fine. Another nice thing about getting older, surely I don't look like some guy who's trying to circumvent systems and sneak into the country. I'm just some dickhead who wants to spend money, wander around. I presume it'll be fine.

But it's always uncomfortable. And I was thinking about, like, when I got into Japan the first time. I mean, I was still nervous and I had nothing going on that time, nothing unusual. So, it doesn't really matter. Like, I can say I'm apprehensive about X or Y, but it doesn't matter. If those didn't exist, I wouldn't feel any better.

Just pass in a border, go and do a new country. It's just a stressful thing.

And, you know, there's no great way to deal with stress that I found no way to make it go away. But I guess the only thing that kind of helps is just not denying it. I heard that from a psychologist named Nathaniel Brandon, whose books I used to read back in the day. And one of the things he wrote that always stuck with me is not denying a problem. You know, if you deny a problem, it's like you're just fighting against... You're just frozen. You're just fighting against an invisible foe. Like, you're not going to make headway, things aren't going to get better, because you don't even know what the situation is. You know, you don't even know what it is that is agitating you, that you're denying, you know, or whatever. So, in this case, like, I tried to... So, in this case, like, I tried to tell myself this morning, like, yeah, this is not a big deal. If anything, this is a boring day. Got to get up, got to get on the subway. Luckily, my, you know, yanking my sleep schedule back to regular has kind of worked. I'm only normal tired. I'm not, like, insane tired. Like, I was up all night. I feel all right.

And, you know, just got to go sit on a train.

Sit in an airport. Sit on a plane for three and a half hours. And then I literally have to talk to one person on the other side. You know, I'm sure it'll be fine. And if it isn't, well, you know, is it any worse than that typhoon situation? Like, yeah, I don't know. Just buy a ticket to somewhere else. Might be stuck overnight in some airports. I don't know, whatever.

But, trying to tell yourself that it's not a problem, and that you're not nervous, and that you're in fact bored. Like, it just doesn't work. It's like, oh, yeah, well, then why is my stomach so cramped up? Why am I feeling stress hormones? Why do I feel like crap then? Tell me that smart guy brain.

So I just went the other way instead of just like, well, all right, then. Just don't deny it. And then went all the way the other way. To the point that it almost feels a bit ridiculous, or I just was telling myself like, all right, then let's not pretend it's easy. Let's not pretend it's boring. Let's just say what it is. This is stressful. 10:00 Going between countries is always stressful. It may just be these little things that I need to go. These little gates I need to pass, these little tasks I need to accomplish. But those are hard for me. And additionally, I'm here all by myself. I've been by myself for a long ass time. Lemon and pink salt chips. Little twisty chips. Oh, and there's some wasabi ones. And maybe I'll buy some of these. Damn, though, again, these things are only 30. One each. They're too cheap. How am I going to spend this money? I can't really buy liquids. Don't want to liquid up. Though it would be nice. There's a wind cafe mocha. God, that would be nice. But then I'll have to pee on the plane a bunch. It's better not, too. Back to the old classic airport stuff. I wish I could get a coffee out of the machine. Well, you can't. You can't in your shant. But maybe you can get some of these stupid chips.

Anyway, keep looking for a hat. Just in case. Just in case you find a hat. But yeah, so telling myself, oh, yeah, this is actually tough for me to do. And I'm all on my loansome. I'm all by myself. I've been all by myself all year. Nobody else is here to help me. I got to do it all by myself.

Geez. I was going with that noise, was it like a parade going on down here? I guess we'll find out. That feels almost ridiculous because it's just... How can this be hard? How can I be talking this defeatist talk to myself of like, oh, this is so tough for me. It's like, is it really? Am I that much of a wuss? Well, let's just admit it. Yeah, okay, I am. I am. It really does make it make the stress melt away a bit.

It makes it a lot less prominent to just admit that it sucks and that I don't like how it feels. Anyway, here's an entire fucking marching band. So I'm going to shut up and let's fade out with the marching band.

Those guys in the marching band thing that went by, they were wearing jackets that said, Chinese Taipei, which I just heard about this the other day. I was watching a YouTube video about classic plays in Magic the Gathering.

And one of them, it was this old thing they used to do, this country-based tournament. So it was Team America versus Team Taipei in the finals. But the coverage had to call them Chinese Taipei because China insisted on that. And China at the time was a market for magic cards. I actually don't know if they still... I know they got rid of one of them. It was simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese. At least one of those they don't print anymore. Is it both measure? Anyway, again, I really don't know about the relationship between China and Taipei. I just know that China wants to have Taipei, but I don't know if they want them bad enough for a war or something. So it's just this awkward middle. So yeah, it's very, very obvious being here. The Chinese influence. Culturally, obviously it's huge, but politically it seems very, very low. Taipei does not feel like China at all. But yeah, China insists on coverage that they're called Chinese Taipei. So these guys with the Chinese Taipei jackets, like they maybe are here from China for something. For something or other, that would be my guess. Anyway, I did find one place that had semi-normal hats. It wasn't just a hat scattered amongst the Dior bags. But even those hats, you know, they're still like, you know, Nike hats and stuff. And they're like 50 bucks a hat. So yeah, I definitely should have bought the $10 hat in Shimen. Too late now. Something to do in Japan, I guess, just look for a hat. Maybe it'd be better to go through the border without this fucking apocalypse hat. No, I suppose it occurs to me. I can just take it off. I don't have to wear the fucking hat. But just so I look like a bit more reputable of a citizen. But this also reminded me. I'm just wandering around. 15:00 But to the time, is it? I should start wandering back to my gate. Yeah, I can't even find any like convenience stores or anything in this airport. It's weird. It's all just the high-end shit. It's the fucking bizarre. It's all there is. Like I just assumed there would be like a fucking family mart in here somewhere or something. But yeah, I'm in that awkward middle. I've got about 20 bucks in cash. It's kind of a lot to spend on snacks. But not enough for hats. Not by half. Just occasional vending machines where everything is annoyingly well priced to like very inexpensive.

But I guess I'll do that. Just stock up on some crappy vending machine cookies and stuff. I mean, you can't really go wrong. I'll leave them eventually.

All my pockets will be stuffed with cookies. But yeah, this is reminded me just wandering around the airport. Yeah, I got an hour. I got lots of time.

Is that I did this before. When I left Japan in 2019 and I flew back to Vancouver, I had to transfer through Taipei. So I was at this airport all afternoon. And this is what I did. I just walked around. Although I have to admit, I don't recognize anything. I don't remember any of this stuff. But I just remember I added Taipei to my little list of places I've been but only the airport. Like Moscow, previously Taipei. Oh, is that the fucking... It is. This vending machine has that fucking horrible peanut milk soup. It'd be my last chance to get peanut milk soup. I'm not gonna do it. How fucking weird that they sell that at the airport. That is the exact opposite of fancy pants baloney. That is like the most... You know, you gotta have fucking Taiwan deep in your DNA to fucking guzzle down that garbage fucking shit. It's hard to imagine anyone doing it under any circumstances, but especially not in the airport.

But yeah, I spent the afternoon just wandering around this airport. And now I'm doing that again. It's like, oh, yeah, that's kind of cool. But obviously it wasn't exactly a formative memory. I forgot that I even did that. Till just now, and it occurred to me, I'm doing it again. Oh, here's a little library. This is nice. You can just come sit in here. Charging station, library. There's literally two people in there. Nobody gives an F. It was very not busy, so that's good. It's like a Thursday afternoon.

I remember, oh man, where was that? I think it was... Again, back in 2019, I think it was on my way to Japan as I went from Amsterdam through to Moscow, maybe. I just remember it was like the worst, most crowded airport situation of all time. It's some leg in that journey. I couldn't believe how many people there were. And then after COVID happened, I started remembering back to that a lot. Because it was like, man, yeah, I was just in a line for like two hours with literally hundreds of people just criss-crossing back and forth, back and forth. It was so awful. Like, just imagine. Imagine having to do that in COVID times. So here's a little art gallery and a prayer room. Wow.

The art galleries got quilts, different quilts. And then handbags of some kind, patchwork bags. I don't know if they're traditional or if they're just cool bags, I have no idea.

But yeah, I don't know. Just thought I'd say that. And hats in the airport, everything in the airport, the airport tax is out of control. And they're like, oh yeah, I did this once before. And now I'm doing it again, just wandering around. Seems like a pretty good mall to wander around except for the lack of convenience stores. As long as you're just wandering and you don't want to try to buy anything. Type A is all right. Patchwork art, quilt art, originated 450 years ago. When a group of Puritans, European immigrants to the New World traveled on the Mayflower to America. So what does that have to do with type A? I wonder why this is being displayed here. Commonly seen in rural areas in the past. Taiwanese patchwork art is driven by a group of women who love handmade crafts using it to express thoughts and emotions. They cultivate temperament and promote well-being. They're committed to promoting and passing down patchwork skills, regularly holding exhibitions and exchanges. So that's interesting. I don't know. It doesn't know. I don't know that it is historical. 20:00 This could be a relatively recent thing. Just some people think it's cool to make quilts. All right. Can't argue with that.

Oh, it looks like the vending machines don't take cash. They don't take bills. So I did have enough change to buy one of those little mocha copies in a can. Got it stashed away. I can drink it on the other side when I get through the flight.

And yeah, the machines take coins and they take the MRT card. So I guess I could have loaded my money onto the MRT card and bought stuff.

I guess I still could. I have some money on the MRT card, but it's fine. I don't know if you want any of this stuff. Just trying to get rid of my money. So it's really not so bad.

520 on about 20 bucks. I guess I'll just hold on to it. Still got my $2 bill.

I did take whatever little change I had left. I had like 14 cents left or $14. 14 Taiwanese dollars in coins. I just left them in the coin return of the machine that I got the coffee out of. So whoever gets changed next gets some extra change. But yeah, that is semi awkward. I mean, I think I've been to pretty much all corners of the airport, all the major of Indigate, DBAC. And it's literally all just like necklaces and expensive booze. It's like all just high end shit. It's like a hundred different stores that just sell annoying high end shit. This is actually kind of insane how impractical this is. I mean, even in Shanghai, man, fucking China had a family mark. There was a food court somewhere. Where did that go? Well, whatever. Who cares? Who even cares? I did pretty good funnel in at my money. But yeah, this is actually a very peculiar. Like here, there's like two of these stores across from each other. Literally, there's a hundred of them. I wouldn't even think that's an exaggeration. If I went around and counted all these stores, I don't know, maybe 60. But there's plenty of room for something practical. Like I was thinking even when I was stuck overnight in the Moscow airport, it definitely had diamond stores and high end shit. But it also just had a place where it's like a little like deli. You can get a crappy sandwich, you know. This place like doesn't have that. It just has nothing practical. That is quite strange. Prada, Versacee. Like they're clearly very proud of all this fucking crap. This is like the last thing I could ever care about in the world.

Okay, here's the food court thing. It at least has a McDonald's in a Jamba Juice. It's a little more down to earth. That's a little better.

Alright, I changed my approach a little. I just want to get rid of stuff. I don't want to keep 500 times when he's dollars for years. Like who the fuck knows when I'll be out traveling again. How long that will sit around. So I saw a donation box. I don't know what it was even for. But other people put money in it and so did I. So there you go, $2.201 bill. You found your final resting place. And then I did get some stuff out of the machine. I just kept buying random stuff, telling my MRT card, gave an error that it couldn't buy anymore stuff. So I just got random junk in my pockets. That feels better. That's the minimalist life. I just want to get rid of stuff. But I did get some airport Wi-Fi. And I searched, why is Taipei Airport nothing but high-end stores? And I found this Reddit post from, when is this from one year ago? Name a worse international airport for a major city. Why does TPE lack everything of a nice functional airport? When you travel to different countries in Asia, the airports are full of international food spots and not just designer clothes. Does anyone else notice this? And then the comments are very divided. But I feel vindicated just that someone else noticed. Like a lot of people are saying how they really like this airport because it's so clean and organized. And yet that's true. It is spik and span. It is spotless. It is perfect. There's just fucking nothing here. And people are bringing up Manila and Hanoi. 25:00 Apparently they're like stepping back in time in a way that you don't want to, or somebody said. But then someone else pointed out, well, you know, at least even like Manila's got like American food chains in a Tim Hortons. So yeah, I mean, you can't say the Taipei Airport isn't nice. It's very nice. But it is not functional. I'm much with that first person. Like what is going on here? There's nothing fucking useful in this goddamn airport. It's all just designer dogshit and like so much of it. So much crazy.

And then people saying LAX, so hair, avoid those. Lots of bad airports.

But I mean, yeah, I think maybe that's the problem. It's like you wouldn't call this a bad airport. That's not the right way to put it. It's not a bad airport. It's just a inconvenient, super unbalanced airport. Why is Taiwan Airport Terminal 1 so barren? Finding food at night here is like a treasure hunt. And you got a fight for it with other late night flyers. There's 1 7 11 according to the guard in the whole of Terminal 1.

Yeah, so wherever that 7 11 is, I didn't find it. But apparently there is one. This is also from a year ago. Yeah, at night this must be weird as hell because all these stores would not be open. So yeah, this would be barren. This would all be what I'm just seeing as endless Gucci bag stores would be just nothing, just hallways. So yeah, various reddit peoples. Of course, you can't post anything on the internet without everyone jumping on your fucking dick about it. But I agree with you. This airport is fucked up, man. So I guess what I said earlier, like, hey, you know, it's nice to walk around as long as you don't have to buy anything. Yeah, I'd say that's true, too, because like here I just found another little art exhibit thing. This one is driftwood, like those things on Jeju, but these are little. There's a car and a surfer and some various animals all made a driftwood. These are beautiful. It's a beautiful airport. And it's 0% functional unless you are all out of Chanel perfume.

Alright, let's see if I can talk to myself. I gotta talk right into the recorder. And this thing's okay.

So when I was booking this flight on Jetstar, which didn't have amazing reviews, but it turns out it's a Japanese Airlines. I don't know, I feel like I trust Japan. How bad it gonna be, and it seems fine so far.

But the basic, you know, cheap tickets seemed unusable. Just like, man, how do you, you know, similar to when I took that flight to Fuquaoka and I managed to arrange all my stuff. To actually get under the weight limits and stuff, but it was ridiculous. So in this case, I didn't even try. There was the starter and then I got starter plus, which just let you take a heavier bag or let me check the bag, I guess.

But then I kind of forgot all these details, but it came with a meal, I guess. As it came, it brought me a little, but mini sushi meal, pretty nice little thing. But this is one difference in the people around me, I noticed, did not get a little meal. So this is one of these cases where you don't just get the meal. I only got the meal because instead of just adding on, whatever this and that, adding on the bag, it's just like whatever. I'll just do this starter plus, then just give me the stuff, cares, whatever. I feel like this flight was still only like $250 or something, it wasn't that bad.

But looking around me at the Japanese locals that are heading home from a quick visit to Taipei, it seems like in that case, you really could get away with the super duper cheap flight. If you don't have, you know, I only have my one bag, but it is a monster, it is a giant big bag, a big heavy bag. So if you just don't have that, you don't care about a little bit of flight meal and stuff, you actually can't take the cheap flight. I don't know, just need to see because it seems so impossible to me. It's like, why do they even have this thing? But I guess for most people, for most locals, it's actually fine.

Again, it seems similar to like the way flights are in Europe. They're just not really like this in North America. Our distinction between cheap and expensive, I don't know. The cheap just doesn't get all that cheap because there's no point because all of our flights are continent spanning massive mega flights anyway.

And they gave me the little check card for the stuff I get a check for, immigration stuff, custom stuff, but I don't have a pen or a pencil, so it's like, I'll just do it at the airport.

But then I remember, like, oh yeah, Japan has that thing where you can log online and do this stuff and get a QR code, but I don't even remember what that's called. I forgot all about it until now, and there's no wifi on the plane, so it's like, fuck, oh yeah, I forgot about that. I guess I could do that in the airport. I just forgot because none of the other countries had anything like that. It was all just with the little pieces of paper. But then I was thinking, oh, last time, I messed up half of it anyway. I think they changed it now, so it's a single QR code before I needed multiple QR codes and I didn't realize, so I messed it up. So I didn't do a paper wise anyway last time. I'm talking to the immigration guy.

And I guess the extra wasn't in my mind because I feel like I need to talk to somebody anyway, just to double check, make sure I am back a little early, let's make sure this is okay. So whatever, whatever the online check-in thing, I guess I'm just not doing that, but I literally forgot, I forgot all about it.

But the other nice thing is that the back of this plane and my row is empty, except for me and the row behind me is totally empty. So when the guy brought my little sushi thing and I accepted a coffee, like, I fucking, the washrooms right here, I don't have to climb over anybody. This is fine, I'm just going to take the coffee. Usually I find it's better to just dehydrate while flying and not have to worry about washroom stuff. But it's a pretty small flight anyway, and the coffee made me feel better. Cheese though, this whole family across from me, all sniffling, all sick. So if I wasn't already getting a sore throat, I would feel a lot worse about it now, just like, yeah, whatever. This was clearly in the cards, this was coming for me.

Alright, there's my Taipei airport adventures. Let's split this day in half. Let's make this a two-parter. Next episode, arriving in Japan. Will they let me back in? Do we have a whole new string of Japan episodes ready to come? Or do they sadly turn me away? I'm not a good actor, so you can probably guess that it went all right. It went all right. Or I would be sad right now. But join me next episode for the second half of this day. Of this glorious day. Alright, I gave it away. I'm getting back to Japan. Thank you for listening. I'll see you then.