Some recent photos...

So I've had a little more time this past week, due to winter break - both at work and in my online MA program. So I've gotten the camera out (along with my new tripod - finally) and taken a few photos. Check 'em out! We've got a lot of snow. (As always, click on a photo for a larger version)

Here's a shot at Eniwa Station. A good idea of how much snow we've got on the ground. And we're on the lower end of totals here in central Hokkaido. Some areas are pushing 6 meters (approx. 20 ft) of snowfall for December.

Another buried bike - on it's side, so it's not quite as impressive as it might otherwise seem.

Eniwa Station.

Nakajima Park at night. Another buried bike. What is it with me and bikes? Oh yeah. I'm a cyclist. I guess I'm drawn to bikes.

Trees at night. And a lot of snow.

I know light pollution isn't a good thing. But it made for a nice photo in this case.

The mountain of snow at the T intersection right by my apartment. It's only going to get bigger.

The public bathrooms in the park. It's a nicer picture when you don't know that fact.

One of the movie billboards in downtown Yubari. I've written about Yubari before. It was once a booming coal town - 116,000 people lived there in about 1960. After the mines closed, the population crashed - now it's probably less than 10,000. But in th2 1990's, an attempt to boost the town was made by starting an international film festival. And it worked, for a while. Tarantino showed up a few times - and even named a character after the town. Since the city went bankrupt (and didn't get bailed out by the national government) it's become a MUCH smaller film festival. But they're still trying.

More billboards for movies I don't know.

What I guess passes for downtown Yubari. Once upon a time, there were apparently 17 movie theaters in the town. Not sure when that was.

One more for good measure.

On the road back to Eniwa from Yubari, I always pass this place. And it's a complete mess. Not sure when it closed, or what exactly it was. I'm sure if I ask around, I can get some details - maybe even find some photos. But I think it might have been an onsen (hot spring bath).

As you can see, time has taken a bat to this place.

But it fits well with my fascination with ruins.

The nice thing about a tripod? I can take shots like this one of the moon.

And just a couple from Mt. Racey Ski Resort (in Yubari).

It was completely cloudy - to the point of not being able to see 10 meters - at the very top of the mountain for most of the day. But on my second to last run of the day, it cleared off just enough to get these photos.

Who should teach English?

So there's a big debate in the English teaching communities in both Japan and other parts of E. Asia, notably South Korea. And the question is whether or not having native speakers in the classrooms as assistant language teachers (ALTs) is worth the expense. From what I have seen recently on some Korean teacher's blogs, apparently the Seoul board of education will be eliminating at least some of it's ALT positions. And of course, this has more than a few people in an uproar. Japan occasionally sees the same phenomenon. And the argument on the ALT side almost always comes down to this: I'm a native speaker. I know how English is really used. Regardless of what kind of training I have (or don't have), I am a valuable asset for the school and students. Admittedly, that generalization is just that - a generalized over-simplification of the argument put forth in favor of retaining the ALT positions. The argument almost always extends to: At least some of the non-native teachers that I work with are terrible and can't speak any English at all!

And you know what? I can sympathize with all of that. There are plenty of non-native speaking English teachers who don't speak much English. But there are also plenty who do speak English reasonably well. And you know what else? All of the non-native English teachers are trained teachers. Sure, that's no guarantee that they are going to be good at it.

But any guesses what percentage of the ALTs are trained teachers? Honestly, I can't say for sure, but based on my experience as an ALT, back when I first came to Japan - the number isn't terribly high. I was one of those ALTs untrained as a teacher. Only a small handful of the ALTs around me were trained as teachers. Which would seem to me to be a strike against ALTs.

And just as there are both good and bad non-native English teachers, the same applies to ALTs. Being a native born speaker of English doesn't automatically mean that you any business being in a classroom with 30 or 40 Japanese junior high school students.

And when asking student opinions about who they prefer, the data is very mixed. Students point out some positives about both native speaking teachers and non-native teachers. So often, when a certain data set comes out that seems to show students favoring teachers who share the same first language as the students, ALTs and the like are very quick, and rightfully so, that the data always refers to highly qualified, competent teachers. All I ask is that the ALTs apply the same rules to themselves when making the arguments. If we are going to argue in favor of ALTs, we need to make sure the ALTs are also highly qualified and competent. Go out and get your TESOL certificate. Do a master's program. You can do it online and not miss any paychecks. I'm doing it, working a full time job as the main English teacher at my technical college.

And whatever you do, when you post on webforums, complaining about the use of the English language in Japan or Korea or wherever you happen to be - please take extra care not to make simple mistakes. Don't use the word respectively when you mean relatively. And while I'm not asking you to go read every book in the world, I think that it should be fairly common knowledge that the Three Musketeers is not the original title of Dumas' book. It was NOT written in English. It was written in French. It was called Les Trois Mousquetaires. If you want to say that you are qualified to teach, don't give people reason to doubt it. Thanks.

Is it still English? Really?

There's a certain bulletin board that I'm a lurker on. It's all ex-pat English teachers working in Japan. They are almost entirely junior high and elementary school teachers, so much of the school stuff they talk about I no longer have to concern myself with, so I find it better to just remain a silent observer to the occasionally useful, often frustrating conversations.

This past week, a conversation thread about words and phrases that are annoying, several of the users complained about the Japanese pronunciations of English words, specifically singling out TV. The example give was a particular shoe store called ABC Mart. In Japanese it gets pronounced as エービーシーマート (approximately ei-bi-shi-maato). Admittedly, the second only sounds vaguely like the English pronunciation. But at this point, is it really English any more? No, it isn't. For starters, the alphabet is NOT the exclusive property of the English speaking world. Go to Scandinavia. The first letter of the alphabet is not pronounced the same way English speakers say it. So, any particular argument about how to say the letters becomes dicey in the first place. And then there's the word mart, or マート. At this point, it's become a loan word, hasn't it? When speaking Japanese, and saying the name of the store, if you were to pronounce it as it were English, it would be horribly incongruous. Mart is English. マート (maato) is Japanese now.

When we speak English, do we say entrepreneur with a French accent? Do we say gestalt with a German accent? Only when we're being pretentious. Once a word becomes widely used in a second language, it becomes a loan word and the new language can do with the original word as it likes. Yes, you are allowed to bemoan that fact. But I am then allowed to call you a dick. Deal with it.

Yay! Cycling!

This past weekend's ride: 95 km (60 miles) with a 660 plus meter climb (2180 feet or so). I ended up going past three lakes: Lake Eniwa, Lake Okotanpe, Lake Shikotsu.


I set off around noon, after the morning rain passed. The temperature was probably about 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) at home. So I put on my long sleeves and long tights under my shorts. Which would turn out to be a good thing - though a pair of gloves with fingers would have also been a good idea. After Lake Eniwa, I passed a spot in the road that had caused a three week closure - apparently when the remnants of a typhoon dumped a lot of rain on us, a pretty major section of road washed out. Just on of those things living in a mountainous country that gets a lot of rain, I guess.

One thing I'll never fully get used to: a short way after the repaired wash-out - I was passed by 6 tanks. OK, not technically tanks - but very tank like vehicles that run on 6 wheels (with tires). Yeah, we have a self defense force base here in town.

After making it to the Sapporo-Shikotsuko highway, I kept climbing, and, while the weather was nice and clear, in the mountains there are lots of shadows. Which means that my hands, in my fingerless cycling gloves, were really cold. Not quite frostbite cold - but approaching that territory. I decided to make a detour up to Lake Okotanpe, a small lake up about the much larger Lake Shikotsu. Okotanpe (an Ainu derived name) feeds into Shikotsu, via a small stream around Mt. Eniwa - which happened to have a small amount of snow up on the peak. The neighboring peak, Mt. Izari, had a bit more due to the difference in the types of peaks. Mt. Eniwa is an active volcano, which means that the peak is very rocky. Mt. Izari, which sits a good 100 meters (330 ft) lower, is not volcanic, and as such is covered by forests all the way to the top.

The descent from Okotanpe to Shikotsu is a fun one - you drop better than 400 meters (1300 feet) in about 7 km (4.4 miles). But on this day, it was really chilly, what with the breeze created by zipping along at very high speeds without warm gloves or any covering for my ears. By the time I got down to the shores of Lake Shikotsu, I stopped at a parking area to shake some feeling back into my hands before continuing around the water's edge. The ride back from Lake Shikotsu to my house was rather uneventful, which is always a good thing when you're doing approximately 100km.




Mt. Eniwa from the initial climb.



Lake Okotanpe



Mt. Eniwa from the back side, near Lake Okotanpe



The road to Lake Okotanpe



Lake Shikotsu from the scenic overlook on the descent

And these guys are English teachers?

"A more authoritarian position" does NOT mean the same thing as a position of more authority. And the person who wrote this is an English teacher. Ugh. I know it was just on a discussion group, but these kinds of errors pop up ALL the time on this particular board, and nearly everyone on it is an English teacher in Japan.

"he also weighs inproportionally less."

What the heck does that even mean!? I imagine the writer meant to say "He weight proportionally less." But the writer made up a new word.

Also, "keep it respectively clean."

I shouldn't get worked up by this, but these people are supposed to be teaching English.

To Tobishima!

(As always, click the slide show to get to the Picasa album for larger versions of the photos.)

Just the photos from my summer vacation trip to Tobishima, a small speck of an island off the coast of Kisakata. I had saw the island nearly every day for the three years I lived in Akita, but I never got around to visiting. So I finally did this year, even though I now live in Hokkaido. What was meant to be one night on the island turned into two as the sea was too rough on Thursday for the small boat that connects the island with Sakata to make the run. So, two nights and two full days worth of exploring the island took me to almost every possible place there is to go. If I go back, I'll definitely need to look into one of the fishing boat experiences you apparently can go out on.

Dosanko Cup 2011

This past weekend, I took part in Hokkaido's largest (and really only) ultimate tournament. This year, the "Dossanko Cup" was in Yubari, about 45 km from my house, up in the hills in what used to be coal country. I had decided to ride my bike up in the morning, so I was up and out of the house a little after 6:30am, and I rode the same path I had taken the previous weekend, through Naganuma, Yuni, and the edge of Kuriyama. The last 15 or so kilometers follow the old train line between Yubari and Kuriyama. The Yutetsu Line was closed in 1975, though a couple of the stations are still extant. Having done some poking around online, I was able to spot the two stations right along the side of route 3 (Shin-Futamata and Tsugitate). Not much to look at, but as a history nerd, I get a kick out of that sort of thing. I was unable to figure out where the switchback ran coming out of Yubari, though once I looked at a map when I got home, I think I should be able to find it without much difficulty. The climb up into Yubari on that route is such that a train would be unable to go straight up, so they built a major switchback to make the climb. There was apparently a really nice park along the rails of the switchback, judging from photos I found online.

I arrived at the fields at around 8:40, perfect for the 9am opening ceremonies. Everyone was a little bit surprised to see me on a bike, though only slightly because I am well known to ride up in to Sapporo for practices, even though that takes a good hour and a half with the traffic.

The tournament was held at Yubari's athletic fields, which are really nice, nestled right along side one of the walls of hills that make the valley that the town stretches along. The tournament started with two games of university students versus the "adults." Following that, we split everyone up for a hat tournament - all the players mixed up. It's ultimate's way of saying pick-up, though captains don't choose players. The team I ended up on went on to win the hat tournament, quite possibly my first tournament victory playing ultimate. We got "coal cream puffs," courtesy of Yubari and some nice socks, courtesy of Club Jr., the largest company in Japan that does disc sport related business. The cream puffs are regular cream puffs that have squid ink mixed in to the batter so they turn out pitch black. They're really quite good.

After the tournament, we moved en masse to the hotel. Turns out the place is, in fact, the building of the old Yubari North High School, which closed in 1994. Yubari has seen it's population dwindle from 116,000 in 1960 to only about 10,000 now. The mines began closing in the sixties and Mitsubishi closed their last mine in 1990, leaving the town without any real industry. Something like a dozen schools (elementary, middle and high school) have been closed, leaving only one of each. That a good use could be found for at least one of the buildings is great. And the hotel was actually really pretty cool. There was a small display of photos and other odds and ends from the school's history.

Dinner was near the coal mining museum and camp ground. The camp ground was in fact the location of a boondoggle of an amusement park, built at the tale end of the boom economy as Yubari attempted to redefine itself as a tourist spot. But it never took off, and the entire amusement park, roller coasters and all, is now completely gone. Dinner was the Hokkaido specialty, Chingis Khan (AKA Mongolian barbecue) and beer. It was fun, and then we all moved back to the hotel for the after party, which was fairly calm and sedate by Japanese after party standards. Before the after party, I did find two small stag beetles in the room as we had forgotten to close the windows before we went out for dinner. Beetles have spiky feet, which means that it's hard to get them off of carpet when they don't want to go. But I was able to get them out eventually.

In the morning, I bought a couple of small souvenirs (keitai straps of the new Yubari mascot - Melon Bear) and headed home, legs feeling relatively fresh in spite of the fact that I had ridden two hours and played in 7 games of ultimate the day before. I made it home in under 2 hours. It helps that coming out of Yubari, you start with a 5km descent, and there are only two small ascents after that on the route home. I think that with fresh legs and no luggage, I could probably make the Yubari to Eniwa trip in about 90 minutes or so. I'll have to try that some time.

Riding to and from Yubari and doing some minimal research about the town, I got to thinking about Yubari and it's past, and recent history in general. While the past is important and we clearly shouldn't forget the past, it's also important not to fetishize the past at the expense of the present. It's something that historians, especially amateur ones, are very susceptible to do. Yes, Yubari is now bankrupt and has a tiny fraction of the population that it did in it's heyday. But that's not to say that 1960 was perfect. Far from it. I've seen color aerial photographs of Yubari in the early 1970s. The river? A sickly yellow. I've read that the town was, not surprisingly, more or less coated in black soot. Steam locomotives ran up and down the valley belching out lots of black smoke. And there were 3 different lines that ran up and down different side valleys, meaning that no part of the town would have been immune from the black smoke. And, hell, it was one of Japan's biggest coal mining towns. Coal is dirty.

Today, Yubari, while much smaller and financially staring into the abyss, the valley itself is beautiful, even if the buildings are not. Will Yubari be able to survive one or two more decades? I don't know. But they're trying. The new mayor is the same age as I am. 30. This is a town where more than half the population is elderly. So at least some young people care. And maybe that'll be able to save what's left in Yubari. Maybe it won't. But it's important not to forget that Yubari isn't only it's past. There is a present, and hopefully there will be a future.

The historian bug bites me again...

So, this coming weekend, I have an ultimate tournament in Yubari. Never heard of it? Not surprising. But in Japan, it's well known for a couple of reasons. One is the melons. Canteloupes, or rockmelons if you like. It's also known for being the city that is bankrupt. This is a "city" - town really, at this point - of 10,000 people that has millions of dollars of debt. Why? The reasons are obviously many, but suffice to say, it was a coal boom town, and for the last twenty years, there have been ZERO coal mines operating. The last one closed up shop in 1990, though the first closure dates back to the 1960s. So there is quite a bit of writing to be found about Yubari around the interwebs, as well as non-electronic mediums. Of course, it helps if you can read Japanese, though there is a fair amount of English language writing out there as well.

After riding my bike there last weekend, my interest has been piqued by finding out that at it's peak, Yubari had something like 116,000 residents. It was, at the time, about the 4th largest city in Hokkaido, no small feat when you consider the location.

And all of this internet research has been leading me towards a possible paper, and here's the first few lines that I thought of.

"What is Yubari? Sure, there are the simple answers. It's a cautionary tale, warning municipal leaders against putting all their eggs in one proverbial basket. It's the tale of one boondoggle after another at the tail end of the bubble economy. It's the namesake of a secondary character in Quentin Tarintino's Kill Bill. It's the home of a once major international film festival that saw the director of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs appear as a guest more than once. But all those answers are too easy."

If this is really going to happen, it's going to need some serious time and leg work. But I'm really hooked on the story of this town. We'll just have to wait and see.

New bike

Today, I got to try out my new road bike. As an inaugural first run, I headed up to Yubari, where I'll be participating in an ultimate tournament next week. I figured I might ride my bike up if the weather is nice next weekend. Staying overnight with a barbeque party. So it should be fun. And it's definitely doable as a bike ride. Today, with no ultimate (but doing it as a round trip), I made it to Yubari in just under 2 hours. Round trip totals: about 96 km (appox. 60 miles) in just under 4 hours. And yeah, it's a lot easier to ride on roads with a road bike. Just as (dirt) mountain roads are easier with a mountain bike.

Dander raising issues

So, I was just poking around on Facebook (which is more and more a rarity these days). And I came across a comment on an acquaintance's photo. The photo was in an album of things and people this acquaintance, who lives in the Tokyo area, has seen on the train. The photo in question was of a middle aged gentleman snoozing on the train with a fairly impressive straw hat. He happened to be wearing a T-shirt that read "Japon." And the comment made by this acquaintance's friend was about the spelling, implying that it was wrong. Which it is...if you are an English speaker. But that's the funny thing about the alphabet. It isn't the exclusive domain of the English language. In fact, many of the European languages, as well as a few other languages around the world, use the same characters to write words.

And "Japon" happens to look perfectly normal to a resident of Paris or Montreal. Because that is exactly how you should write the name of the country if you are a French speaker. Sure, I don't expect all English speakers to know that, but it is a good example of coming across as a bit of an English language snob.

Another example I came across recently pertains to what the majority of Americans call "Hawaiian shirts." In the Japanese language, said garment is known as the easily understandable "Aloha shirt." Now, sure, most American's wouldn't use this phrasing, but I also imagine that many could probably guess as to the meaning. And, what do know, a tiny bit of digging on the internet turns up the fact that the term "Aloha shirt" originates in Hawaii of all places. It seems to be a brand name for that variety of clothing. While I can't vouch for the accuracy because it comes from Wikipedia, but it seems that perhaps in Hawaii, the shirts are, in fact, still referred to by at least some locals as "Aloha shirts."

I could go on with more examples (the word "prepone" which is commonly used in Indian English), but I guess the point I'm getting at is this - I'm not one to suffer ignorance very much in the first place, but when you couple ignorance with condescension, it really gets my dander up. I know that not everyone was raised in a household where dictionaries and encyclopedias and almanacs were always within easy reach, but in the age of the internet, you really don't have much excuse for not checking on things.

Sorry for the mini-rant. But it really bugs me.

Photos!

This past Sunday was the school festival, so that means that I took a whole mess of photos - some of which actually are fit for public consumption! Enjoy the slideshow and click through to see them more closely.

Wait, what?

I was looking up exactly how to write Saran wrap in Japanese today and the dictionary I was using spit out this example sentence.

Kinda left wondering how that's supposed to work.

This is why Esperanto was a miserable failure

Any guesses for the Esperanto word for "solar system?" Apparently, it's sunsistemo. And there's a Wikipedia - oh, sorry, Vikipedio - page for it. Looking at the page, the language is just this goofy hodge podge of English and the romance languages. Oh, and Js. Lots and lots of Js.

I have had the (dis)pleasure of seeing one of the only feature films ever made using Esperanto. It's called Incubus and it stars a pre-Trek William Shatner. And I think he did more damage to the cause of Esperanto than anyone else - he sounds, well, like an American butchering some strange Spanish dialect, using very American intonations and inflections.


According to the (English) Wikipedia page, Esperanto has anywhere from 10,000 to 2 million speakers, with a few of those actually having been taught from birth. I guess it ain't dead. But, well, it's kinda goofy.

On tsunami's and Gottfried

Of course, everyone knows that Japan is going through a period of serious crisis right now. There was the initial 9.0 earthquake just off the coast, which would have been a big deal on it's own, but it didn't cause anything like the damage seen in Haiti last year or in New Zealand less than a month ago. Japan is well built for earthquakes. The secondary disaster is what caused the majority of the damage. The tsunami arrived in some towns within 20 minutes of the initial tremblor. There is a tertiary disaster at the Fukushima number 1 nuclear power station. * While really shitty and worrisome, it isn't going to be another Chernobyl.

As I said, the worst of the three is clearly the tsunami. As of this writing, more than 3500 people have been confirmed dead, with more than 7500 unaccounted for, and with everything as much of a mess as it is, those numbers are still probably low. Some officials have been quoted as saying the death toll may reach 10,000. Some of the victims were literally swept away to sea, with their bodies floating back to shore yesterday.

Which brings us to Gilbert Gottfried.

Wait, what?

Gilbert Gottfried, the comedian who is known to tread in places where others aren't willing to go, the guy who made a joke about the September 11th attacks three weeks after they happened apparently made some jokes on Twitter about the tsunami very soon after they happened. I've seen three jokes, and one might be funny at a different time, two I just found to be tasteless at any time, one (to paraphrase Gottfried) about how a new girlfriend will float by any minute. As I said, tasteless, but by no means the worst joke I've ever heard.

Gottfried is famously the voice of the duck used in the Aflac insurance commercials. One of Aflac's largest markets is, guess where? That's right. Japan. So, ol' Gilbert got canned as the voice of the duck.** Was Aflac acting on moral principles? Maybe. But I'd just as soon bet that it was for business reasons. Why would they want to associate themselves with a comedian, who was in a way an employee, who has just said something that many many current and potential customers will find deeply offensive. I remind you, several thousand bodies have been found floating in the ocean in the last few days. What Gottfried tweeted was extremely insensitive. I know that some people deal with tragedy by using humor, and I'm willing to give Gottfried the benefit of the doubt and say that's what he was doing. Fine. But, Gilbert, come on, man. You're a comedian. What's one of the most important things in comedy? Timing. His timing on this really sucked.

Of course, reading some of the comments on the news blogs, some commenters are sticking up for Gottfried, saying stuff like "First Amendment" and that Aflac shouldn't have fired him for the comments.

Of course, it is his right to say crass and insensitive things. He isn't being arrested for this. He's been fired. Companies usually do have the right to fire employees who are doing things that are potentially damaging to their business. Should Gottfried have been fired, or simply reprimanded? I don't know. That's not really my concern. But one thing I will say is this. Gottfried, because he is a well known comedian, is a public figure. If he didn't want to be in the public lime-light, well, he wouldn't be a professional comedian. And as a public figure, his words are more closely watched, and are up for debate in the public sphere. His words are different than mine. They carry more weight than the words of some nearly anonymous English teacher sitting in Hokkaido. And as such, I think it's right that we should criticize him. No, this isn't about having thin skin. This is about respect for the thousands who didn't survive, and the hundreds of thousands who did but witnessed up close and personal the disaster. Yes, it's Gottfried's right to say those tasteless things. But, dammit, it's might right say that he sounded like an asshole for putting them out for the world to see.

Do I think Gottfried is a mean, crass person? I have no idea. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. Maybe this is just him testing, seeing how far he can push the envelope. And if that's the case, Gilbert, man, test the envelope amongst a small group of friends who know you better than I do.


* Why the news insists on calling it the Fukushima dai-ichi power station is beyond me. Dai-ichi literally just means "number one," in a counting way, not in a ranking way.
**Yes, the duck appears in Japanese commercials. No, they don't use Gottfried's voice.

Sapporo Snow Festival 2011

Click the slide show to see the photos on my Picasa page.

氷濤まつり

I haven't forgotten about the Taiwan travel journal. I just haven't had the time or the inclination to write it up. But here are some photos from the Lake Shikotsu Hyoto festival. It's a bunch of ice...sculptures? buildings? that are really pretty cool. And quite cold. We went last night and it was nice because there were very few people, unlike Saturday when we attempted to go, but gave up because the traffic jam just wasn't moving. As always, click on the slideshow to go to the online album to see the photos in a larger size.

Taiwan travel journal: Part 1 - December 24, 2010

Note: This is the journal that I wrote as I was traveling around Taiwan. I'll post things at whatever pace I can.

It's been over two years since I last took a major overseas trip. Or any overseas trip for that matter. I left Hokkaido in the early afternoon, and I arrived in Taiwan in the evening. I've noticed that I have gotten over the initial anxieties of setting foot in a completely foreign country. When I first did this whole traveling thing, the first hour or two was always a cause for some fairly anxious moments. But now, on my 4th solo overseas trip, I'm pretty accustomed to the whole rigmarole.

The flight over was normal, if slightly more turbulent than usual, but that was probably to be expected as there was some rough-ish weather on both ends of the flight. I caught the cheapest bus into downtown Taipei, and on the ride in from the international airport, I determined that all Taiwanese buses have a secret code. ALL of the buses have electronic displays in the front window with a 4 digit number. Local, inter-urban, long haul. If only I could decipher the code I would be the master of the Taiwanese bus system!

Or I could just wait for the electronic display to cycle through the names of places in Chinese (which I sort of decipher, at least in terms of some place names) and English. That might be easier.

I got to Taipei station and find the hostel where I thought I had reserved a bed only to find that they didn't have any open beds. The guy I had emailed told me that I could crash on a couch or a table for no charge, which I guess I'll do. Hey, save myself NT400*.

I went to the Shilin Night Market, on the recommendation of the hostel manager, to grab a bite. It was all right. Kind of a mixture of Ueno's Ameya Yokocho and some of the Vietnamese markets I've been to. The Taipei subway system, however, was great. And the system uses NO PAPER! (Japan - please take note.) One time users get a small token that works the same as a scan type pass. And you return it like a coin in a vending machine when you disembark.

One thing that I definitely noticed is the huge number of Japanese businesses and stores here in Taipei. Family Mart, Tokyu Hands, Mitsukoshi, the Daiso (39元). And many many Taipei locals could easily pass as Japanese, given their appearance, fashions included. In a lot of ways, Taipei seems as though it would make a pretty good first foreign city for a Japanese traveler who doesn't want to go to Honolulu or Guam. Enough the same that it's not too scary, but enough of a distinctly foreign feel to it. My general sense of the character of Taipei is that it's somewhere between Tokyo and Hanoi, though it's probably considerably further along the Tokyo end of the spectrum.

Tomorrow, I plan to get up early and head out of Taipei, though I've not decided for certain, though I do have a few places I definitely want to hit. Tomorrow morning I'll try to figure out the gigantic mess that is the schedule board at Taipei's main train station.


*NT is the standard abbreviation for New Taiwanese dollar, the currency. In Chinese, it is usually written as 元 or 圓, Chinese characters that mean yuan, the Chinese currency.

Eniwa in Winter - More photos

すべて表示

自分用に作成

Just added some shots from up in the mountains here in town. Some nice waterfalls about 15km (10 miles) from the house.

Also, the Taiwan photos now have captions and matching map markers.

Taiwan photos

No explanations yet, but all the photos are up on my picasa site. Click on the slide show to go there.