Doing Everything BESIDES Going to Wu Lai.

On Wednesday, Romin, Jenn and I were planning to go to Wu Lai this weekend. A nice, relaxing sightseeing trip. Instead, I just had probably the most jam-packed weekend I've had here in Taipei.

Friday was our first practice for the Guo Qing Rock Band. That's right, I'm in a rock band here in Taiwan. We're performing for the NTU 80th anniversary international student concert which is sometime in December. We procrastinated a lot but the end of the story is that on Friday at 4 PM, we started practicing together for the first time ever, and at 6:30 PM, we had our auditions for the concert. And we just got a new guitarist Thursday night, and he learned the part over night. Well, how do you think it went?

We're performing a rendition of Canon in D, followed by Yellowcard's "Only One" and "Breathing," along with our own rendition of the Tai Da school song. We only had Canon in D and "Only One" prepared, and prepared is a loosely used term here. Also, while my voice was easily hitting every single one of the ridiculously high notes the lead singer of Yellowcard likes to toy with, after 2 and a half hours of practicing, my voice was completely shot.

So, come audition time, our band was completely off, my voice was cracking every time I strained for a high note, and we didn't have a Tai Da school song to go along with it. We got chastised by the director for sure, but as there weren't too many acts auditioning for the concert anyway, we still got in which, now, I'm thinking might not be such a good thing. Afterwards we got some dinner in the alley and I hit the bed early.

Saturday, after some practicing with the Guo Qing band in the morning, Jenn and I took off for a day in the sun. We were supposed to go to Wu Lai on Saturday, but the morning practice meant we wouldn't be able to leave til 11, so we decided to leave it until Sunday. Instead, we went around Taipei trying to find things we had wanted to do for a while but couldn't based on 1) time or 2) weather. Speaking of which, the weather on Saturday was AWESOME! Not a cloud in the sky, sunny, warm, perfect.

First, we went to the Su-ho paper museum. We had been told by our classmates who went there during a field trip that it was a pretty cool place (we didn't go because the field trip involved skipping class: yeah I'm talking to you, mom and dad!). Indeed, it was mildly cool... for a very short period of time. It was a LOT smaller than we expected (about the size of a McDonald's here in Taipei, really) and there just wasn't all that much stuff to see. Still, what they DID have there was pretty cool, like a house made of paper, and various paper-made products like chandeliers, fire-proof paper, etc. And I found something for Vince to bring back to the States, so it wasn't all a loss. But yeah, we spent about 45 minutes there.

Paper house, probably the coolest thing there.

Next, we went to the Sun Yat Sen memorial hall. In the MRT stations, there's always pictures of various places to sight see around Taipei, and the Sun Yat Sen is one of them. It's really pretty in the pictures but in real life it is sort of... eh. It pales in comparison to the monumental Chiang Kai Shek memorial, but the Sun Yat Sen memorial hall is cool because while it's not such a breathtaking monument, on a sunny day like Saturday, it seems to be the to-go spot for locals to go, hang out and socialize. There were children running everywhere with kites, playing around. There's a small park inside the memorial where families picnic together and let their dogs run loose and play with each other. There's a huge group of people watching a painter paint the view. It's a cool place to be on a nice day to check out the Taiwanese locals socialize and have fun.

I want this in my life.

Afterwards, Jenn and I fulfilled our (or at least, my) tourist needs and went to the top of the Taipei 101. I had been wanting to go since I go to Taiwan but busy schedules and the want for us EAP-ers to not do touristy things have kept me from going. Recently, a very early-setting sun and crappy, cloudy weather has kept me from going by myself. But today it was a beautifully clear day, so it was definitely time to go! The ride up to the top of 101 takes 400 NTD and 44 seconds up the world's fastest elevator. Going up that elevator is a weird feeling because you feel all your insides shift but you don't really feel the speed, if you get what I'm saying. Anyway, it's certainly weird.

At the base of the beast.

World's fastest elevator taking us up the 101.

Make sure you go to the top of the 101 on a nice day because they'll only let you to the 91st floor open air observation deck on nice days. On other days, you're limited to just the 88th floor indoor observation room, which is 360 degrees, but still, viewing the Taipei city outdoors without a tinted glass panel in your way is really something else.

This is the view of the Tai Da campus. You can see our classrooms and our dorm rooms in this view, as well as our favorite local night market, Gong Guan.

Sunset on the 101.

Observations from the top of 101: The view is spectacular, but standing on top of the world's tallest building you can't help but think: it doesn't actually feel all that tall. But it is the tallest building in Taipei by a HUGE margain, and because of that, you can literally see everything in Taipei that isn't blocked by mountains. Seriously, the view is amazing. And it's even cooler that I went after becoming pretty familiar with Taipei county because seeing all the different places I've been to from the top of 101 is pretty awesome.

Saturday night, a group of us went to this free concert hosted by Taiwan Beer. Taiwan Beer is, I suppose, the largest beer company in Taiwan and they put on a HUGE show with fire, fireworks, smoke, lasers, and the whole nine yards inside what seems to me like a basketball gym. It was a seriously cool experience to go to a Taiwanese concert with what I assume are really, really huge Taiwanese performing acts. I don't really listen to them or know who they are but they involved these people:

I stole this picture from Tiff; thanks in advance!

I've heard of at least one of them, A-Mei, which means she must be pretty big. She was the main performer of the night and the crowd went CRAZY for her. I've never been to an Asian standing-room-only concert but it was pretty crazy. There were hundreds of people packed into that room and I've seen concerts like this broadcasted on Asian television but seeing it live is something else completely.

Today me and Jenn were going to go to Wu Lai but we woke up too late so we failed, again. Instead, we went to the Taipei Zoo. The Taipei Zoo is actually pretty decently large and has a nice selection of animals to see. Plus, I got to use my 55-200 zoom lens, which never gets any action, but it produced some AMAZING shots for me.

Muahaha.

Not much to say about the zoo: I mean, a zoo is a zoo. It felt like being back in the San Diego zoo, except for the fact that everyone in this zoo was Taiwanese. Another observation: Taiwanese people have the funniest way of expressing themselves. For example, this kid was drinking a bottle of water, and handed it to his dad. The dad asked the kid, "Is this the water that handsome men drink?" and the kid replied "Of course it is, dad!" and they chuckled while the dad drank. So witty!

So that was my packed weekend in Taipei. In short, I got nothing that I had originally planned to do this weekend done (ie, Wu Lai) but it still ended up being a great, great weekend nonetheless. Until next time, zai jian!

-Justin

PS It took me three hours to upload and edit my photos, and write this blog entry. I did not realize it took that long!