One Millllllion Dollars.....

I can't say for certain, but I think I may have just found Dr Evil's new lair on a recent ride:

I thought about waiting to see the swing shift henchmen and minions show up for work but I decided against it.

Or, alternately, it could just be a cool building that's part of a huge complex called the Central Taiwan Science Park, which houses a concentration of high tech manufacturing on the ridge west of town.

Tradition meets modernity in music

I stumbled upon details of a concert at the big city amphitheater in a park about 20 minutes walk from home.  It sounded interesting so off we went, and as it turned out, it was free, so we really had nothing to lose - even if we didn't like it.

The show was traditional Chinese instruments backed by a rock band.   I don't know anything about traditional Chinese music but if I had to guess I'd say that the playing of said instruments is probably pretty proscribed.  That is, one and only one way to play them, and rock would not be it.   Again, I could be wrong about all of that, and I'm looking forward to learning more to find out.  But in any case, it was pretty captivating in that all of these traditional instruments had such cool sounds and timbres, and the players were all clearly talented on them.  It was a really well staged show, with great lighting and sound (actually some of the best outdoor live sound I've ever heard for any show anywhere).

It definitely had elements of cheese layered on top, but regardless, it was good fun watching these  players get a chance to cut loose.

A sense of place(s)

Here's our apartment building on Google Streetview

If you switch this back over to map and then to satellite view, our building vanishes.  The satellite image is older than the streetview image.  I'm looking forward to looking at the satellite photo with someone who has lived here for a while who can tell me how old it is, but there are quite a few buildings missing in the neighborhood beyond ours.

And as a counterpoint of home now, vs home then, here's home then (with an added cameo by me - Google Streetview stardom has been very, very good to me.  You wouldn't believe the checks, cards, and letters I get).

January 5, 2013

The movers arrived right on time at 9:00AM.  They and all the packing materials were gone and all of the shipment from the US was unboxed by 1:00PM.  Nothing of significance was broken, though it seemed that some things definitely got rolled a few times since they were packed.  I'm guessing it wasn't the US movers as they seemed very careful in their work.  I doubt that the shipping container or the ship did any barrel rolls en-route, so I think that's out as a cause.  My money is on the customs inspectors, but I could be wrong.

After a shopping trip to get some groceries and other household goods, and, most importantly, some really nice floor to ceiling stands to hold our bikes, we got back to work making the apartment into home.  We got enough done on Saturday to get out for a great bike ride on Sunday and then back to work.  By Sunday night, we were pretty well situated.   There've been a few things that we've moved around since then having determined better locations for them, but for the most part, we're done, save for an office desk and some rugs.   Presto, home!

We've been having great fun riding with folks from the Nike office here - there are a bunch of really avid cyclists amongst Julia's co-workers.  As a result, we're learning a bunch of cool roads and ways to get around town.  After our weekend rides with the group, I generally get out and explore further from the previous weekend's excursion.  I've already got a reasonably functional sense of the immediate geography and overall road layout, but there's much, much more to learn - better connections and better roads await.

There doesn't seem to be much of an Ultimate Frisbee community here in Taichung.  All that we've found thus far is a club/team at a local university who open their practices at times and also have pickup games following practices.  It's been winter break for them thus far, so I'm very much looking forward to connecting up to play with them once their schedule gets back to normal.  I'm very much not looking forward to having to chase 20 year olds around the field, however. Where oh where is the old guy game 'round here?

December 31, 2012

Moving Day!

It took two trips in our swanky Toyota Previa - because of the bikes and bike boxes, but Julia and I and our bikes and suitcases are all moved in to our apartment.  When we arrived we had precisely one piece of furniture - the bed in the guest room.   Nike has some temporary household items for exactly this situation, the gap between move in and shipment arrival.  However, since the office is closed for New Years until Wednesday, it seemed pointless to get all of the stuff for only 3 days until our shipment arrives.   We got word that it's here in the country, it only needs to clear customs and then is scheduled to arrive this coming Saturday.  The landlords will have furniture delivered on Thursday.

And through the miracle of further time travel, here's what it all looks like:

And the kitchen, nicely appointed:

We're on the 22nd floor, with a nice balcony and a great view looking towards the west.  

Many of the apartment buildings we visited were not pleasing horrific to my tender western design sensibilities - way too much gold gilt, frippery, crushed velour, taffeta, shiny stuff, fake plants, highly polished floors, stuffy formality etc.   This building is very understated and comparatively 'matte finish' compared to the high gloss of so many that we saw.  Way more Julia and Tom-like if I do say so.

December 21, 2012

Well, it’s been ten days here in Taichung now.  Julia’s settling in to her job.  We’ve got an apartment lined up.  I think we found a good one.  All that we saw reminded us that compromises abound.  The challenge is discerning if the compromises that seem acceptable now will still be acceptable a few years down the road!  I think we’ll be happy with our decision.  It’s a newer building and an apartment that’s never been occupied.  It’s also completely unfurnished, though the landlord will be furnishing.  The good news is that we’ll get to help pick out the furniture.   We looked at a few places that were ok as the apartments and locations went, but the furniture had the distinction of being even more uncomfortable as it was unattractive - which was a singularly impressive feat in a few instances of profoundly ugly furniture.  

Life at the Windsor Hotel isn’t too bad - but it *is* getting a bit old, so we’re eager to get into the place as soon as we can.  

Having our first weeks here in Taichung in a hotel is an interesting bookend to our 2 weeks in the hotel in Portland before we left... It has allowed us to ease into town and Taiwan, ensconced in a bit of a cocoon with numerous English speakers around.  (I could really, really do without all of the Christmas carols piped throughout the entire hotel, including the hallways outside the room.  They’re mostly cheesy Asia-pop renditions, in English, but covered up in bad synths and dreck... Dreck the Halls indeed.  I was going to record some and embed here for you to hear, but that would have been unkind.)  Had we ended up getting an apartment nailed down back in October, we’d have been there the day after we got off the plane - not bad, and I’m sure we would have managed just fine, but it would have been right into the deep end. 

We’ve got our first lesson with our Chinese language tutor Monday morning, and not a moment too soon.

I’ve been having a blast exploring outside of town by bike - I say outside, but in many directions, this place sprawls like Atlanta or LA.  So it takes a bit of effort to get outside of the urban areas. But it’s not impossible, the hills leading to the full on mountains to the east of town have loads of great, quiet roads.  I’ve always enjoyed exploring by bike - though in the US, I can generally count on being able to understand and be understood if I have to ask for directions (though there were a few times in the wilds of North Georgia that left a bit of doubt on the above).  Not necessarily being able to read street signs is an added bit of fun, so having GoogleMaps on my phone is helpful, but when I start getting out into the higher mountains, potentially away from cel coverage, I make a point to try to be sure I’m remembering turns and looking behind myself in case I need to backtrack to get back to civilization.  

Riding through town in the mass of scooters and cars is wonderfully mind clearing, if lung clogging.  It reminds me of riding in Manhattan.  But even more intense given all the scooters.  Small motorcycles, scooters and bikes are all limited to the right lane, so it gets crowded over there.  The strange thing is I actually feel safer riding in the midst of this mayhem than on many roads in the US.  From what I’ve seen,  people are focused and paying attention -  I suspect that Newtonian physics causes a Darwinian selection of the unaware.    I'm working really hard to keep my understanding of Newton's work to the theoretical realm.

December 9, 2012

Sunday December 9, 2012 -  Tokyo Narita Airport en route to Taichung.  

I’ve been on international flights before, but for this one, ‘international’ has a whole different color to it. It’s not travel as such - it’s a relocation of home.  It’s hard to pin down exactly, but the combination of the one way ticket and the knowledge (and lack thereof) of what’s ahead, make this trip wholly different.  Same eyes, same planes, same airports - whole different trip.

Having nearly 2 weeks in a hotel in Portland before departure was a really interesting middle ground, a sort of dress rehearsal for moving far, far away.  For making the transition to a being a visitor in your town, for seeing that same town through different eyes before you even leave.  It’s wild seeing construction getting started on buildings around town and realizing that by the time we get back, not only will the building be done, but the landscaping will no longer even look new.   Same with imagining the changes in others along with the changes in Julia and I.  It’s like the way that the lawn’s growth really surprises you when you’ve been away for 2 weeks, and yet is easy to miss if you’d been home that whole time. 

I expect that our perception of the differences and contrast will be heightened for us, and probably the same for others looking at Julia and I as well.    At least I hope so, as  I *want* to come back different in good ways.  Not to stop being me, or that I feel like the old Tom is lacking - well, on second thought, sure I do, there’s loads of stuff I should improve and change about me (that’s a whole different blog) - but I’d hate to think moving to a wholly foreign country and culture/language wouldn’t change me, hopefully in good ways.  That’s part of the adventure.  Stagnation and stasis are the enemies of the kind of life I’d like to lead, and this next few years will allow plenty of opportunities to avoid them, I hope.  

I didn’t sleep much on the flight, maybe 45 minutes or so.  I just wasn’t feeling all that tired, so now I’m moving into the wonderful (at leas to me), state of jet lag/travel buzz/dislocation.  I might have been more inclined to try to sleep if there weren’t so many great TED Talks to watch on the inflight entertainment.  There were some great, geeky and cool ones, like one on ‘Quantum Locking’ which blew my mind,  as well as one about Multiverse theory, positing that there could be multiple universes.  

However, the talk that was most affecting related to the state of the Justice system in the US, specifically about the very unequal treatment under law based on the race of the accused.   I watched this after reading a few different international papers discussing the warfare in Syria, the continuing growth of Israeli settlements, strife in various countries in Africa etc, so when Bryan Stevenson  said that he felt that the opposite of poverty is not wealth, it’s justice, it was profoundly moving.  

 It was a powerful thought to consider, especially as I am likely to be traveling semi-regularly within countries and cultures with vastly different wealth and poverty than the US.  I think he’s on to something very real and profound - income inequality is a real and serious thing to address - but inequality of justice is even more pernicious.  I don't think it's an understatement to say that inequality of justice is at the root of many problems the US and the rest of the world face.  It is this most basic of all notions, so basic that even the youngest of children complain about it - ‘that’s not fair’.  That’s a simplification, perhaps, but then again maybe not - what is justice ultimately but fairness?  At the end of the day, save for the psycho/sociopaths amongst us, I think most humans  innately respond to justice or lack thereof.  When one gets the sense that they have not been treated justly, all nature of ills flow.

If you’ve got a rich (an increasingly important qualifier as well) white kid getting barely a slap on the wrist for cocaine possession, and a black kid doing years in prison for the same thing, the system is built to fail.  Or pulled from way to many headlines of late, a guy who robs a bank of $1000 getting 10 years in prison and a person/corporate ‘person’ who rigs the system to steal hundreds of millions or perhaps even low billions of dollars getting a bailout and bonus for his efforts, along with keeping the money that he stole in the first place, well, no good can come of that for anyone.  

The above is admittedly a bit far afield of the whole ‘Tales of Moving to Taiwan’ genesis of this blog, but getting a chance to see some of this stuff getting played out in different cultures, and seeing how it gets reported through foreign media, will be fascinating, and likely a pretty regular topic here, I can imagine.

On time travel...

The theme abounds.  Here I am in Taiwan, where much of the time, it's already tomorrow relative to the majority of folks who may read this.  It's also already January 2013, and I'm just now getting around to going live with this blog.  I've been writing since we arrived here, but for a varied, comprehensive, and in all modesty,  impressive* list of excuses, I've not actually gotten around to posting anything here - until now.

To help underline the fact that this is a wholly different place than we used to live, here's an example of just one of the new and fun road hazards we encounter as we bike around this beautiful country:

*impressive in this usage is synonymous with lame