Taiwan Business Trip

(Michael) My idea of celebrating the Fourth of July this year was to go to Taiwan on a business trip for a couple of weeks.  My supervisor wanted me to go over and get some cost information on the new factory our company just built over there.

Flying business class is amazing, watched four movies (since I needed to stay awake so I could fall asleep when I got to the new time zone) and ate lots of fancy foods (they even had build-your-own ice cream sundaes...I thought it was great but I'm not sure it's worth the logistical nightmare it must be to serve).

I had a lot more free time than my last trip to Taiwan, so it was nice to be able to get out and explore this time around.

First, I went with my supervisor to the National Palace Museum....

It had probably the most intricate pieces of artwork I've ever seen.  All the stuff we saw in Europe was pretty amazing, but some of level of detail on these sculpture blew everything else away.  My single piece of evidence...check out this ball made from a single piece of ivory with 21 layers of free-moving concentric spheres.

I feel like if you ever got to the point where you could make one of these, you should put everything down because you've won at sculpting.

I go from that to another piece that they were VERY proud of...a piece of ivory carved and dyed to look like a piece of pork.

 Very realistic, but out of all the things to sculpt....

I also went to a lot of markets.

 

 Flower market

Jade market

Night market

My supervisor and I also went through this slightly creepy flea market down a couple narrow roads.  It had a bunch of items carved out of rhinoceros horns and other interesting/unethical items.

Also got to see some cool kite flying at one of the local parks.

I ate a lot strange foods, many of which I still can't identify.  My supervisor, a girl from the Qualcomm office in Taiwan, her boyfriend, and I all went to a fancy sushi restaurant.  One of the first things I noticed was that the ceiling was cover in mirrors so you could essentially see a bird's eye view of all the different foods at all the other tables.  I wasn't a big fan of the sea urchin or the "hairy crab legs"....

But the salmon belly was actually pretty good....

At the end of the night, I guess it's traditional to have all the chefs line up and bow to the customers.

The boyfriend also happened to be an executive at the Hyatt we were stay at and surprised us by sending complementary boxes of chocolate to our rooms....

Other interesting foods include, rice and pig's blood with gooey noodles.  At a street fair I had some black octopus sausage....

And a squid on a stick (which was really tough to get down)

When I was on my own and needed to get something quick, I would sometimes go down to the local Mos Burger (appetizing name right?) and get a ya bau (ok so I'm not sure if I did that right but someone taught me how to say duck burger in mandarin and so I made sure to order it whenever possible).  They also had these teriyaki burgers with sticky rice buns....

This trip really tested my chopstick abilities.  I thought I had been improving, but got a few "we can try to get you a fork if you want" comments, so I still need some work.  However, right before the end of my trip, I went out to lunch and managed to successfully handle some tofu, which apparently is one of the toughest chop stick foods.

That same lunch I was also introduced to a strange rice dessert.

I had only a few bites because of its neutron star characteristics.

I suppose that is all and more than you wanted to know about the food part of my trip.  My supervisor was only with me for one of the weeks I was out there, so I had a weekend completely on my own.  There isn't a whole bunch of things to do in the city of Jubei, but after some research I found a glass museum.

Along with a lot of the history about the local commercial glass production, they also had a bunch of artwork on display.

My favorite part was the glass studio where they had artists demonstrating all of the different glassblowing techniques.  Very impressive.

I still had a lot of extra time after all of that, so I wandered around and came across a zoo.  Prepared to spend a good sum of money for the sake of exploration/curiosity, I was amazed to find out that admission was only about 50 cents.  Ok, so it wasn't the San Diego Zoo, but I definitely felt like I got 50 cents of enjoyment.  Sadly, my camera died so I don't really have any pictures of that, but I can tell you that it pretty much looked exactly like their website banner....

Before leaving I also walked through a temple right next to the park.

Talking about temples, probably the most exciting adventure of my trip was when I was in Taipei and decided to walk the two miles from my hotel to church (which is right next to the temple).  Reminiscent of our Europe trip, I thought I had given myself enough time and was confident that pictures of the google map directions would be all I needed. 

Honestly, I did alright, except I was running a little short of time so I decided to take a shortcut on the last quarter mile.  I thought, all I need to do is look for the angel Moroni.  Sadly, there are way too many high rises to be able to use that approach (I'm sure there is a whole bunch of gospel parallel in all of that).  So I got really turned around (I found that having street signs in chinese characters makes maps sort of useless...wait, is that symbol with the squiggles and the two boxes?).

After trying for a little bit, I realized I needed some help.  I saw a cross for a christian church nearby, and figured that someone there would probably recognize the picture of the temple I had on my camera.  

I was a little nervous because I knew it wouldn't go well if they had been really anti-mormon.  I asked the first guy I saw, and he got a bunch of other guys to take a look at the camera, and I knew it was working because I kept hearing "mormon" scattered in their conversations.  Imagine my surprise when one of them then motioned me to get on his scooter.  I now look back and see the potential dangers of doing something like this, but it seemed like a safe option at the time.  And come on, he handed me a helmet.  It was a little bit of a wild ride, but sure enough he was able to take me right there.

After a uplifting time at church, I decided to walk through the Memorial Hall Square that was nearby.

The National Concert Hall

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

It also had this neat entrance gate.

I didn't spend long around there because it was very hot and humid, but as I was walking back to the hotel, I ran into this little park with robot statues.

Well, those were the highlights of the trip.  The work portion went well, and I was able to finish up before the vine plant (which was slowly creeping towards me throughout my time there) in the next cubicle got me.

Fun trip, but I was ready to get back and see some familiar faces....