Cute stuff in Taipei

Taipei has lots of cute stuff that Auckland lacks.

There are little dogs on scooters...















There's Mos Burger, where combo meals come with jelly (in a cup, with a straw) instead of coke, salad that tastes like moss, and paper place mats with interpretive depictions of NZ.

Mmmm, natural beef. I can't stand that imitation factory rubbish.















There's Apple Sidra, which is good (and nothing like cider in case you were wondering - I was), partly because it is Without Chemical Ingredients.
























There are people with facemasks everywhere (Taipei air, H1N1). The security guard at the company I visited today asked me if I was American, then handed me one.

Taiwan also joins the fray of countries where Google forces visitors to play an annoying little game called Where the Fuck is the English Display Setting.

Google products default to the local language, and redirect to com.tw (.cn, .th...), displaying in traditional Chinese, of which I know about 6 characters (the useful ones, like mountain, rabbit, and death). The fun part is finding the language setting on the page ('Language' is always in the local language...).

Merry Xmax!

March 2008. Somewhere in Taipei. Friday night, the sky is dark, it's raining a little. I cross the street, to be greeted by a giant electronic sign:

I Love Love Hotels

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my host company for their excellent choice in accommodating me. The hotel they put me up in is conveniently located in Dansui, just 10 minutes from the company's office. This means I can sleep in a little. That's fortunate, because I rarely get to sleep very early. Work is partly to blame, I'm regularly still tapping away on my laptop at 1am. But I think it's mostly because my neighbors usually start getting it on around the time I'm thinking about looking at the back of my eyelids.

The walls are either very thin, or said neighbours are making sure their 1,800 New Taiwan Dollars (some NZ$70) is well-spent. Last night (Friday night), guests in both adjacent rooms were making sure they got their money's worth until well after 2am. I felt like such a 5th wheel.

Despite the hotel's proximity to headquarters and R&D centres of some of the world's most prominent computer manufacturers, I seem to be the only one here on, er, conventional business. The cafe is always full of young couples in the morning. Bags under their eyes, clutching cups of coffee, casually reading the Taipei Times. I've been wondering about these people since I arrived a few days ago. Dansui is hardly on the way to anywhere. But then again, it's Dansui, the most romantic spot in these parts I'm told. I guess hotels like The China T(h)rust are the natural choice for lusty local couples, since many young (and not so young) Chinese still live with their parents.