Taiwanese Nightlife: Various Shows and Concerts

When you go to a club in Taiwan you're not just getting the typical hot mess of drunken men searching for young and supple women to take home. While you do have plenty of that at the clubs here every club has a few shows on top of all the alcohol, short skirts, and crazy haired Asian men. The following are various videos I have taken at a variety of clubs and nightshows.

LuvStock
These first few selections are from LuvStock, a hippie festival that took place in 台中 Taichung. As the name suggests there was plenty of alcohol, special treats, and men with longer hair than most of the women there. The first few bands were mainly local English speaking bands playing mediocre music, but this is just to warm up the crowd and wait until everyone is sufficiently intoxicated.

The two person band had a nice beat and bass line and the women's voice provided for an enjoyable listening experience. The final band that came on before the real beats came on featured four guys who had a nice stage presence and played a compilation of popular rock songs that pumped up the crowd and gave passage to a variety of drugs marinating in everyone's bodies to take effect.

Clearly, quite a few members of the crowd were already enjoying their time and the real show hadn't even begun yet. The main stage closed down and everyone migrated towards the stage where Bass Woman and Keyboard Man were previously playing.

A quick tangent: After the last band finished playing the combination of alcohol, cookies, dancing, eardrum shattering music, and masses of people left me with the urge to walk around and catch some fresh air and what better place to do so than at the outdoor bar! I walk over the bar to order my criminally cheap mixed drink where I ran into Justin, a typical Bro from South Carolina only interested in finding his next 小姐 if you will. His short, yet built stature, gelled hair, douchebag attitude, and confidence would supply him with all the right tools to accomplish his endeavors. Being the amiable guy I am we strike up a conversation and he immediately takes a liking to me. Before I even entered the picture he was already in the process of intoxicating two "fragile flowers." I'm not exactly sure how fragile they actually were although apparently one of them never really drank before, so why not start with tequila right? "Dude, of course bro," is what Justin would say. So being in the mental state I was I decided to play along with his "game." The three of them take their shots of tequila that was followed by the typical grimace and head shake. Another regular walks over and begins talking to him and we play the typical I'm-the-shit-and-I-know-it-so-I'm-going-to-be-a-douchebag-routine, it's fun to role play every now and again. Arms around each other shoulders we walked off from the bar, apparently leaving the two Asian women he had been drinking with behind, and moved on to find his next prey. We run into another two girls who he also knew (apparently he had tagged most of the women there already) and after the usual introductions we began chatting to the different ladies. As he was talking to his lady friend I decided to practice my Chinese and began talking to the other girl about how silly Justin was and my preference of Chinese culture to American culture at which time I told her I was only here in Taiwan to study Chinese and I buddied up with Justin to joke around and have some fun. I enlightened her about my darling girlfriend back in the States where she seemed pleasantly surprised to find out that not all Americans were pigs looking to stuff their sausages into anything with two legs. After our conversation we said our goodbyes and both ladies leaving Justin only with a confused grin and eyes on the next prize. Since I hadn't seen my friends for quite some time I decided it was time to end the role play and find my friends. I bid Justin farewell, who seemed a bit sad to lose his wingman and fellow American Bro, and made my way to the stage.

As everyone collected around the stage the DJ began mixing some oldies together with electronic beats and his transitions moved so smoothly from song to song. But again that could be the alcohol and drugs speaking. One thing I know for certain in that these fire dancers had some serious skills and knew how to put on one hell of a show. Please excuse the camera work in the first video, there was absolutely no way I wasn't going to dance and groove to ABC by the Jackson Five.

Fulong Rock Festival


The day after the Taichung LuvStock Johnny and I traveled to Fulong with a few friends to listen to the Rock Festival taking place on the beach. A few different bands played during the evening, but everyone was waiting for the main show. MayDay was the main even, the biggest band in Taiwan and everyone went crazy as soon as they came on.

Babe18


This all you can drink club wasn't one of the best (anywhere near it), but it offered some mediocre music and a stage show that wasn't something I had experience before. The main catch of the club was the free alcohol which would make any club into a sausage fest. Plus no guys could dance on stage! What kind of malarky is that!?

Luxy


One of the more popular clubs in Taiwan. Featuring a few stages that girls AND guys could dance on, which I took full advantage of once I had arrived already a bit intoxicated. Luxy featured two different shows. The first was an eye stunning laser show with a few guys wearing light up suits and carrying lasers. The second was your typical eye candy show with voluptuous Asian women strutting their stuff on stage.

12.07.08 Another Good Weekend

As this weekend comes to a close I wanted to write about some of the events. Friday Johnny and I went to see Ted which turned out to be a hysterical movie in my opinion. "There is nothing more powerful than a child's wish...except for an Apache Helicopter. That thing is an absolute death machine." Favorite line.

Saturday we decided to relax from our rockstar lifestyle (not really) and spend the weekend in the apartment. I took the day to finish reading my book and to prepare for a few obligations I'll have when I return to the States in the fall.

The plan for Sunday (today) was to wake up at 5:30am go watch elderly Chinese do Taiji in the park and then travel around Taipei and see as many sights as possible....no way. 5:30 rolls around and I am not, in the slightest way, keen to wake up and walk around the city. We sleep in and leave the house around noon and our first stop is Longshan Temple, but not before we get some food. Johnny and I stop by the food court of the Longshan Temple Station where we run into 李幕儒 Li Mu Ru, a retired Taiwanese man of about 65 years of age who served in the military in West German as well as San Francisco before returning to Taiwan. From the looks of him you wouldn't be able to tell he was a hardened soldier. His glasses, scrawny and short stature, and friendliness were devoid of any type of military training.

It seems he had an obsession with anything Western. When we arrived at Longshan Temple he saw more Westerners and immediately asked where they came from and when they response included Germany he was more than ecstatic to spark up a conversation.

As Johnny and I walked through the food court we pass by 李先生 Mr. Li who quickly asked us where we came from. After a short introduction he invited us to sit down and we immediately began talking about the usual stuff, why we were here, how old we were, and what our reason for the visit today was. He pointed to his plum tea and told us he would buy us a couple and so he walks to the adjacent fruit stall and buys us a couple drinks. This is that Chinese phenomenon about face. Along with the overall generosity and hospitality of Chinese people they are always concerned with face, combining hospitality, generosity, and how they are viewed by other people. Now that is definitely an oversimplification of face, but it will do for now. I knew I should have argued the bill, but I figured it was pointless and with only 600NT to my name left for the week I figured why not? When we went and got food he graciously paid for our 130NT meals as well. This kind of thing would only fly in an Asian country. An elderly man pays for your drinks and lunch and tours you around a few sights without a hidden agenda. I love Asian hospitality. Apparently his parents worked for the Secret Police for Chiang Kai Shek and he lived in quite a few countries before coming back and retiring in Taiwan. After we spoke with him for quite some time he toured us around Longshan Temple.

 "Inside here you a Chinese people, not American and English," he told us. A Buddhist gave us the prayer candles and we proceeded into the temple praying before each incense burner for the various people in our lives and the desires we hoped to achieve. Apparently it is the oldest temple still standing (with quite a few renovations) in Taiwan. After we left the temple 李先生 took us to a bird shop where about twelve various types of parrots were kept outside.

Li had brought a bag of almonds and invited us to feed the parrots, who gently took the almonds from our fingers and hungrily nibbled away.

A few of the parrots were even nice enough to let us pet their feathers, others...not so much. When we had enough of seeing parrots and overfeeding them we told Li we planned to go to Chiang Kai Shek memorial, which if his mother was around I'm sure she would have wholeheartedly approved. Li kindly showed us off to the MRT subway station. He told us he was moving to China at the end of this month and he wished us the best of luck with out studies and travels and with a 我很高興認識你 It's been a pleasure meeting you, we were off.

We arrived at the immense memorial and walked around for a few minutes. The longest part of the Chiang Kai Shek memorial was the time it took to walk through the 自由廣場 Freedom Square.

From there we proceeded to the 二二八和平公園 228 Peace Park, dedicated to Feb. 28th, 1947 during the massacre of hundreds of Kuomintang supporters by the Communist party.

  The geometric monument inside the park was like something out of a Sci Fi movie. Three boxes, points facing down, connected to a spire that thrusted up into the sky surrounded by water and a bridge leading into the middle of the three boxes. At the end of the bridge was a circular structure with four imprinted hand prints equidistant from each other as water poured into the middle that contained a pillar with straight and jagged line designs. Too bad we didn't have two more people with us our we may have been transported to a galaxy far, far away....

An excerpt from River Town by Peter Hessler

"'She's the third in her family!' one of the women said.
'Oh,' I said. 'They must have paid a big fine.'
'No,' the woman said. 'Their house was tuile!'
'What?'
'Their house was tuile!'
'Tuile?'
'Right!'
.........
"The local planned-birth officials had pushed over the girl's house because she had been the third child."
.........
"The old women were shaking their heads and looking at the little girl. She wasn't comfortable hearing this conversation and something in her expression said: Sorry. Undoubtedly there were complications to growing up when you knew that your birth had caused your family's home to be knocked over. But there was also something else in her eyes; it was vague and undefined and meant, essentially: Some things are worth more than money and houses." -Peter Hessler

10 Cities on Standby Japan Cont.

I wake up around 7am in my capsule, get up and walk around a little bit. Considering I was extremely jet lagged I figured I would take these few minutes I am wide awake to take a few pictures outside of the Inn. The ability of Japanese civil engineers to construct the maximum amount of buildings into such small spaces is amazing. The only space to build here is up because every possible inch of the city that can be developed already has been. I sense the dreariness catching up with me so I return to my capsule for a few more hours of sleep.

I wake up again around 10:30 and decide this would be an appropriate time to begin my day. I pack my things, drop my keys off at the front counter and chat a bit with one of the employees. His name is Akari Shoue and said he would show me around Tokyo when I returned after my trip to Taiwan at the end of August.

I pay my 2800yen ~$30USD and I'm off. Akari told me a good ramen place to eat called Soumen; however to my dismay the local shopkeeper told me it is "off season" for ramen. Whether this means there is no good ramen right now, ramen might not be a preferable choice, or perhaps you're too white to eat ramen I will never know. Everyone here is extremely friendly, but it seems there is never a general consensus on anything! If I ask 10 people how to get to a noodle shop I'll get 10 different answers in return. The same thing happened during my hectic train journey earlier that morning. As the Chinese would say, 太麻煩了！So I find a "Sobo" shop where my waitress and perhaps the owner or mother of the owner of the shop is an elderly Japanese woman with a hunchback and friendly smile who couldn't be taller than 4feet 9inches. I swear old Asian people shrink overtime.

A group of elderly Japanese men gather for lunch and I listen in as they speak incomprehensibly, but I enjoy their banter back and forth. I hope when I am old I can gather in the local restaurant with a few of my old friends and chat away. I tried snapping a sneaky picture.

 I try to order some food, but I can't understand a word the elderly waitress was saying so I simply smile and nod. She brings over a simple meal of noodles with soy sauce on the side and some type of vegetables. I happily devour the meal and clean my palette with some hot water mixed into the soy sauce cup.

After the meal I make my way towards the dreaded railway system, but not before I walk into a Pachinko arcade. A Pachinko game is basically a game where the player places a ball into a system and is similar to a pinball machine, but without bumpers and paddles. The small metal balls cascade down a maze of pins and fall into specific areas that may trigger an anime sequence on the screen directly in front of the user. The building has a giant screen on the front that is constantly flashing different types of anime and also displays a large plastic lion with multi-colored Japanese characters. Seems friendly enough, so I walk in to see what all the fuss is about and as soon as I open the door I am bombarded with blaring music and flashing, possible seizure inducing lights. As I walk around the arcade I see people of every single age participating in the game. Kids as young as 10 and seniors as old as 70 were all plastered to their machines, methodically playing this game of luck. After I had enough of the arcade I left and walked into the railway system and made my way to Narita Airport which was, luckily, much easier to travel to than the Capsule Inn.

The train ride ending up taking a couple hours to get to the airport which made me glad I had left earlier than expected. As the train sped towards the airport we began to move further out of the city which gave me an opportunity to see some of the Japanese countryside. Much of what I saw was rice paddies tended to by rice farmers with rice farming hats. A bit stereotypical, but it's all true. I begin grooving in my seat as I listen to Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love" and I catch the eyes of a few Japanese girls who are sitting a few seats away from me on this empty train, no doubt mesmerized by my amazing white boy dance moves.

I finally arrive at Narita airport and make my way to the appropriate gate. Since I am a few hours early I walk around the airport which is full of delicious food courts and souvenir shops where I buy a few products. After filling my stomach and emptying my wallet I make my way back to the terminal where I finally have internet and so I check up on how my relatives and friends are doing via skype. When it comes time to board the plane I manage to get on without a hitch and get upgraded to business class. Finally the benefits of standby is paying off; although, it didn't really matter because I spent the entire 3 hour flight passed out in my reclined chair. I woke up 20 minutes before landing. I was finally in Taipei. I go to the bag pick-up area and ask whether my other suitcase had made it to Taiwan safely. After a few minutes and a few trips to the storage room chances looked slim, until finally he walked out with a large grey plastic suitcase and a weight had been lifted off of my shoulder. Everything made it to Taiwan safe and sound.

I took out my notebook where I had written directions to the World Scholar House Hostel. I took the bus into the city and got off at the Evergreen hotel across from the 7-11 at the 10th bus stop. An amiable Taiwanese woman realized I wasn't quite sure what to do she told the bus driver where I was headed wished me luck and waved me goodbye. I got off at my stop and began to walk in the wrong direction to the hotel. After realizing I went the wrong way, I make a u-turn and begin backtracking the few blocks I traveled when it begins to heavily rain. This is Taiwan's rainy season of course (along with every other season other than the two week long Fall). I try to walk as quickly as possible to the hostel and make it there soaked in the warm rain. I finally made it. I was finally in Taiwan and could rest freely. Although, I must say the constant travel was exhilarating and exciting I would definitely be willing to repeat my adventure. August 23rd I will be leaving Taiwan on more Standby flights that are harder to book during that time because of the amount of air traffic. I'll see what kind of adventure I get into then.

This picture perfectly captures the essence of my travel to Taiwan. An  organized chaos that I wouldn't have traded for anything else.

10 Cities on Standby Japan

   As soon as I arrive in the airport my first mission is to get all of my luggage. I exit the plane and go towards the baggage claim area. It still hasn't hit me that I am halfway across the world; airports have an air of international commonality to them. I arrive at the baggage pick up area and one of my bags is the first to arrive, "Excellent, everything is going as planned and I'm going to be the first to get out of here!" I thought excitedly to myself. Well I thought too soon. I end up the absolute last person waiting at the baggage pick up area with one less bag than I came in with. I'm in Japan and don't speak a lick of Japanese. Damn it! After all those years of watching anime you at least would think I could say a few words. Well the international commonality provided me with a few people that could speak passable English, enough for me to understand that my bag was transported on the flight to Taipei and would be waiting for me when I arrived at Taoyuan airport. I put a half check mark on my imaginary checklist and moved on.

I had written down the address of the Capsule Inn on a notebook in both English and Japanese (my Chinese character practice helped with that one) and requested assistance with directions from a few female employees. I showed them my notebook and wondered whether they were giggling at my chicken scratch Japanese or the fact this amazingly handsome white man could write Japanese, probably the former. They pointed me towards the information kiosk where I was handed the most convoluted, complicated, headache inducing railway system map in the world.

The information kiosk woman highlighted my route on the map and told me the stations to get off at. Simple enough, I have all the names in Japanese and English on this map and can count the number of stops it will take me to get to Kinshicho Station, my final destination. I buy my ticket, enter the station, and patiently wait for the train to arrive.

When the train arrives I board and prepare myself to intensively watch every single station that passes by. Immediately, the first station we arrive at is no where to be found on the map. I flip it over and try to read the Japanese, turned it upside down, folded it and reopened it in hopes the station would magically appear as if I was holding the Marauders Map. No luck. The first station and I'm already lost. I decide to wait it out for a few stops and finally I recognize one and it turns out I'm already heading in the wrong direction. I get off the train and reluctantly set my manhood aside and ask for directions. Turns out once I exit the international commonality area nobody speaks English, but body language is universal. I walk up to a few extremely helpful Japanese people and beginning pointing all over the map and stare blankly at them as they respond in Japanese. No hable japanese....bu shuo riwen....I don't speak japanese....Ya nye gavaru pa yaponski....point to ears, shake my head, and raise my hands. Body language goes a long way. I re-enter the train and make my way to what I think is the correct station, but again I find out I am going the wrong way. I repeat my strategy, re-enter the train and I am on my way again. As I'm seemingly aimlessly riding these trains back and forth I can't help but notice the amount of people within 1 inch of my proximity, cramming into each train, most of them business men in suits going home around 12:30pm.

I ask another person if he knows how I can get to Kinshicho Station and as best as he can he motions that he is going to that station. Perfect, I can finally escape my individual efforts to traverse this system of ant tunnels. I follow Kinshicho Man as he exits and boards trains, narrowly avoiding a vomit covered floor of a train, and lagging behind him as he speed walks from platform to platform all with my suitcase, backpack, and camera case. The usually questions never occurred to me as I was blindly following this person wherever he went, "Where is he taking me? Should I be following this complete stranger? What if he takes me to a back alley and steals all of my luggage? Is he part of the Yakuza? Am I about to be raped?" These questions finally dawned on me as we were rushing through some random station onto another train. I began to keep a bit of distance from the man as my paranoia began to set in, but my undying trust in people kept me believing in the purity of the man's actions. I read "Kinshicho Station" on the digital display in the train and I exhaled a giant sigh of relief, I finally made it. The man sends me off with a big smile and a handshake and I couldn't thank Kinshicho Man enough, I wanted to jump on him and give him a gigantic hug, but I restrained myself to  thanking him 3-4 times. I finally get out hell incarnated with my luggage and orifices intact.

As I exit the train station at 1:30am I see lit up buildings, arcades, and restaurants open, everything I imagined Japan to be like. Still unaware of where the Inn is located I ask a local construction worker who guides me to a map expecting me to recognize where Sumida-ku, Kinshicho 2-6-3, Tokyo, Japan is located on this completely unfamiliar map. I decided instead to walk around and end up coming upon a park with a small local shrine.

After I ask a few people they guide me towards a few alleyways where I ask another person where this Inn is located and show him the address, Sumid-ku, Kinshicho, 2-6-3 Tokyo, Japan. He plugs it into his google maps and follows that up with a call to his friend. "Oh god, not again, he's calling his buddies up so they can beat me to a pulp and steal all of my possessions." I cautiously walk with him and make small talk about the reason of my trip and I ask why so many people are working this late, but the language barrier prevented any conversation deeper than 5 word sentences. We come to another alley and he points me to a large blue sign and tells me this is the Inn and for me to get some rest because I must be very tired. Human benevolence prevails again! I enter the Inn present my reservation and am welcomed as if I was the most valued guest they ever accommodated. They give me slippers, show me around the Inn which contained public showers, free toothbrushes, shavers, shaving cream, lockers for clothes and luggage, a massage area, and a sauna which was so incredibly hot spending more than 5 minutes in there must be some sort of Guinness World Record. We pass a few capsules on the way to mine and I notice varied types of people staying here from old men snoring a few capsules away from me, a couple westerners, teenagers on their computers and playing PSP. I wondered what all these mix of people were doing here. I didn't bother to ask.  He shows me to my capsule and I unpack some of my belongings, use their amenities and at 3:04 attempt to go to sleep after watching anime without the subtitles (why would they need them here anyways?)

Attachment Parenting

So I was reading  TIME article earlier today and it was discussing the philosophy behind attachment parenting. Attachment parenting believes in always being there for your child when they are an infant into childhood. Every cry in the night, cuddle your baby, every whine for attention, console your baby, every sleepless night, bring your child into the bed with the parents (although I heard this can be quite dangerous with a child). Every need your child cries and yearns for always be there for them and be by your baby every waking moment of the day.... Jesus effing christ and people wonder why there are such spoiled children in the world. These children become so attached to their parents and vice versa that even letting the child go to school on their own becomes an astronomical, almost impossible feat of pure willpower.

Even if this attachment parenting lasts for the adolescent years these kinds of actions roll over into everyday life. Parents become so attached to their children's lives that they begin living vicariously through them, deciding what sport they will do, what they will study, who they will date, what friends they can and cannot have. Although, parents are supposed to be the guiding light for the children don't let that light transform into a leash. Children are meant to explore and discover on their own, it is all part of the learning process and part of becoming an adult. Everyone learns from their mistakes and I believe that the more mistakes you make early on (considering they aren't the kinds of mistakes that put you in the same room with a 300 pound man named Bubba patiently waiting for you to drop a bar of soap) the quicker the learning curve of life will develop.

I was listening to a show on NPR about how some parents in America do EVERYTHING for their children. Go to interviews for their children, sit there for every homework assignment in school, apply to colleges for them, apply for scholarships, going to professional career interviews with their children. How far with this cycle of attachment go? How will any of these coddled children ever survive in the harsh world without any individual training? The ability of these parents to drop absolutely everything in order to live their children's lives absolutely amazes me.

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England vs. Sweden

After I showed off my superior 筷子 skills everyone began trying
to figure out the proper way to hold the chopsticks. I even had a
Taiwanese person comment me on my chopstick skills.

My first time watching a proper football match, yes football not soccer, was just the other night. If you're saying "You're first proper football match!?" look it's not my fault the US doesn't breed football tradition like most of Europe does and with an English roommate it is inevitable that I would be pulled into the culture. The games are being aired in Poland and Moscow which are both 7 hours behind Taiwan, meaning we are watching most of these games at 2:45am. The bars are open for the specific purpose of airing these football games and they draw quite a large crowd. The bars are priced at an average "western" price for a bar. A beer costing around 150-200NT ~4.50-6USD, but there is a way around that!
Another beautiful thing about Taiwan is that every corner is adorned with either a 7-11 or a Family Mart (basically another 7-11) and you can purchase food for 50NT and 4 large beers for about 200NT.
There are many more England supporters in Taiwan than I would have expected and they knew most of the England football songs as well. It began to rub off on me and next thing I knew I'm singing "England, England, ENGLAND!" England pulled out an awesome victory against Sweden that night and might be secured for playoffs....GO ENGLAND!

10 Cities on Standby USA Cont.

(May 24th) I arrived in Detroit around 9am and my next flight to Narita airport was going to be at 2pm so I had plenty of time to kill. The airport is quite large so I took my time traveling around the airport. The airport has a train that rains on a rail above all the stores and restaurants. I burnt some time traveling on that train a few times. When I had enough of feeling like a kid in an elevator I walked to my terminal and proceeded to listen to music and read Peter Hessler's "River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze." My lack of sleep would eventually catch up with me.

I woke up before they began boarding the plane and again the terminal was completely packed with Japanese people waiting to go home. I nervously went up and asked the Delta employee if there was going to be any room on the plane. "We have a weight distribution issue so it's going to be highly unlikely that we will be able to take any extra passengers." .....weight distribution issue. Not again. I still stood there hopeful that the dedicated employees of Delta would work as diligently as their fellow employees at JFK. My hope couldn't have been more displaced. They boarded all of the regular passengers and made absolutely no attempt whatsoever to board the standbys and what made it worse was that it seemed completely normal to them. Without a second thought they closed the doors and left the lot of us rejects expectantly sitting in our chairs...bastards. I guess that's the level of dedication at the Detroit airport. Of course I wouldn't have put all my trust into this flight so I prepared ahead of time.

There was another flight leaving at 7pm for Haneda, but since I would be arriving in Tokyo past 10pm there would be no more flights departing for Taipei meaning I would need to find overnight accommodation somewhere in Tokyo and take the train to Narita in the morning...oh boy. Before I did anything else I needed a beer. "If I don't get on this flight to Narita again I'm getting a drink," I told myself before I was unable to board the 2pm flight and since I am a man of my word I went to the nearby Chili's and ordered a couple tall Blue Moons and a charred burger. Once I quenched my thirst and filled my belly it was time to start looking for a place to stay in Tokyo. I google accommodation in Tokyo and it comes up with a few results. As I search through the various areas to stay I come upon a Capsule Inn and figure when am I ever going to get the chance to stay in a capsule and booked myself in for one night. Done. I'm all set.

I head back to the terminal and wait for my next flight. When 7pm rolls around I am able to board the flight with ease, finally! I'm seated in the middle column of seats with one other Japanese man sitting at the other end of the four seat row. I start the flight off by watching The Immortals, a cheap knock off of 300 that seemed like it didn't have a large enough budget to afford even decent SFX. Although, interesting in its concept it was so poorly delivered it could hardly keep my attention...perfect! Just like watching golf on TV the movie had one purpose, throw me into such a deep sleep that I wouldn't even feel the food and drink carts bumping into my head that was poking out in the aisle. Promptly after the film I fell asleep for 10 hours of the 13 hour flight. Since I couldn't get comfortable laying back in my seat I decided it would be alright to stretch my legs out along the two seats next to me. "The Japanese guy won't mind right? I mean he's got to have kids he knows we need our sleep. Ah whatever as long as I don't poke him with my smelly toes he won't care," I thought to myself. When I woke up we were about an hour away from the airport. As we were landing it hit me that I was in another country when I saw the huge bright lit up neon sign written in Kanji through the plane window, but I still couldn't take even a second to really contemplate about it. I had one mode at that time and it was Go. Get off the plane, get my luggage, find out how to get to the Capsule Inn, find out where the Capsule Inn, and then breathe. I get off the plane and and my first Asian adventure began....

10 Cities on Standby USA cont.

So I've just been unable to catch my flight to Tokyo Narita airport and I'm walking around the terminal for a few minutes. I ask a few people when the next possible flight out is and the employees tell me they have another flight leaving at the same time for Narita airport, but the situation will likely be the same situation as t  today (May 23). I call my friend, whom I will name Bob, who works for Delta and he is able to ensure my seat on a different flight for me; however, this flight leaves Detroit and there are no flights out of JFK to Detroit available at the time. So what does this mean? It means I have to travel to the best state in America, New Jersey.... and fly out of Newark. Dun dun dun Ilya to the rescue! After he had dropped me back off at the airport he had left for an interview in the city and wouldn't be able to be back until about 6pm so it was me, myself, and I waiting at the airport until then.

You quickly realize how valuable traveling with another person is when you're trying to doze off in the airport and somehow guard your luggage at the same time. About ten ten minute naps later I find out that all my luggage has been stolen and I am sitting at the airport with my pack and only the clothes on my back....just kidding. When I awoke I found this footless pigeon who had made a home out of baggage pickup 5. I sat and stared at a small Latino girl who, against her mothers wishes, fed this pigeon more Doritos than its tiny stomach could possibly handle. It seems that after the 3rd chip the pigeon didn't mercilessly devour she would have stopped throwing Doritos in its vicinity, maybe not. Twelve wasted Doritos chips and 3 1/2 hours later Ilya picks me up from the airport and we drive back to his parent's house in Staten Island.

Since it's never a dull moment when you're hanging out with Ilya the plan for the night was to go out in the city and get shamelessly drunk to celebrate his girlfriend-but-not-girlfriend's new job. After getting some Mexican food at the local restaurant we all lazily approached the car and quickly rejected that idea for a much more relaxed "green" night. We met up with his girlfriend-not-girlfriend friend's place where the 5 person party had already begun without its most important members. After some time we took a walk to the local ice cream shop in an area that apparently had a very high robbery rate, which, of course, set my mind at ease... We manage to make it back to the girls house unscathed. Her boyfriend, Dave, and myself quickly began to geek out over the new video games exhibition in the American Art Museum at the Smithsonian. Somehow the conversation moved towards him and his buddies taking acid and at one point in the story one of his friends had walked out of the house unnoticed and was walking aimlessly along a ten mile highway. Luckily everything turned out alright with his friend and their night didn't end in some sort of freak accident; although, apparently Dave had woke up in a tub half filled with water, with a dryer cord wrapped around his neck. "I don't know I can't remember what I was thinking at the time. I probably thought I was in the Bahamas or something." Uh huh likely story Dave. Two words, Erotic Asphyxiation.

We left the girls house around 3am and headed for Ilya's girlfriend-not-girlfriends house. I needed to be at the Newark airport at 6am and we arrived at his friends house around 3:30am. I was really hoping this wouldn't be one of those days where my alarm refused to work or I unconsciously turn it off. I went to sleep and woke up promptly at 5:30am ready to continue my adventure. We arrived at the airport with no issues and I said my actual final goodbye to Ilya as I entered the airport. Domestic flights are typically no problem on standby and my flight from Newark to Detroit connected without an issue. I was completely knocked out for the two hour flight and woke up in Detroit where more international standby flights awaited me....

Foreign Parenting

I woke up this morning to yelling outside my window. I look outside my second story room window, scanning the metal open gable style roofs of multiple one story houses. My eyes look down at the small alleyway beneath my window littered with bicycles, motor scooters, and clothes lines, but I can't see anything out of the ordinary. I saw and listened for a while. It seems like a father in one of the households had been yelling at his kids for quite some time. It brought me somewhat of a sense of reality. I may be thousands of miles from home, studying on scholarship, enjoying my time in a foreign country, but what was going on directly below me was so grounded, so real. This is what many foreign children go through growing up and it brought me a sense of nostalgia for what I have come from. So large is the amount of pressure put on these children from such a young age and I can only imagine what he had been yelling at them about. Judging from the lower class status of the family, the school year winding down, and the pressure of achieving the highest marks in school my guess would be it had something to do with academia, but again my lack of language skills prevents me from really understanding what the punishment had been about.

10 Cities on Standby

First and foremost, I think the reason why I am here in Taiwan would be an appropriate beginning to this post. This past year I returned to school for my second bachelors degree in Asian Studies, a topic that I have always been interested in, but have never actually pursued (and no it's not because I have an Asian girlfiriend that caused me to major in Asian Studes, at which point I would respond "I actually want to study Asian anatomy" *laughter ensues*). For years I have found myself close with Asian culture and have some sort of magnetism towards peoples of Asian descent, but this is neither here nor there, well possibly there, but not here.  During the first semester of my new major I caught wind about a new scholarship opportunity to study in Taiwan and determined to get as much experience out of this new major as possible I applied and long story short, with a little bit (probably a lot) of luck I received it and was due to leave for Taiwan at the end of May. This is where today's post will begin.

As the title suggests all my flights to Taoyuan, Taiwan were, you guessed it, on standby. For those of you that don't quite understand what that means it is when you book a ticket for a certain flight, but are not guaranteed a seat until all of the rest of the passengers have boarded the plane. I know that sounds pretty crazy, "Vadim, why the hell would you book a standby ticket when you aren't guaranteed a seat on the plane!?" The answer is pretty simple, they're cheap as hell. A round trip ticket to Taiwan was going for 1,800, I got it for 850. Sounds pretty awesome now doesn't it? Well it's a double edged sword and you need to be quite flexible with your schedule.

My trip began at BWI Airport in Baltimore, MD where my father dropped me off for my 7am flight that arrived in JFK airport in New York, NY at 8am. My next proposed flight didn't fly out until 2pm so I asked my cousin Ilya if he wanted to grab some lunch at whatever local restaurant was convenient. I suppose one could classify Ilya as a "guido" of sorts and I would be lying if I said nobody every had, but the deep relationship I have with my cousin prevents me from placing this derogatory label on an otherwise much more diverse, intelligent, intricate, and eclectic person. Of course, he agreed to meeting me one last time before I left the country for three months, but obviously, no sane person would pick me up at 8am on a Wednesday to get food so I waited around the airport until about 11 where he picked me up and we proceeded to drive to the ever so prestigious Burger King. That's how high rollers like to spend their lunch hours. Ilya dropped me back off at the airport around 1pm and I walked to my gate to get ready for my 13 hour flight.

Coincidentally, this gate was directly across from the gate I departed from when I traveled to Italy with my parents, also on standby. I turn the corner to get to the gate and it is completely packed with people, but then again so was the Italy flight and we boarded with no problem; however, the blog wouldn't be called 10 cities if I boarded this flight now would it? Apparently, the plane had a "weight distribution problem," this phrase would haunt my peregrination. Not only was there a weight distribution problem and hundreds of passengers there were at least 12 other standby passengers, all with higher seating priority than myself. All the passengers board around 1:47pm and they Delta employees begin rattling off names and frantically typing on their computers desperately trying to fit as many people onto the plane as possible. It was like a scene out  of a movie, the employees were speedily typing on their computers, more employees were arriving to help decipher some complicated seating arrangements on the computer screen, long polygraph-looking papers are spouting out of a printer behind them, all the while I am nervously tapping my passport and boarding pass on my sweaty palm.
"What am I going to do if I miss this flight? I need to register for classes on Friday and there is no way I am going to make it if I miss this flight," I say to myself. An engaged couple are talking next to me about how they want to take an engagement vacation (who does that anyway? wait for the honeymoon). The Delta employees begin rattling off standby names in a way that makes no apparent sense to me. It is approximately 1:57pm at this point.
"S3? Are there any S3s?" "We've got to close the doors! We're going to hear it from the boss, but we can let one more group on!" the attendants converse among themselves.
"Please be me, please be me, damn it I really need to get on this flight. I'm only one person!" I thought to myself.
"You, we can take you let's go!" the employees grab a group of three guys going on vacation. "Alright, that's it! Close it up, John!"
I'm standing there taken aback by the fact that now everything has been thrown into disorder.

To be continued....