KiKi Restaurant - “The Decision” One Year Anniversary

On April 16^th, 2011, I was visiting Taipei for the second time. I spent the entire day walking around the city, pondering what my life would be like if I moved here. I met up with some friends at KiKi for dinner that night, and we later made our way to Luxy to party it up. I still remember the exact moment at Luxy… I was standing by the bar, the DJ was playing “Six Foot Seven Foot” by Lil’ Wayne, and there were about ten cute Taiwanese girls standing in front of me. That’s when I turned to my friend and said “You know what. I think I’m actually gonna do it. I’m gonna move to Taiwan.”

One year later, here I am, and I couldn’t be happier. We returned to KiKi restaurant this year to commemorate the decision, and filled up on the Szechuan-style cuisine, one of my favorites restaurants in Taipei.

Food stands on Da’An Road. You can find me eating dinner in this alley on several nights each week. This is where I get all kinds of cheap, quick food, such as pork fried rice, beef noodles, shrimp dumplings and shaved iced. After I eat, I often wash it down with a bubble milk tea or a honey lemon juice. The food stand in the middle of this photo is my most-common stop, as Chiou Gu-Gu (Auntie Chiou) makes some damn good fried rice, and she always adds extra meat for her favorite American customer.

Cama Cafe. The Taiwanese love their tea, but coffee is beginning to challenge tea’s supremacy lately. Cama Cafe is probably the best coffee in my neighborhood, although I usually go with the cheaper 7-Eleven option. For some reason, Cama’s old school coffee grinder makes me think the coffee tastes better. Back in the US, I was a HUGE Dunkin’ Donuts fan. Well, Taiwan actually has Dunkin’ Donuts too! But it’s not the same. DD-Taiwan is more watered down, the sugar is not as sweet, and the Taiwan “iced large” is smaller than the American “iced medium.” Just not the same :(

Moe Point Maid Cafe. Ximending, Taipei, Taiwan. The food is pretty bad, and the drinks are too sweet. But who cares, the waitresses are dressed as maids.

Happy Year of the Dragon! I took this photo from the steps of the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall during the lantern festival, marking the first full moon of the Year of the Dragon. Tradition has it that the dragon year is the luckiest year to be born in, so for all you wannabe parents… get to work!

Taiwan Road Trip – Day 7 日月潭 Sun Moon Lake

After hanging out in the mountains, we drove through Taiwan’s vineyards and arrived at Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan’s largest body of water. We spent our afternoon checking out the scenery, and then drove back to Chiayi for our last night of the road trip. Once again, we managed to find all three bars in Chiayi and stayed up late hanging with the locals. And in the morning, we drove five hours back to Taipei. What an awesome road trip this was!

Taiwan Road Trip – Day 7 玉山國家公園 Jade Mountain National Park

Day 6 was spent driving back North, and detouring around the Chinese New Year tourist traffic. We arrived in Chiayi by the evening, and called it an early night. We awoke at 3AM to drive up to Alishan Mountain (阿里山) to see the sunrise. Unfortunately, it was raining, much to the disappointment of a few hundred others who made the early morning trek. Michael and I continued on our way towards Jade Mountain, the tallest peak in Eastern Asia. The scenery up there is just beautiful. You can see in this picture that we are both above and below the clouds.

Taiwan Road Trip – Day 5 墾丁 Kenting

All of Day 5 was spent touring Kenting National Park. We stopped in numerous small villages throughout the area, where each one had their own beautiful temple. After spending the afternoon chilling on White Sands Beach (白沙灣), we drove over to Maobitou (貓鼻頭 Cat Nose Head), where this photo was taken. The wind was blowing very hard, as can be seen by the white caps in the ocean behind me.

Taiwan Road Trip – Day 4墾丁 Kenting

After another day of driving through small mountain towns, joking with local farmers, and eating more delicious local cuisine, we finally arrived at the southernmost point in Taiwan, Kenting National Park. We grabbed some beers and sat on the beach as the sun set on our fourth day. That night, we hung out on Kenting’s main street, where hundreds of Taiwanese do a slow zombie walk up and down the road, looking at all the street food and mini carnival games. Kenting doesn’t really have much of a night life, but we did hang out at “Reggae Bar,” which consists of a guy selling liquor out of his truck on the side of the road, playing Jamaican music, with four kiddie tables and stools providing the seating.

Taiwan Road Trip – Day 3 台東縣 Taitung County

We continued south and crossed the Tropic of Cancer, where and a few busloads of mainland Chinese tourists were looking at a rock that marked the 23.5° latitude. Further south, we came across this walking bridge leading out to a small island known as San Xian Tai (三仙台). There doesn’t seem to be any reason that this bridge was built, except to become a tourist attraction. Nevertheless, it made for a nice little excursion, where we walked around the little island enjoying the sunshine and ocean sounds. That night, we met up with some friends in Taitung for some aboriginal cuisine. Later, we walked around the very quiet town of Taitung and found all three of Taitung’s bars, including a gay aboriginal karaoke bar that made for some good comedy.

Taiwan Road Trip – Day 2 花蓮縣 Hualien County

Taiwan’s East coast is absolutely beautiful. As we made our way south, we were treated to non-stop breathtaking scenery… the mountains on our right and the ocean on our left.  We stayed in Hualien on the second night, where we ate some delicious snacks at the night market, and found all three of Hualien’s bars for some whiskey and good times.

Taiwan Road Trip – Day 2 太魯閣峽谷 Taroko Gorge

Taroko National Park is one of eight national parks in Taiwan. Deep into the park, we set off on a short hike and discovered this suspension bridge. I walked out to the halfway point as the bridge was bouncing up and down. After looking down at the river 100 meters below, I decided I had enough and ran back to the cliff edge.

Taiwan Road Trip – Day 1 宜蘭縣 Yilan County

This Chinese New Year, my friend Michael flew in from Shanghai to do a week-long road trip around the island. We left Taipei on Wednesday and made the short drive through the mountain tunnels to Yilan County on Taiwan’s Northeast coast. We stayed in Jiaoxi, where we spent the evening relaxing in the hot springs. That night, we went to this outdoor seafood restaurant and had the cook prepare about half of the items for us. Taiwan’s East Coast sure knows how to make seafood! This became a pattern, as all week we ate the most delicious fish around the island.

Election time in Taiwan! This past weekend, the people of Taiwan re-elected President Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT party to his second term, ending months of campaigning and non-stop news coverage. I believe the only thing in the world that Taiwan, China, and the US all agree on is that Ma Ying-jeou makes a good President for Taiwan. Taiwan likes him because he runs a clean government and does good things for the economy. China likes him because he doesn’t piss off China by threatening to declare independence. The US likes him because as long as he’s around, the US doesn’t have to worry too much about calming down a pissed-off China. My friends and I went to pre-election rallies for both the KMT and DPP parties (KMT shown here), prompting a Taiwanese-American friend to ask me if supporters of the two sides look different. My response was “I can speak from a white American male perspective. It seems that the KMT supporters have a greater chance of interacting with other cultures and are generally more educated, so they’re only slightly amazed when guys like me are rallying with them. But on the other hand, it seems DPP are on average friendlier. The difference of appearance is so subtle, yet noticeable… maybe like DPP is US-Democratic and KMT is US-Republican. But whatever, all Taiwanese are awesome to me.”

1. Taiwan hospitals set the standard for efficiency.

Before I became a Taiwan “alien resident,” I had to get medically cleared to ensure I wasn’t bringing any diseases from the USA. So I went to my local hospital for the exam. I walked in, filled out paperwork, saw three separate doctors, took my clothes off twice, drew four vials of blood, took full-body x-rays, paid my bill, and walked outside. In New York, that would take three hours, at a minimum. In Taiwan, 34 minutes, baby! I was like a pinball bouncing in-and-out of rooms, up-and-down escalators in a 34-minute continuous motion video game. Outstanding work Ren’Ai Hospital!

2. Not having live sports opens your imagination.

After watching 50 football games per year for the past 20 years, it was a little weird not seeing ONE game this season (but I will be at the Brass Monkey for the SuperBowl… my Chinese teacher knows I’m skipping class that morning!) No games are shown live on TV, so if I’m interested in a game, I get play-by-play updates on espn.com. If you ask anyone who has read a book and watched the corresponding movie, they always say the book is better. I believe that’s because we subconsciously get more enjoyment from painting a picture in our head, rather than being shown the picture (similar to the satisfaction of independently solving a problem versus someone telling you how to solve it). Anyway, while watching the play-by-play for the Pittsburgh-Denver playoff game, I felt like I was at the game. As each team failed to score on their final fourth quarter possessions, I felt the players’ anguish. When the 80-yard winning touchdown pass was posted, I truly felt the stadium rumble. I saw the Denver receiver sprinting downfield with the Pittsburgh defense desperately chasing behind. I heard the crowd going absolutely berserk. I saw Tim Tebow kneeling down in prayer. I was there.

3. I motivate my doormen to speak English.

My apartment building’s doormen are a bunch of Taiwanese old-timers, who speak zero English. As I’ve been living here, my Chinese has steadily improved. Thus, each week, my conversations with my doormen are progressively more developed. They always compliment me on my improving Chinese ability, and recently, they have been attempting to speak English words to me. So far, they have managed to say “door,” “hello,” “mosquito,” and “you.” It’s not much, but it’s more English words than they’ve said over the past six months!

4. I motivate store clerks to speak English.

Chinese New Year is approaching, so I went to a CNY street market to try some snacks. Picture a couple hundred crowded stands all selling little things to eat (candy, dried fruit, dried fish, etc.). As I walked through the market, the shop workers were continuously yelling out offering free samples, all in Chinese of course. But as soon as they saw me, they immediately switch to English: “Hello! You want to try? Tastes good!”

5. Actually, I’m a freakin’ celebrity!

Everyone knows New York is awesome, so when people move there from a faraway place, nobody is surprised. Not so in Taiwan. The vast majority of people living here were born here. Lately, an increasing number of people have been randomly approaching me on the street, in restaurants, etc. asking me where I’m from, why I moved here, and how much I like Taiwan. People are very interested in my story. At first, most people can’t understand why anyone would move to this small island, of all places! But once I tell them why I like Taiwan, it becomes obvious to them that their country is actually pretty cool. One old military guy was bowing to me in 7-Eleven, thanking me and the US military for protecting Taiwan from China all these years. The other day in a local restaurant, a group of junior high kids were eating dinner after school. They heard my friend Danny, the restaurant owner, speaking English to me, and they all started trying to say English words. As I waited for my food, several kids approached me and asked to take a picture with me. Within minutes, I was certainly the talk of Taipei on Facebook. This kind of stuff happens regularly, and it’s pretty darn cool!