Author: Jan

Language difficulties

Mandarin is difficult. Another one of those tonal languages. As in “ma” can be pronounced 5 distinct ways for 5 different meanings (in Thai it’s 6 or 7 different ways for “ma”!)

Of course I didn’t look at my Lonely Planet phrasebook until breakfast the first day in Taipei, which didn’t help. In retrospect, with enough time, I wish I would have sought someone who speaks English and Mandarin (e.g. in Chinatown, or at a hostel if traveling) to ask for 15-30 minutes of pronunciation help. Oh well, maybe I’ll be better prepared for Hong Kong.

I’m not sure who created pinyin exactly – that’s the official way the Chinese adopted for writing in Roman alphabet (i.e. regular ol’ letters like in English). But it’s not English pronunciation (unlike Japanese romanization (romaji) which is pronounced as an English speaker would pronounce it).

For example, “sorry” is “duibuqi” (with some accents) but pronounced “dayboochee” more or less). Say what?

Or, to quote an example from the phrase book, foreign diplomats (waijaoguan with some extra accents) who pronounce it with a flat tone are saying that they are “rubber U-bend pipes” :-)

The LP guidebook/phrasebook suggests 2 things: Taiwanese people are friendly, and don’t worry so much about the tones. Case in point…

The second time I went to Taipei 101, afterwards I ate lunch in the food court in the bowels of the building. I had to circle the whole food court before finding a seat at a narrow table with barstools. A Taiwanese woman, Silvia, sat down across from me a little later. After a while, noticing my phrasebook, she asked me (in very good English) what words I knew. I swear she couldn’t understand half my words the first time I said them (mostly due to intonation, and some errors on my part). She helped me straighten it out a little. It turns out she manages the new office for a law firm that is headquartered in Seattle.

Using her spare cardkey, Silvia took me up to show the office and view, on the 45th floor (most of the Taipei 101 building is office space, with 10,000 people working there!). We had to switch elevators at the 35th floor “lounge”, which had a Starbucks and a Family Mart (main competitor to 7-11 here) with a view! She had only been in this office for a month, so it was with a touch of irony that I pointed out that her view was towards the Maokong mountain (where the gondola is).

So, Taiwanese are indeed friendly! And intonation does matter!

Scooters built into the plan

They take their scooters seriously as a form of transportation here. And yes, they all wear helmets.

To wit:

  • Dedicated scooter parking (with lines) on the sidewalk
  • Dedicated scooter pay parking lots, with its own gated entrance (separate from car entrance) and electronic reader board of #spaces left
  • Some dedicated scooter lanes and off-ramps from elevated roads (i.e. too narrow for cars)
  • Left turn areas without making a left turn across traffic
  • Scooter repair shops in regular shop spaces

Funny signs pt 2

Remember you can click on images to see a larger version.

Obligatory currency photos: Taiwan New Dollar

Here are my obligatory photos of local currency (at least the common ones, that passed through my hands).
There were lots of ATMs in Taipei which took foreign cards (Visa and/or Cirrus networks), including at the airport, so getting cash was not a problem.

Amtrak train, Vancouver to Seattle (final leg)

I’ve only taken an Amtrak train once before, and not across the border, so I was curious to take the train instead of the bus, even though it’s 1 hour longer (but more comfortable).

First I had to pick up my ticket, since you can’t print it online – you get a reservation code which you give to an agent (actually, they only needed my name this time) who then gives you your ticket and picks a seat for you at that time (i.e. no advance seat selection).

Then I had to go through immigration and customs at the Vancouver train station (much like large Canadian airports have US immigration and customs onsite) and baggage x-ray. There is checked luggage which you hand in after customs, and your luggage appears on a carousel at the destination terminal, much like at an airport.

The seats (2 on each side of the aisle) were pretty comfortable (more so than an economy airplane seat), leaned back, with a regular power port and free wi-fi (ok speed, and it worked on both sides of the border). Unlike the bus, you can get up and stretch your legs, and there is a dining car with hot and cold snacks and alcoholic beverages. I just bought a cup of Ivar’s clam chowder which hit the spot. (Steve picked up a snack for me while I was in line because I thought I heard someone say that there was no dining car. Oops)

The train stopped at the border for 10 minutes, literally right next to the big Peace Arch car border crossing, where 3 US agents went through the train checking passports and collecting the customs forms (though they didn’t look at bags).
Semi-surprisingly, about 8 people around me were visiting boyfriends or girlfriends across the border.

A few stops and hours later the train pulled into Seattle. Voila. End o’ journey!
(32 hours door to door including the train; for a while on the train I could barely keep my eyes open, but I wasn’t able to sleep)

San Francisco to Vancouver (third leg)

SFO-YVR flight (2hr15min)
Enjoyed a nice meal in “first” class (thanks to my status upgrade) consisting of asparagus soup, Asian chicken salad and a warm cookie. Also the little bowl of warmed mixed nuts is always tasty.

The one downside was the plane was super cold – I put on my socks, zip pant legs and Icebreaker merino wool cardigan.

YVR airport
Walking from the plane (I think 90% of flights arrive at the 2-3 gates at the very far end of the terminal wings) to immigration, I passed through a First Nations display that included a water feature, and then next to the stairs/escalators down to the immigration hall itself, there was a pebbly-bottomed waterfall.
Breezed through immigration using the Nexus kiosk, then waited and for bags again.

So far, from wake-up alarm, this was from 2 pm Thu until 1:30pm Fri (both Pacific Times), or almost 24 hours.

But wait, there’s more!

After taking the SkyTrain downtown-ish to meet my friend Steve, he kindly drove me to the train station for my 4hr10min Amtrak train to Seattle…

 

 

Tokyo – San Francisco (second leg)

NRT-SFO flight (9 hours)
This flight was on an older 747 which, in stark opposition to the 777 I flew westbound, had no power outlets by the seats and no seatback entertainment system (and only one third of economy was economy plus). Three and a half movies were shown on the overhead monitors (they started the fourth one too late to finish). I enjoyed Kung Fu Panda 2 and Midnight in Paris which were the only ones I watched, as I took a sleeping pill after dinner with wine and actually managed 5 fairly solid hours of sleep in my window seat I even slept through breakfast :-(
Surprisingly I didn’t feel chilled (barefoot, shorts, no sweater).
I did arrive in San Francisco at 9am feeling a little refreshed.

SFO airport
I used the global entry kiosk at SFO to bypass the immigration line (and the questioning by a customs officer), which got me to the baggage carousel quickly so that I could wait. Of course my bags were one of the last ones off (it didn’t help that I didn’t get a “priority” sticker on it like should have been done at checkin).

I had to clear customs and re-check the bags, after which I quickly went into the Red Carpet Club (I had received a status “domestic” upgrade on this international flight) for a coffee with Bailey’s and as light breakfast (half-size yoghurt, a banana, and 3/4 of a toasted bagel with cream cheese as the other 1/4 flopped onto the floor when I was separating the bagel halves for toasting duty).

Taipei to Tokyo (first leg of return journey)

To TPE airport

The air conditioned bus took 50 minutes at 6 am, and cost only NT$125 (US$4.50).
It looked like they are working on a metro line along the highway out towards the international airport.

TPE-NRT flight (3 hours)
This was operated by ANA (All Nippon Airways); all the announcements were in Japanese, Mandarin and English. Being a Japanese airline, I was surprised that there was no Sudoku in the inflight magazine!
I also got to experience regular economy (as opposed to economy plus) as the couple in front of me and my seatmate immediately leaned back all the way, bringing the seatback personal entertainment screen that much closer to my face. There were a few movie choices – I watched Happy Feet, an animated penguin movie, which was cute. The lunch meal was decent, with wine, and kudos to the airline for putting a real quantity of pepper into the little packet, as opposed to the usual barely noticeable amount.

I had a window seat on the right so that I could see the Taiwan coast and had a view of hazy Taipei (having arrived on a cloudy night I didn’t see much then)

Fun feature: the flight showed the image from a forward-facing camera on the overhead monitors for the last 10 minutes of the flight, including during the landing at Tokyo’s Narita airport.

NRT airport
The answer to my previous question is: I gate-checked my rollaboard bag. They were kind enough to put a fragile sticker on it (recall it was mostly empty so I was worried it would get crushed – it looked fine when I claimed it in SFO). Though when I rechecked it after customs for my next flight, the baggage guy really wanted to close it (no way).

I also lost my cold peanut soup can I had bought at TPE (just to try it for fun) since I forgot about it in my carry on bag when going through the connecting flights security area at NRT.

One of the things I bought at NRT (besides cough drops) was strawberry kitkats (chocolate bar), which I had never seen before. Not bad, though a little sweet for my liking.

In Vancouver for a few hours

Actual waterfall next to stairs and escalator when going down to immigration hall

Yes, I know it’s insane, but my cheap Taipei flight required me to return to Canada, so I flew to Vancouver and am taking the Amtrak train to Seattle in a few hours, after I visit with my friend Steve.

In short, my Toronto-Seattle one way flight, with a detour to Tapei, turned into:
YYZ-ORD-NRT-TPE followed by TPE-NRT-SFO-YVR-train_to_Seattle
Which also means I passed through US Customs & Immigration each way despite connecting through (unlike Japan where you could transfer through without immigration)

:-)

Sitting in NRT

I survived my 5am alarm clock and slog out to TPE airport. At least there wasn’t any bad traffic.

Exchanged my last TWD for JPY to buy some chocolates and, more importantly, some more cough drops as I’m coughing up a storm today. I’m sure my seatmate and others nearby appreciate that.

Now I’m debating if I should “gate”-check a nearly-empty rollaboard carry-on since the handle won’t close all the way (will it get crushed in cargo?), or put it in sideways in the overhead bin and annoy other people on a full 747?
(I have a knapsack which has my carry on stuff – it fit into the rollaboard)

Also a new blister today in a new place – on the side of my heel. Never had one there before that I can recall. Sigh