Taipei Goulet: Summer fun 2014

When I last posted, Taipei was embroiled in political unrest and protests. The protests came to a peaceful end; however, the ever complicated, Taiwanese political situation leaves much unresolved. For the meantime, daily-life goes on.

My past few months have been enjoyable and eventful enough to warrant a new blog post.
The constant turnover of the expat community has resulted in two of my roommates departing. Thus, they have been replaced by 2.5 new roommates; one German woman, a Taiwanese woman, and 2 cats (accounting for the 0.5).

I was fortunate to have a some visitors in the past couple months, one friend from home who currently lives in Thailand, came to Taipei for a weekend and a Dutch friend, whom I first met in Taipei 3 years ago, came back for a visit.

My Dutch friend, who loves the food in Taiwan, organized a Peking duck dinner at one of Taipei's most renowned duck restaurants. The restaurant accepts reservations just one day a month which must be submitted in person a month prior to the desired date of dining. The dinner was great, though I admit I'm not much of a duck connoisseur and I'd be unlikely to note the difference between very good and below average Peking duck. The most notable thing about the restaurant were the impressive knife skills of the man who carved the duck table side.

Ya, I ate the duck's brain.

Around mid-May, an event I had eagerly anticipated arrived in Taipei: BeerfesTaipei! The inaugural year of this, hopefully, annual event was not anticipated by me, and sold out far before the date. Much to my luck, a couple of friends of mine, that own a popular craft beer bar, had a booth at the event and were able to sneak me in for free!

The beer festival was great; the best I've been to. Craft breweries from across North America and Asia were were well represented and pouring an unlimited flow of delicious beer.

After a great weekend at the beer-fest, my luck had seemingly run out. The following Wednesday evening, my left knee began to ache and was slightly swollen. By 3 am that night, I was in agony and my knee had swollen to the size of a small grapefruit. I took a taxi to the nearest hospital where I was x-rayed, fitted with a full-leg splint, and given painkillers and an appointment with an orthopaedic doctor for the next day.

When I returned to the hospital for my appointment, the doctor took some fluid from my knee and told me that the most likely cause of my pain was a bacterial infection of the fluid in my knee and that rest and antibiotics were the best bet to cure it. I was told to continue wearing the splint and given several more bags of pills, and sent on my way.

The infected fluid from my knee

Feeling the insatiable cravings of my travel addiction, I had decided it was time for a change of scenery. I had booked a 4 day holiday in Osaka and Kobe, Japan. I had booked my flights weeks before the knee incident arose, and I was anxious about the possibility of needing to cancel my travel plans.

With little to do but rest my knee while watching movies at home, I became anxious and decided I needed an outing. I chose to visit a touring exhibit of MC Escher's finest artwork. MC Escher may be the first artist I ever appreciated, as I recall using my greasy little fingers to mark up the pages of an MC Escher book that my father owned. I'm happy that I've now seen many of the works that intrigued me as a child, in person.

Fortunately my next visit to the doctor, just one day before my flight, yielded great results. The doc confirmed that my knee was, in fact, infected, and not compromised by something far worse, such as a torn ligament or rheumatoid arthritis as had been previously suggested. I was incredibly relieved and further so when the doctor had no objections to me travelling to Japan, as long as I wore my splint, iced me knee, and continued to take my medications.

The following morning, I departed for Osaka, Japan. This was to be my second visit to Osaka, but my first time in Japan in any season other than winter. I figured that if I'd loved Japan in the winter, how could the summer possibly disappoint.

I had just 4 nights to spend I Japan and and I wanted to make the most of it. I was not to be my first visit to Osaka, so I had seen most of the typical sights already, and on this trip, I intended to spend my time sampling the best of Japanese craft beer.

Osaka has an excellent local craft beer scene that far exceeds Taipei's rapidly developing one. An Osaka map can be freckled with craft beer locations, while a map of Taipei would suffer a mere blemish or two. Despite wearing a splint for much of my time in Japan, I had a great, short trip to Japan.

New drinking buddies

Video game bar with Nintendo!

Beer with slushie head!!

A friend from my last visit to Osaka.

I flew into Osaka, where I spent two nights eating as much Japanese food, and drinking as much Japanese craft beer as I could. I had seen many of the cultural sights during my last visit to Osaka, so this trip was even more beer-themed than the last.

I arranged to visit Suntory brewery, which provided a pleasant tour followed by a complimentary beer sampling.

Following the brewery tour, I took a train to Kobe, the city famed for it's beef. Kobe is a charming, seaside city with an interesting mix of cultural influences spawning from it's history as a port city.

Mosque

Western Style Home

Indian, Jain Temple

China Town

There aren't many hostels or budget accommodation options in Kobe, so I booked a compartment in a capsule hotel.

A capsule hotel is a lot like a hostel, but for business men. Instead of bunk beds, guests sleep in small compartmentalized capsules, equipped with TV's, clocks, reading lights and air-con. The hotel provides everything that a guest would need, even if they arrive with just the clothes on their back. Even pajamas were provided, which evidently, everyone wears while lounging around the common areas of the hotel, creating the image of a mental institution. The hotel even had an onsen (hot-spring); however, I decided that I wasn't particularly keen on sitting naked in a big bathtub with a bunch of men.

I spent one more night bar-hopping in Osaka, with my bag stored in a bus station locker, before catching the 4:30am bus to the airport to return to Taipei and work the same day.

Shortly following my return from Japan was my 28th birthday. I celebrated with friends and was able to reflect on how happy I am with my life at this age. Through all the ups and downs, but mostly ups, my life is awesome!

Getting old, all business now.

Summer has come to Taipei and that means plenty of heat, humidity and, of course, pool-parties. All-day pool parties are a weekly occurrence in Taipei and I am a frequent attendee.

In addition to the pool parties, the world cup soccer has added to my summer fun. Games were on late at night here, however, the certainty of a terrible day of teaching, was not enough to discourage me from watching the majority of games in crowded bars. I was pleasantly surprised with how popular the world cup is here in a country that plays very little soccer World cup and happy to see Germany; my once second home, now third, become world champions.