Well, my life in Taipei is ending for now. What does that mean for the future of this blog? I don't know. Maybe I'll change the title to "Life in Taipei, Interrupted". I'm sitting on the floor, a paper towel as my seat, in a hot apartment, as the sounds of traffic and scooters drifts up to my 4th floor window. It's half past midnight, and in about nine hours I'll bring my modem, passport, and ARC card to Chungwa Telecom and end my ADSL service. My umbilical cord to the world will be severed. Strangely enough, Blogger has decided that anyone who posts from a Taiwanese IP address must be able to read Chinese characters, because all of these pages are entirely in Mandarin characters. So I'll be relying on my memory of where the "Post" button is in order to post this. Truth is, I don't know.

But five years of a life in Taipei is ending tonight. Unfortunately I am way too tired to record very much of it. All I will say is I am leaving something very dear behind, and I will need to return. My life in Taipei is not over. This is a very special place, indeed. Time to be with family, time to tend to some ties, but Taipei has not seen the last of me.

Looking very forward to a return in the near future.

All for now, ladies and gentlemen.

I walked home tonight down the back road. For some reason this guy was blow-torching a pig carcass. I know it's not the greatest picture. You'll just have to take my word for it.

On vacation this week, so I thought I'd head over to Shi Dong Market to have lunch at a sushi place I have been to for take-out, but had never eaten there. It looked so very Japanese; I had been dying to try it. Each time I had gotten take-out sashimi, I'd watch the other patrons eating the most delectable-looking sushi. The sashimi had always been memorable, and a pleasure to eat; I wanted to try their specialties in-house.

The place is a walk-up eatery. All the patrons stand. It's on a corner inside the market - refrigerators on two sides with curved glass, filled with an array of, to me, nameless fish; at least beyond the tuna and salmon I'm familiar with. In front of the glass refrigerator runs a polished wooden rail about five inches wide. Below the rail, on each of the two sides, are five or six eating areas denoted by dark wooden squares the size of a place setting set into a white counter. At the corner is a round porcelain sink to wash your hands; most of the customers eat their sushi with their fingers.

I really had no idea what the proper protocol was to this place. So, I just stood at one of the spots and waited. The chef said something to me in Chinese, and I just nodded. I pulled a beer out of my pocket I had purchased at another stall. I stashed my jacket on a shelf by my knees and found dishes, bowls, and chopsticks there. I went and got a bowl of soup from the pot at the end of the counter.

The two chefs work diligently. They say little, but occasionally explain a little something about each piece to the patrons. They remove a piece of fish from the icy refrigerator, and, using sharp knives, cut and slice it into a tiny specialty. They then reach over the counter and place the sushi on the wooden rail in front of you. I cast surreptitious glances about at the other diners to see how they went about their eating. Most used the soy sauce and wasabi very sparingly, mostly letting the flavor of the fish come through.

There was no menu. There were no prices posted. I had no idea how they even charged you. You just stood and waited for the next piece to come out. And each one was a little treasure. One piece came out textured with tiny knife cuts, another with a slice on the bottom filled with rice. The chef cautioned me not to use soy sauce on one of the pieces; just to eat it plain. At another time he reached over and placed a handful of tiny squid, each just an inch or so big.

At one point he asked the customers a question. They all nodded, so I did, too. He reached in and pulled out a piece of dense, marbled fish, the colors of a candy cane. He placed several slices on two skewers, and pulled out a hand-held blowtorch, searing quickly the outside. He served it on a tiny nodule of rice, with just the edges barely burned black, the rest tender and juicy, the fish infused with the most subtle taste of lemon.

Cones of nori seaweed were passed to the patrons, filled with sea urchin. I have found this to be too "fishy" in the past, but here the flavor was amazing, resting on a base of rice. Another sushi came out with tiny blades of grass on it, what it was I don't know. Another piece of some kind of fish, or some part of a fish, was placed in front of me. No one else used soy sauce, so I didn't either, placing it into my mouth. It had a creamy, but slightly firm texture, and melted in my mouth so softly and with such an incredible flavor I found myself almost closing my eyes. I was in heaven. Scallops, clams, fish so icy it made your teeth hurt - all of it with such incredible fresh and invigorating flavor.

Some patrons began drifting off. Soon it was only me and another guy. My single can of beer had long been empty. The chef placed a final piece in front of me, wiped his hands, and slung a towel over his shoulder; the show was over. I paid my bill, not really even knowing how they went about charging. The price wasn't cheap, but it had been the best sushi experience I had had in my five years here.

Today we saw our first Taiwan baseball game! The Macoto Cobras vs. The President Lions. Glenn organized for a bunch of TAS teachers to attend. Wei-Kay, our fabulous A/V aide, gleefully but cautiously attended as well. He spoke of his bad luck streak: whenever he watched, in person, his favorite team - The Cobras - they would lose. This streak had followed him since childhood.

We met at the stadium at 4:45, for the 5:05 starter. Being advised it was ok, we all brought in coolers and backpacks full of snacks and beer. Nobody cared! As a matter of fact, souvenirs being sold included bottles of Kaoliang, the Taiwanese hard liquor. Later I actually purchased a beer at the snack bar, just to see the price: NT$40, about US$1.20, only a few cents more than it costs in 7-Eleven. I even bought a big bag of fresh guava, cantaloupe, and honeydew melon, for about the same price. I don't think you can buy fruit at American baseball stadiums. Or stinky tofu for that matter.

The Cobras managed to get a fairly solid trouncing, including suffering back-to-back homers in the top of the 6th. Wei-Kay said "I better leave!" and ran off to the bathroom. A runner got on first. Wei-Kay returned quite happy. He left again and soon they managed to get up on the scoreboard with a run! The cobra side of the stands burst into cheers, drumming, and lots of banging of orange cones (fans apparently sit on one side of the stadium or the other, depending on their team). Fan support includes a band, a herd of spectators with plastic cones (two each) that you bang together for cheers, and guys in their own special section waving giant flags at particularly exciting times (I thought it was kind of funny - the giant-flag wavers were IN FRONT of the fans - you probably couldn't see much when they were waving their banners).

One interesting thing (among several!) was that when there was a conference out on the mound, it usually involved not just the pitcher and catcher, but the entire infield. They just kind of gathered on the mound to see what was up. Have a look at the above photo.

I didn't see any rowdy or drunk fans (besides our group - we did a lot of enthusiastic cheering). Even though beers were basically a buck, hard liquor was available, and you could bring in as much alcohol as you wanted, the fans were fine. No fights, no one getting ejected, no one screaming at the ump (ok, maybe a little, again, from our section). Just a cultural difference. I actually didn't see anyone else drinking beer besides us.

The excitement on the field continued, to the point where Wei-Kay remained glued in his seat. The Cobras managed to rack up EIGHT more runs to win 9-6 over the Lions! Wei-Kay's curse was broken! We stomped and cheered every run. A great come-back game! It took us five years to finally catch a game, and seems like we caught the right one!

The crackle of firecrackers is so thick in the air, it's like a carpet of sound. There are loud blasts, reports, and startlingly loud bursts coming from close by. It's just after midnight on New Year's Eve, and Taipei is scaring away the evil spirits and ushering in the Year of the Pig. It's amazing how loud it is. I am soon to bed, but for sure this will continue for a while. The best to all of you for a healthy and safe New Year.

Somehow I managed to slip out of school early. At 3:30 David asked me do I want to switch my after school monitoring responsibility with him on Monday. I looked out the window at the fine day it had been, and I said sure! It took me a bit of time to get my classroom cleaned up, but out the door I went and it was only 3:45 - wow! I jumped on the 612, and was home and into my biking shorts as fast as I could go. I think it was 4:22 when I rolled out my door.

The usual bit of traffic as I started my ride -almost went the wrong way! Had to cut around 7-Eleven and go around the block. I was headed for what we call the Satellite run. Was feeling a bit of lethargy past the Palace as the road begins to incline, and made the turn past the abandoned amusement park - the start of the serious climbing. At the first big curve where you can look back over the city, it almost took my breath away: the city looked so sparkling clear, and I could see past the city to the mountains on the other side - a rarely-seen view as I have mentioned in a previous post. It really was a stellar day. Up I went, and each view was more beautiful than the one before. As I finally got to the top I was realizing that the sun, although strong, rode very low in the sky. The natural light would soon be gone. Yet still the beauty amazed me. Now, looking northward into the mountains, I saw tufts of clouds down low in the valleys, while the peaks still caught the fading glint of the setting sun. It was just dark enough that the darks on the earth are just beginning to pool into darker hues, and the streetlights and house lights are dotting the landscape. Even the glow of the red neon looked amazingly beautiful in the flame sunlight against the purple darks.

I passed some schoolchildren and shouted "hello!" to them. They were shy at first but then began shouting "hello!" back to me. Later, as the darkness dropped further, I paused to change my lenses, and the kids caught up, excitedly shouting "hello"" all over again.

I climbed onward, the air freshly cold up there, but I still kept to my short sleeves. The cold was thin, just the air, not yet absorbed by trees and buildings at the top - just enough to keep me alert. I had a set of sleeves in my bag, and I kept visualizing when I'd pull over to put them on - but I never did.

The initial descent was cool, but I was still warm enough from the climb, and by the time I had gotten to the little city behind the Cultural College, the air was already warmer. I rode through the AIT housing, and made the quick climb to the overlook - and again I was amazed. It really remained as beautiful as before, only now with the light nearly gone from the day.

The heavens were a deep indigo, which quickly faded to a pale lavender towards the horizon, then dropped suddenly to a deep carnelian. The horizon itself was a dark blur in the distance, but in the mid-ground the mountains drew a sharp contour against the growing blue of the sky. It was no longer cold like higher up, and I went down the rest of the way without sleeves.

I'll try posting a picture of the sky, but it was only shot with my cell phone. You can barely make out the lights at Taipei 101. I was happy to see it so clearly from there.

Apologies, apologies, yeah yeah, I know it's been five months since I posted anything to my blog. I do need to keep this up, along with everything else in my life. Anyway's it was Hallowe'en last week and Rhonda kindly had a LATE Hallowe'en party, which suited me just fine as I was in Japan last weekend. What is so fun about Hallowe'en? I think it's just the chance to dress up and be someone other than yourself. But it's definitely one of my favorite things to do. So enjoy the pictures HERE and I'll try to be better at posting.

Within about two days almost every vendor on the backroad had okra in their stalls. So, what could I do? I had to buy some, pull out my Joy of Cooking, and find the old recipe for cooking okra. It's pretty basic: green pepper, onion, okra, some tomato and basil. I dress it up with some red wine, chili peppers, olive oil.

One of the pleasure of life in Taipei is shopping for food. I don't know why, but the locals who see me walking with the familiar translucent plastic bag with the wide red stripes get excited. Are they excited because I'm cooking? Or because I'm shopping in a traditional market, buying fresh vegetables? They'll ask what I'm making, if I'm cooking Chinese-style. I guess I tend to cook both, or sometimes a blend of the two - Asian and Western. But the markets are such wonderful places to shop. Don't like the green peppers? Walk over to the next stall. This vendor has great asparagus - perhaps I'll make a frittata tonight. I look to see what I'll cook that evening. And there is so much to choose from. I think the variety was driven home to me one summer when I was in Connecticut. I was, for the first time in six months, in a supermarket. Not even mentioning the fact I was in a HUGE BUILDING with 27 aisles, but, that fact aside, I found myself in the produce aisle. I looked at the broccoli and, noticing it didn't look so fresh, realized that, in order to look at different broccoli, I would have to get in line, pay for everything I'd already gathered on my journey through this warehouse-sized business, walk through the parking lot, get into my car, and drive to another supermarket to see how THEIR broccoli looked. In Taipei I just walk to the next stall.

Excited to go home in just about a month's time. But not particularly excited to shop again in giant supermarkets.

OK, enough about food. I gotta go tend to my okra.

My Meter of Mountain
So, we had this great view out our back balcony. The treetops of the water park across the street (well, it has water fountains, so we call it the water park) fell within our gaze. From there, the mountains rose up - just the beginning edge of a ridge. Somewhere on the other side of that ridge is a spectacular hotel called the Grand Hotel, with an enormous wooden roof of red and gold, but it was out of our sightline. Still, we knew it was there.

On the best days, the clearest of days Taipei will begrudgingly offer, there was a more spectacular sight. On those days we could see (maybe only twice or three times to memory), we could see the furthest mountains down the spine of the island. Almost a dream, they hovered in a misty pale you could barely call green. But the distance, the unbelievable distance, was there for your eyes to see.

Then the building came.

After the noise and shake of the giant hole, steel framework grew, chased by scaffolding covered with a plastic blue tarp. This team of plastic and steel raced towards the sky. Soon we could see nothing without craning our necks. At over ten stories (we're on the 4th) it became quite a stretch to see any blue at all. The sky is up there, we're just not exactly sure where.

But after an interminable amount of time (over a year?) something happened. The scaffolding, story by story, came down. And, as it came down, we saw a gap. A tiny gap, relatively speaking, but a gap of about a meter between the new building, and the old building that exists next to it. And in that meter we can see. In that meter we can see the mountains. One lousy meter, and the earth and heavens meet for us. That's the slice God gave us. And it works for me.

I can see.

What more do I want? I can see that slice of what it used to be for me.

I count my blessings where I can. And I look forward to that day when the sun will burn off the haze and show me the distance and wonder that exists there every single day, just a bit hidden from what I perceive.

My favorite? The Lay's Hokkaido Grilled Crab. These don't play in Peoria.