Taiwan - Part Two

Considering I am writing this two weeks after it happened, I’ll try and keep the narrative as close to the actual events as possible.

After the disaster of yesterdays “scooter-gate” as it will be referred to from now on, I knew that I would have to go back on the horse and get a feel for this bike. So while Sab kept far, far away from the damn machine, I hopped back on with a clear goal of gaining more practice in the art of Taiwanese scooter riding. I found out early that like the day before, it didn’t matter what rules you broke, as long as you arrived at your destination alive then your trip has been successful. I told Sab that I would be about 45 minutes, it actually turned into an hour and a half as I got lost again.

It wasn’t too bad though. I learned how to run red lights and turn left like a local. Rather than waiting for the light to turn green and then turn left, the locals here cross the pedestrian crossing to the right hand side of the road then wait for the light to turn green so the actual distance of the turn was less. Considering the day before I wasn’t too keen on left turns (remember they drive on the “wrong” or “American” side of the road) so I would actually do three right turns to get on the street I wanted to go to…chicken you say? You try learning to ride a scooted in the second busiest city in Taiwan then give me a bell. One things fore sure 60 on a scooter feels about three times as fast as it does in a car.

Sure the scooters flying past me were doing at least 70 whilst I was sputtering along at 50 at times but with the feeling of no protection came the sensation of added danger and the feeling of speed. Even though it was only my second time on a scooter I was starting to enjoy it. I won’t be going anywhere near a powerful bike soon as the memory of one of my distant cousins slamming head first after stacking of a 50cc scooter into a barb wire fence and requiring 70 stitches when I was about 6 or 7 years old on my cousins farm was still fresh in my mind. My cousin was about 8 I think…bloody Shafters!

I may my way back via McDonalds and I’m getting sick and tired of eating this stuff but there is no where else except Subway where I know the quality of the food. Sure I was in Taiwan and like their mainland counterparts are able to eat anything. It was this theory of Taiwanese cooking that kept me away from the restaurants plus I was getting depressed.

Saturday was a carbon copy of Friday. Wake up to a dark room which ruined my body clock, see what’s on tv...have a squizz at the porn channels, shower, subway, scooter, internet, bed, more porn and BBC World and bed. Though later on Saturday night Sab and I made my way to the Lighthouse Bar and Grill where we had a nice time eating great pub food and watching Liverpool lose to a fired up Everton and I was actually enjoying being at this bar seeing a few expats around and hoping that in Tainan we would be able to find our own little bar and meet with the guys and gals for a few quiet ales and swap war stories of our kids. I’m looking forward to that.

Sunday was a carbon copy of Saturday except we watched the Italian Grand Prix at the Lighthouse Grill. Couldn’t be bothered exploring the city because I did it by mistake via getting completely lost on a scooter. I went to bed that night wondering what Monday would reveal to us as Sab and I were going to visit our new workplace…Sesame English School.