Taiwan Finale - The last day and final thoughts
Our last day was noticeably more laid back than any of the other days in Taipei. I think we were just exhausted by all of the travelling we had done in 4 days, and wanted to be somewhat rested for the plane ride back (that’s 8-9 forms of transportation in 6 days) to the west (even though the plane would be heading east, ironically though sensibly).
We had agreed that for the last day we would head over to Megan’s school and see where she works. Megan’s been working as an English teacher for a European school board established for teaching English in eastern Asian countries. All of the classes, minus Mandarin itself, are taught in English. The schoolchildren of Taiwan are all highly encouraged and pushed to learn English, and are often convinced by their parents to go speak to foreigners when around.
In fact, that reminds me of one of my MRT rides. When Jeff and I were heading back from Danshui to meet up with Evan and Megan, we happened to sit near a mother and her child, who I’d say was between 4-6 years old. As I sat there, the mother had told her son to come speak with me. I didn’t notice him at first as I was looking at the transit map, but when I looked forward I saw the kid standing there staring at me. I was surprised. “Hello!”, he muttered excitedly. Immediately I smiled — I was having my first experience of what Megan had been telling me before of having to help a kid learn his English. I played along happily. I started to ask him some basic questions, making sure to speak slowly. Pretty funny experience to see him walk over to his mother to get a translation of what I asked, only to walk on back to answer. Eventually he started to speak Mandarin (I guess when I told his mother I knew a very little bit she had assumed I knew as much as her kid, which was far from the truth) and I got lost. His mother started to ask me the questions in English and I’d answer back in English to the kid. It was a heartwarming experience to talk with them.
Detraction ending, we bussed (oh, there’s another form of transportation in 6 days — 10) over to Megan’s school’s neighborhood, which was up in some hills/mountains. Nice area. We went to a kung pao chicken restaurant that Megan very much enjoyed. I got beef noodles and stole some of her chicken. It was actually very good, and definitely one of the best kung pao chicken’s I’ve had. The beef noodles were alright but I regret not ordering the chicken.
Anywho, we went to a nearby park to hang out and look at the scenery. Nice place. I was pretty dead tired (as pictures will demonstrate) and wanted to get rid of the backpack I had been lugging around for Jeff (though I did put some stuff in it). We saw a flower clock and a lot of trees and water. That’s how excited I am about the park. It was nice, but whatever, I had seen so much already at this point it wasn’t really a highlight. Sorry park.
Megan’s classes ended not long after, so we went back to see the inside of her school. It looked like a pretty standard school, though the class sizes were much smaller (a very good thing, I think). The discussion topic had somehow veered towards how to say the word “corollary” — Americans say it with more “e” sounds than the British saying. They thought I was screwed up. We pulled out Oxford dictionaries, both American and British. Each pronunciation was corroborated equally, though of course my American friends state theirs is more “correct”. Pffft. It’s “zed”, too, by the way, not “zee”.
Anywho… we walked around the school. I met another teacher, Monsieur Beaupre, who hailed from Ottawa! We didn’t talk long. Kind of awkward. He also had an apparently more notable Canadian accent than I did. Pffft, I say! Before heading out, we saw the senior students’ art projects. Cool stuff! Some really nice pieces in there.
That previous paragraph is sort of rushed because I don’t have a lot more to say. I’ve been typing a lot these past few days. Sorry.
Our last dinner of the trip had us arriving at a place called Sweet Dynasty. Again, we ordered a ton of food and had a lot of puddings for dessert. All very tasty.
After dinner we went around the city. We went to another bakery and got some baked goods for our trip back to the States the next morning (Evan, likewise, was joining us on the trip back as he had a wedding to which to attend as well as some interviews — I learned that I need to make a good friend in the airline business, as he flew business for as cheap a price as our tickets and got to go home in luxury). The purchase was also an attempt to rid ourselves of Taiwanese money, which was more or less a success.
Eventually, we headed over to Sun Yat Sen Memorial again to get a nice view of Taipei 101 at night. The lit city views were good. We took some pictures of the group as our final set of photos, before heading back. We bid goodbye to Dylan (who then offered his services if I ever find myself in New Zealand — I really need to take advantage of that!) and trained back to Evan and Megan’s. After one final trip around the Shilin Night Market (first and last place we visited), we went to bed.
That is essentially the end of the trip. We cabbed to the airport and flew back home. The only other notable experience was when we arrived at Narita and tried to find a WiFi location. We saw signs for them, but couldn’t figure out how to get proper access. Seeing as how I just came from Taiwan where I had to communicate to foreigners, I felt way more at ease to just ask people using it how to do it. People are generally super helpful, I found — I asked one person and then another person joined in independently to help. Pretty cool stuff.
So, that’s the end of the story. I really enjoyed my trip to Taiwan, as I hope you can see from my writing. It was definitely an eye opener, both in culture and in changing my perspective of the world and life. I really miss being in Taiwan, to be honest. I miss the vivacity of the city, the weather, the way food is handled (stands and night markets being prevalent) and the cuisine itself, the eagerness of the natives to help and learn, the exploration and appreciation of a very foreign land, the prominent use of public transportation, the absurdities, the nature, and a whole slew of other things. Most importantly, I miss the adventure of the trip and the people I met. I met some pretty fantastic people on the trip, both native and non-native.
I arrived back in Seattle and immediately felt awkward. It’s pretty sprawled here, and people actually seem more distant — perhaps that’s because of sprawl. I walked outside to a dreary grey sky and a bit of drizzle. I also remember arriving and wondering where the light rail system was, but then remembered the North American reliance on personal transportation.
I remember going to a coffee shop later on, and it felt so odd. A whole building dedicated just to coffee rather than just a tiny stand operated by a family or 1 person. I remember feeling weird spending 3 bucks on an americano. I also remember seeing other people entering the coffee shop and their attitudes just felt so much less eager or excited, and actually a bit pompous (I’m being pompous about talking about other people’s pompousness, I realize). Travel is both odd and cool that way, I guess.
It also made me admire some things of Seattle I didn’t see before. I actually really like that people make an effort to stay outside when it’s sunny, and people walk everywhere (due to bad public transportation, I guess) rather than use scooters. I also very much appreciated the ease it was to communicate (which equally made me appreciate just how much easier it was to appreciate how easy it is to communicate with people in general despite language differences). It also made me appreciate my sense of trying to be nice to people, since it seems to resonate well everywhere, and that I’m really not that bad at making people smile (at least, I think so).
I think I’ll end this off by how I felt it’s helped or not helped. As I stated, my therapist said the trip would help me out far more than therapy ever could. I mostly agree with this statement. I definitely feel far more privileged living here, having a good job that would even let me experience this trip, and having a nice place to live. I don’t feel like what I construe as failures are really all that bad — I could be living on a lot less than I do now as demonstrated by many people in Taiwan, but I don’t and shouldn’t take it for granted. That’s not to say I am going to live on less, but rather that I appreciate what I do have even more, and that if circumstances have me having to go back home to Ottawa for whatever reason that it’s not a big deal. Things happen, but things could be a heck of a lot harder than that. So, I definitely feel like a burden has been lifted.
However, as soon as I arrived in Seattle, the immediacy of my circumstances returned almost immediately, and a bit of stress and angst returned. Not as bad, though, since it made me want to focus again, like days of yore.
Though, admittedly, it also made me want to go travel somewhere else, too :)
