Thursday 28th April 2011 - Scooting aboot Taichung!

This morning we get up and have breakfast, I don't fancy anything from the breakfast store and settle for a more familiar cereal option - Frosties. After eating (Chi Fan) we are going with Eve's mum to get some stuff for Connor. The preferred mode of transportation in Taiwan appears to be scooters as the place is full of them, if they are not buzzing around they are parked all over the place. It is the cheapest and easiest way to travel. I am given Jheng Shin's (Eve's brother) helmet and jump on the back of the scooter Eve will drive. We are to follow her mum. I grip the back bar of the bike and we set off, the engine buzzing like a super-charged lawnmower.

Here I will explain a wee bit about the road system in Taiwan. You know how in the UK we have lots of traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, right of way, signalling which way you will go, filters etc? Well in Taiwan it is exactly the same. Surprised huh? I mean exactly the same if you remove all of the things I mentioned above. People drive towards you, undertake you, overtake you, appear out of nowhere, weave in and out. If you stop at a light then you are treated to the constant whine of scooter engines, looking left and right you will now be closely bonded into what back home would be considered a motorcycle gang. Then the lights change and people whizz away all around weaving in and out, I am not afraid to admit it does get a bit scary how close they all seem to get. Sometimes people just suddenly stop in front of you or cut right in front of you if they need to turn. You need to be constantly vigilant on the roads here. To the outside eyes it looks crazy, it shouldn't work but somehow for the people of Taiwan it does.

So off we go traversing the busy streets of Tanzi. We go to a clothing shop and her mum talks to the lady about what she wants, she comments on my handsomeness and then compares me to her daughters husband who is Dutch, I am apparently more handsome, 1-0 to the Scots. Then we ride off into the dusty streets to another store. We have to cross a railway. Her mum again is negotiating for a cot and buggy. I have no idea what they are saying but after a few minutes we leave, Eve tells me her mum said "No we dont want them". Then we stand at the bikes for a few minutes and her mum goes back in. I watch the traffic, I see people on bikes with there kid basically standing in front of the parents and holding onto the handlebars or even one with a kid holding onto the adults back and another in the front. Looks strange to me. Also, you have to wear a helmet it is the law, but most people wear cheap helmets that don't offer much protection, lucky for me Jheng Shin has a full face racing helmet. Her mum appears and tells us that she negotiated a price with them and we ended up getting both a cot and buggy which are good quality for the equivalent of £150. Her mum is a good negotiator and now we just wait till they deliver it. Then we go to a supermarket to buy some stuff and head home. I am getting better at recognising home as we live over from a 24hr 7 Eleven, although to be honest it is quite difficult to differentiate between the streets for me at the moment.

At lunch, through Evelyns translation, I have a talk with her mum. It is the first proper chance we have had to chat. She is really interested in knowing about Scotland. I enjoy the chat and the food. I weighed myself recently, and notice that since coming to Taiwan I have lost 1kg. It is not due to lack of food there is always plenty and I eat a lot, I realise that it must be due to not drinking enough. Here they drink cold tea and that for me at the moment is not something I can drink so I start making sure I have plenty of water. Especially as I plan to start training again soon.

At night we plan to do lots of things, including training, when Eves sister Yen Zou visits our room. Eve is away at her parents (next door) and her sister brings me a gift from her and her husband Lee Yuan. They are vegetarian and it is basically vegetarian fish, it is a little slimy for me and I prefer the real thing but it is a nice gesture. We talk for a while, which is difficult as my Chinese is minimal and her English is decent but sometimes we get lost. Again, Eve and I sleep late.

Good Morning TAIWAN!

Wednesday 27^th April:

I didn’t sleep to great last night as it was very hot and humid. I ended up getting up around 10ish and got ready. We went downstairs to Evelyn’s parents Breakfast Store. They are cleaning up, and when I walk around the corner an employee sees me and gets very excited saying things in Chinese and then suddenly I see all the employees are there looking at me. The one who saw me first says “Hello, welcome hope you enjoy Taiwan”. We walk inside to grab something to eat and she says to me “You are very handsome” I just smile. Then all the women speak Chinese to Evelyn, she tells me they say I am very handsome and well done for bringing such a handsome man back to Taiwan. I just smile back, not much to say on that subject, I mean what are you supposed to say? “You are right?”  We grab something to eat. There is a lot of food to choose from, some of which I don’t feel like trying right now. 

Evelyn’s sister gives us a lift today as we head to the register office to get married. I thought we would have some time but it seems in Taiwan it is all fast, plus I need to get the Alien Registration Card. So we turn up with a filled in form and all the documents, I have to sign my name in Chinese which I can tell you is not very easy but I figure it out. Then 15 minutes later we are married. They ask me if I want a Taiwanese ID card but it will mean giving up my Nationality. I swiftly decline as the plan is to eventually have Dual Citizenship, kind of like being an Autobot and a Decepticon! We get a card from the Mayor congratulating us on our marriage and then it is time to head to the hospital.

We get to the hospital for the baby scan, we are really early and both quite hungry so we decide to grab something to eat. I have a hotdog and Eve has some crazy Japanese stuff one of which looks like haggis but with rice instead of oats. It is pretty apparent here that there are not many White people as I draw an often curious glance from people and sometimes an outright stare. This is quite unsettling for me as I am relatively shy and not one for taking the limelight so to be such an object of attention is disconcerting. I get to see Connor on the monitor, he is asleep but the doctor says he can basically come at anytime now, scary stuff.  I will return here on Friday to do the Medical test for the Alien Registration card.

It is really sunny today and the temperature gets to around 33C with 65% humidity, being pale skinned and Scottish I am not really built for this weather so it will take some getting used to. Communication with her family is difficult as they don’t usually speak much English and I don’t speak much Mandarin yet.

Eve and I finish the night with a short walk around the neighbourhood. She shows me their old house which is just around the corner and where we could be living in around a year. Then on to the local park which strangely has a Military Tank in the middle. The reason I have not been able to find out yet but I plan to photograph it sometime when I have time. I haven’t unpacked my camera yet as I have been to busy.

Monday 25th April 2011

Monday 25^th April 2011
I met my mum in the early morning and we went to the airport. I was worried about forgetting something and turns out I did. Luckily it was only the “American Gods” book. An annoyance as I wanted to read it, but a relatively minor one compared to forgetting my passport etc.
I get checked in and we have breakfast in the bar. Then at 10am I go through to the departure lounge. My mum hugs me, I can’t remember the last time she did and it transports me to a Christmas memory when I was young. Understandably she is upset and it makes me a little bleary eyed. She hugs me again and I go, I turn and wave, she waves back. I do this two more times and she is still there to wave back. I have a feeling like I want to do it a third time but I can’t I need to be strong, but I know that she will still be there and that is comforting. Suddenly, I am overcome with all the people I will miss, I don’t think it really affected me until this time.

I get on the plane, arrive in Shiphol after one hour. Flight was easy, next one will be harder. I am at gate D and have to go to gate F to transfer. Only two gates not so bad I think, but Shiphol is massive and I walk for what seems like forever. I am hungry so find an exchange bureau to swap some off my mighty pounds for monopoly money euros so I can get something for lunch. The woman informs me that I can just pay by pounds and that way I don’t need to pay commission charges. Nice one. I get a coke and a hotdog. I am sitting eating it and looking at the streams of people milling by and I suddenly have a feeling of isolation and feel alone. All these people and I have no connection to any of them. This is stage two of my self-awareness. The waiting area as you would expect is full of Asians. I wish I could hear a familiar and comforting Scottish “Aye”, man right now I would settle for hearing an English accent lol. I found a trolley that is kind of gay but means I don’t have to carry my heavy rucksack etc and can go for a walk, too much thinking time is not good. I found this cool place it has comfy sofas, a fake flame fireplace, looks like a series of living rooms. I think it is also cool that the TV is playing “Married with Children” (a premonition of the future maybe? J) I sit for a long time there and write this blog and feel better. Soon I will travel by plane and arrive in the future.
My flight check-in time is not until 19.45 so I feel I will have to eat a proper meal before boarding as I guess I won’t have food on the plane till at least 10PM. I find a restaurant and order a cheeseburger. I have a cool chat with the cook who tells me that he is from Mexico and that he emigrated to Holland a while back and that in the beginning it is hard but before long you will adjust and won’t have any problems. This is comforting to know. After eating I head back to the gate to check-in.
I have to put all my stuff in trays, such as laptop, and then walk into a gate, I am instructed to hold my hands above my head and a scanner revolves around me front and back. Then I have to stand on the feet symbols and they look at a screen and if it shows anything in yellow means that metal is there etc. I forgot to take out my money, phone and stuff so I have to put everything back in the trays and also my boots as they have metal eyelets (or whatever they are called). Then you have to grab all your stuff and sort yourself out and go through to board the plane.
I have never flown long haul before, but I am lucky when I arrive at my seat there is only me sitting there so three empty. Once the plane gets in the air some people move seats and I am joined by a woman. We share two seats eat so have plenty of space. The flight will be 8,000 miles in total. They have a screen that shows you the planes trajectory, distance and airspeed. I watch “Gulliver’s Travels” which is pretty rubbish, some TV shows and play some games. I do manage to get some sleep but not a huge amount. I am surprised at how much food they give me on the plane. The best off all was when I woke up at 3am, most passengers are asleep apart from a few and a stewardess gives me a small carton of mineral water and asks me if I would like some ice-cream. The ice-cream was awesome.
10 hours later I am in Bangkok, temperature 31 degrees. The plane will be here for 1 hour while it refuels and picks up new passengers and others depart. We have to get off the plane and then back on in 30 mins, an opportunity for us to stretch our legs apparently. The truth is by the time you leave the plane wall all the way along to the transfer gate which allows you to go upstairs and then to the gate where we will board from the half hour is gone. A cunning trick. In the waiting room now are lots of people going to Taiwan. I no longer have a seat to myself, as I now share it with three Taiwanese guys. We don’t talk much but they are nice and helpful, giving me some tissues when the hot towel leaks water all over me and giving me a pen when my pen dies during filling out my landing card.
I am now in Taipei airport finally, and I am feeling a bit worse for wear due to leaving on Monday morning and now arriving on Tuesday evening. I follow everyone to go to get all my visa etc checked. On the way I see a special checking gate that has people manning it dressed in full radioactive bio-wear and there is a sign saying “Japanese visitors, please pass through this gate for radioactive testing” and I kid you not they have a guy with a Geiger counter. It makes me smile. Processing is easy as I already have the visa so they just check and stamp it and I am off to collect my bags. I go to the toilet and after washing my hands I take a paper towel and as soon as I have removed it another one replaces it from the machine.
I meet Eve and we go take the Sky-way train (sounds like something out of Final Fantasy). This train is super fast, reaching speeds of 280km/hr and takes a 4hr journey by car and achieves it in 40 mins. Her parents pick us up at the train station in Taichung and we drive home towards the Tanzi District. On the way we stop at supermarket and they buy some things for me. I meet all her family and they are really nice and cool but I am really tired and need to shower. It is really hot, but I am happy to see Evelyn and her bump. It has been a long time, too long.

The journey so far up to 25th April 2011

After a longtime, planning, waiting and fulfilling numerous diplomatic procedures. I was close to getting Taiwan. I have never been great at waiting, to impatient I guess and my mind always thinks the worst. Some people say "No news is good news!" For me though, "No News" means "What is going wrong!" I had to get documents to say I could get married and a Disclosure to show I had a clean code of conduct (No Police Record). The Police Records bureau forgot to stamp the Disclosure (despite me calling them to inform them and reminding them through email). This added some stress to an already stressful procedure. Luckily, my work had given me gardening leave so I had time to go to Glasgow. So I called them up on Monday and negotiated they they would stamp the form if I came through to their office, rather than waiting on them to process another form. I made it back from Glasgow with just enough time to print off some documents, fill them out and send them special delivery to the Foreign Office for legalization which would keep me on schedule. I got them back by the end of the week, which would give the Taiwanese Consular one week to process the documents and visa.

I sent an email to the Consulate Office to confirm that they would be able to process them and they reply telling me that they are closed Monday, Friday and the following Monday (the day I intend to fly). One week just got shortened to three days and I forgot to also mention that they only open from 9.30am to 12, adding to the urgency. To top it all off the Consular is not in the office for them to confirm if the procedure can be completed in three days. I hold off on booking the ticket and call them on Tuesday morning to confirm they can process them and I am told it can be done as long as I get everything to them today. I book the ticket online, grab all the stuff and run to get the bus into town.


I arrive at the Consulate office and go through the documents and payment with the receptionist. She informs me that I will have to wait as the Consular will have a short interview with me. I panic a bit, but I was half expecting it and am prepared, hair unspiked, £300 suit on, shirt and tie, looking every bit the fine upstanding gentleman I am. He is busy, so I wait. Another woman enters for visa purposes and then an older Asian gentleman. He says "Are you the one who wants Visa?" and leads me to the bank of tables to the left, while the new applicant seamlessly transitions into the seat while I am vacating it. He flicks through my passport and documents a few times, looking very much like an annoyed Uncle, (I suppress my natural urge to be witty) then he says “I think we will process this for you” then stands up gives the documents to the receptionist, says something in Mandarin and walks off. I stand there confused as I watch him walk off. The receptionist calls after him a few times. I don’t know if he heard her or not but if he did then he chose to ignore here. Then she turns to me and says “ok, thank you” I smile and say “Umm is that me finished?” “Yes” is the reply.
Job done, it is out of my hands now. I rush home to get into more normal clothing and head to see some friends. I don’t want my mind to work overtime. It is sunny for a change in the ‘Burgh and we are working in the garden destroying tree roots, when my friends mum says to me “You were always a nice laddie, just a bit crazy” I will take that as a compliment.
Anyway, I got the visa and all the documents on Thursday, so it was all “Much ado about nothing” 
My last week in Edinburgh went really fast and I felt like I was running out of time. I never got to say bye to everyone etc. Met my old work mates, many of whom gave me baby presents which I really appreciated and also collectively they gave me money. The last week was really strange, I looked upon Edinburgh with open eyes, feeling it would be a long time before I saw the place again. I spent a lot of time replaying memories in my mind. I know for one I will miss her beauty. People seemed to view me as seeing me for the last time which kind of made me feel like I was dying a very strange feeling. I had a great time with my family at my mum and then a final game of flag of Sunday. I got to meetup with Dean and Rab etc for the last time and I am happy I got to see all those people. Which brings me up to date to the night before the flight.