House Search

I woke up before anyone else, so I started to watch TV. I was waiting on Kuan, because he was going to take me house hunting today (his mom was busy, and parking his moped was easier that parking her little SUV). I ended up watching TV for about 4 hours, becasue he slept late (He had been out shrimp fishing the night before. Not on a big boat with a net like back home. He just went out with a pole, to a kind of commercial shrimp fishing pond, and stayed out until about 5:30. I think that they have many more varieties of shrimp here. Not only the small ones, like in the shrimp pancake, but ones large enough to catch with a fishing pole). At one point while I was watching TV, I heard a crash on the street outside their living room window, and I went to look. A car had mowed down a moped at, based on their skid marks, would appear to be high speed. The moped driver was unconcious on the ground, and the driver of the car called an ambulance. The ambulance and a couple of police officers came, and they sorted it out, but it was a disconcerting sight on the morning of my first real moped ride. Anyways, he woke up, got ready, and we left.

I wasn't sure what the proper man-man etiqutte was for moped riding. Man-woman is obvious, the woman holds onto the mans waist, but man-man?? The proper action is less obvious. The first night I arrived I had riden with Jerry, but only a short distance and at low speeds. Then I had held onto Jerry's shoulders for support, but I didn't know Kuan quite that well, and I didn't really think that shoulder holding would provide that much stabalization. Instead I chose to hold onto the little bar behind my ass that helped keep me from sliding off during frequent periods of rapid acceleration, and off we went.

I have always thought mopeds were funny looking. People sitting up completely straight puttering along, and squinting to keep the dirt out of their eyes. Now I got to be that guy, squinting, sitting up straight, and holding on to the ass bar for dear life. Kuan told me I didn't need to hold onto anything, and that he had been driving mopeds for 10 years, but the roads are bumpy, and I didn't think any length of piloting mopeds could prevent me from getting bucked off if we hit a solid bump at high speed.

The mopeds here are like liquid. At intersections there is a space marked out in front for the mopeds, and they just flow through all of the waiting cars, filling up each little gap. At rush hour, they get so thick at the front that it is hard for pedestrians to walk through them. Kuan didn't hesitate at all to fill right in there with the rest of the mopeds. My knees stuck out pretty far on both sides of the moped, and sometimes Kuan didn't slow down that much when weaving in and out of the cars to make it to the front of the line. I was worried about my poor knees, though not to fear, I never hit them.

By far the most interesting part of the ride was being in the moped pool when the light changed. All the drivers watch the other light at the intersection, so they can get moving as soon as the light changes. I think it is sort of like NASCAR. Just before the light changes, all the mopeds rev their engines loudly and their is a noticable increase in fumes. A couple drivers speed off just before the light changes, then as soon as the light changes everyone else hurrys off. The drivers weave in and around other drivers, trying to get every advantage that they can to get to the next light first. Kuan was no slouch and we were usually one of the first ones to the next light.

The first apartment we looked at was little more than 6 feet wide, and generally dissapointing. The second we looked at was on a different floor in the same building, and was a lot nicer (and more expensive). We looked at another one in that building. It was decently large, but on the roof and would have been very hot. We saw a couple more, but one had a bad location, and we thought the other would be too expensive. Basically Kuan made this decision for me too. I just came along on general principle. I wanted to wait to find out how much the expensive one would actually be, in case by some fluke it was a good deal, but the guy never answered his phone, so I went with the second one we saw. It is in a good location. The campus of the university is basically right across the street, and my building is a 15 min walk. There is also a vegetarian buffet around the corner, and a bar advertising live music around the other corner.

Kuan and I went back home. The mother and father had gone out to a party, so Kuan and I went for a walk. I went into a convience store, and bought my first Taiwanese beer. "Taiwan Gold Medal" The name reminded me of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and I liked it already. Kuan told me there is no open container law in Taiwan so I drank it on the way home. Basically I think it is PBR's Taiwanese little brother. For instance, they both advertise an award that is not only meaningless, but that they won in the distant past, and they are both cheap and delicious.

After a while the parents came home, and we all watched TV for a bit before bed.