This Monday

Taiwan, Seoul, Shanghai

Here is a very long post of my trip. There are more pictures and less words further down the post, I promise.


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The flight to Taiwan was SO turbulent, that I resigned to myself early in the flight not to panic. But SHEESH United needs to get some new planes. However, I had a window seat in a two person only aisle, and the man who sat next to me was very nice. We chatted quite a bit.

Taiwan people think I am luggage. This might be an overstatement. It's not that they think I am luggage, it's that they like to throw tourists around. When I was on the flight, and they passed out meals, they threw them onto our trays! It was as if they were running down the aisles and hoping the items they tossed at us would land in the right place!

Once we landed, and I got through customs (thank goodness the equipment my company sells that was in my luggage didn't look enough like a bomb to get me into trouble), I had to find the person who was picking me up. There were all these signs with people's names on them, in both Chinese and English characters. I didn't see my name on any of them. Finally, I saw a guy pointing at me. He figured out I must be me probably because I was the only single confused looking white chick coming out of the international terminal.

So, he took my bags, and ran out to the street, told me to wait, 3 seconds later came back, threw my bags into the car, and then helped me get into the car! So 1 minute after leaving the terminal, I was in a taxi. I actually didn't have time to confirm the taxi was taking me to the right place! When we got to the hotel, I emerged from the taxi, and three people were surrounding me: one with my bags, one holding the door, and one hurriedly pointing to me that I needed to go through the door. Once I did, I was told to sit down, and sign something. Next, I was thrown into the elevator. I went to my floor, and my bags were there waiting for me. I had forgotten about those since, oh, the airport.

Jet lag made me a little cold and shaky, so I decided to go to bed instead of having dinner (it was 10pm). At 1 am, one of my sales reps from the US called me. It was then I learned my work phone worked internationally! I then spent the rest of the night dreaming that Nemanja was no longer with us, and I was marrying the emperor of China. Except first, I had to attend the marriage of his sister in law, who was Indian. I was in the wedding party, wearing a yellow lengha. So was Devin. And no one told me what time to be ready, so my makeup was terrible. Fortunately, there was time for Devin's mom to fix me up. But I digress.

So, I woke up at 6:30 am and had breakfast at the hotel. My hosts for the first two days in Taiwan picked me up. I learned that Taiwan traffic is horrifying. Everyone rides motor scooters, and basically the cars and the motor scooters play chicken with each other to see who gets to control the lane. And cars drive as close together as possible. If the cars aren't touching, then there is space. I couldn't believe it. Does everyone drive terrible except America? Oh also, you have to do at least one random U turn in a major street to get wherever you are going for some reason.

This is a picture of my host's car. He is a grown man, but has snoopy and Shrek toys all over his car. Everyone in Taiwan has to have charms and cartoons hanging off everything. (I broke down and got a cell phone charm in Korea.) And yes, there is a TV on the back of the seat in front of me.



Oh, Taiwan’s Starbucks rating? (How long into the country does it take for me to see a Starbucks) I landed at night on Monday, and saw my first Starbucks at 9:20am the next morning.

At the office of the company I was visiting, I talked in broken English for several hours, then we went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. They were SO concerned that I would feel forced to eat with chopsticks. I was like "I'm freaking going to eat with chopsticks." They looked very concerned (and actually, one woman watched me eat my entire meal. She had such a sad look on her face the entire time. At the end of the day, she described me as "cute." I have no idea why she said that. I had just given her a 40 minutes presentation on the technology of digital imaging.)

Back to the meal. They gave us a tiny bowl of rice, and a tiny plate. I watched what others did, and followed them. First they took the common spoon, and took a small amount of the food from the common bowl, and put it on their mound of rice. I did this too. My food fell off my mound of rice. Some stayed on, so I decided to eat that. Then the rice started falling off the mound. At this point, the waitress gave me a spoon and a fork. Then, one of my hosts took my bowl from me and divided the rice into two bowls, all the while saying "the rice is too high." So, with my rice separated into two bowls, I could safely eat with my chopsticks.

The first dish was gross and was like mushrooms and smelly fish. Everything else was great! Eggplant, sweet potato, tofu with spicy stuff, more tofu, and most everything was fried. I didn't eat the creepy looking whole fish, but I did eat this really good sticky bun type thing. No one knew enough English to explain what I was eating.

I couldn't believe how many motor scooters there were everywhere. My hosts made me sit on a random bike in the street so they could take my picture.
At the end of the work day, one woman took the cab back to the hotel with me. Not because she lives near the hotel, but because she wanted to make sure I made it safely. Apparently everyone is really worried about taxi safety in Taiwan. I then decided to take a walk, even though I was exhausted. I wanted to see these "night markets" that everyone was talking about.


I didn't think the night markets started until 7pm, but I decided I would at least scout out the area, being it was only 5pm. So, I grabbed a map, and just started walking. I passed lots of motor scooters, small markets, jade stores, and then in the middle of a busy street, a Chinese temple! It was amazingly beautiful. People were standing outside holding incense. It was really amazing, and unlike anything I had ever seen in person.


The temple.

I kept walking, and found a night market! It was SO COOL. People had stands of food in the middle of the street, where they would cook things to order for you. Some places had very long lines out the door. Everyone says in Taiwan, you eat where there is a long line. Whatever the line is for, just get in it! But I was not feeling adventurous, so I just kept walking. I found an alley, which was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Baby clothes were sold in booths next to jewelry, next to bras, which was next to the place that sold cages of live chickens, which was next to the place that sold fashionable women's clothes, which was next to a place that just had raw cut up meat on a table, next to a place that would do your nails. I've never seen anything like it! I kept singing that Cure song "just like heaven" because it was to a shopper like me who loves to see as much random stuff thrown together as possible.


The small traditional "night market" near my hotel.

I didn't buy anything, because I still needed to figure out the conversion rate. And their certainly was a lot of crap. And I'm not buying a chicken.

Me in front of a park. If you look very closely, you can see Taipei 101 in the background.

One thing I found on my trip was that because I didn’t speak the dominant language, most of the time if I wasn’t the one talking, I had no idea what was going on. For example, the second day of my trip, my hosts told me we were going to “make presentation” to the customer. I said, great, I’ll support you however I can. They looked at my blankly. When we get to the customer site, they look at me, expectantly. Apparently I am supposed to make presentation!!! Thanks goodness I had one we could use, and so I calmly gave a 40 minute presentation to a customer. Actually, I wasn’t so calm in the beginning. When we first connected my laptop to the projector, I almost threw up.

My hosts took me on a walking tour of Taipei 101 for lunch. Taipei 101 is the world’s tallest building (soon to be outdone by a building in Dubai) but the area around it is filled with shopping malls. Mostly really expensive shopping malls. There is also a section called “New York New York” with a fake statue of liberty, a Starbucks, and a Cold Stone.

On Thursday, I switched hosts in Taiwan, and went to work with another company. The highlight of my time with Peggy, my new host, was that she made sure I had milk tea with pearls both days I was with her.

Me holding my milk tea during a break in the training. This really was the highlight of my trip to Taiwan. One day, my milk tea had pearls, pudding and lemon grass jello. She says that in Taiwan, they like to put many things in their milk tea.

A milk tea selling place. I'm so excited. I love milk tea.

I did have a short visit to the Shilin night market. This is one of the biggest night markets in Taiwan. It was very close to my hotel, but it still took half an hour to get there by taxi. Did I mention that Taiwan has more traffic than any place I’ve ever seen? It’s always rush hour in Taiwan.

A picture of the Shilin night market.
At the Shilin night market, I had a great time just walking around looking at all the super cheap stuff. It was fantastic, and I bought several things. I only stayed for a short while because I was still feeling jet lagged.

Saturday, I flew to S Korea. Only a two hour flight, so no big deal. After I made the exact facial expression on my passport photo so that the customs agent believed it was me, I was let into the country. I took a bus to my hotel. I was getting a little worried when I realized all the other hotels on my bus line were fancy hotels like the Ritz-Carlton. It took about 90 minutes to get to my hotel (South Korea Starbucks rating: 50 minutes after I entered country, saw Starbucks), and when I got there, I was extremely surprised. I was staying a luxury hotel. With a luxury price. Whoops. I was so terrified of spending more money at that hotel that I didn’t even look at the mini bar.

I had dinner at the Coex mall, a giant mall next to my hotel. With a giant food court. I had beef broth noodle soup, with kimchi of course.

The next day my host, JM, took me around Korea. He was so kind. First, he introduced me to the fabulous Korean traffic. Soo much traffic. Then we went to a Palace.

Korea loves its national treasures. Talking about national treasures and the lack of national resources seems to be a pastime for Koreans. This is national treasure number 244.

I really loved the mountains in the distance. Korea was just so beautiful. These pictures don’t do it justice.

Mountains in the distance. There was also a museum that featured very old Korean art. It also gave a history of how Korea developed, including the influence of China and Japan on Korean history. Mostly, though, I enjoyed the display and video of how to make kimchi.

Diorama of people making kimchi.

More pictures from the Palace and the museum.

The guardian of the year of the goat in which I was born in (I always thought it was a sheep, but this said goat.)

He took me to a fabulous lunch. I’m not sure what I ate, but here is a picture of the menu.

Make sure to read the story of the restaurant that is translated into English. Our totally cool meal. The restaurant is possibly in Insadong.
Our dessert drink has a nut floating in it to remind you to drink slowly. Apparently this is based on some folk tale.

I loved Korea, because it was so modern yet so different. Just watching these people get ready for their elections struck me as so different than from the US. And everyone was just so kind to me.

Heading over the Shanghai was almost a relief, however. I was starting to get lonely, and wanted to go back to the US! But only a little. I think I would have been more adventurous in each country if I was more prepared for the work part of my trip. Making presentations instead of seeing the country sometimes is necessary.

Unfortunately, in Shanghai, I was basically staying in an industrial park. I asked the hotel if there was someplace I could walk to get lunch once I arrived. They said no.

Training went well on Thursday, and Thursday night they took me out to a traditional family style Chinese dinner for all 15 of us. (Starbucks rating: 24 hours in the country before I saw a Starbucks! I told you my hotel was in a boring part of town) Once again, what struck me is how everyone basically ate out of the same dish. We had all kinds of food, but honestly I wasn't particularly excited about anything but the noodles we had. But everyone made fun of me eating the noodles with my chopsticks (it was awful. I would grab some, and half made it onto my plate, half onto the table. My hosts would then help me with their chopsticks to get food on my plate. While everyone else watched. It was pretty funny, in retrospect).

After Friday's training, I was relieved all the work was done! I was so excited the next day to go shopping in Shanghai.

My host for my day of shopping was a lovely woman my age who loved to shop. Our day out started with a very long taxi ride to the interesting part of Shanghai (which was not where my hotel was). The first place we visited was a church.

This church was a very important part of my shopping experience.

Once we entered the church, where people were decorating for Christmas, we walked to an elevator in the back.

The elevator is the green door in the background. Once we took the elevator to the third floor, walked down a hall, and knocked on an unmarked door, we were let into a tiny room filled with.... fake designer handbags! It was awesome! Prada purses for $60, Gucci bags for $50!!! This was true Shanghai local shopping. The only drawback was that I couldn't find a purse I liked!! I ended up buying a great Gucci belt and a Hermes wallet I just LOVE. It was so great.

For the next couple of hours, we shopping in all these fabulous little boutiques that had great clothes. The clothes weren't cheap, but they were cheap for the style and the quality. However, I just couldn't commit to anything. I think the clothes were just so much more stylish than anything I've ever purchased before, I didn't know where to begin! We also looked at shoes. Sadly, I couldn't find shoes that fit me that well, and it was really tragic because they were $10 a pair! For nice shoes!

After shopping, my host took my to lunch in the "tourist" section of Shanghai. Apparently, it's the only place you can find cool looking buildings.

Isn't this a cool building? It sells crap for tourists. Seriously. For lunch, we went to a sticky bun place. It was really complicated to eat the sticky bunds. First, you put them on your spoon with your chopsticks. Then you lift the spoon to your mouth while holding the sticky bun with your chopsticks. Then you bit the edge of the bun and suck the juice out. Then you eat it both with the spoon and the chopsticks. I think I need to conclude that I made eating a lot harder than it really was while in Asia because I was trying to eat exactly like the locals. Probably I could have figured out a way to eat that would have made slightly less of a mess in each country.

Food. Mmmm.


Overall, it was a great trip. I learned so much about doing business in Asia, made some important business contacts, developed a really good training program, and learned about market trends to help my company predict growth in 2008.

More importantly, in 2005 I told myself that I was going to start leaving the country more often, and went out and got my passport renewed. I made a promise to myself that I would go somewhere interesting outside of the US at least once a year. In 2007, I visited 5 countries in Asia, and 1 country in Europe, and spend a total of 4 and a half weeks outside of the US. I kept my promise to myself.

Hanging in Shanghai.


Finally, one of my favorite parts of Asia: The vending machines. I take pictures of them wherever I go in Asia.

posted by This Monday Morning @ 10:24 PM