Super Bowl XLII and Taipei 101

We started our vacation with zero plans for what we wanted to do. Our calendar was completely and refreshingly blank. Except, of course, for the Super Bowl. That was the one thing that Chris insisted we absolutely HAD to do while we were in Taiwan. Sigh. Way to be adventurous and experience new things, right?

Kickoff was at 7 a.m. local time. The Hyatt had an impressive lobby set up with multiple projection screens to show the game. They also poured us endless refills of soothing hot tea. Sadly, the entire broadcast was in Chinese, so there were no hilarious Super Bowl commercials to make fun of. So I guess, in the end, it did turn out to be a somewhat special only-in-Asia type of experience. I mean, I watched an entire NFL football game without seeing a single Budweiser frog/horse or Coors ice train/stupid mock press conference. When will that ever happen again?

Taipei 101

After the game ended, Chris was gloomy because the Patriots lost, and I was totally spazzing out, doubtless from the endless refills of highly-caffeinated, not-so-soothing-after-all, hot tea. But my aunt and my cousin Chian-Chian soon cheered us up and took us to Taipei 101, currently the tallest building in the world. (It will soon be overtaken by a new building in Dubai, when that's finished.)

Taiwan, like Japan, is in the Pacific "Ring of Fire" and therefore has a lot of earthquakes. And if that isn't enough to scare you, Taiwan also sees plenty of tropical typhoons, which (allegedly) cause the tops of tall buildings to sway freakily with the wind. So given the conditions, I thought it was very...um, gutsy...of them to have built this very tall and impressive skyscraper. I was not particularly reassured when my aunt explained that there was a "big rock" hanging from the top of the building, ostensibly to stabilize the it from the natural disasters I just mentioned. Now, I'm imagining this giant boulder, hanging by a string from the ceiling of the building -- exactly last thing I would want dangling over my head, should the building ever start to shake violently.

But it turns out that it's true, and we have a picture to prove it! Funny thing about words -- the explanation sounds so much more believable and reassuring when you call it a "damper" instead of a "big rock". By the way, "big rock" just happened to be the lowest common denominator of what my aunt could explain and what I could understand. I think she tried a half dozen explanations, until she gave up and just said "okay it's kind of like a big rock".

Besides the damper, Taipei 101 boasts the world's fastest elevator, reaching speeds of over 37 mph. Let me tell you, that caused some serious ear-popping.

Here's a picture of us standing at the top of Taipei 101 (I forget exactly which floor) with a picture of Taipei 101. It was too foggy to get a real picture of the building. This made for a somewhat obscured view from the top too, as you can see from the window:


One of my best memories of Taipei 101 was one we didn't even experience in person. This is a video of what they did to celebrate real New Year's Eve (i.e. December 31, 2007). Pretty friggin' fantastic! Chris kept wishing we could have seen it, since they have posters of the fireworks posted all over the city. But sadly, they may never do it again because they will no longer be the world's tallest building by the end of this year.



But wait! Our day's not over yet! Next, we visited Dihua Street, a very busy and festive street, full of people selling crazy goodies for Chinese New Year's. This is what it looked like from Chris's perspective:


Yes, Chris is tall:

We tried samples of all sorts of neat snacks. So far, our Adventures in Food included:

• Drunken chicken.
• Crispy salted whole shrimps. We ate the heads, eyeballs, whiskers, legs, tails, shells, and everything. I really liked these, mmm. Chris, not so much, haha.
• Little candied tomatoes on a stick. But they weren't dipped in caramel or syrup like on a candied apple. It was more like a tomato with a thin coating/shell of crunchy lollipop goodness on the outside. You buy them four at a time on a little shish-kebab stick. They're bigger than cherry tomatoes -- just big enough that you struggle to get it in your mouth all at once and chew it without making a mess. I tried eating one in two bites, but much like sushi, that creates an even bigger mess. I'm gonna miss those things!
• Dried squid.
• "Grape wine". At least that's how I translated it. I was confused because I thought all wine was made out of grapes. This tasted like normal wine, perhaps mixed with grape juice, or something else really sweet.
• Hot ginger pickled prune juice. (I think...)
• Green plums. Actually we ate several fruits called "plums". These plums were shaped like little footballs, and they were actually a lot like apples. They were green like Granny Smith applies, and the texture was quite crunchy.

Afterwards, we went to my grandmother and grandfather's house (on my mom's side) for a delicious dinner. From left to right, my grandmother, me, Chris, my grandfather, dad, and my aunt.