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.

334 Hours in Taipei, Taiwan

A couple days ago, The New York Times published an article entitled 36 Hours in Taipei, Taiwan. At first, I was happy to see that they were writing about Taiwan -- I mean, for once, they have an article about a place that I've been to already! But when we finished reading, Chris and I very smugly concluded that our trip was way more amazing and fun than theirs. I tried to be fair, pointing out that the New York Times only had 36 hours to explore, compared to our 15 days. But Chris responded: "Don't you think that every 36-hour period we spent in Taiwan was better than theirs?" Well, he has a good point.

So here goes -- I'll try to summarize all the great things we did, thanks to my super-generous relatives who showed us around tons of charming places that weren't even in our tour book. We took tons of pictures -- feel free to browse!

http://picasaweb.google.com/jenn.c.taylor/TripToTaiwan

(Note: The one unfortunate thing about this blog post is that since I can't read Chinese, I don't know the names of a lot of the restaurants we went to. At the time, we were thinking, "who cares about names when there's so much delicious food to be snarfed?" But I'm hoping I can come back and fill the names eventually.)

Flying to Taiwan

I typically hate flying, so I was apprehensive about this 14-hour flight. But with the help of a tube of Airborne tablets and a new book that Colette recommended (The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri), the flight went surprisingly well. Chris read Obama's Audacity of Hope, which he also said he enjoyed. In the end, the most annoying thing about the flight was pretty mild -- EVA Airlines had this endlessly looping screensaver/cartoon featuring a crazy-looking cross-eyed mouse, who floated around the screen amongst waving strings of firecrackers -- all to the background of some loud Asian drum-bangy music. It later dawned on me (duh) that the mouse symbolized the Year of the Rat, and even later, I learned from my cousin that the music was traditional Chinese New Year's celebration music. Throughout our two-week visit, we would see many many more rat statues, firecrackers, and drums, so I guess it was good for the airline to start indoctrinating us early!

When we finally arrived in Taipei, we found immigration and customs to be fairly easy. There were even friendly "quarantine beagles" on duty. (Note how all the signs have English translations, what a relief!)



Since it was fairly late at night when we landed (11 p.m.), I was really touched to find that all my cousins (three car-fuls of people, I think) came to greet us! I hadn't seen most of my relatives for six years, so it was great to see everyone, and I even surprised myself at how much Chinese I remembered, having also not spoken Chinese for six years. Of course, speaking Chinese still doesn't come easily to me... It's a lot like playing a constant game of Taboo. My vocabulary isn't very good, so I frequently resort to conveying concepts with analogies, stories, and other terribly roundabout phrases. It's definitely an interesting exercise. Luckily, my dad was around to help translate a lot of the time!

I didn't end up teaching Chris much Chinese, since he claims that the tones are really hard to hear. But he did learn a few obligatory phrases like: "ni hao" (hello), "xin nian kuai le!" (happy new year!), "hen hao chi" (mmm, very tasty), and "xie xie" (thank you). All very cute.

Anyways, to continue the story, we were soon driven to our hotel, the Grand Hyatt Taipei. We chose this hotel because it was really close to Taipei 101 (where Google's Taipei office is), and it seemed like a trendy neighborhood, with lots of parks and malls. The cost was comparable to what we'd expect for some average hotel in the center of New York or Boston, but we got some raised eyebrows from my relatives when we told them where we were staying. Later, we found out that most things in Taiwan are pretty cheap compared to the U.S. (more examples later), and our tour book mentioned that the Hyatt was where you stay "when your company is sending you on a trip and the stock is doing very well". Haha, oops. But we did like the hotel a lot. Three things were especially interesting to Chris:

1. Centrally controlled light switches! There was a panel of buttons on my nightstand clearly labeled "desk," "hall," "bedside," etc. where I could control the entire suite's lights! Plus, by the door, there was a "master switch" that you could hit to turn off all the lights at once as you were heading out. Very useful. Seriously why don't we have these here? The closest thing I can think of is "The Clapper" (you know, that lame "clap on clap off" thing).
2. There was a special note on our desk, telling us where to go to watch the Super Bowl the next morning. Chris had been worried sick that he would miss the Super Bowl and his precious Patriots, because American football isn't popular enough in Taiwan to be broadcast on normal TV channels. So finding this note was definitely a "delight the customer moment". (If I were running a hotel, I would never think to send such a note. But then again, I don't really like football.)
   
3. His head touched the ceiling. No tiptoes or anything:

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Well, here ends Day 1 of our Trip to Taiwan. And unfortunately, it's also the end of my blogging for the day, since it's almost midnight. Stay tuned! Many more stories to share!

Don't Just Google!

I know I promised to put up MRI files and Taiwan photos... And I know that I can no longer blame my laziness on jetlag... But I'm optimistic that I'll get to it all this weekend! (No, really!) In the meantime, I am sitting in front of the TV and idly surfing email and political news (yes we can!).

In one of the emails, I learned that my high school might abandon its AP Literature and AP Language programs due to low enrollment. I had heard from various people that Hart wasn't doing so well these days, but both these classes were really amazing, and this news seems very sad to me. The English department was one of Hart's greatest strengths (okay, after football, football, and football, but still). Once we all went off to college, one thing we all agreed on, year after year, is that the Hart English department did a fantastic job of preparing us.

Anyways, I'm not sure what will happen with this, but I tried to read the school newsletter to find out more. Instead, I got completely sidetracked by a blurb in the Library News section, entitled "Don't Just Google" (and please note that all the bolding is theirs):

According to Esther Grassian, librarian at UCLA, professors are denying the use of search engines such as Yahoo, Alta Vista, and Google. Instead, they are limiting students’ research to books on reserve in the library and licensed databases. WHY?
1. Search engines rob students of the skills needed to conduct research.
2. Information retrieved from the Internet is not authoritative.
3. Students must be able to conduct research on their own.

It emphasized the importance of being "Lifelong Learners" (bolding and capitalization still theirs) and using sources such as something called "ProQuest Sirs Knowledge Source" instead of search engines. (Has anyone even heard of that?)

I was especially amused that they put AltaVista up there. When was the last time AltaVista was more popular than Google? Maybe someone's lifelong learning stopped a decade ago? Anyways, when I walk into my cube tomorrow, I will think about how I am actually robbing the students.

Bankart Repair

As many of you know, I have been periodically dislocating my right shoulder since I was 12. It's popped out of the socket probably a half dozen times, and it almost always happens on a tennis court when I try to serve.

Last summer, Chris and I started taking private tennis lessons with super-awesome Coach Rick at the Sunnyvale Tennis Center, and we were having a great time, making great progress especially on ground strokes and volleys. But at some point, we had to start working on serves, and unfortunately, I dislocated it again. Poo. Now, this is the most painful thing I've ever experienced, and it took a long time to slide back in this time. In fact, we'd given up and were on our way to the ER when we drove over a big speed bump that jarred it gruesomely back into place.

So I did some research and found that there's an 80% chance that I would re-dislocate it, even with physical therapy and strengthening exercises. This, of course, sounds totally believable considering my history. I eventually got an MRI, which showed that there was a tear in the labrum, making it much easier for the arm to slip out of the socket. My doctor, Dr. Theodore Bucklin, was nice enough to let me have a CD of the MRI images, and hopefully I can share those at some point. He recommended arthroscopic surgery to repair it. It's called a Bankart repair.

Well, today is the 10th day since I had the surgery, and I'm happy to say that things seem to be going well! I took the sling off, just one day after the surgery, and I could bend my arm at the elbow and let the arm "dangle" limply from the socket. (Yeah, incredible feat of athleticism, go Jenn. Woohoo.)

On Thursday, I started physical therapy, and I got a bunch more exercises to do. There's the "pendulum" where I do more aggressive dangling -- this one's easy. Then there's the one where I use my good arm to lift the bad arm to 90 degrees, straight in front of me, parallel to the ground if I'm standing. That one's pretty easy too, although it gets painful if I haven't taken enough painkillers and there's a lot of swelling.

The REAL bitch is the "external rotation" exercise. Think of the sort of rotation that happens when you're arm wrestling and you're losing. Now, that's uncomfortable even in normal circumstances, but my goal is to make it to a piddly 30 degrees in the next six weeks. (That's 30 degrees from *vertical*, btw.) Sadly, even if I push really hard, I can only make it to 10 degrees, on a *good* day. I guess this is not terrible progress considering how I couldn't even get *vertical* on the first day of therapy. But I have such a long way to go...sigh.

On the brighter side, as a birthday present, I realized I could type with both hands again!! I'm pretty excited about this. One-handed typing is sooooo awful. But Chris is being super nice and helpful. He makes all sorts of yummy food and I'm apparently off the hook for all the chores (yesss!). (Thaaaaank you Chris!)

Hopefully I can just stay motivated enough to keep up with these exercises. I'm watching the Australian Open raptly as an extra reminder of how good it's gonna be when I get my arm back.

Well. Okay. Not that good. But a little closer. :-)

Next milestone: Sutures come out on Thursday!

A Christmas Letter (The Lazy Way)

Over the last couple of weeks, we've gotten nice Christmas cards and Christmas letters from various friends and relatives, so Chris and I thought, maybe we should write something too. Of course, tomorrow is Christmas Eve, so it's a little late to send real mail...so we'll settle for making a blog post. :-)

Truth be told, while we feel guilty for not blogging more often, we're also pretty boring these days, so you're not missing too much. We basically spend most of our time at Google, happily eating and/or working. When we're not eating or working, we tend to play video games or play with our crazy sneaky cats.

Here's a picture of us playing with both cats and video games at the same time. In the picture below, Caprice is doing battle with Bowser as we play Super Paper Mario on the Wii):


In other cat news, both Caprice and Honey have figured out how to climb our CD case. This wouldn't be so bad, except that the door frame you see in the background is the door to our bedroom. When we wake up and open the door in the morning, it's...well, a little startling...to have two starving attack cats at head-level <bat bat bat>.


Recently, I caved to Chris's constant pining for an XBox 360 and got him one for his birthday. We finished playing Assassin's Creed and just started playing Mass Effect, which is made by the same people who make Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR). (By the way, KOTOR is one of our favorite games, because Chris gets to kill people with a light saber and I at least get a smarmy love story.)

Once a month, we find enough motivation to wash some dishes or do some laundry, but I'm sure you don't want to hear about that. (Especially the "once a month" part.) But if you want evidence, here's a picture of me in my Halloween costume, with the kitchen in the background:

Q: Can you guess what I'm trying to be for Halloween? (Hint: My pony tail is trying to have a white tip, which you can see if you look really carefully. The blue clothes are also not an accident.) Answer at the bottom if you really can't guess.

That's about it for our hobbies.

I guess we did do some traveling over the past few months, but nothing too exotic:

Los Angeles: We went to LA twice to visit friends and parents. Here's a picture of a lovely dessert we had on the 3rd Street Promenade (tempura banana split with plum, lychee, and green tea sorbet) -- soooooo delicious:

Folsom, CA: We finally made it out to visit our good friend Shar. (Yay for apple farms!)

San Diego, CA: We visited Chris's best man and saw lots of good stuff (and ate lots of decadent desserts) in SD. We saw the Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit and also toured the amazing San Diego Zoo. The pandas were especially awesome. Usually they're just lazing around in their little caves, but we were lucky enough to be there when one of them was literally bouncing off the walls. They're surprisingly clumsy (but ohhh so cute)! Here's a picture of one falling out of a tree:

Here's a sickeningly cute picture of a bunch of meerkats. See the baby in the front? I just couldn't resist sharing it:

More San Diego pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jenn.c.taylor/SanDiegoVisit

Maui, HI: Last but not least, Google sent us to Maui for a few days. Awesome right?! We went on a great hike (which thoroughly convinced me that I need to work out more), we saw some beautiful beautiful fishes at Molokini Crater (clearest water I have EVER gone swimming in, by far), and we had some great Jenga games where every finger tremble and every moment of tower-teetering was snapped a thousand times by the Google paparazzi (i.e. several dozen engineers who have photography and fancy cameras as their primary hobby).

Here's us at a luau:

So, that's most of what we've been doing for the last half of the year. Life is great and we couldn't be happier! We hope to visit more people next year, and already have plans to go to Taiwan (February, for Chinese New Year's), Indian Wells, CA (to see Roger Federer play, fingers crossed), and Providence (to see Jessica graduate). In the meantime happy holidays to everyone, and please ping us if you're ever in the Bay Area!

P.S. The answer for the Halloween costume: Firefox. I know, I'm a dork. :-)