I was sitting there at my desk lost in my own writer’s world and furiously typing away, when the front door burst open.

‘OMG LOOK WHAT I HAVE!’

My girlfriend slammed down what appeared to be an A3 cardboard design of some sorts and I looked down at it, slightly confused.

‘So uh… what’s that?’

‘It’s a dragon lantern, duh.’

Looking harder I began to make out the design, no mean feat considering the array of distracting rainbow colors. There was a small image in one of the corners of the packaging depicting what looked to be a some kind of dragon lantern.

Although how that sheet of A3 turned into the dragon lantern depicted, I had no idea.

‘So uh… good luck with that’, secretly hoping that assembling seemingly impossibly complex models of paper dragons was something my girlfriend was passionate about.

Of course she wasn’t…

‘What?! Don’t just sit there, you’re going to make it for me! Do you know how long I had to wait in line to get this?!’

Realising my writing efforts for the day were done I put the laptop into standby and took a closer look at the lantern.

‘Alright Oz, what have you gotten yourself into this time…‘

Designed by Taipei City government, the instructions for the dragon lantern were mostly useless (to me).

Written in Chinese and with the diagram not really making much sense, I set the instructions aside and began to carefully start punching out whatever bits of cardboard came free.

I was under immense pressure seeing as fucking this lantern up would bring down a wrath I wouldn’t hear the end of for weeks to come. Only adding to the pressure was the fact that the entire lantern, barring the included LED (which I had no idea what to do with) was made of paper.

One mistake, one tear, one incorrect fold… and it was all over red rover.

Thankfully my girlfriend left me on my own and as I became satisfied that I’d unfolded as much of the cardboard as I could, I started to assemble the various flaps.

Thankfully these were numbered in English and weren’t too difficult to work out. Although along the way I kept finding bits of cardboard that had to be popped out which I’d missed earlier.

Eventually I had something that vaguely resembled the body of a dragon.

Although I still had no idea how the head and what I thought were wings attached to the body.

Carefully pressing on, I then learnt that thankfully there wasn’t all that much to folding the head (2 flaps) and that it was only a single flap that attached it to the body.

Getting all the bits on the head to stick out (whiskers, eyes etc.) was a bit of a challenge. And it wasn’t until I’d sat there staring at my rather flat head for 5 minutes that I realised there was a bit at the back that needed to be folded in order for the head to stand upright.

After looking at what I thought was originally some kind of wings for the back of the dragon and wondering how they attached, I then  realised that they weren’t wings at all but rather a handle to hold the lantern from.

Carefully folding the handle I finally began to have  something that resembled a pretty decent looking attempt at a dragon lantern, well at least I thought so.

Attaching the handle was simply a matter of pushing an additional two flaps through and before I knew it, I was done.

Well, except that I still had no idea where the LED was supposed to go. Originally figuring it was supposed to go behind the head somewhere, I finally gave up on that idea and it was then that I spotted a square flap on the underside of the dragon that I hadn’t popped out.

Pushing the little LED light through my dragon’s bumhole… we then had liftoff.

Marching triumphantly into the bedroom I woke my girlfriend up from her nap and declared the deed done.

Take that Taipei City Government. Thought you could confuse me with your complex dragon lantern designs and lack of English instructions?

JOKE’S ON YOU SUCKERS!

‘So… what now?’

‘Now we take it out to the lantern festival celebrations tonight…’

My heart froze.

‘…what?’

‘Don’t you know anything? Tonight we’ll take it out and see the big dragon lanterns they’ve set up!’

‘Wait, you’re going to make me take out my crappy little attempt at a paper dragon and show it off with all the Taiwanese made paper dragons!?

‘Yup.’

‘EVERYONE IS GOING TO LAUGH AT ME!’

As images of my dragon being laughed into the nearest trash can when it went up against custom dragon lanterns fitted with CPU fans (to make them fly) and programmable LED light displays (because the included LED just wasn’t enough) flashing through my mind… I trundled back into the lounge room to go over the lantern one last time to make sure there was nothing I’d forgotten to pop out or secure properly.

About an hour and a half spent on it in total, the dragon lantern is now sitting calmly on my TV stand… tonight it goes into battle.

Although I suppose it’s still not too late to have a last-minute accident. Maybe Leela can somehow manage to drag it off the stand and rip it to shreds… or perhaps I can have an “accident”, falling over and squashing it.

I’ve still got a few hours up my sleeve…

What Ximending is to young adults and fashion in Taipei, Shida Nightmarket is to food. There’s plenty to eat here and it’s priced for university students. Unfortunately the same can’t be said about most of the shopfronts there, with a lack of vendors in favour of more traditional boutique shopfronts slowly taking over.

Away from the main strip that serves as the main nightmarket area, you’ve also got a bunch of side streets offering a more cafe/restaurant environment for those wishing to escape the nightmarket crowds.

That said, the nightmarket area retains most of its urban culture and is one of the “warmest” nightmarkets I’ve been to in Taiwan.

Well, not if the Taipei City Government and cranky residents of the surrounding area have their way.

Citing some bullshit Taiwanese law that states ‘restaurants are not allowed within a radius of 8 meters from residential buildings‘ (that makes what, nearly every eatery in Taiwan illegal?), the residents of Lane 13 Pucheng Street in the Shida Night Market area petitioned the local government do so something about the noise Lane 13 was generating.

Shortly before the turn of the year, the city government, at the request of long-suffering local residents who organized themselves into a “self-relief association, medium-sized demolition vehicles struck down the signs, neon or otherwise, of the “exotic” eateries lining (Lane 13 Pucheng St).

The lane, which has over time become a hub of international cuisine (Korean, Indian, Malaysian, Thai, Tibetan are just some of the countries represented), is now under threat as the government has hinted that removing the signs is only the first step in the complete removal of business there.

The signs are the first to go, and the evictions of the businesses cannot be ruled out, the owners of the eateries were told.

Whilst the eateries sit on the borders of what can be constituted Shida Nightmarket, it appears the government is escalating a growing desire to eradicate Shida Nightmarket altogether.

Following a protest by residents of the area in October last year , Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) announced that ‘no further expansion of the Shida Night Market would be permitted‘.

Recently however the first shots appear to have been fired with Taipei City Government removing the words ‘Shida Night Market’ altogether from the nearby Taipower Building MRT station (the main public transport entry/exit point for the nightmarket).

The ‘Longquan Market’ that Shida Nightmarket has been replaced with, is from what I understand a regular run-of-the-mill Taiwanese daytime grocery market. These markets are a dime-a-dozen in Taiwan and why this needs a mention as a local attraction escapes me.

It’s a bit like listing Walmart in a tourist guide.

The removal of Shida Night Market from the TaiPower MRT station signage was apparently done in response to yet another petition filed by locals. In addition the petition requests that the government

remove the name ‘Shida Night Market’ from all official bulletin boards, road navigations (signs), tourist brochures and  even bus stops.

All traces of Shida Nightmarket have also apparently been removed from the Taipei City Government Tourism website.

This appears to have been done in response to yet another petition filed by local residents. In addition to the removal of ‘Shida Night Market’ from the MRT signs,

Because yeah… pretending the nightmarket doesn’t exist will fix it. I imagine once the local’s demands have been met, they’ll simply launch new petitions requesting the government take more action towards the eventual close of Shida Nightmarket altogether.

Clearly this appears to be the ultimate end-goal for local residents.

Shida Nightmarket appears to have its origins dating back to 1987 but didn’t really develop into a fully fledged nightmarket until the early 1990s.

Roughly twenty years old give or take, Shida Nightmarket is currently one of Taipei’s busiest tourist attractions, generating ‘NT$12.3 billion (US$408.6 million) in 2009, rising to NT$14.7 billion last year‘.

It’d be a shame to see Shida Nightmarket disappear just because some locals can’t play Mahjong in peace…


Additional source used: UDN (English)

Footnote: This news story uses a Chinese new source that  has not been published in English and as such I’ve done my best to translate. I’m not a fluent in Mandarin so my translations might be slightly off.

Any corrections are welcome and can be published below as a comment.

In every touristy town of Taiwan you’re inevitably bound to find an Old Street.

These Old Streets are typically like daytime night markets with a series of stores on either side of the streets hocking touristy stuff, food and any goods the area might be well-known for.

One thing I liked about Wulai’s Old Street is that rather than mess around and pretend Taiwan’s Old Streets’ age have any significance as to why people flock to them, Wulai pretty much just called its Old Street for what it is, a “Commercial Street”

I know it probably just an Engrish mistake… but still, intentionally or otherwise, respect for keeping it real.

I’ve visited Wulai’s Old Street twice now and due to Wulai’s remoteness (it’s about a thirty to forty minute drive south of Taipei City) in the mountains, it was much more pleasant after the sun went down.

During the day Wulai’s Old Street (like most Old Streets) is heavily crowded:

Whereas at nighttime it’s a much nicer stroll (although after 7′ish or so half the vendors and stores shut down):

Wulai’s Old Street starts off at the end of the a parking lot and heads towards a bridge:

They light the bridge up later in the night and it’s quite pretty to look at and walk along.

(bridge lights)

With the Old Street bridge running over a river, it’d make for a nice spot for a romantic gesture.

Foodwise you’ve got some eateries (they serve the type of food you get in the ‘$100 TWD a dish’ placed) up the carpark end and as you make your way down the Old Street there’s a bunch of fried food vendors near the bridge.

The tea eggs for sale seemed to be quite popular and with Wulai’s strong Atayal Aboriginal culture theme, there’s a bunch of shops selling Aboriginal style clothing, artifacts, jewelery and what not.

Other than the bridge at the end of the Old Street there isn’t all that much to see but the abundance of activities and sights surrounding Wulai more than make up for that.

Brilliantly simple and wonderfully comfy.

Unfortunately with this simplicity and use of natural material comes a price.

Late last year after over three years of use my Brooks saddle began to creak.

Sometimes it was a clicking noise and sometimes a creak… but it would only happen when I pedaled and it as someone who likes to ride a silent bicycle, it was driving me bonkers.

Here’s a video of the Brooks saddle creak (in the video it sounds more like a loud clicking) in action:


I’m not sure specifically where the saddle was creaking from, but armed with some Proofide (Brooks recommended treatment for the leather of the saddle), I rubbed it into a few places which seems to have thus far done the trick.

I don’t know exactly which area rubbing the Proofide into worked, so I’m just going to show you all the places I rubbed Proofide into:

Starting with the big bolt at the front, I pretty much moved onto anywhere where metal made contact with the leather.

After letting the saddle sit overnight I whacked it back onto my Long Haul Trucker’s seatpost and tentatively went for a ride.

No more creaking or clicking Brooks saddle for me!

I’ve got no idea why the saddle started to creak or how long this fix will last (touch wood a long time) but I’ll update with a rough timeline should the saddle start to creak or click again.

One of the great things about cycling around outside of Taiwan’s cities is that it doesn’t take all that much to find a gloriously scenic backdrop to enjoy with your ride.

On a recent trip to Wulai Township, situated in Taipei County just south of the Taipei City, we saddled up our bicycles and took in the sights and sounds of the road to Wulai.

The road to Wulai is technically the Xinwu Road turnoff from Provincial Highway 9 south of Xindian, listed as Provincial Highway 9A but its easier to just look for the big sign displaying the Chinese route number as shown on the right.

Route 9A is a delightful snakey ride that takes you through the mountain ranges surrounding Wulai Township and follows the Nanshi River (breaking off PeiShih River as part of the Xindian River).

On a bright sunny day, the Nanshi River views along Route 9A are amazing. At times you’re right up close to the river:

and others it’s just a vague distant memory trailing off deep into the mountains:

Along the Nanshi river you’ve also got a series of dams. I’m not entirely sure what their purpose was (flood control?) but there isn’t much agriculture around the area so it might be power generation related.

I counted three dams in total, all of which were massive.

Most of the houses along the way are your typical box buildings but there are a few gems to be seen. This one was easily my favourite:

No idea who lives there but it looked like a pretty well constructed and cozy place to live in with an unmatched view of Nanshi river.

I’m not sure if it’s to do with the hot springs of Wulai and the surrounding areas but Nanshi River had some of the bluest non-ocean water I’ve seen in Taiwan yet:

Whilst Nanshi River is a staple feature along Route 9A to Wulai, even when there’s no river to look at the brocoli looking mountains themselves are keen to prove they’re still worth taking in:

All in all Provincial Highway 9A offers a relatively easy ride into Wulai Township. There’s a few climbs but nothing serious, and the resulting downhills were loads of fun.

Traffic wise Wulai is a tourist hotspot so you do have to share the windy mountain road with cars, trucks and buses but even on a busy Saturday we didn’t have any problems.

Casual riders might find themselves balking at sharing the road with heavy traffic on some of the downhills as hitting 50km/h+ is easily achievable.

Around halfway into the journey Highway 9A passes through a small town that has a 7-11 which makes for a nice pitstop.

Distance wise you’re looking at 12-15kms from Provincial Highway 9 to Wulai on 9A and it took us about an hour and a half (with a few stops along the way and carrying a 13kg dog and pannier on the Long Haul Trucker).

Wulai Township itself is marked by a giant red bridge, of which there are three in the township that cross the river.

Heading into Wulai this is a nice long downhill stretch but heading out it’s a bit of an enduring climb, especially if you’ve spent the day on foot exploring Wulai itself… but those are stories for another time.

Back in October of last year I was lucky enough to catch a screening of one of the few places in Taiwan showing an English subtitled version of Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale.

Having quite enjoyed Seediq Bale, when I learnt that it was possible to visit the Wushe Street set and that they’d be demolishing it in early February, I decided to pay it a visit.

Located to the northeast of Linkou Township (林口) in Taipei County, the Wushe Street set was built adjacent the ‘Arrow Cinematic Group’ and their ‘Arrow Studio’.

Who knew their was a movie studio up in Linkou Township…

Note that you have to buy a ticket to enter the set and this is done from the Arrow Studio site, about 50m up the road from the actual set.

Whatever you do, don’t do what we did and take notice of the large sign next to the side of road 105 as you leave Linkou Township towards the set advising that they don’t sell tickets onsite and that you have to buy them from 7-11′s iBon machine.

After cycling four or so hours to get to the outskirts of Linkou Township, upon seeing this sign we headed to the nearest 7-11 only to find that tickets to the set were marked as ‘sold out’.

Annoyed (and wondering how tickets to an outdoor set with no fixed capacity seating could be sold out), we headed to the set anyway and it was there we found the Arrow Studio ticket booth still selling tickets.

Of course we only found this out after asking one of the entry gate staff. Otherwise there was no signage up explaining where to buy tickets from.

That little gripe aside, once inside if you ignore the hordes of people who kind of ruin the atmosphere, there was a lot to take in.

The first thing you see as you walk through the entrance gate is this house on a hill.

I’m not exactly sure what this particular building was in the movie, but inside was rather bare,

with just two mock fighting dummies set up, some speakers and a CD playing (presumably the Seediq Bale soundtrack).

Being on top of a hill, looking out you got a pretty decent view of the Wushe Street set:

Coming down from the hill house, you then entered the main Wushe Street set.

Here you had a series of houses,

the largest of which was the Japanese police station at the head of the street:

Inside you had what you’d expect to find in a Japanese police office at the time:

Towards the back of the station,

you had the police armory:

Other buildings in the Wushe Street set were quite interesting to look at too but most were empty and blocked off so you couldn’t go inside.

Note the cherry blossoms which were starting to come out. These were a big hit with the visitors and hordes of girls were lining up to force their boyfriends to take photos of them pulling silly poses infront of any tree that had blossoms.

This building housed a ‘cosplay’ rental shop:

and for about $100 TWD (~$3 USD)  you could hire out either an Aboriginal costume,

Japanese kimono,

and for the guys either officer garb or fighting clothing (dunno what the official name is):

There was also some guy doing face tattoos so you also had a bunch of people running around with Seediq style ‘I am a man’ facepaint.

This particular house stood out as out the front you had a sandal rack:

The little sandals I get, you wear them – but I have no idea what’sup with the giant sandal (1930s era humour I didn’t get?).

This wishing wall was getting some good mileage:

Although why you’d want to entrust your wishes to the movie set gods is beyond me.

A highlight for me was spotting this post office box and old bicycle:

From the vaguely bird looking decal on the front fender,

I thought I might be looking at a genuine Chinese built ‘Flying Pigeon’. It certainly looks like a bird but I was unable to track down a photo of the same fender decal so now I’m not so sure what it is.

The chainring guard was also a bit odd as it appears to be shielding the bike rather than the rider’s leg from the chainring.

The last building of interest in this area was the grocery store:

No idea if the stuff on the shelves was real or not, but they certainly played the part authenticity wise.

I believe this is where they shot the scenes with the drunk Seediq guys out the front making fun of the Aboriginal police officer dressed in Japanese clothes.

Towards the rear of the Wushe Street set you had a large open courtyard area:

I believe this is where they shot the school scenes and the battle during the athletics carnival in the movie.

The school was quite nice to walk through and thoroughly detailed:

Out the front of the school was a giant statue of Mona Rudao (looking noticeably more plump than his movie depiction):

A Japanese war cannon:

and of course various Taiwanese vendors offering your usual roast pork, sausages and fried foods:

All in all despite Linkou Township kinda being in the middle of nowhere, a visit to the Wushe Street Seediq Bale set was a pretty interesting afternoon out.

Sadly, although I suppose inevitable, after the $80 million TWD ($2.64 million USD) set closes to the public on February the 12th,

“the structures will be torn down or moved to other locations,” the Municipal Government said, adding that a final decision has not been made.

Hopefully the majority of the set finds a nice home somewhere. If the visitor numbers I saw were anything to go by it good be a nice little revenue booster for one of the local towns down south.

I imagine a shift from the nearish proximity of Taipei that Linkou offers however might reduce visitor numbers though.

Still, I think at least a few of the buildings belong in some sort of Taiwanese movie museum or something. Hopefully the government and Arrow Studious work something out.

During this time I like to take in my surroundings. The people around me, all stuffing their faces or ignoring eachother with their smart phones all offer a few moments relief from the meal at hand.

A look over at the food area rekindles any forgotten ‘oh I have to try that’ memories and a surveying of the decor itself often reveals little gems I might otherwise have missed.

Sitting in Greenness Hotpot in Banciao one night, it was there that I discovered ‘The Art of Food’:

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

Quite obviously not even in the slightest way connected food, let alone the art of it, I snapped a photo and made a mental note to investigate Greenness’ Art of Food when I got home.

A short Google search later revealed that indeed the Art of Food had nothing to do with food. Turns out Greenness’ the Art of Food was incorrectly titled and consisted of the first two verses of ‘Spring, the Sweet Spring’.

Spring, the Sweet Spring being poetic lyrics written Thomas Nashe around the year 1592 as part of the play ‘Summer’s Last Will and Testament‘.

Performed below by the Infinito Nightingales back in 2008:


With Greenness Hotpot not exactly priced to attract the patronage of the creme de la creme of Taiwanese high society, I’ll forever wonder if the appearance of Nashe’s play was intentionally included by the owner of Greenness, or merely the result of some an interior designer’s random whim.

‘A bit of high-brow English poetry with your hotpot, sir?’

‘Why thankyou*munchmunchmunch*that’d be*munchmunchmunch*splendid*munch*!’

Typically this means that even when tightened, a saddle’s railings (the metal tubes underneath a saddle) are not large enough in diameter for the saddle clamp to grip properly.

When this happens, in the most extreme of cases a saddle will freely slide up and down a seatpost clamp with ease. More likely however is that a saddle’s railings are only ever so slightly undersized and this in turn causes the saddle to ever so slightly move up and down a clamp.

This subtle movement can cause a rider no end of frustration as these subtle movements can gradually throw out a bicycle fit and cause a rider large amounts of frustration as the problem is not immediately diagnosable.

After working out a saddle is moving, it’s usually much more common to writing off a possible undersized saddle rail problem as the seatpost clamp itself moving on the seatpost.

Diagnosing a bicycle saddle sliding on its rails

To determine if a bicycle saddle is infact moving along its rails when fitted into a seatpost clamp, a simple check is all that is required.

All you need to do is mark the railings and observe them over a short period.

There are a few ways to do this but the easiest involves either some white-out (white correction fluid) or tape.


Using white-out

With the bicycle saddle fitted into the seatpost clamp, carefully mark both the outer positions of the saddle’s railings with whiteout as shown below:


Using tape

If you don’t want to mark your saddle railings, an alternative is tape. Duct tape, electrical tape, masking tape – any will do so long as you can see it clearly.

Using a ruler, place the tape roughly 1cm (or any easily measurable distance, again on the outer sides of the railings.

When using tape, it’s important not to place the tape too close the seatpost clamp itself. If the saddle is indeed slipping along its rails, placing the tape too close to the clamp might stop the saddle slipping and falsely cause you to rule out railing slippage as the problem.

To gauge whether the saddle is sliding along its rails, go on a few rides and then remeasure the position of the tape relative to the seatpost clamp, or if using white-out have a look at where the whiteout markings are.

If the distance of the white-out markings or tape has increased or decreased, you’ve accurately established that the seatpost saddle sliding along its rails is the culprit.

Fixing a seatpost that slides along its rails

The easiest solution to a bicycle saddle sliding along its rails in a seatpost clamp is to either replace the saddle or the seatpost to get a better fit.

Unfortunately this is also the most expensive option and unless you can sell the part you’re replacing, also leaves you with a useless spare (unless you have multiple bikes).

Before you go down this route, with a bit of cheap DIY it should be possible to stop your saddle slipping.

By cutting some old tyre tubing to size,

you can wrap the saddle’s rails with the tubing and then secure it with some tape.

Note that in the photo above I’ve wrapped both rails with the same bit of tape and then secured it with tape. For a more snug fit, you’d probably be better off individually wrapping both rails with separate bits of tubing and then securing them with tape.

When wrapping the railings it’s important to note that you don’t need much tubing at all to create a snug fit in the clamp and that the tubing should be wrapped tightly, free of any looseness.

One drawback of the tubing is that it can be more difficult to adjust the saddle along its railings against the clamp (you’ll need to loosen the clamp more than normal when doing fine adjustments) – to get around this simply put some whiteout on either side of the tubing to use as reference points.

After a few rides the rubber tubing will naturally compress in the clamp so you’ll probably want to slightly tighten the clamp too.

For railings that are more drastically undersized another approach is to take an aluminum can and cut off the top and bottom of the can.

Then, again cut the can vertically so that you have a sheet of aluminum can just large enough to wrap around the railings to increase their size. Note that this is a bit more fiddly as, even if secured with tape, the aluminum wrapping is more likely to move and throw out your adjustment.

Be very careful when tightening up the seatpost clamp to make sure the aluminum wrap doesn’t move along the rails. If you can, get another person to hold the saddle in place while you tighten the clamp and watch the railings.

Both of the above methods should work for most bicycle saddle and seatpost combinations out there, if they don’t – unfortunately there just might be no way around the size difference between the railings and seatpost clamp.

In this case if your happy with the saddle and comfortable in it, it’s advisable to change the seatpost and clamp rather than the saddle itself.

A favourite (and I can only presume staple) thankyou gift appears to be a box of individually wrapped cookies. By and large whilst these cookies (biscuits) usually come in a fancy box, I’ve found they’re nothing worth writing home about.

Last year I attended one particular wedding where, in addition to cookies we also got a rather strange little box.

The back of the box looked like a regular offering of ‘Moringa Adzuki Bean Caramel’ candy:

But flip the box over and you had a nice little quaint wedding gift:

Apart from the printed photo, special touches include ‘Happy Milk Caramel’ on the front (which should probably read ‘Happy wedding’ or something?) and the couple’s wedding date written underneath the barcode.

The only problem with such a gift I found was that once you’d finished the candies… you kinda felt massively guilty about throwing the box away.

Good thing I didn’t know the couple to well and had no such reservations!

But shame the candy tasted horrible.

Seriously Taiwan, you need to get over your love affair with red-bean flavoured everything… it all tastes like freaking arse!

I’m not entirely sure when 7-11 started stocking it but I’ve had my eye on a little blue can I noticed popping up in the energy drink section of their refrigerators.

A few days ago I thought what the hell and decided to try Laohu Yatzi out.

What a mistake that was.

Manufactured by O²+ Life Co., they describe Laohu Yatzi as

the drink of the 21st century.

Laohu Yatzi is refreshing and aids the body in recovering from aerobic exercise, restore lost essential vitamins and promote a sense of general well-being.

It helps to boost the body’s ability to uptake Oxygen in the body, and helps metabolism too.

Translated literally as ‘Tiger’s tooth’, I suppose O²+ Life Co. are trying to cash in on the old Chinese association with eating tiger parts and good health. By calling your drink ‘Tiger tooth’, you probably hope people will drink it for the same reason they chow down on tiger penis soup in China.

What I didn’t realise till I got home though was, despite it being clearly grouped with 7-11′s energy drink offering, Laohu Yatzi is more a sports (“aerobic”) drink.

As such it’s not fizzy!

That and it’s got a pretty mellow orange Vitamin C type flavour to it. Essentially what you wind up with is a drink that tastes like someone mixed a berocca with water, regurgitated it into a can for you and then diluted it with some more water.

I did note on the can it mentioned ‘Light’ (I couldn’t see a full-strength version anywhere), so I’m not sure if that had something to do with the appalling taste.

That said, why the hell do you need to make a ‘light’ version of a sports drink anyway?!

Laohu Yatzi Aerobic Drink – Unless you like that non-fizzy watered down Vitamin C taste, this is one drink you’ll want to pass on.

I did at some point have a radio system in there but anything more than 20 minutes of listening invariably resulted in headaches.

After I sold my Moke I bought myself a Mini and whilst that cut out a lot of the road and engine noise, I found myself preferring to listen to the sound of the engine – mostly incase anything went wrong (minis tend to have little nothing in the way of precautionary warning systems).

Once again listening to any sort of music in the car served as a distraction and brought on the headaches.

Having driven both of these cars for the better part of a decade, I guess listening to music and driving never really became ingrained into my behind-the-wheel rituals.

Here in Taiwan it’s more out of fearing for my life then listening to the engine that I still continue to shun any sort of music when I’m on the roads.

Well, that and I ride a scooter here rather than drive a car.

I know some people get by with a set of headphones and admittedly I do remember trying this once, but underneath a bulky scooter helmet found the earphones uncomfortable.

Then of course there was that disorienting feeling of if I had to cut the sound quickly to hear something I wouldn’t be able to.

A simple trip down the road in Taiwan on a scooter can bring with it all manner of near-death experiences and I figure why make driving in Taiwan any more dangerous than it has to be.

I’ve seen some scooter whizz past with some kind of on board sound system on them but honestly I dont get the point. Scooter engines are louder than the old 998cc Mini engines and due to the overall lack of security on a scooter, it’s not like you’re ever going to get anything decent hooked up anyway.

That and I’m pretty sure nobody appreciates being blasted with god awful Chinese love ballads at every red light.

Still, there does seem to be a bit of interest in on-board sound for us scooter riders out there… and I suppose apart from the annoyance in being able to hear  crappy tinny music on the road – each to their own.

Of course all that changed when I ran into this guy:

Definitely a step up from earphones under a helmet or tiny speakers DIY mounted on the scooter body – that’s one fella who wasn’t messing around.

Where dose ‘wo ai ni’ CDs at yo? Pump it.

If you’re out and about during Chinese New Year in Taiwan, chances are you’re probably going to notice an unusually greater amount of non-Taiwanese guys out and about trying to keep themselves occupied, but still looking like they’ve got nothing better to do.

For hundreds (thousands?) of Taiwanese girls every Chinese New Year heralds the difficult decision of being split between spending time with their boyfriends and family.

With the Chinese New Year banquets ranking as the most important family time on the Chinese lunar calendar, the decision on how to spend CNY weekend often boils down to

• do I spend it with my family and worry in the back of my mind that my boyfriend might get a bit lonely and have nothing to do… or
• do I spend it with my boyfriend, totally piss off my family and just deal with the repercussions later?


It’s not an easy choice any way you cut it and inherently stems from a culture that largely refuses to acknowledge or just flat out ignore the fact that young Taiwanese females have a social life.

One of the darker aspects of Taiwanese society is also the torrential undercurrent of racism, in that for some families it’s not so much that their daughter is seeing someone – but rather that they’re not Taiwanese.

‘My daughter? Together with some foreign white dog who’s only here to bang her brains out? What a slut, get out!’

Sexism also plays its part too in that almost universally should any sons of the family bring partners home (Taiwanese or otherwise), this is perfectly acceptable and nobody bats an eyelid.

In this sense it’s hard to relate the ‘foreigner boyfriend’ experience to ‘foreigner girlfriends’. They simply don’t have to jump through the same hoops we do.

No doubt there are Taiwanese couples who themselves go through something similar (albeit without the racial prejudice undertones) but the primary difference here is that both parties, barring any unusual circumstances, have families to go home to and enjoy that sense of belonging.

That’s where the species of “foreigner boyfriend” are at a complete loss.

Most of us are out here flying solo and for those first few days of Chinese New Year we can either abandon ship and go for a holiday overseas (which just makes our girlfriends feel worse), or stick around Taiwan and visit the deserted local tourist attractions (usually impossible due to the traditional rain Taiwan gets during Chinese New Year), or just bum around locally with nothing much to do (read: hang out with other temporarily dumped foreign boyfriends).

However staying in Taiwan during Chinese New Year only drives home the loneliness feeling as you get to walk around and see families everywhere spending the time together.

And if you really want it rubbed in just walk around during the evening and see everybody enjoying nice lavish family dinners together.

The smells of these feasts wafting in from the streets is intoxicatingly torturous.

There is of course one loophole, a backdoor if you will if you want to gain acceptance and experience a true family orientated Chinese New Year:

Marry your girlfriend.

For those only here for the short-term this usually isn’t an option and for those of us trying to make it for the long haul, getting married just so your girlfriend’s family decided to acknowledge you exist seems kinda silly.

Especially when you’re talking full grown adults who have well and truly left their teenage years behind them.

Still, chances are this is the game you’ll play every Chinese New Year should you find yourself dating a Taiwanese girl.

Me personally? I refuse to play the game and instead suck it up and compromise. I don’t want to be the reason (scapegoat) my girlfriend’s family decide to get pissed off at her for, nor do I let them interfere with our plans for the rest of the week.

Usually it’s the first three days that are most important to Taiwanese people (Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights) so if I don’t have plans I just try to occupy myself during this time.

The tradeoff is that after Sunday we’ve then got the whole week to do stuff together.

It is overwhelmingly tempting to kick up a big fuss and challenge the status quo, and Lord knows when you’re sitting at home eating McDonalds infront of the TV hearing all the families living around you partying it up, you often wonder why you didn’t – but ultimately (and as hard as it can be to accept) it’s out of your hands.

Unless of course you’re the ‘ultimatum giving’ type of guy – in which case you might be in for a rude sense of shock when you attempt to go up against thousands of years of cultural tradition all guns blazing.

With it currently pouring down with rain I’m seriously doubting we’ll even get to go ahead with our later in the week plans, but for now I’m busy writing up a few articles to schedule during the week so that I’m not tied up worrying about the blog while I’m out exploring.

So long as you’ve felt your voice is heard (and I do) the rest pretty much is up to your girlfriend and their family. If you’re one of the lucky ones to be going out with a girl whose family isn’t stuck in the dark ages then more power to you.

For the rest of us foreign boyfriends well, I guess there’s always next year.

Happy Chinese New Year, I guess.

One of the most difficult decisions I knew I had to make before moving Taiwan was what to do with my pets.

With a heavy heart I decided to give my goldfish to the pet store I frequented in the hope they’d find a new home in someone elses aquarium. I don’t know if that eventuated but I’d like to think I gave them as good a chance as any at being rehomed.

My cat Cloud was a much more delicate matter. I’d picked him out as a kitten five years prior and for his entire life I’d been all he’d known. People had come and gone but I was his constant. Both of us knew eachother’s entire behavioural spectrum and both of us had been through whatever the last five years had thrown at us together.

Giving him up was simply not an option.

The possibility of bringing him with me was always there but moving to a strange new country I decided against initially bringing Cloud over because the reality was that I didn’t know entirely what life would be like here, or where I’d initially wind up.

The last thing I wanted was to have to face uncertainty whilst trying to lug a cat around a country I myself was learning to navigate.

In the end I gave myself a six month timetable to settle down into a routine and create a stable enough environment to introduce Cloud into. In the meantime he was to temporarily stay at my mum’s, where the two cats there would hopefully stave off any anxiety he had about me leaving.

At least that was the plan. Two days after I left Australia, Cloud went missing.

What’s worse is that I only found out on Christmas eve. Wholly distracted by the experiences of life in a new country over the first few weeks of being here I hadn’t thought to ask about Cloud since I’d left.

And when I did… that’s when I found out he’d gone missing. My mother had sought to keep this from me for the time being as she figured I’d probably have enough on my plate without worrying about Cloud having gone missing.

That in itself was fair enough, but the weeks turned into months and gradually I came to accept that Cloud was gone.

Having moved on with my life and made peace with Cloud’s disappearance… it was roughly ten months later that I got a phonecall informing me he’d been found.

A woman who had been caring for Cloud had brought him into a vet and upon scanning his microchip, contacted my mother wondering why her name was on the chip of this lady’s cat.

Long story short, I then had to make the call on whether we left Cloud in the care of this woman or, although delayed, fell back on my original plan to eventually bring him to Taiwan.

Somewhat feeling like I’d already let him down, mixed with some of my own selfishness at the thought of other people looking after him, I decided to stick to my original plan and have him brought here.

For anyone else wondering what the rough process is or the costs involved with bringing a pet to Taiwan, having gone through the experience myself, today I thought I’d share my experience.

First and foremost the process of importing a pet into Taiwan can be broken down into four components:

• preparing your pet for travel
• arranging travel for your pet
• collecting your pet at the airport
• post-arrival checkups

Preparing your pet for travel to Taiwan

Depending on where you’re bringing your pet from, I’d strongly suggest directly contacting Taiwan’s Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine.

Although they have a website in English, it might be best to get someone to contact them in Chinese rather than rely on whoever you get on the line to give you accurate information in English.

Despite contacting the Bureau in Chinese initially, we still got two different answers in contrast to the information on the Bureau’s website when we contacted them on two different occasions for clarification on various things.

Coming from Australia, the main things I had to worry about were getting Rabies and Hendra vaccinations done.

Even though Taiwan and Australia are both officially rabies-free countries, vaccination was still required.

Hendra virus testing was a pain in the arse in that your cat gets the shot, and then has to be tested twice with a duration of at least 21 days between both testings. Oh and during this time the cat has to be quarantined between Hendra tests, although we were able to do this quarantining at my mum’s house.

Naturally all of this has to be signed off on with a vet certificate and general check by an accredited vet for the export of animals (which in Australia is a vet certified by Australian Quarantine and Inspection Services (AQIS)).

I’m not entirely sure if the cat needs to be neutered too, but Cloud was already neutered so it wasn’t a problem. I do note that all the official documentation regarding his health and shots mentions the fact he is neutered.

Finally I believe a microchip is required too. This is so that the cat can be tracked when it leaves and again when it arrives. Also it is used to identify the cat during post-arrival check ups.

Arranging travel for your pet

Once you have all the health stuff sorted and receive your certifications you can then apply for an import permit from the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine (BAPHIQ).

I’m not entirely sure what the process is for this but I believe my vet in Australia got in touch with BAPHIQ and after providing the relevant documentation obtained a permit.

The permit we were given was valid for two weeks and it was up to us to organise transport during this period.

We went with EVA Cargo and although the booking side of things was once again handled by my vet, on my end I had no problems dealing with EVA.

Transport wise your pet will need to be put into an airline approved crate, which for us this blue and white crate (seen here being used by us at one of Taipei’s MRT stations):

Despite my vet writing ‘Please water me!’ on the crate, when Cloud arrived the water bowl attached to the crate door was dry. Thankfully Australia isn’t too far but if your pet is coming from a great distance I’m not too sure what the rules and regulations are on water and/or food.

All documentation must be secured to the crate too, my vet did this with strong packing tape and a plastic folder. There’s a lot of it so make sure you’ve included everything and it’s secure.

I also believe a copy is handed to the airline when you drop off your pet at the airport.

Collecting your pet at the airport

We opted to pick up Cloud from Taoyuan International Airport. Although BAPHIQ have offices in Keelung, Hsinchu, Taichung and Kaohsiung – we figured it’d be easier to just go and get Cloud ourselves straight from the airport and avoid any additional quarantine/transport fees.

I also believe if you opt to pick up your pet from one of BAPHIQ’s offices you yourself are responsible for feeding it, meaning you have to do so on BAPHIQ’s (if the office is closed they won’t let you in).

Coming from Australia Cloud didn’t need to be quarantined upon arrival so picking him up was pretty straight forward (although admittedly I was nervous about the paperwork). Armed with copies of everything the vet had faxed me beforehand, we rocked up to Taoyuan airport.

The cargo area is separate from the passenger terminals and for EVA it wound up being off to the side of this large green building:

The above photo is looking at the green cargo building from the front. To get to the EVA cargo area head to the right side of the building:

and once you turn the corner of the main building you should see the EVA Cargo area:

As you head towards it with any luck the plane carrying your pet will have already landed:

The guys at the EVA cargo depo don’t speak any English but even with Chinese there was a bit of initial confusion as to what happened next. We showed them our documentation (mainly the permit) and they redirected us up to EVA’s cargo office (which is physically located in the big green building just a short walk away).

The cargo office initially sent us back down again telling us to collect something from the cargo workers. They sent us back up again and we waited whilst the cargo office worker called them up.

I’m still not sure what the problem was (I think it was that the cat hadn’t been processed yet) but we had to wait upstairs in the office till some paperwork was faxed up from the cargo workers.

When that was done we were handed some more paperwork which we then had to take down to the cargo workers and show them.

Happy with whatever was on the paperwork the cargo workers told us to wait and after about twenty minutes I caught my first glimpse of Cloud’s blue and white crate.

This was pretty emotional for me as it’d been now over a year since I saw him last, not withstanding the fact that I’d thought he’d been dead for ten months.

My glimpse of Cloud’s crate (and hearing a few meows) was only brisk though as he was hauled off for a vet check by one of the quarantine staff. Another one of the staff (customs?) took us away up to the customs office where we spend the next hour and a half or so signing all sorts of paperwork and running around different sub-departments within customs.

Again, English was pretty lacking here and I really had no idea what all the different forms I was signing were for. At times the customs office felt like the set of a 70s sitcom…

The final process was pretty much  be led by some guy to this office, sign some papers, wait, go to the cashier, pay some money, get led to some other place, sign more papers, wait, go back to the cashier, pay more money, go somewhere else, get more papers, go back to the cashier, etc. for a good nearly two hours.

The thought that we were just paying a whole bunch of bribes to different departments did cross my mind but we did get receipts for everything so I suppose it was all official.

All up I think the Taoyuan Airports Customs office charges wound up being close to $3000 TWD ($100 USD).

Finally, once all the paper work was done the guy who’d been leading us around picked up a microchip scanner and went off somewhere. About twenty minutes later he returned and we were led down back to the EVA cargo area.

Five or so minutes later one of the cargo staff walked up carrying Cloud’s crate, handed it to me and we were free to go.

After fifteen months of being separated I opened Cloud’s cage and gave him a big hug. I’m not usually an emotional person but that was one of the happiest moments of my life here in Taiwan.

Riding my scooter home with a big smile on my face… despite the massive hit to my wallet importing Cloud to Taiwan had made,

waking up the next morning to the sight of Cloud sitting on the couch reassured me that it had definitely been worthwhile.

Post arrival checkups

As Cloud began to settle into his life in Taiwan, the only thing left as far as the authorities were concerned were two scheduled visits by someone from BAPHIQ to check up on Cloud.

These visits were scheduled roughly a month after Cloud’s arrival date with a few months between the two visits. There was no charge to myself for the visits.

The first visit I believe all the guy really did was check Cloud’s microchip and tick off some boxes on the paperwork he’d brought along.

The second woman who visited actually gave Cloud a quick look over and again after confirming his microchip number was satisfied.

Since then it’s been smooth sailing and we haven’t had any problems.

The total cost of importing a pet into Taiwan

All in all the vaccinations set me back just under $700 (with Hendra being the most costly), the flight to Taiwan was about $1000 and the customs fees at Taoyuan were roughly $100.

Once I’d paid the vet’s fees I think we came to a grand total of just under $60,000 TWD ($2000 USD).

Not exactly chump change for a domestic short hair cat of nondescript pedigree, but being attached to the animals we keep sometimes leads to irrational behaviour.

Although I’m somewhat loathe to admit it, having had Cloud since a baby I’d have easily spent double that to keep him by my side.

So there you have it, that’s the story of how I imported my cat into Taiwan. Although I can’t specifically comment on the different import/quarantine requirements for countries other than Australia with any degree of authority, if you yourself are looking at bringing in a cat or dog, feel free to leave a comment below if there’s something you need more clarification on.

To be honest I found the whole process quite daunting and know how you feel. Thankfully my vet was happy to handle most of the paperwork from within Australia and all I had to do was front up the money to get it done.

Regarding getting a professional service to handle the whole affair, we found most places were charging in excess of $2000 AUD and even then, once the pet left Australia we ourselves were going to be entirely responsible for collecting it.

Ultimately this meant there wasn’t much of an advantage in going for a professional pet transport service as we’d have to handle everything once Cloud arrived anyway.

Definitely shop around and get some quotes though, personally however if you can find a good vet who’s willing to handle things this should work out cheaper for you in the long run and having gone through the process myself I’d happily recommend it.

For example, in my mind the color pink was once squarely delegated to imagery of five year old princesses and Barbie doll paraphernalia. Thanks to Taiwan now anytime I see anything in pink I can’t help but think of helium-voiced, duckface pulling Hello Kitty obsessed freaks.

Red and white will always remind me of the Sydney Swans football scheme, as will black and red Essendon.

Green and gold reminds me of the old MET trains we had in Melbourne.  British racing green will always remind me of mini cars and the list goes on.

Some of these color associations are good, some bad. For instance when it came to purchasing a scooter here, after witnessing some of the horrors on Taiwan’s roads I adamantly refused to purchase any scooter that wasn’t plain as plain can be in solid black.

It’s bad enough the ‘OMG’ looks you get when people see you on a scooter, the last thing I wanted was to draw more unnecessary attention to myself by riding a hideously detailed freak show.

Others don’t seem to mind outlandish color schemes and others still seem to go out of their way to showcase them.

Like this guy:

Not a McDonalds logo in site but unmistakably when I saw the red and gold color scheme the first thing that popped into my mind was ‘why would you pick those colors?! That’s a McDonalds scooter!’

Of course being in Taiwan he could have been making a political statement about the Chinese flag colors (or maybe he just really likes red and yellow!), but for me seeing those two colors together like that just makes me think about red and gold the packaging McDonalds use for their chips.

Funny how advertising and the repeated exposure to certain color schemes gets under your skin. I guess the millions McDonalds spend on advertising each year does work.

Standing just outside the door was my TA and what looked to be a new student. After knocking I let a few moments pass before I opened the door.

Smiling, my TA presented the new student to me, ‘This is Titty’.

Looking her straight in the eye and sure that I’d heard her wrong, I waited for some sort of correction but as the seconds passed it became clear that no mistake had been made.

‘Uh hi… Titty was it?’

‘Yes, my name is Titty. Nice to meet you’.

‘Yeah, nice to meet you too. Ok class, this is Titty – she’ll be joining us today’.

As I motioned for Titty to take a seat and began to let the distraction of why a parent would name their child ‘titty’ overwhelm me, my TA suddenly snapped me out of it.

‘Are you ok?’

‘What? Oh.. yeah, fine. It’s just…’

‘Yes?’

‘Titty… really?’

‘What’s wrong with Titty? It’s a nice name.’

‘…’

Simultaneously realising she had no idea what I was talking about and that I had a class to get back to teaching I let it slide. If I was going to further probe this titty business it’d have to wait till later.

As we got back into the swing of things, it wasn’t long before Titty raised her hand and asked to be excused to use the bathroom.

‘Yeah sure, but remember to wash your hands’ I told her as she left the room to put her shoes on.

As I tried to get back into my lesson, barely a few minutes passed before another knock came from the classroom door.

Looking over I saw a woman I hadn’t seen before. Figuring it was probably a new mother or someone lost I left the kids with their worksheet and opened the door.

‘Hi’

‘Hi. Have you seen my titty?’

‘…’

The next few moments seemed to drag on for hours as comprehension dawned on what this grown woman was asking me. Struggling to keep a straight face I replied,

‘…uh..tit-wait, the girl Titty?’

‘Yes, that’s my titty – I think she’s miss-’

and that’s when I lost it and had to divert my eyes. It wasn’t a loud laugh but as we stood facing one another there was an unmistakable exchange of confusion that passed between us. Feeling like I was in a sitcom I had had no idea how to recover.

Thankfully cultural protocol kicked in and composing myself as fast as I’d lost it, the mother seemed content to pretend nothing had happened. I motioned to the toilet – ‘Titty went to the toilet, I think she’s still in there’.

‘Ah ok, thankyou!’

A short while later Titty returned I got through the rest of the class by explicitly avoiding calling her by name.

With no other classes scheduled for the day, after class I headed downstairs and  went to find my TA. Normally they’d be in the class but for whatever reason this was a particularly busy day so she was absent.

‘Hey, listen this new girl…’

‘Yes Titty, what was so funny before?’

‘…’

‘You… wait you really don’t know what a titty is?’

‘…’

‘Uhhh.’ I paused for a few seconds as I considered the best way to explain…

‘Well, I’m a guy and you’re girl – you have two of them’.

Still getting a blank confused look I slowly gazed downwards and despite every instinct inside of me shrieking the sexual harassment alarm bells, subtly made the slightest of a pointing gesture with my finger.

And that’s when the penny finally dropped.

‘those… THOSE ARE TITTIES?!’

‘Uh yeah. Yeah they are.’

‘Wow! So… you think it’s a good idea to change her name then?’

After considering the  future of this poor girl running around Taiwan introducing herself as ‘Titty’ and facing the same reaction from people I had, I had no choice but to give the nod.

‘Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. How do they spell it anyway? Maybe we can come up with something similar.’

Handing me the attendance list for the lesson I peered down and blinked a few times as awkward comprehension dawned on me.

‘This name, she spells it T-I-T-I yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Y’know, Titi is pronounced ‘TeeTee’ right?

‘But you said that’s-’

‘Yeah one is Titty and one is ‘TeeeeeTeeeee’. Subtle difference but well… one is a name and the other is bunga bunga happy place.’

‘…’

‘Nevermind. Still, we should probably tell her mother. She’s probably still wondering why I lost it upstairs…’

Clearly a conversation I’d have no idea how to even begin to approach with Titi’s mother, it’s times like that I’m glad I can’t yet speak fluent Chinese.

Just another day in the life of an English teacher in Taiwan.

As you pull up to the entrance of Taoyuan Airport wondering if you’ve forgotten anything and then make your way down to the main airport buildings, even the slightest blink means you’re likely to miss these gardening ambassadors that welcome you to the airport.

At first glance these gardeners don’t look much different to the clumsily put together arm-flapping dummies construction workers in Taiwan use to direct traffic away from road works, but take a closer look and it’s evident some artistic creativity has gone into the construction of these statues.

Made entirely pots of various sizes sitting on a traffic cone, I have no idea what the story is behind the statues or who made them, but they sure do add a bit of character to what is otherwise the bleak industrial backdrop of the airport… and to a larger extent Taoyuan itself.

Shame there aren’t more little creative pockets of expression like this in Taiwan, or maybe I’m just not looking hard enough.

Although quite happy on my Long Haul Trucker bicycle, the other day I came across an electric scooter that is starting to resemble something that could seriously tackle Taiwan’s roads.

Meet the Giant E-Fu Momentum Scooter:

That particular model is the ‘EB-153′ and comes in orange and black or white and black.

Of particular note are the thick chunky tires which look beefier than most 50cc scooter tires and the rack on the front for attaching panniers too. The rack does look a little high though so I’m not quite sure how loading it up would affect the handling of the scooter.

With a charge time of 4-6 hours the E-Fu scooter is powered by a ”48V-15AH high-performance water-free lead-acid battery’ which runs a ‘rear-wheel high-power brushless motor’.

In ‘eco-energy saving mode’ the E-Fu is able to travel 35km or in ‘power mode’, 30km. Unfortunately Giant don’t specify what the top speed of the E-Fu is… but with ‘motorcycle grade suspension’ it definitely looks like it could hit the roads without too much trouble.

For a return commute of under 12km either way it looks ideal. Weighing 39kg you wouldn’t want to run out of juice as with no pedals I imagine it’d be a right royal pain in the arse to have to push around.

Total cost: $19,800 TWD ($660 USD) – there also appears to be some kind of rebate from the government on these things ranging from $3000-$5000 TWD but I’m not sure what the specifics are.

Giant also have an EB-161 which is supposed to be a step up I guess.

The Eb-161 looks to be pretty similar to the EB-153 save for a slightly lower charge time, lithium battery instead of lead-acid.

Travel distance is the same 30/35 and unfortunately again no information is provided about the top-speed of the scooter.

I don’t think personally I’ll ever get an electric scooter (I like the bicycle too much) but it’s good to see the larger companies developing the technology. I don’t know how far they can take the concept of an electric scooter but even if ultimately the idea itself doesn’t sell, hopefully the technology can be applied in other ways we might not necessarily have otherwise considered.

In the meantime, I personally see a few electric scooters around but not much. At least not enough to make me stop going ‘OMG LOOK AN ELECTRIC SCOOTER!’ everytime I see one out of surprise.

I suppose in that sense even though I remember seeing the first electric bicycles popping up over a decade ago, this technology has a long way to go yet before it’s adopted and not just a novelty purchase.

Although I do wear a watch and my mobile phone can usually be found in the little pocket compartment where the ignition is, I do find myself using the scooter clock by default when I’m riding around.

With Taiwan’s shonky and unpredictable road, even a quick flick of the wrist and glance could be a death sentence.

Me? With my onboard digital clock I’m one of the lucky ones… but by and large most scooters on Taiwan roads have oldish analogue type instrument clusters with most failing to have an operational speedo needle, let alone a functional clock (and that’s if they have one at all).

So what do these people do if they need to quickly tell the time on their scooter?

One particular young woman came up with this:

Not the easiest thing to spot and in the time it takes to lift it up to check the time you’ll probably smash yourself into a crazy blue truck or taxi, but strapped onto the left mirror there is a wristwatch (and yes, those are Hello Kitty gloves):

Evidently however, having a sun damaged cover on your speedo and fuel gauge comes second place to accurately seeing how late you are running for work.

I guess in the event that you are running late for work and need crank your wrist, then it’s probably a good idea you can’t see your speedo anyway.

‘Hey, know why I pulled you over? Do you have ANY idea how fast you were going?!’

‘uh… no. I can’t see my speedo, see!’

‘Ah.. well ok in that case just be more careful next time. Enjoy the rest of your day!’

Taiwanese ingenuity.


Afterthought: Instead of ‘crank your wrist‘ I had originally wrote ‘step on it‘. After reading over the article though I realised stepping on it doesn’t really work on a scooter.

What the hell do you call it when you want to gun your scooter?!

‘I like lollipop’.

Stocked with clothing aimed at young girls… with that name and color scheme it’s obvious the owners of this chain are either innocently naive, or deceptively clever.

Being Taiwan, that of course means you’ve pretty much got a 50/50 punt either way.

As I habitually do with most bicycles I see out and about I’d glanced over at this one as I walked past. I continued past it but had someone been observing me the slight tilt in my head would have betrayed my afterthought that something wasn’t quite right about this particular bicycle.

Shrugging it off I tried to continue only to stop a few paces from where the thought originally struck.

‘Wait, the saddle…something was wrong with the saddle!’

I turned around and then there infront of me it hit me… this particular bicycle appeared to be using a bar stool as a seat.

‘Now the hell does that even work?’ I thought to myself as I got closer to the bike, wondering how a round bar stool seat could be in any way remotely more comfortable to sit on then even the cheapest of quality traditional bicycle saddles available.

Looking around to see if there was anyone around who might come screaming at me if I touched the bike and seeing the coast clear, I put my hand down on the seat with the intention of having a sit… and that’s when I realised the bar stool seat wasn’t bolted down at all.

Rather, the seat was just being used as a weight to hold down the plastic bag covering the actual bicycle seat from the rain.

‘Thank god’ I thought to myself, relieved that I’d just inadvertently spared myself from an evening of trying to get my head around why someone would bolt a round bar stool seat onto their bicycle.

Meanwhile I don’t know what worries me more, the fact that someone somewhere might indeed find a giant round seat more comfortable to sit on or that I’d just readily accepted that someone here in Taiwan had done the modification and skipped over to wondering why they’d done it.

I dread to think what the next phase in this cultural evolutionary ‘nothing surprises me anymore’ process might be…

Next thing you know I’ll be looking back at half my ‘WTF?’ photos wondering why I took them in the first place.