I arrived in Taiwan on Wednesday night at 9:30 PM, January 16, 2008. That would be 8:30 am PA time. The 11 hour flight from LA to Tokyo was exhausting and super cramped. I immediately upgraded my ticket to economy plus for $75.00 to get tons of extra leg room. United may be the only airline with this set-up, but my last leg of the journey..3 hours from Tokyo to Taiwan was a dream! United's 777 planes are fabulously appointed for international travel. Each seat has its own video screen and six or so current movies and numerous music stations available. The movies are repeated continuously from take-off to landing.I saw five movies between both flights, ate three full meals, several snacks, took a few naps and studied about Taiwan. United has a new flight..11 hours from Taipei, Taiwan straight to San Francisco that is a great time savings over the flight I had.
Upon entry to Taiwan, I learned that the gorgeous, calligraphed document sent to me by the Taipei Municipal University of Education that I carried with me was a working permit and not a VISA. The officials allowed me into Taiwan with the stipulation that I get a multiple entrance VISA within a month. Easier said then done! After numerous episodes of yelling with officials, Dr. Gow got assurances that despite many new rules, a VISA could be issued with a letter from the University president. If this does not work, I will be on my way to Hong Kong, to the US Embassy to get a VISA. Jimmy Carter closed the Taiwan embassy while he was President in favor of opening one with China. Since Taiwan is no independent from China, only one full embassy has existed since then and that is in Hong Kong. In Taiwan there is just an office, nothing more. This is a difficult situation and means that I cannot get residence status or open a bank account! I hope it is resolved soon as it is on my mind and troublesome.
The past few days have been spent meeting new people and reacquainted myself with my old buddies. In the last picture, I am standing with the President of the Taipei Municipal University of Education, (TMUE.) He greeted me with a symbol of the New Year, a new cooking pot for the stove! The Chinese New Year will happen in the first week of February and everyone is revving up for this most important holiday. More on that later! Dr. Liu YuanTsun is a very elegant man who greeted me with warmth and enthusiasm. He is also a calligrapher and a physicist.I have learned the route from my apartment to school and to the supermarket, shops, restaurants and the subway. I have eaten a variety of oddly shaped, colorful and unique tasting foods. I have actually had to slow down on this a bit because I am starting to feel a little ill. The cafeteria at the University is a trip. In the center are many tables and all around the enormous space are small shops where a variety of cooking takes place.
Students drift in and out carrying the most amazing looking food. Chen Fung, my keeper (Ha Ha) led me to a tofu bar. Here you select as many types and pieces of tofu as you want, add in your choice of noodles, greens and then the chef boils it in water, dumps it into a bowl and adds broth. At the spice table you can select from numerous and mysterious-looking and smelling bottles of spicy combinations of "dressings" that are placed on the steamed veggies and noodles. It was delicious and cost less than $2 for more food than I could eat at one time.
Tomorrow I am opting for the Japanese style food bar. Last night at my welcoming party, I ate sauted jelly fish. They tasted like crunchy worms. The food is amazing, but sometimes, I have to politely refuse. When a soup of floating circular and tubular squid was placed in front of me, I knew I had reached a no way place. Eventually I will get there..just not right now when everything is still so new! I have to pace myself and not appear rude by refusing to try some special offering or combination that is totally unfamiliar to me.
This evening I attended a welcome to Taiwan party with faculty and the Young family. Mr and Mrs. Young own a large development corporation in Taiwan. Their daughter just completed her doctoral studies at Penn State in Art Education. Mr Young has offered to be my benefactor while I am in Taiwan and will support my travel and work. It was all pretty amazing to experience the generosity and enthusiastic caring of this group of Taiwanese citizens who welcomed me with genuine sincerity! I presented the Young family with a small painting of my farm in South Central PA.I hope my relationship with the Yongs will continue to flourish. You can see us in the picture with Chui-Jhin, my dear Taiwanese friend. She is standing on the far right.
My apartment is really in a great place, sitting in the Times Square Section of Taipei. It is a shopping paradise and life is bursting forth among the many shops and cafes, all day long. There is a 60 story building called Party World which contains floors of dance clubs, karoke clubs and restaurants. The supermarket is ten floors of everything from what to wear to what to eat. Carts move through the levels on flattened escalators. n between the up and down escalators, bins running along the handrails held every imaginable chip and pretzel brand. People were just grabbing bags of stuff as we went from level to level. Now this place is no Wegmans, but it is an incredibly unique experience, bursting with sights, sounds and smells one could only find here in Taipei, Taiwan. This is a very rich visual environment..more so than what I remembered. The wrappers and boxes are so brightly colored and shiny. Everything seems rich and textured. The build-up to Chinese New Year's has begun. It is almost the antithesis of the Asian aesthetic of quiet and elegance. Even some of the trees are decorated with blue and yellow twinkling lights!
I spent some time setting up my studio and even stretched a 6' x 4' piece of 400 pound arches watercolor paper onto an eight-foot board. I am getting started on my work! The studio is not large but has great northwest light and many windows. I am required to put four hours a week in, but I hope to like this spot and give it many more hours per week. I am still getting things fixed up. I am already collecting some pretty interesting vegetables and fruit and developing new compositions. I hope to start painting today.
Tomorrow I am opting for the Japanese style food bar. Last night at my welcoming party, I ate sauted jelly fish. They tasted like crunchy worms. The food is amazing, but sometimes, I have to politely refuse. When a soup of floating circular and tubular squid was placed in front of me, I knew I had reached a no way place. Eventually I will get there..just not right now when everything is still so new! I have to pace myself and not appear rude by refusing to try some special offering or combination that is totally unfamiliar to me.
This evening I attended a welcome to Taiwan party with faculty and the Young family. Mr and Mrs. Young own a large development corporation in Taiwan. Their daughter just completed her doctoral studies at Penn State in Art Education. Mr Young has offered to be my benefactor while I am in Taiwan and will support my travel and work. It was all pretty amazing to experience the generosity and enthusiastic caring of this group of Taiwanese citizens who welcomed me with genuine sincerity! I presented the Young family with a small painting of my farm in South Central PA.I hope my relationship with the Yongs will continue to flourish. You can see us in the picture with Chui-Jhin, my dear Taiwanese friend. She is standing on the far right.
My apartment is really in a great place, sitting in the Times Square Section of Taipei. It is a shopping paradise and life is bursting forth among the many shops and cafes, all day long. There is a 60 story building called Party World which contains floors of dance clubs, karoke clubs and restaurants. The supermarket is ten floors of everything from what to wear to what to eat. Carts move through the levels on flattened escalators. n between the up and down escalators, bins running along the handrails held every imaginable chip and pretzel brand. People were just grabbing bags of stuff as we went from level to level. Now this place is no Wegmans, but it is an incredibly unique experience, bursting with sights, sounds and smells one could only find here in Taipei, Taiwan. This is a very rich visual environment..more so than what I remembered. The wrappers and boxes are so brightly colored and shiny. Everything seems rich and textured. The build-up to Chinese New Year's has begun. It is almost the antithesis of the Asian aesthetic of quiet and elegance. Even some of the trees are decorated with blue and yellow twinkling lights!I spent some time setting up my studio and even stretched a 6' x 4' piece of 400 pound arches watercolor paper onto an eight-foot board. I am getting started on my work! The studio is not large but has great northwest light and many windows. I am required to put four hours a week in, but I hope to like this spot and give it many more hours per week. I am still getting things fixed up. I am already collecting some pretty interesting vegetables and fruit and developing new compositions. I hope to start painting today.
The jet lag is slowly going away and over the next few days I will take some down time to get settled in. There is a dog barking that sounds exactly like my Kahuna. Ugh..pangs of longing!
I have not yet grasped the enormity of what lies ahead for me.. I need to settle down!
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