Andrew Rusli

has a tumblr.

[freshandrew]

Kenting: The Motorscooter Diaries

On our second day in Kenting we felt stuck. Buses were infrequent and confusing, and taxis were hiking their prices because of the new year. Seemed like you really needed a set of wheels to get around this place. 

Next to our hotel their was a scooter rental shop. I looked up a few important words (drive, scooter, battery, electric) and gave it my best shot. After I communicated that I had never driven a scooter before, the woman told me that she wouldn’t rent me a scooter because it was “too dangerous.” But then she said she could rent me an electric scooter, but only if I took a lesson first. So I agreed to that, and a few minutes later a random buzzed headed man drove up in a car and told me and Ailish to get in. Turns out he was to be my teacher. 

We got in the car nervously and asked the guy if he spoke English. He started laughing heartily. The answer was no. 

He drove us a few miles up the road to a different scooter rental shop. He selected a bright pink electric scooter for me  and the lesson began in the parking lot of the 7-11 next door.

My laoshi (teacher) was a big gruff man with a kind smile, and a good sense of humor. He showed me how to accelerate, and told me not to drive too fast, what levers did what. Overall the scooter was fairly simple, but the fact was that I was kinda freaked out because after about a 15 minute lesson we’d be hitting the actual road on this tiny bike, and on top of that, I understood probably 5% or less of the words that the guy was telling me. I just kept nodding and saying “hao, hao” (ok, ok) and paying close attention to his hand gestures.

The next thing we knew we were filling out a waiver or some kind of form (I don’t know, I can’t read a word of chinese) and handing our passport over to the man’s wife.  Ailish and I were doing everything completely in Chinese. It occurred to us later that if they had known how little we actually understood of what they were saying, they probably would not have given us the bike. But we kept saying “hao” and signing things, and in combination with a few clearly communicated simple sentences, the procedure went actually shockingly well. We had our bike. 

Riding the scooter was amazing. We nearly ran out of battery several times, and got pretty close to getting lost a couple times too. But the views and freedom were totally worth it. We drove around the coast, with a perfect view of the blue ocean, and down tiny roads and through little old villages.  We saw another scooter rider get accosted by a pack of wild dogs, a distraction we capitalized on as we scooted quickly away from danger (that guy was probably fine). At the day’s end, we drove along the side of the highway with all the other cars and scooters, and made our way back to the town.

That night was Chinese New Year eve. When we returned the scooter, night had fallen, and my laoshi was eating with his family. He gave us some tea eggs and shrimp and we sat around in the scooter lot eating with them, and then he drove us home. He spoke to us several times about something, smiling and philosophizing. We had no idea what he was talking about. It was a good day.

Dianqiche (electric scooter).

On the road.

Baisha

Mobitou.

Mobitou.

Charging the battery (chongdian).

Making our way home.

[freshandrew]

Day 8 - Kenting

We leave Kaohsiung and take a bus down to the southern tip of Taiwan, to Kenting. On the way down we see lots of farmland, trees, tiny towns. We arrive in Kenting and it’s a little beach town, very popular around this time of year, because of vacationers during the Chinese New Year.  Like a lot of surf towns, alot of laid back people running little businesses. Bread and breakfasts, cafes, hotels, scooter rental shops, surfboard shops. This far south, nobody really speaks any English. But we’re actually managing pretty well, buying bus tickets, ordering food, riding in taxicabs, all in Chinese. 

The views in Kenting are really beautiful. Mountains, rainforests, beaches, and sky. Plus, a busy nightmarket along the main drag. At the nightmarket we sample a lot of different foods, but neither of us have any desire to try the famous stinky tofu, which does really truly have a wickedly pungent odor. (maybe another time.)

Nan Wan, where our hotel is.

The view.

Cartwheel.

Dat view.  Fucking Art.

Kenting.

Night Market gearing up.

Fire and meat.

Grilled Oysters.

Fried milk. Basically funnel cake on a stick. With milk inside.

[freshandrew]

Kaohsiung part two - Pier 2 Art Center

At night we strolled along the Ai He, or Love River. It was lonely in a pretty way. There’s probably some stupid German word for that, but whatever. There was a big outdoor stage set up for the New Year, but for some reason a lone man with a saxophone was playing to nearly empty house. I sat and listened and drank my milk tea and felt very soothed and sentimental.

Nighttime on the Ai He (Love River).

The next day we got up early to try to get breakfast at this place.  Ordered soy milk, and a variety of delicious buns, all in Chinese baby.  Success.

Breakfast.

Then we went to the Pier 2 Art District, which was amazing. Similar to the Huashan Creative Park in Taipei, but bigger and more beautiful, actually.  Although maybe it was just the weather, which was perfect. We checked out some galleries, watched all the ke’ai baobei’s (cute babies) running around the park, and ate some cheap local fare.  It was a great day.

Pier 2 Art Center. Warehouses reborn as a beautiful park, boutiques, and galleries. Our favorite visit in Kaohsiung.

Cats with Hands for Heads. Why not. #art.

Fucking Art.

Dat Ass. (Hen Da Pigu).

Tiny Train. (Xiao Huoche).

[freshandrew]

Day 5 and 6 - Kaohsiung (A Ferris Wheel on top of a Mall, and a Monkey Mountain)

We take the High Speed Rail south down to Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second major city. Kaohsiung is a big sprawling port city, with some mountainous outskirts and a big river running through it, called the Ai He, or Love river.

We’re here for a few days. Somehow on the first day we end up at gigantic weird mall, where we ride a rooftop ferris wheel.

The next morning, we take a taxi to Shou Shan, aka Monkey Mountain. We have an amazing climb through the jungle-y mountain, seeing lots of monkeys, and enjoying a gorgeous view at the top. On the way back down we actually get lost (woops), but manage to use our broken Chinese and the kindness of total strangers to find our way back on the correct path.

The Dream Mall had a Ferris Wheel on the roof.

We rode it. But it wouldn’t compare to the view from the mountain, which we’d hike later.

A beautiful hike. 8am, monkey mountain.

Monkeys. (Houzi).

The view of Kaohsiung. We got lost on the way back down actually, but made it down with the help of some friendly people, and the use of our shitty but improving Chinese.

[freshandrew]

Taiwan Day 4 - Huashan Creative Park

Today we checked out the Ximending district, which was kinda like Times Square (As I said before, Yes I do compare everything to NYC). We saw a crazy statue that looked exactly like Linda and Rob, so we had to take a pic with it.

Then we went to this super hip art park called “Huashan Creative Park”. It was full of little kids, families, and hipsters, all together in a bourgeois paradise. After checking out the shops, Ailish and I went to a fancy coffee house and drank cappuccinos.

Rob and Linda, immortalized in iron.

Selfie within a Selfie.

Huashan Creative Park: chic boutiques, artisans, coffee houses, and art.

Denim World.

Wood cups.

Fucking Art.

[freshandrew]

Taiwan Day 3 - Beitou Hot Springs

For this post, Ailish and I collaborated on the writing.  Here’s our Beitou trip, from Ailish’s perspective:

We wake up at 5am, and wait patiently in the darkness until 7am, when the hotel breakfast actually opens. Today we’re going to Beitou, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Taipei known for its natural hot springs.  

As we wait for the elevator to head down to the lobby, one of the housekeepers starts chatting with us. She’s a very friendly woman, who seems to find Andrew’s broken Chinese to be endearing.

She points at me and says something to Andrew.  We can only understand “piaoliang”.

“Xie xie,” Andrew says, both of us a bit embarrassed. Piaoliang means “pretty”.

Then she points to Andrew and makes a gesture about her face and says something. Is there a male version of Piaoliang? I think that’s what she’s saying. But Andrew answers, “Wo shi... zhonguoren.” (I am chinese.)

Then she points towards me.  “Youshenzi ma?” she asks, gesturing with her hands on her belly.  “Baby?”

Andrew looks at me. I look at him.  “Mei you...” Andrew says (”no”, or “don’t have”).  “Mei you...”

I decide to eat less at the breakfast buffet.

We have to make a change to our high speed rail ticket, so we go to the central station to get the ticket changed.  Then we take the metro out to Beitou. As we leave the central part of Taipei, the MRT rises above ground and we can see high-rises whisking by - some glassy and modern, some crumbling concrete. Behind the buildings are sharp peaks covered in lush vegetation.

We get off at Xinbeitou. We eat at a hotpot restaurant, with complimentary free plum juice and ice cream. Out of necessity, we conversed with our waitress using only Chinese, and felt good about it.

Next we explore. We’re in a narrow valley and there is a stream running down the middle. It must be from the hot springs because hot steam rises out of the water into the cold misty air.

We rent a private bath at one of the luxury hotels. They lead us to a beautiful private room, inside of which are two deep stone pools, one for the hot spring water and the other for icy cold water. We turn on the taps and the large pools fill up over the next 10 or 15 minutes. We ease into the hot water, which feels amazing after walking around in the chilly mountain drizzle all morning. Then we dip into the cold pool, which is shockingly cold, but somehow feels good. We luxuriate between the pools for 90 minutes, and then, fully relaxed, return to our hotel. 

Xinbeitou, home of the Hot Springs.

Hella Posh Resorts, where you can rent private hot spring bathroom at an hourly rate, or stay overnight in your own room w/ bath.

Steaming River

Private Bath, with Hot and Cold tub.

[freshandrew]

Taiwan - Day 1 and 2

Day 1

We leave from JFK at around midnight. There’s an old man sitting in my seat who doesn’t speak any English.  So my Chinese language struggles begin pretty much right away.

I use my limited Chinese to say “I think this is mine.”  He says something to me, and I don’t understand.  We’re both quite flustered by this language problem, then the two people sitting next to him, probably his family, get out and move somewhere to the back of the plane, so then I feel like he probably asked me if he could switch seats with me and I feel like an idiot/not very filially pious. But it’s too late now. We’re stuck with each other for the next 16 hours.

The flight is super long. The man tried to say something to me now and then and I understand almost nothing. He looks at me like he can’t believe I can’t understand what he’s saying.  I begin to repair our fraying relationship by helping him figure out where to plug in the headphones, and by getting his bag for him out of the overhead. During the flight he gets out of his seat like 100 times so I can’t actually get any sleep. He apologizes for this: “buhaoyisi”. “Meiwenti” I reply. I watch the movie Everest which is about people climbing Everest and dying.

Finally we arrive in Taiwan at about 6 in the morning Taiwan time. The old man tells me it’s raining. “Xiayu”.  I try to tell him that I have a jacket. I have to keep looking up the words he’s saying on my phone, using “Plecko”, which is an incredibly useful app. I recommend it.  

Okay so we take a bus into Taipei, we get to the hotel at like 8am which means we can’t check in until 3pm, even though we haven’t slept in 24 hours or something. We get breakfast at this tiny outdoor stand, and I have to ask a young guy if he speaks English and he explains how to order this stuff. Ailish and I are very intimidated so he orders for us. It is super delicious: fresh soy milk, shao bing (like, a crusty bread thing), you tiao (fried sticks), and pork buns which are like, dripping with fat and are so good. The whole meal is like 3 bucks. Except I spit out the soy milk because I think that it tastes like peanut, which i’m allergic to (no, I didn’t spit it in front of the guy, we took it to go). But Ailish enjoys the soymilk.

Breakfast

Next we go to Chiang Kai Shek memorial and walk around. It’s overcast and grey but there is tons of greenery and the air feels good and the memorial is dope. 

We’re feeling pretty good for about an hour and then we start to feel like dog shit. We’re so tired and have no room to go to for like 4 more hours. I enter a really dark/hopeless/exhausted mindplace as we wait for them to prepare our room. Finally, at 3pm Ailish and I pull the blinds and collapse into bed, where we remain sleeping in the darkness for 16 straight hours.

Day 2

Wake up at like 7am. We’ve been in bed since 3pm the previous day.  Go back to the breakfast shack again and actually manage to order everything completely in Chinese. Feeling good about this now. It’s weird but my Chinese is actually slightly better than only two days ago, because my vocab has expanded to include breakfast foods, and currency. I can see why immersion makes you learn fast. It’s just necessity. You go about your day, find out which words you want to use but don’t have, and then you learn them and use them. Simple.

First thing we do is go to this super hip neighborhood called Zhongxiao Dunhua, which is clearly like, a really cool place with clubs, bars, boutique shops, kind of like SoHo (yes, I do compare everything to NYC), except our body clocks are way off so it’s like... 8:30 in the morning and everything is closed.

So we decide to go to Taipei 101 and take the elevator to the top. It’s the fastest elevator in the world, going up 89 stories in about 30 seconds. It’s so fast that it makes your body feel weird and your ears kind of pop.

We check out the views at the top, check out the huge ball that keeps the tower from swaying.

Dat View.

Gigantic Ball helps keep the tower from swaying... I guess.  That’s what they say. Personally, I’m not buying it

Then we head back down to eat at Din Tai Fung, the famous soup dumpling restaurant. We take a ticket and are seated after about 15 minutes. This is not the original location, but since we were here, might as well.

Din Tai Fung is also delicious. We get pickled vegetables, green beans, soup dumplings, and chicken noodle soup. All great. 

Xiaolongbao

Then we go home and go to sleep again because we are so jetlagged. At night we get up and go to Shida night market, which is pretty cool but mostly has clothes. We eat some meat skewers and dumplings. We are super tired and take a cab home and pass out.  The jet lag is rough. We keep waking up at like 4 in the morning and falling asleep in the afternoons.

[freshandrew]

radiant baby

[freshandrew]

Writers on writing their first novel

Twenty-one successful authors including Junot Díaz, Charlaine Harris, Dean Koontz, and George Saunders tell how they overcame writer's block, completed, and sold their de...

[freshandrew]

The Sunk Cost Fallacy

The Misconception: You make rational decisions based on the future value of objects, investments and experiences. The Truth: Your decisions are tainted by the emotional investments you accumulate, ...

[freshandrew]

Banksy Tried to Sell His Art Anonymously to People in Central Park

"Yesterday I set up a stall in the park selling 100% authentic original signed Banksy canvases," the renowned "spray artist" himself writes in a blog post dated October 13th. "For $60 each."

[freshandrew]

[freshandrew]

40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World

  If you're a visual learner like myself, then you know maps, charts and infographics can really help bring data and information to life. Maps can make a point resonate with readers and this c...

[freshandrew]

http://gawker.com/somebody-went-and-wrote-the-ultimate-craigslist-missed-1057443676

[freshandrew]

30 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Die

30 questions worth pondering at every stage of life.

[freshandrew]

Theres worse things in life than sucking at golf.

Charles Barkley

[freshandrew]

Its not what a movie is about, its how it is about it.

Roger Ebert