Taiwan arrival Aug 3 2012 So here I am again in Taipei, coming in on the tail end of the typhoon that has

s been lashing Taiwan for the last week or so. It rain like dog and cat like yoo say in England, wrote my host in an email a few days ago, I pray yor plane ok. Very hot. Breeng shoort sleef only. She had the day off yesterday due to torrential rain, (yoo woo not beleef it she said in the endearding way Tiwanese have of sometimes omitting ts and ds) with the government still on alert for possible flooding. For a visitor like me coming in from abroad this has cooled things down and makes the 30-degree temperature tolerable. The region between ROC airport and the city is densely packed with trees and this morning they looked even more lush than in February when I was here last. Taipei doesnt do suburbs. It does AirportCity. Thats it. Where the buildings start, the trees stop. The motorways themselves look organic and are two storeys high, curved like giant lower case letter rs atop of which is the road. The motorway roads are not wide but the sheer height of them and the way they intersnake through one another is very impressive. It made the journey tolerable given that my driver was keen on a radio station which played mostly rock music so I was subjected to Joan Jet and the Blackhearts for 30 minutes at 8am. As we slid along I could see new sections of motorway going up through dense forest, the Taiwanese are too smart to be beaten by trees. Way before British Airways did their 2012 plane-on-aroad marketing stunt the Taiwanese military had practiced landing aircraft on the regular (low level) motorways. They dont do things by halves here and their passion for building concrete structures is matched by their appreciation of the gentler aspects of life. For example, in 2007 a section of the motorway was closed to allow an 11,000 strong migrating swarm of milkweed butterflies to cross it.

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We crossed the river which was calm, probably relieved and resting from a weeks worth of being whipped up. But it was ominously high. Then the tallest tower, Taipei 101, came into view like a giant hypodermic needle and I knew we were close to my home.

When I arrived at the hotel it was noisy with cleaners happily going about their work which seemed to involve a lot of calling to one another. It probably sounds a bit cruel but they seem to be doing a kind of chavvy chit chat where one woman calls out, love you! Then her cleaning partner calls back, love you! and so it goes back and forth like the ping-pong they are so brilliant thrashing everyone at. Knowing that my head thought it was

1.30am and not 8.30am and that if I sat down Id fall asleep, I went in search of loose trousers and flip-flops my size, neither of which I could get because no one here is over 53.

I stopped to give custom to my favourite orange juice seller who has either started to water down his product or my taste buds have changed. Or the quality of his fruit has declined since February. Nevertheless I bought three bottles to stash back in the fridge not least because I love the shape of these containers which are tall and oblong and incredibly tactile to hold. It sounds bizarre, but they are far easier to pour from than the regular cylindrical juice smoothie and water bottles we have back home and when stacked together theres something satisfying and strangely artistic about these red topped chaps. I stand empties like soldiers along the window ledge for a while but, fearful that the maid will throw them out as happened with my last stock, I plan to wash and stash them in my case. When I get stopped by customs wanting to know if I have any bottles over 100ml? I can throw open my case and say, plenty, they just wont have anything in them. Hah! Obviously Ill have to come up with a

reason for why Im transporting so many (3 per day x 8 days= 24), because I think its a fair bet that trying to explain to a Taiwanese customs official that I think his plastic juice bottles are artistic is going to get lost in translation.

Back in my room I thought it rather stingy that the Brother (we treat our guests like Brothers) Hotel provided but one jasmine tea bag and one oolong tea bag, no sugar and of course no milk. I figured that this was a ploy to get me to use one of their 10 onsite restaurants. That was until I made a cup of tea and discovered that the bag I had used was so strong you can probably make 10 cups from it. Not that the other guests in this five star hotel are likely to be recycling their complimentary teabags in quite the same way as me. The kettle is quite ingenious. It has three push buttons on the lid and two lights on the base. Being an on-off-switch kind of gal it took me 40 minutes to work out how to use it. Its a thermos flask and kettle rolled into one so you can adjust it to keep the water youve boiled at 100 degrees. I knew enough to know that the big exclamation marks printed all over the lid next to the Chinese symbols meant something about getting your fingers scorched but theres an element of inevitability about this when a White-Goods-shy Brit is challenged with trying to get the lid off multifunctional thermoskettle. I felt like one of those toddlers who in a safety test had been given a child proof pill bottle. I didnt want to ask for help downstairs at reception because in a five star hotel it might look odd to have a guest standing in ill-fitting flip-flops holding a kitchen appliance. Someone might think I was making a complaint

and give me a replacement. Then Id have two kettles I couldnt operate. So I struggled with various options, narrowly missed a trip to the burns unit of the local A&E, and with a pupp and a puff of steam eventually worked out how to get the vacuum-sealed lid off. Like one of those determined toddlers I was very pleased with myself. Determined not to suffer jetlag what with a full 8 days of teaching starting from tomorrow, I slept for an hour and then forced myself to get up when the alarm went off at 6pm. I lay in a tub of luke warm bubbles and considered calling room service with the bathroom telephone just so I could say that I once ordered room service whilst in the bath. Only instead of asking for a plumber a la Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch Id get something far more useful. Like a bowl of noodles, mixed vegetables and some freshly prepared watermelon.

After preparing some work with tired eyes, a rumbling stomach forced me and my freshly steamed face out into the clammy night.

At 8pm its too early for all but the hardened street vendors. The man selling the giant Fuji apples was all set up, each fruit lovingly displayed in its own cradle, tempting passers buy who picked up and smelled four or five before selecting their favorite. I only had a small laptop bag with me so figured Id save my giant Fuji apple experience for when I had something less flat and more robust in which to carry it. Being outside is like standing directly under the hot air fan that we have at the entrance of our department stores in winter, so I didnt intend to go far and made for one of the places I knew would be empty, a Starbucks. But these are not like the Starbucks we have at home. From the outside they look the same, with what appear to be standardized breads and cakes at the counter, but on closer inspection you find that the contents are peculiar to our western tastes. Sitting in an armchair I casually enjoyed a tub of mixed salad with something delicious described as sesame seed dressing, but it was more like a cross between honey and mustard and mayonnaise. I snacked on some dried figs, wrapped in pairs, and a small coffee which is made far les strong here. There are some similarities however. On the tanoy a Taiwanese singer sang, Ill do it My Way. In French. So, as with the Starbucks in London, they could do with some help selecting

muzak.

Walking back I could make out the multi story restaurants filling up as guests took their seats at the curtonless windows. These restaurants are cheap and therefore popular but not all have air conditioning and I was worried about giving my stomach the trauma of having to digest boiled blind sea creatures the day before teaching. So I nipped into the store opposite the hotel and bought a packet of Liptons teabags and those tiny cartons of milk. Except that they dont do milk here, its cream, so Ill probably come back a stone heavier. A sales assistant in the pile em high store was very pleased to have sold her only three vest tops marked XL , in their shop sale since 2010, so her only XL customer. They are quite obviously only a size 12 but Im hoping they will fit and at three for a fiver I can always knot them and use them to carry my Apple-A-Day Fiji about. Love you! called the assistant in a high-pitched voice once she had finished with me and without looking up. Love you back! called her colleague. Love you! called a pair of feet from beneath the changing room doors.