Half way to India

As many of you have heard, I'm on my way to India, where I hope to spend the next couple of months exploring. I sorta quit my job of 5 years last Friday, and I'll be returning to California just in time to enjoy Christmas with my parents. Along the way, I'll see parts of a few other countries - at least Taiwan and Thailand in transit, probably Nepal, and maybe Sri Lanka or Malaysia.

First off, let me briefly get administrative stuff out of the way. This is my first try posting to my old travel mailing list via blogger.com (http://kblarson.blogspot.com/). This will likely result in a rather ugly message for those, like me, who usually prefer to use a non-html email client. However, this seems like the easiest way I can get a few photos into my updates, and accomodate those who prefer reading blogs than email. So, if this is a problem, you might either resubscribe via a web mail client, or try subscribing to the RSS feed (such as via Firefox).

Since I just now published some entries I'd made over the last few weeks, be sure to take a look at a few of the previous posts when you get a chance:

http://kblarson.blogspot.com/

For now, I'll be brief, as I'm getting hungry!

My two plus days in Taipei have been fun - I'm glad I decided to use it as a pit stop. I spent two weeks in Taiwan with my parents in the mid-80s, though most of it was at the other end of Taiwan. Now that I've been to Japan several times, I'm amazed at how similar Taipei feels to Tokyo, in so many ways. A lot of this has to do with Taiwan having been Japan's first and closest colony for over 50 years - there are even Japanese Imperial Palaces all over Taiwan, which I think the Japanese Emperor still visits occasionally. Japanese culture is hugely popular here too - at about an equal level to American culture here, and both languages are widely spoken. I've even been able to fall back on ordering Japanese food in Japanese.

The biggest difference with Japan, though, is how friendly everyone is. I still can't get used to random strangers saying "Hello" (either in English or Mandarin), when walking down the street. You just don't expect this in a city of several million people. When I was here as a kid, I just thought it was people wanting to practice their English on me, but now I see it as being genuinely friendly. It's like they teach their kids to talk to strangers, and keep doing it when they grow up.

You even see this friendliness when walking through the airport - all the employees of the shops and restaurants run out to bow and greet everyone getting off the plane.


I spent most of yesterday exploring the world's new tallest building, Taipei 101. Hopefully this gives you an idea just how unusual this building is:





















This is the lower part of the massive damper/pendulum located near the top that helps keep the building from swaying in the tropical cyclones that are common here.










Today I saw the National Palace Museum, almost certainly the best collection of Chinese art and artifacts anywhere. The government made off with everything they could that belonged to the Chinese Emperor when they evacuated the mainland. Though it's a large museum, the collection is so vast that they change most of the exhibits every month or so, and it still takes decades to rotate through the major items. This made a big impression on me as a kid, and it's still quite impressive. Unfortunately, you can't take photos inside, so this is about it:



More photos can be found in the gallery.

Tomorrow I'm off to Kolkota (formerly Calcutta), India, with a few hours in Bangkok along the way. I've braced myself for a challenging day, facing the sensory overload that is India, not to mention the World's Largest Slum (most of the hostels are located in the middle of that, near Mother Theresa's main charity). I may go for the full experience, or pay a bit more for a place in the suburbs. There's enough to see to fill a few days there, and I also need to get permits for some parts of India I hope to visit.