My business partner is the expert for "Dwell Reports" in this month's issue of Dwell magazine. It's nice exposure for Bike Hugger and for Textura Design--a couple of our businesses. Pick up a copy if you're interested in what he has to say about urban bikes.
Sometimes, coming home from a foreign country really makes me want to go into the criminal mastermind business.
Departing TPE was easy, stress-free, even peaceful. I didn't even have to take my laptop out of my briefcase, let alone perform all the other rituals involved in U.S. flying, and the other passengers were well-behaved and polite. The airport was clean, comfortable, and quiet.
Arriving at SFO is jarring. It's noisy, smelly, and disorganized. People who left Taipei without any fuss become idiots upon stepping onto U.S. soil--they start elbowing, nervously craning their necks, and running into eachother with luggage carts. Customs is frantic and confusing. The agents are surly and stupid. Everything feels slap-dash--like no one has ever thought about how an airport might function.
We have the worst customs and airport security I've experienced--perhaps with the exception of Estonia.
I'm adamantly not a self-loathing American, but I don't understand the disaster that is the experience of entering the U.S. My suspicion is that it's such a mess because everyone knows, deep down, that x-raying everyone's shoes just isn't a viable security policy. Make enough people go through the motions of a pro-forma ritual enough times, and you end up with a lot of bad-tempered zombies.
]]>Miss Shana terribly. Only needed two extra days in Taipei instead of the four I took. Travel belly. That is all. KTHXBAI
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After a very long day of travel, I arrived in Taipei late this past Saturday.
On Sunday, we went for a 20 mile ride around Taipei with a couple guys from Dahon. So much fun. The traffic in Taipei is controlled chaos, and you ride in close proximity to cars, truck, and the gazillion scooters--but at no time did I feel threatened by traffic.
We rode south west of Taipei 101 to Bitan lake were we ate really excellent pizza and and drank Stellas. The pineapple here is like no other I've tasted.
On the way back, we climbed a nice little hill and had an exhilarating descent back into downtown Taipei. On the way, we partook of Betel nut--a working-class stimulant--for which we received some guff.
Monday was consumed largely with Intel. Afterward, however, we went to Dahon HQ to look at bikes and speak with their leadership. The bikes are bitching and the Dahon people really have fun playing with their concepts. Hopefully we will do more with them.
Then it was off to explore more of Taipei with Thomas, Matt, and Ingrid from Dahon. We went to a Buddhist temple, wandered around some night markets, and finally ended up in a Chinese medicinal restaurant.
My pineapple and bitter melon broth with black chicken is in the foreground. I can't really recommend it, but everyone else enjoyed their meals.
Tuesday was again an Intel day and afterward we had a celebratory dinner for IDF participants. We received the sign of approval of our work: an invitation next April to Shanghai. So apparently we were considered valuable to the event and we'll be pitching some new ideas to our customers.
As the party was in taipei 101--the tallest building in the world--Byron and I went to the top (in the fastest elevator in the world). Both are very impressive. I could have stood around taking pictures all night.
Yesterday I spent mostly working and moving from one hotel to a new one. The new one is in a much older, gritter part of town and at half the price of the Grand Hyatt, is has about twice the character.
Then I met with some people--Aron and Scalley--who I met on the internet through Flickr. Aron has some great Taipei food photos and after talking back-and-forth, he agreed to take me eating. We went to the Shilin night market and ate Shanghai style dumplings (Yum!)
Spicy fried chicken breast (Yum!)
Pork buns (yum!)
Stinky tofu (yum!)
Noodles with tripe (eh)
And finished off with odd ice cream prepared using a repurposed drill press contraption to spin a frozen block of the ice cream against a blade, creating paper-thin ice cream shavings.
We had some kind of citrus, sweet flavor and peanut butter. Both amazing.
Busy so far. Much more to do.
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