Fast food sometimes tastes (even) worse in Taiwan

Met up with Tyler before he went to get his tattoos done.  When he invited me to hang out with him I called him on his bullshit.

Tyler: "Yo man, going to be in Xinzhuang early as fuck the next five Saturdays.  If you want to hang out for a couple hours let me know."
Me: "Would love to."
(pause)
Me: "Hello, me name Tyler, me only hang out with people when convenient for me."
Tyler: "Yeah man, that's pretty accurate.  Can't argue that one."
Me: "Jesus Tyler, you're supposed to sup me back, not take it like a little bitch."
Tyler: "I'm not taking it a like a bitch, it's actually something that I tend to do a lot."

Tyler- 1, Stephen- 0

Before I meet with him I ask him what he's going to do about accomodations for the night, because the buses from Zhongli to Daxi (his homecity) stop running at 8:50, for some fucked-up reason.  Jesus, that shit pisses me off.  Is Daxi a city full of geriatrics waiting to die (it's actually an old port town famous for its wood-working industry)?  Here you have an able-bodied young man who wants to get out and do shit, and he can't because he'll be stranded out in Taipei if he stays out later than 6 or 7?!  Anyway, Tyler's brilliant idea is to find a 24-hour bookstore and just stay up the whole night.  I immediately seize upon the chance to ridicule him:

Me: "Not trying to be a dick, all I'm saying is that you could look up Taipei hostels in English and be able to find them. You could look up the address on google maps and be able to find where they are. You're a smart guy, you could figure this shit out if you wanted to-"

Tyler: "Honestly never even crossed my mind to go to a hostel.
Me: "-But if you want to sleep in a 24 hour bookstore, then by all means, do so.  Just consider this. Would you ever consider this option back home? If you were back home in Canada, would you ever consider fucking spending the night in a bookstore?

(pause)

Well, maybe if you were going to get pussy you would.

Tyler: "You know, what?  To answer your question, yeah I would.  So suck on that."

Tyler- 2, Stephen 0

I don't want the people out there reading this to get the wrong impression.  I'm very good friends with Tyler.  If I wasn't, I wouldn't go out all the way to Xinzhuang just to hang out with him.  Xinzhuang sucks, there's nothing there, except for temples.  Temples for days.  Shit, the only times I ever get to see this guy is when we have training, and training fucking sucks.  It's not exactly the perfect setting for us to let loose 100%.  Since we understand each other, naturally we rip on each other without mercy.  But I also care about him.  I want to know how he's doing, want to shoot the shit with him, and want to make sure he gets to his tattoo parlor without any trouble.

Tyler's looking healthier, his skin is glowing and he doesn't look so tired.  He explains he's been lathering his face in coconut oil and drinking a shit ton of coconut water.  As soon as we get out of the MRT he has to head back for a tinkle.  I see him walk right past the massive pink symbol denoting FEMALE, ignoring the woman beside him stutter stepping and looking him askance.

Me: "HEY!  What the fuck are you doing?"

Tyler: "Wha-?  Oh, hahaha, whoops."

Me: "DO YOU NOT SEE THIS FUCKING HUGE PINK WOMAN?!" (gesticulating madly at the lifesize logo right beside the entrance)

Tyler: "Hahaha, ok, shut up!"

Tyler-2, Stephen- 10

The woman flees into the bathroom, and random pedestrians are staring in our direction.  One of the good things about Taiwan is since people are often staring in your direction anyway, you can't do anything more obscene than simply existing.  This can be a bad combination with more outlandish personalities like myself.

Tyler: "Yeah, I'm not really aware of my surroundings."
Me: "No shit?"

We walk towards the tattoo parlor, stopping for lunch while we wait for his appointment.  As we're walking the conversation steers towards personal hygiene:

Me: "Dude, I shaved my ass.  Not my cheeks, but the inside.  You ever done that before?"

Tyler: "No."

Me: "I was tired of my ass getting all sweaty and scratching it all the time when I'm trying to sleep."

Tyler: "I bet it's going to get even sweatier now.  And stinkier too.  There's a reason we have hair down there."

Me: "Actually you're right.  Fuck."  (put the blade of my hand between my cheeks and sniff it)

Tyler: "EW, did you just-?"

Me: "Just checking."

Tyler: "Yeah, the cheeks stick together too, right?  When you're walking?" (sure knows a lot for someone who's "never shaved his ass")

Me: "YES."

Tyler: "Your farts are going to be the worst now too.  No protective netting to disperse the swamp gas."

Me: "At least wiping's better.  No dingleberries...no, no, you know what?  This was the worst idea ever."

Tyler- 100, Stephen- 10

We continue to shoot the shit after we arrive at Tyler's destination, and then I bid farewell.  I later learn that he spends seven hours getting his tattoo done, with a single ten-minute break after the first three hours.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is a fine display of grit right there.  One of the tattoo artists scooters him around Taipei looking for hotels, but they're all booked, so Tyler sits in a McDonald's and stays awake until 6am, and then catches a bus home.  Buff-ass motherfucker.

Here's the place he's going to:

https://www.facebook.com/andy.shou#!/andy.shou

Next stop for me is the National Palace Museum.  I can already tell while I'm standing on the bus that I'm just going there because I need to feel productive, which is the worst reason to do anything.  It's been almost three years since I was last here, and I wonder if the crowds were as massive as they are today.  The worst offenders are, no surprise, the Mainlanders.  Now, the Chinese people I interacted with in China were mostly wonderful people, generous and intelligent.  But there's something about getting a group of them together that brings out the worst in people, and nowhere is this more evident than in China.  I witness an older woman trying to circumvent the metal detector by squeezing her frame in the narrow gap between it and the wall, meanwhile yelling at her husband on the opposite side.  The Taiwanese staff are urging her to keep her voice down IN THE MUSEUM, unsuccessfully.  I glance over at the disturbance and give a knowing smile to one of the staff.  They smile back.  Clowns.

The exhibits themselves are great, though the main attractions haven't changed.  People still crowd around the intricate curio boxes on the 1st level, while the Qing-era furniture lies largely ignored.  I try to stand in front of the glass displays and close my eyes, imagining myself sitting at an elaborate desk, lifting up my sleeve of fine silk as I sit in my shaded study, mixing ink on my expensive inkstone, my collection of Chinese classics neatly arranged behind me, a servant stepping in silently and setting a pot of tea by my side.  This is what attracts me to museums- being transported to another time and place.

The jade collection on the third floor is impressive, most of all the process by which the ancients worked it.  I didn't realize that it would be quite the quandry for people back then to carve jade, because it's far harder than any other substance they would have access too.  Basically, a slurry of ground-up materials was added to the jade while it was being worked, and this is what allowed people to carve it.  Never even crossed my mind when I saw these beautifully worked pieces how time-consuming and difficult it was to make them.  Makes you realize that these people truly did deserve the title of master. 

I don't bother seeing the famous Jade Cabbage and Fatty-Pork Jade, because I know the lines are going to be massive for them, and I've already seen them before anyway.  I get on the return bus with no idea where I'm going.  I still have no idea when I walk up the stairs to the MRT, my steps purposeful as I try to figure out what direction I'm going: north to Danshui, or south back towards Taipei Main.  Suddenly, the sun breaks through the clouds in the North and I decide to ride the line all the way to Danshui, to catch the sunset and sit back and relax.

The swirling colors out in the distance make for a glorious late-evening show, but my stomach calls, so I make a quick pit-stop at Subway, curious to see what they're like in Taipei.

An aside about fast food chains in Taiwan:

Taiwan has no dearth of international fast food chains to select from, once  you get tired of the pointing game, or Taiwanese food in general, or perhaps because you're a fat fuck who ate fast food all the time back home.  Yet, in places where the standard of living is much lower than the US, one wonders how these places manage to pull in a profit while attracting customers.  In my experience, there are three notable methods employed:

1. The prices don't change, but the concept does

Restaurants that are frequently patronized by poor students or the homeless for their economical but grossly unhealthy meals often receive a makeover in other foreign countries, and Taiwan is no exception.  Comfortable second floor dining areas with full windows offer commanding views above the common riff-raff below, empowering patrons of McDonalds, KFC, and Starbucks alike.  Everything is kept neat and orderly, and the staff execute their job promptly, politely, and precisely.  However, you are still receiving the same shitty food, just with the gloss of a chiq interior, and perhaps bragging rights.

And you know what?  It works.  McDonalds is the hangout place to be; people often go on dates under the golden arches here.  That might've been the case back home in the 70s, back when the half-life of the average Big Mac was under fifty years.  I don't actually know when McDonalds stopped being a fairly respectable burger joint and metastasized into a mega-corporation.  Whatever the case, no one I know lingers in one for long, certainly not in a romantic setting.

2. Smaller potions, cheaper prices

No need to go into detail about this one.  I could mention something about smaller people having smaller apetites, but any moron who's seen anything of the world knows that isn't true.

3. Quality takes a hit

You know, when the prices of McDonald's here are comparable to those back home and the size is about the same, a light goes off in one's head.  The price can't be any cheaper because the ingredients used can't be any shittier; McDonald's is literally using the cheapest ingredients they can to still turn a profit, the cheapest ingredients to still pass off something as food.

And this is where we return to Subway.  I went in expecting hefty prices, but immediately became suspicious when I saw a footlong could be mine for the low, low price of $170 NT (under US $6).  What goes in this bargain sub?  I observed only superficial elements of Rule #1 around me, and Rule #2 could not be broken unless the Taiwanese decided to change the measurements for the foot (something the rest of the world love to do I'm sure).

That left Rule #3.

Now, I'm by no means an advocate of Subway.  They sell overpriced sandwiches for lazy fucks using ingredients that have been sitting out for hours.  And when I was a waiter, I was one of those lazy fucks that'd pick one up before or after work.  So you could say I know my Subway.

I almost wanted to tell the employee he grabbed the wrong bread for my Italian Club.  Then I noticed the few stray kernals of oat on an otherwise generic white loaf of bread.  So much for honey-oat.  Slices of grade-sphincter meat, something Lunchables could proudly hold its head above, were slapped on next, followed by 3 slices of salami substitute.  Fuck, I was better off eating spam.  At least I'd know what I was getting.

After laying on some Kraft's quality cheese, I was asked whether I wanted to double said cheese.  I declined.  At least cheese in the Subways back home is cheese, not...I don't know what the hell Kraft's is. 

The vegetables seemed ordinary enough, thought the tomato slices stuck to each other a bit too well for my liking, as if they had been squirted out of a mold.  My first bite in my sub and I had to admit it tasted like the subs back home...the ones I left in my car for six hours and had to eat after my shift, knowing the full-scale of the diarrhea that awaited in the next 24-hours.  Something was definitely off in the meat department, and the stale, tough oat kernals punctuated every unpleasant bite.  Perhaps my great folly was not toasting the sub, and evenly distributing this symphony of mediocrity.

I was glad for the beautiful sunset, that I had something to keep my mind off the offending food product I was cramming in my mouth.  Danshui never disappoints in providing a feast for the eyes, though the feast for my stomach was a wash.