Scooters!

So, this is Asia and part of Asia is scooters. Scooters are everywhere and everyone who drives a scooter, which is everyone, is crazy. Not just normal crazy, but frat boy, break a bear bottle on my head, streak through main hall, pick a fight with a dozen hobo's then pass out in front of a police station with knife wounds crazy.

The reason I'm bringing this up is I saw an accident this morning. Several times, I've wandered past a destroyed scooter, shattered plastic and glass, in the middle of the road, but today I saw one... right in front of me. It wasn't bad, not at all, but the conditions made it funny.

I was waiting to cross the street. In Taiwan, you never jaywalk... mainly because people run red lights left and right. There was a cop directing traffic. There wasn't any issue with the traffic light, it is just that no one pays any attentions to things as inconvenient as traffic laws here and the cops are meant to reenforcement the concept of "legal driving." Well, it doesn't really work... even with the cops.

Anyway, this dude on a scooter ran a red light right in front of the cops. The police woman did what the Taiwan police do best, ignore any law breaking. Well, a SUV, legally crossing the road, slammed into this tiny scooter... I must give scooter man props, he did a pretty awesome ninja like bob and weave to keep his scooter upright, then with criminal like speed, fled the scene.

It was chuckling because the police chicky didn't even turn her head.

Gender-based port-o-potties

No, that is not a clever name. Yesterday I walked by gender separated mobile bathrooms. I find this funny, since in this country, public restrooms are hardly... up to standards. At a building I frequent, the men's bathroom doesn't have a door, or a nifty windy corridor to separate it. This would be okay, except there aren't any splash guards either, so you must resort to an awkward half body turn to shield yourself from anyone who happens to be walking down any nearby hallway.

Also, in one of the nearby restaurants, there is a "men's" and "women's" bathroom. In truth, they are the same room. The urinal is separated by a thin, torn, and quite small sheet. This is the men's room. The women's room is a squatter toilet, separated by the same type of sheet, although it is slightly larger and in slightly better shape.

Yesterday, a homeless woman dropped trow and did her deed on the sidewalk of a busy intersection... the same sidewalk I was on... in fact, right in front of me.

So, thank you, Taiwanese government for dropping twice as much money to have gender-based mobile toilets in order to protect my delicate sensibilities. Seriously, I don't know if I could use a plastic bathroom that someone of the opposite sex has used recently.

Alright... a week until Singapore. I'm pretty excited. That's all.

Ode to shoes

You have served me long and well,
and in a foreign land you fell.
Too noble to complain
yet it t'was not in vain.
For you carried me far,
and raised further shoe's bar.
I send you to the deep,
where you may sleep.

Goodbye my old friends.

Pictures!

Pictures from Japan are up!

http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.ericS