No.1
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Ben
22 Augustus 2014 | Taiwan, Taipei
Having never been to Asia before (or anywhere outside Europe -besides NYC- for that matter) I could fill my days here just strolling down the streets taking everything in, which I partly do. The random shops I enter have thousands of products I'd like to try and even less that I wouldn't. Catching fragments of speech around me, looking at all these Taiwanese people, spotting a major worker of probably Camponotus aethiops,... You know what I mean.
Taipei is an awesome city, and the people are (stating the cliché-ious) very nice; but really, they are.
An old woman grabbed me by the arm and walked me all the way to the metro-station when I was lost and I couldn't understand the directions she was giving me. On the way chatting about where I was gonna study and saying that my Zhongwen was very hao, completely ignoring the fact that it was the not-hao-ness of my Zhongwen that got us in this position in the first place.
At the station I wanted to eat the dumplings that I'd bought before, but just to be sure I asked the man sitting beside me if it was at all allowed, which it turned out to be not.
If I was very hungry I could go to the toilets and eat them there, he said jokingly. On the metro he told me I was exactly on the right track learning the language the way I did. He recommended me to ask for people to speak slower and gave me some example sentences of how to ask for people to repeat what they just said. All of which I knew in my head, but is still hard putting into practice.
Yesterday I finally went to a pickup game from the ultimate frisbee team here which I had already tracked down on facebook two months prior. On Thursdays pickup were to be at the track of NTSU university. I left early, anticipating that I might get lost or impulsively buy a new pair of kuaizi, both of which I didn't, so I was excessively on time when I saw the stadium appear on my left (although the directions I had written down said it would be on my right, luckily it was big enough to be hard to miss, left or right).
When I entered the stadium the scene struck me as very strange. A couple of hundred people were walking laps leaving little space to even cross the 8 lanes to get to the field, turning a simple 10 meter walk into a hardcore-mode real life version of the Frogger game.
Only the first lane had people actually jogging in it, the rest were taking it easy yet dressed (dressed lanes, how nice) like they might as well had finished a running session earlier. I was pretty sure they hadn't because why then, after that, would 90% of the people keep going at 5km/h for at least 2 hours straight (the time we took to try to make the other team not connect their throws)?
The pickup turned out to be attended by a healthy (maybe?) mix of expats, Taiwanese students and high school kids. The level of play was pretty high but I scored the first point with a clutch grab, so all was well. It felt good to exercise again after not having done so for a while, one of the last times being in the Netherlands with Mathijs predicting trees together.
It's weird how fast you adapt to viewing 28°C as making for a very nice evening to sprint up and down a field catching discs. The gentle breeze (probably generated by the circling human masses around us) did also help by keeping my body from stalling out. Occasionally a time out would allow for catching a breath when some random children wandered into the end zone again, soon to be dragged away to more safe and less interrupting places (as respectively seen from their mother's and our point of view).
I like it here.
Shout-outs to Alex de schipholbeller, Pim de leverkwaalfantast, Nino de zwembroekverduisteraar, Tessa de The-National-deler, Douwe de maffer, Sanne de SVS-reporter, Dirk de vliegtuigspotter, Jet de waddenpendelaar, Paul de kruisbandstrijder, papa de lijstjesfluisteraar and all the other people I'm gonna miss from Holland but am not creative enough to call something funny (tot in december mam!).
Taipei is an awesome city, and the people are (stating the cliché-ious) very nice; but really, they are.
An old woman grabbed me by the arm and walked me all the way to the metro-station when I was lost and I couldn't understand the directions she was giving me. On the way chatting about where I was gonna study and saying that my Zhongwen was very hao, completely ignoring the fact that it was the not-hao-ness of my Zhongwen that got us in this position in the first place.
At the station I wanted to eat the dumplings that I'd bought before, but just to be sure I asked the man sitting beside me if it was at all allowed, which it turned out to be not.
If I was very hungry I could go to the toilets and eat them there, he said jokingly. On the metro he told me I was exactly on the right track learning the language the way I did. He recommended me to ask for people to speak slower and gave me some example sentences of how to ask for people to repeat what they just said. All of which I knew in my head, but is still hard putting into practice.
Yesterday I finally went to a pickup game from the ultimate frisbee team here which I had already tracked down on facebook two months prior. On Thursdays pickup were to be at the track of NTSU university. I left early, anticipating that I might get lost or impulsively buy a new pair of kuaizi, both of which I didn't, so I was excessively on time when I saw the stadium appear on my left (although the directions I had written down said it would be on my right, luckily it was big enough to be hard to miss, left or right).
When I entered the stadium the scene struck me as very strange. A couple of hundred people were walking laps leaving little space to even cross the 8 lanes to get to the field, turning a simple 10 meter walk into a hardcore-mode real life version of the Frogger game.
Only the first lane had people actually jogging in it, the rest were taking it easy yet dressed (dressed lanes, how nice) like they might as well had finished a running session earlier. I was pretty sure they hadn't because why then, after that, would 90% of the people keep going at 5km/h for at least 2 hours straight (the time we took to try to make the other team not connect their throws)?
The pickup turned out to be attended by a healthy (maybe?) mix of expats, Taiwanese students and high school kids. The level of play was pretty high but I scored the first point with a clutch grab, so all was well. It felt good to exercise again after not having done so for a while, one of the last times being in the Netherlands with Mathijs predicting trees together.
It's weird how fast you adapt to viewing 28°C as making for a very nice evening to sprint up and down a field catching discs. The gentle breeze (probably generated by the circling human masses around us) did also help by keeping my body from stalling out. Occasionally a time out would allow for catching a breath when some random children wandered into the end zone again, soon to be dragged away to more safe and less interrupting places (as respectively seen from their mother's and our point of view).
I like it here.
Shout-outs to Alex de schipholbeller, Pim de leverkwaalfantast, Nino de zwembroekverduisteraar, Tessa de The-National-deler, Douwe de maffer, Sanne de SVS-reporter, Dirk de vliegtuigspotter, Jet de waddenpendelaar, Paul de kruisbandstrijder, papa de lijstjesfluisteraar and all the other people I'm gonna miss from Holland but am not creative enough to call something funny (tot in december mam!).
-
22 Augustus 2014 - 10:11
Pim:
Fantastisch! Klinkt al super! Maak er wat van, maar dat zal wel lukken! ;)
-
22 Augustus 2014 - 16:28
Jose Ten Berge:
Prachtige eerste impressie, Ben. Ik wist wel dat je een schrijver was!
Lieve groet van Jose
-
22 Augustus 2014 - 16:33
Anne-Margreet:
Hey kleine Ben, jouw engels is al goed! Leuk om je zo te kunnen volgen. Zo kan ik lekker meegenieten.
groet, am -
22 Augustus 2014 - 17:25
Ben Ten Berge:
Leuk dat jullie meelezen!! -
22 Augustus 2014 - 17:39
M3di0 Aka Nikola:
Nice blog, ben. Also: These names dude! Nino de zwembroekverduisteraar. U gotta teach me how to pronounce them some time -
23 Augustus 2014 - 10:45
Rob:
Hoi Ben, fantastisch leuk en goed geschreven reisverslag. I'm impressed !
Ga zo door.
Gr rob -
23 Augustus 2014 - 18:12
Tiemen:
Yeaah, sounds good! Klinkt alsof je al op de goede weg bent :D Hopelijk werken de zinnen en leer je de taal snel nog beter! (wel een beetje jammer dat je geen leuke naam voor mij kon bedenken hoor :p), Have fun HandymanBenpen! -
30 Augustus 2014 - 05:42
Ben Ten Berge:
Haha, see you on mumble Nikola.
Bedankt Rob!
Tiemen de Veluwe-animator ?!??! Nope, nog steeds niks :P
-
30 Augustus 2014 - 18:02
Ben Ten Berge:
Ben benieuwd of mijn inlog verwarring kan zaaien.
Geweldig dat ik kan meelezen! En leuke knopjes. Je kan meteen zien dat je bovenop een bergtop zit van een grotendeels onderwatergebergte. Nog een klik verder en je zit midden in het tyfoonseizoen; je gaat ze zeker meemaken. Ben ik al een lijstjesfluisteraar?
Fascinerend hoe snel je je weg vindt in deze mierenhoop: 帽子！
Big hug Ben -
05 Oktober 2014 - 11:27
Ben Ten Berge:
Bedankt Ben!
Ook bij mij zelf even verwarring toen ik deze las haha.
Groeten aan Jack (als ie mijn Engels kan verbeteren hoor ik het graag)!
Reageer op dit reisverslag
Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
