The Impetus to Ride

I love the word "impetus". Learning that word a few years ago has made me one of the most powerful writers in the world that revolves around me.

More to the point, why do I want to ride in Taiwan?

Simple.

Because ever since coming back from my 6-day trip to cover Taipei Cycle, which was a bicycle tradeshow, I became enamoured with the country. It has extremely good weather (caveat: it was March), extremely nice people and beautiful ladies, plus a whole load of other things that lit the Unforgettable Fire.

The first lady was a 26-year old taimei (Taiwanese "chick") who spoke crazy fluent English. She was average looking, but my is she nice to talk to... maybe it's because she spoke in English. She went for a mianshi (which I had no idea what it was until she told me it meant "interview") at the hotel which I was staying, and that allowed us to meet on the train station. I asked her how to get to Ximen, and she guided me for almost the whole way. She told me that in Taiwan it was taboo to stay stationary on the left side of the escalators, and being Singaporean, I felt so awkward because over here, we stand all over the escalator. The best thing is that she thought I was 28-years old. Awesome.

The other was a Singaporean exchange student who was my friends friend and has only been in Taiwan for a month. Yet, she knew how the buses work, had an information counter manned by her exchange roommates when she got lost, and took me to drink Lattea, which looked like beer but was green tea with a salty 'head'. Then we walked around and we stumbled upon a camera shop with a used Canon 50mm f/1.8 inside going for 2000NTD ($89 Singaporean). We got "excited much" as she said. I, on the other hand, felt like I should've gotten that lens, shit!

It got boring at night when I hung out with her roommates who just fang gong (knock off - a shop owner told me that they prefer xia ban because fang gong sounds crude, wtf?) from manning the info counter. So I left. Pity.

I'm going back to see this beautiful country and hopefully to meet more beautiful ladies. Hah, yes. The following video is a summary of my sentiments which I made while riding a half-bicycle Where the Streets Have Chinese Names.

I am doing this next trip for myself. The past year hasn't been very good and I have had so many calamities in my life that there are somethings which I must regain. I am taking baby steps towards rebuilding my confidence. My life really sucked from May last year. But since October or so, it's been getting better 1% at a time.

And of course, what a better way to grow into turn 21 than on a bicycle? I can't do epic parties like most people can since I do not have a ring of extremely social friends and would consider to have no best friend. My best partner is myself. My best friends are my hobbies.

17 days to Taiwan.