No problem, "I''ll just book a hostel."

It should have been easy - three stops on the MRT, 5 minute walk, phone the hostel for guidance.... Piece of cake right?
But I walked in the wrong direction first (10 minut gone) then my phone decided not to work.  Remember I'm deep in darkest Taipei here.  Overqhelming mixture of huge modern buildings,  cluttered Chinese style small shops and alleys and...oh so  much traffic
And it really is dark.  So I duck into the nearest western-looking restaurant in the dim hope that they know my hostel.  They don't.  Its the Samba Place.  The cook is a tall, busy, black man.  Very black.  He's also very friendly and  makes the call on his phone
  OK so far, but he sneaks no Chinese.  He hands the phone to me.   Surprised to find my Chinese is up to the task; although the staff person is totally unable to describe her location.  I have the address, but the lanes converge  in a star shape and the hostel has no sign.  Its also on the fourth floor.  The cooks wife shows up.  She's Taiwanese.  She carries a gorgeous little frizzie-jaired mixture girl.  Cook's wife takes the phone and gets the location, but by that the little  one is half a block away.  I grab my bag and we head off in pursuit.  We hey to a convenience store and she describes me so the hostel can send someone down to collect me.
There's good news.  The hostel is jhuge, new, and has everything I need

Night market and beyond

Saturday night at the night market.
 Celebration of my unexpected ability to knock over cans thus winning a Winnie the Pooh bear.

Kevin turned out to be brilliant with a pistol.  Wonder how he learned it.

We then progressed to the purchase of a variety of strange food including a duck's head (photo on the right)
.

Later played various games (mostly outside the 7/11) The idea of the game is to not be the one 'out' because the punishment is to eat some duck's head, pig intestine or worse.
They pointed at pieces of gristle and asked me if I liked it.  If I said 'no' they bought it.
Very intense exercise (that's what I meant by beyond)  In order to survive it was necessary to drink quite a lot of whiskey.  Kevin happily produced a bottle of Johnny walker green.  Never had that before - very smooth.  All of this took place outside the 7/11 until around 3 am.  On the lower left is a shot of Harbert's brother and his girlfriend .  On the right is a selfie I attempted to take of Kevin, Harbert and myself.

I believe these photos are quite expressive of something, not sure what, but I have a new appreciation of 7/11 stores.  They poured me into a taxi wherein I was barely (proudly) still able to tell the driver in Mandarin where I live.

Needless to say I felt quite sick all day Sunday.  Accomplished nothing that day beyond the consumption of a large Subway sandwich.
Monday happily back to normal - studying with my fellow students in the common room of the dormitory.
In clockwise order from the left they are: Harbert from Texas, Alice from Xian, Nolan from Toronto, Hugo from Japan, Sherrie from South Africa, moi, and Henry from L.A.

So, "What does it all mean?" I hear you ask.  I was reading a passage today by the great Zen teacher T.D. Suzuki about 'beginners mind'.  Well, if I'm not there yet I'm certainly progressing, or regressing, in the right direction.  Everything seems to happen almost  without warning in Taichung.  For example, today there were three earthquakes (Really!)  I can honestly say I'm not in control, but at the same time I'm completely at the mercy of my own choices minute by minute.  On one level, nothing is happening.  On another level, life is a gift that sparkles as it turns in the light.

On not losing my phone

Had quite a scare tonight when I thought I'd lost my phone.  Suddenly it wasn't there.  I searched the room.  I narrowed down the possibilities.  To retrace my steps I got on a Ubike.  Losing the phone would mean losing my translator, my direction finder, my ability to take photos, my contact numbers, my instant messaging system and my ability to access the internet when away from my room.  Oh right - no making phone calls.  In short, a disaster.
Just today I was contemplating the serenity that underlies my life.  Its like the video of Calvin on his first birthday living exactly, effortlessly in the moment: radiating joy.  All my daily activities float on the surface like leaves on the river.  They are easy or difficult, enjoyable or agonizing, surprising or mundane. People swirl around me engendering a wide variety of responses.  Cars and motorbikes roar past on the streets, intent on their vital journeys across the broad canvas of my day.  It touches me, yet everything arrives and then passes away.  Everything comes and then it goes.  Afterwards I'm still here as if nothing had happened.  Sometimes I stop and reflect on how absorbed I get in whatever drama holds the stage at the moment.
Chinese class is a good example on which to reflect.  I try to avoid whining, but its really very difficult.  The teacher speaks so fast and she writes characters on the board at the speed of light.  I've learned a lot, but the horizon continues to recede ahead of me.  If I do LOTS of preparation (Measured in hours, not minutes)  Also I can keep up (barely)  if I hang in for the whole 3 hour class and don't get distracted.  Then after class I do something completely different and it all falls away completely.  Believe me when I say Its not hard to find different things to do in Taichung.  Just ordering a drink can be an adventure.  Unfortunately I don't get very much chance to practise in the city, because most people want to try to use their English on me.  This makes it hard to see my progress, but I am learning.
Maybe learning Chinese isn't the main point anyway.  I'm on a spiritual path.  I remain on this earth for a reason.  I'm learning to live in the present moment.  I've arrived at a place where there's so little support from my long-lived ego.  The past isn't just past when I'm here; it has genuinely ceased to exist.  There's just no consensual validation for my past.  I'm back to being a rookie - not just a university student, but a slow one as well.  I don't judge anyone, in fact I mostly just enjoy them.  Beneath it all, around it, above it and inside it there is stillness.
So, back to the cell phone.  Like everything else it had the power to roar across the sky of my mind like a military aircraft breaking the sound barrier, but in the end its only money - a line on a computer printout.  By the way, the phone turned up.  It was on my bedside table.

Report on 'The state of the Nation' {Me)

How are things with me in Taichung right now?  Good question.  I have a fine place to live until the end of May - private washroom, quiet, safe and convenient.  Oh yes, and cheap.  I am gradually improving in mandarin including tones, vocabulary and traditional characters.  I have both Taiwanese and foreigner friends around town who are engaged in a wide variety of interesting activities.  Taichung's public transportation system is outstanding, particularly the Ubike system. I can travel around so easily. The local food is great and I now know how to order.  Weather varies between cool and hot and sunny with very little rain.  My living costs are well within my daily budget - meaning they are covered by my pension and don't cut into my travel budget.
Along with this rosy picture come a number of challenges of course.  Learning Mandarin is driving me crazy because I'm the worst in the class, even though I work harder than I ever did studying anything else.  Today we had a test which demanded a very large amount of vocabulary and word order-type questions.  It proved to me that i know a lot, but not nearly enough. Taiwan remains a foreign country where people do not always do what you think they'll do, or what what you want them to do.  (Motor scooters are a prime example of this) Some places are a bit dirty, the air can be smoggy and mosquitoes are annoying.
Let's investigate a little deeper.  The other day I looked at a picture of myself in my Delta School Board days.  Honestly it did look like another person in another lifetime.  Since coming to Taiwan I have let go of so much of who I thought I was.  Partly this has been uncomfortable, but partly it has given a kind of bright intensity to my day's activities.  Everyone I hang out with has known me only in this context.  The only limitations on what I can do are those I decide to create for myself in the heat of the moment.  I do meditate every day, but it seems that its ALL meditation.  Whatever happens I'm absorbed by it.  Another way to say it is that things are so strange that I have to pay attention all the time.  It becomes a habit.  Sitting for meditation I see my mind is wandering all over.  I resist this wandering mind.  It isn't what I want.  So today I found myself writing:  "I don't judge anyone.  People just do what they do according to who they are."  Looking at it this way I see that nothing is personal.  We are all churning around in the sea of multiple causality.  Even the choices we make are governed by some cross current or other.  Yes, we have free will, but who is making the choice?  Who is the chooser and what determined the root thought behind the choice?  One sees one's self in another oneself.  If that doesn't make you laugh, you missed it.
Tomorrow I go to see a friend about a job.  What is in my future?  Do I really want to know?  I find I have no answers, only questions.  Just breathe, OK?  Nothing is happening.

About Alice

 I learned a phrase 語言交換 (Yu3yan2  jiao1huan4) which means language exchange.  So when talking with other students about the holiday about what we would do I agreed to travel with Alice along the coast to Taitung.  Alice came from Xian in China to Taichung in order to study early childhood education - a field that is covered very well in Taiwan.  Her English is very good, but she wants to continue her studies in New Zealand.  This requires a level of fluency that you can only really acquire by hanging out with native English speakers. Lots to talk about.

 For my part, there's no better way to explore a Chinese speaking country than to have an attractive, energetic young traveling companion.  We took a bus to Kaohsiung, stayed at my favourite Harbourview Hostel ( which has separate male and female dorms in case you were wondering) and did a little sight seeing.  Next day we continued around the southern tip of the island to Taitung on the east coast.  The salt breeze blows fresh off the South China sea, all the way from the Philippines.  Huge waves crash on the beach throwing up sheets of white foam against a deep blue sky.  We took a fast boat about half an hour out to Green Island.  They used to keep political prisoners there, but now its just peaceful - it felt to me as if it got towed there from somewhere near Hawaii.

In Taitung we stayed at the Angel Fish Hostel.  Rebecca & Peter have recently opened it and try hard to create a family atmosphere.  We quickly got to know other travelers from Australia, Hawaii, Germany, Switzerland and Taipei.  Alice was in her element as the 'fixer'.  We walked down the street in the dark and very soon she rounded up a local guy who drove us to the best noodle place and then took us all back to his family tea shop.  He served special tea and snacks and we all conversed in that interesting mix of language that I have come to appreciate so much.  Travelers always value the connections made with local people; so with Alice as our interpreter were in a whole new world.
Somewhere I read the phrase 'guerrilla diplomacy'.  Its nothing to do with warfare, but there's a vast covert network of ordinary people opening doorways between previously hermetically sealed cultures.  And its happening all over the planet - at a very rapid rate.  One of the keys to understanding what's happening is that the majority of people are so open and kind hearted.  No matter what country you visit you can always find people who will go the extra distance in the spirit of common humanity.  Another example of this is 'couchsurfing'.  Many travelers never pay for accommodation at all - they just make a connection online and stay on the couch of some friendly local fellow couchsurfer.  You'd think that would be dangerous, but I've heard nothing but good reports. Our new friend also got us train tickets for the next day.
Alice and I endured  a seven hour trip back to Taichung on a very slow train.
I returned to my small room at the University tired but renewed.  Every week in Taiwan it seems that I discover new friends and places, but this trip was particularly special thanks to Alice.