We tried to fight it. We planned it all out: we would stay awake, not take any naps, and sleep at a normal time. It was going well as I boasted yesterday. We went to sleep at a respectable time last night, and started moving at around 9am, the right time. Things were going swimmingly (there’s a word you don’t see used much. In my sleep-muddled mind, it popped out. That’s why I like writing while sleepy, I find all these words, sayings, and descriptions that I either knew and used before or always wanted to use but didn’t know it),

We started early, Doolies’s parents taking us to the Grand Hotel, which looks like a palace (you’ll see pictures when I get back—my site is limited on the uploading pictures front), a large hotel in the hills surrounding Taiwan. Its architecture and decoration is Chinese, with a large red roof, and a wonderful view of the surrounding hills and city. We saw our first view of 101, the world’s largest building. I pulled down some history to entertain you, since that’s what I’m here for: entertaining the likes of you. On April 20, 2004, Taipei 101 became the largest structure when measured from the structural or architectural top, which includes its spires, but excludes it antennas. (They have a terribly uninteresting debate about how to measure and decide on the tallest structure. People need to get lives, man.) Taipei 101 measures at 101 stories (hence the name, I’m guessing), but is really 106 stories, if you count the 5 basement levels, and rises 1,670 feet tall. We didn’t go up it, but I did get fancy pictures from different angles. It rained and was foggy, so the pictures aren’t clear, but the building is a goliath. In NYC and other big cities, it makes sense to have large buildings. They blend in with the surrounding buildings and while they’re taller, when compared to the neighboring buildings, they’re not oversized. In Taipei, there aren’t that many large (bigger than 20 or so floors) buildings. Taipei 101 is a bright, sore thumb, sticking out of a mostly flat city. It looks weird, almost gothic, and it is huge. But, to be fair, there is a reason for the largeness besides national pride. Taipei, like Manhattan and Tokyo, is on an island where space is at a premium, which creates opportunity to build up instead of out.

We visited her parent’s properties that they’ve bought for their Buddhist foundation’s TV station, which are a few floors in a tall building next to Taipei 101. (The temporal order has been lost, so I’ll just throw down what we did, because of the creamy mix that I find my mind in.) We drove by Chiang Kai Chek’s house, the Palace museum, and Taipei’s version of Universal Studios (mostly Kung Fu movies) but decided, because of the rain and lack of parking, that Doolies and I would visit them later in the week and take a taxi there. The drivers, from what I’ve seen, are good, better than I expected (my expectations were that the drivers would be Argentina-skilled, which are horrendous: traffic signals and directions are merely suggestive. I made the insightful comment (after writing that I remembered that all of my comments are insightful, so that makes the adjective superfluous—another great word) while visiting that “tort reform would do wonders for the roads”). Most people in Taipei, especially young people, don’t have cars. Instead, they take out their mopeds to go places. There are scooters everywhere, like bugs on a carcass. They park them on the sidewalks and in the streets, and on main drags—there may be fifty of them creeping to the front of the line, massing for the green, only to be overtaken by the yellow taxis and luxury cars that dominate the roads.

We also went to the Jade market, where, during the weekends, miles of aisles of Jade and other semi-precious rock vendors stake out small tables and yell, haggle, and dance to sell the many customers browsing their green treasures. The negotiations were intense, but we walked away, thanks to Doolies’s mother, with an assortment of gifts for the family.

Eating. How can I forget eating? Doolies has been telling me for a while that one of her goals is to “fatten me up.” She thinks I’m too skinny, and my face doesn’t look as good when it’s thin. (Can you believe how shallow she is?) She did her best today. We started at a standard hotel buffet. I’m sure you’ve been to these places: eggs, sausages, bacon, pastries, fruits, pancakes, combined with Asian fare, such as Congee soup, a clear broth with rice, with all the fixings, and other dishes, which I can’t remember. There was a lot of food, and it was buffet styles. I’ve given my thoughts on buffet before, and this food fell into the good food category, but I’m sure I didn’t get my moneys worth category. The second time we ate, we went to yet another hotel, this one across from their large condominium (the building also houses offices for the Buddhist association, which they rent out to them). This time, we had the lunch fare. I don’t remember what it was, but I wasn’t nearly as hungry, and although they cajoled me, I resisted. Since it’s around 1am, we’ll probably head to the Hong Kong dim sum place for a late, late dinner. There’s been too much food around me, and I’ve eaten little of it, not because it hasn’t been good, but because I’m a bad eater.

I started this by talking about the jetlag, but I’ve left you waiting until now. After everything we did today, we thought a quick nap at around 4pm would be appropriate. You see where this is going. We woke up around 1am from our nap, and I’ve typing away since then. After deciding I couldn’t sleep anymore without risking a terribly soar back and headache, I turned on my computer to start typing this musing. Doolies woke up around then and asked what time it was. I told her it was 9am Seattle time, which, in her sleep-filled head she did the math, and proclaimed, “Great! That means its 5am Taipei time.” After wrenching my mind into some semblance of order, I remarked that, no, we’re not four hours behind Seattle, and we realized that we were paying for violating the written rule of jetlag fighting: “thou shall not napeth during the day or face the prospect of thy sleepethless night.”

I have to go now. Doolies wants to eat again. Such a good eater.