Happy New Year

2020 The Year of the Mouse

Today is the official Chinese lunar New Year. Last week we went on a lovely trip to the mountains, to enjoy the outdoors and to get away from our apartment.  Most local people do this sort of thing after the New Year.  We did it first, to avoid the crowds and now it is time to settle into living in Taipei.

The last few days I have attempted cooking. My food has mostly been a disaster because I haven't been able to control the temperature on the gas burners.  In addition to only having high flames, the burners turn off after about 20 seconds.  This  makes for an irritating cooking experience and lousy food.  Last night, for New Years Eve, I made one pot spaghetti and it tried me to no end.

This morning I got a text from Jennifer saying she would be by to bring us clean sheets, which she does at the two week mark.  I texted back that while she was here would she teach me how to use the stove?  I didn't have the nerve to tell her outright that I thought something was wrong, because she has dealt with so many problems here.

When she arrived she went directly to the stove and agreed with me that something was wrong.  She called her repair man who came to take a look.

He started by checking out the burners.  His first diagnosis was a cockroach had clogged up one of the holes. I can't believe I was happy to hear a cockroach was causing a problem.

He looked more closely and abandoned the cockroach theory.

He then decided the left hand burner should be replaced.

Oh dear, now  he thinks the entire stove top needs to be replaced.

By now, we are all hungry and wanting to cook dinner.  It is New Years Day and restaurants are closed. But look at our kitchen.

Fortunately, the lovely man tells us he can get a replacement in 14 minutes! And on New Years Day!

Chia, while our repair man leaves to get a new stove top, assembles dinner.  She makes rice in the rice cooker, steams a fish in an electric steamer, heats up her homemade vegetable soup in the microwave, and steams some veg in the same steamer that cooked the fish.

Thanks to Chia we had a gourmet meal with Irish whisky and beer.  I forgot to mention she has a cold, and Taylor has locked himself in the bedroom because he is also sick.  David and I are the only ones in the family who are currently healthy.

We were sitting down to eat when the repairman came back with the new stove top.

Can you imagine getting a repairman, let alone a new appliance, on a holiday in the US?

He was finished with installation while we were still eating.  A job well done.

And now, as they say, we are cooking with gas.  And I hope this is the end of the apartment saga.

Happy New Year

We live around the corner from this display.

Walk through the tunnel and to the left, and you will arrive at our apartment.  Come on over.  Everyone else has been here.

The Necessity of Being Open Minded and Flexible

Taipei 2020

This is our seventh trip to Taipei.  I must admit Taylor and I have become a little complacent about our visits.  This is our forth year to rent an apartment from the same landlady, Jennifer.  Before we met  Jennifer,  we had some interesting and sometimes uncomfortable living situations.  With Jennifer, we have learned to expect an apartment that is clean and well functioning.  The buildings have trash management systems so we don't have to meet the garbage trucks with our trash; the kitchens are workable; and last year we were able to flush toilet paper for the first time.

So...........this year we expected more of the same.

We arrived at our apartment building two weeks ago, around 7:00 pm after being without sleep for over 24 hours.  We weren't in the mood for any kind of challenge, but we knew we would meet Jennifer, move into the apartment and go to bed.  That's not how it happened.

We met Jennifer at the apartment lobby.  She informed us that we would not be able to stay in the expected apartment because the previous renters refused to move out (that is a separate story that I will not include here).  However, we weren't to worry because she had another apartment for us.  Please sit in the lobby, she would drive us to the new apartment.

We sat for quite a while.  As we sat we watched a man moving stuff up and down in the elevator.  We assumed he was the building custodian doing his regular business and didn't pay him much mind.  Eventually, Jennifer reappeared and told us to follow her to her Mercedes.  The man who we had seen hauling stuff would take our suitcases.  Boy, were we surprised to enter the back alley and find this truck  with all the stuff from the apartment loaded onto to it.  The moving man, added our suitcases to the pile.

There's my red suitcase with my carry on bag on top of it.  When I saw this situation, I grabbed my carry on which had my computer in it.  I couldn't imagine that any of this stuff would survive the trip across the busy city of Taipei.

Jennifer drove us, with our carry on bags and computers in our laps,  to the new apartment.  Little did we know that the truck load of stuff was going to come to the apartment with us.

The moving man brought us, with our suitcases, to the apartment.  Our first reaction was "This is beautiful.  We'll be fine."  He then proceeded to bring all the stuff from the truck up the elevator to the 7th floor apartment.  During this time we looked around the apartment, and by the time Jennifer arrived we had moved from "We'll be fine," to "This is unacceptable and horrible," "Should we go to a hotel?"

This apartment was clearly not ready for renters.  Jennifer brought all the stuff we would need to live for the next month: blankets, sheets, towels, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, hangers, dishes, silverware, pots, pans, a clothes drying rack, hangers, toilet paper, etc., etc....... Not only did this apartment lack all the supplies that make an apartment livable, it was FILTHY.

There was a fine layer of sheet rock dust over everything because recently there had been a plumbing problem which required drilling into walls and installing pipes on the outside of the walls.  Both bathrooms were hideous.  It was hard to decide which one was the least disgusting to use.  One bathroom actually had a toothbrush and toothpaste on the side of the sink. It was like the owner of the toothbrush had just brushed his teeth.  The doorknobs were covered with toothpaste as if he would brush his teeth and then smear the toothpaste on the doorknobs.  The kitchen was filled with other people's food that was way past its pull date, and when I tried the water in the kitchen sink water poured out from the base of the faucet. And then there was the refrigerator:

This beauty was filled with molding, mildewed food! There is actually black fluid mildew running down the gaskets!

By the time Jennifer rejoined us, I was beside myself.  All I wanted to do was go to bed, but I didn't want to touch anything.  She made the brand new beds up with clean sheets, and gave us some towels.  She was also beside herself.  She had occupiers in her apartment, that she had rented to us, who wouldn't leave, and she had us in an apartment that she wasn't aware was in such horrible shape.
She eventually left, and we went to bed without unpacking. I did not take my shoes off until I was ready to lay down in bed.

The next day Jennifer returned with a cleaning lady.  They worked until 9:30 that night cleaning and putting the stack of stuff away. A plumber came and put in a new kitchen faucet.  During the course of the day a pipe in one of the bathrooms broke, so the plumber came a second time.

The day after that moving men brought a new refrigerator and a washing machine.  Moving the washing machine in involved taking doors off the hinges. Men also came to try to get the WiFi and the TV to work. At one point as I sat on the couch I counted 5 people working in here.  WiFi and TV proved too much for the experts, so they left and we went without for more than a week.

As we settled in, we discovered that the new washing machine didn't work properly.  It was clogged up and the water came in so slowly it took about 6 hours to run a load of wash.  Jennifer got us another new one that works.  Water was pouring from under the kitchen sink.  That turned out to be a faulty water filter which was replaced. Of course, we had been drinking water from the ineffective water filter for about a week. We didn't care about the TV but we felt WiFi a necessity.

This big ass TV had never been hooked up. Now it has wires coming out of the top and bottom of it.  We asked ourselves who buys both a big ass TV, and the mildewed refrigerator?

The place was finally in good enough shape to have David and Solomon stay over night.  Guess what?  The water in their shower only had boiling hot water which disappeared after about 20 seconds followed by howling pipes.  The next day another plumber came to fix the shower.

I hate to end this story on a negative note, so I will list the positives of this apartment:

• It is very big and potentially quite lovely
• The kitchen is nicely laid out
• The beds are new, so they are very comfortable
• The dining table is large and there is enough seating for all of us to eat dinner without having to move the table, or get out folding chairs
• We have a working washing machine
• The WiFi works
• The TV works
• Although we sort the trash, we take it to the stairway landing which is very convenient
• The location is very convenient to David and Chia's  house
• The apartment is located on a lane off of RenAi Road.  Being on a lane means it is very quiet.
• Who doesn't love lime green leather couches?
• We are living in a fancy pants neighborhood with stores like Cartier, Tiffany, Marimekko
• The neighbors seem to drive mostly Mercedes and BMWs

Although I like the furniture it doesn't make up for the general disaster that lurks in this apartment

This is a great table for family dinners, and art projects with Solomon

What's not to love with lime green couches?  Behind the larger couch is an alcove with a desk. The windows open to a nice porch, which we are using to hang our clothes to dry.

Now that most of the horror of this apartment is behind us, I have looked around me and remembered that I like Taipei.  I walked to the park today to meet David and Solomon and this is what I saw:

Taipei 101

I love it here.

Today Was a Good Day at Oaks Bottom

This was the most beautiful day in the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. We did not go to pick up trash.  We went to take a walk in the woods, and it was lovely.  The trash was at a minimum.  Every person we saw with a dog had it on a leash. The benches were available for neighbors who might need to rest while taking a walk.  I didn't see any campsites.

Oh yes....................the weather was spectacular.

I have never seen so little trash around the benches before.

I know it's not random that the area is so clean today.  Thanks to whomever made the effort to clean up.  It makes a difference for the wildlife and for the humans who enjoy this area.

Trash Picking Continues

One day of trash picking wasn't enough for us.  Between last Saturday and today, we ordered from Amazon, bright yellow trash picking implements.  They have made our jobs a little easier.  Less bending. As our son David said, more "professional."

We were a little concerned that we would have done ourselves out of a job, since we collected trash last Saturday.  Lo and behold, we still have jobs.  The hiking portion of the trail wasn't as bad as last week, but the asphalt bicycle trail has reverted to it's normal state of disarray in a week's time.

This week, more people stopped to thank us for our service.  One woman asked where we got our sticks, noted the label, and said she wanted to get one.  Several other people said they might bring trash bags with them in the future.  The man sitting on the bench where the stoned lady sat last week, actually helped pick up the refuse around him when I started picking up the stuff around his feet.

The bicycle path is asphalt.  This is where most trash collects.

This is the start of the hiking portion of the trail.  It becomes narrower and more beautiful as we continue to hike.  There are fewer opportunities to camp here, so there is less trash.

Some of the campers leave their trash for others to pick up.  We left this, as it would have filled our bag.  There was plenty strewn around this area to keep us busy.

Here's our haul from Day 2.  We found our newly purchased trash pickers to be most helpful.

We will see what next Saturday brings.

Talking Trash in Portland Oregon

When we are not travelling Taylor and I like to walk through Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge several times a week.  We are lucky that we can walk to the trail head from our house, and hike through the wildlife area that nestles between the communities of Westmoreland and Sellwood, and the Willamette River.

We are not the only people who enjoy the area.  Some people even like to live in these woods. For a while now, Taylor and I have spent way too much time complaining to each other about the trash that collects on the trails.  Today, we had had enough of whining at each other and we took the trash, so to speak, into our own hands.

We donned latex gloves and carried a large kitchen garbage bag with us, and as we started at the trail head we began to collect trash.  We had rules for ourselves: no dog poop bags (yes people pick up the poop and then discard the bags), no broken glass,  nothing too far off the trail or in precarious locations. Nothing too big.

This qualifies as too big.

It was an experience.  We spoke to a number of people as we walked and picked up. I'd say about one third of the people we met thanked us for our efforts.  One woman, sitting on a bench smoking cannabis, thanked us and said the folks who live in the woods try to pick up after themselves, but things get out of hand.  That said we collected a cigarette package, multiple butts, beer cans and coffee cups from around her feet.

When we got off the paved bicycle trail and onto the narrower hiking trail, the trash diminished somewhat - I think do to a lack of seating areas contributes to this.  Since we were walking at a slower pace than normal, we saw coyotes, and well as dog walkers and runners.

At the end of the trail, we had a bag full.

Some of the notable items: a sake bottle, the lid to a Revere Ware saucepan, a large plastic container that had held mixed nuts from Costco, a bicycle tire, the wheels from a grocery cart, a tee shirt, a sheet or blanket, cartons of organic food from New Seasons, a comb, a Ben and Jerry's container and of course beer cans, coffee cups, plastic bottle tops, and oh - a cartridge from a soda stream.

So we've come full circle starting with sorting our personal trash to be collected by the singing trucks in Taipei, to just picking it up here at home.

Acts of Kindness

My first thoughts of Armenia are that it is the poorest of the three South Caucasus countries ($9,500 GDP) and the friendliest. In every village we passed through on our drive to Yerevan people looked excited to see our bus and waved enthusiastically.  On the streets in Yerevan, local people continue to smile. I don't think I made eye contact with people in Russia.   This is most refreshing

At one of our WC stops on the road to Yerevan, Taylor poked his nose into a quiet shop, and discovered a few women baking bread.  He brought me over to see the women work, and one of the women presented us with a loaf of bread hot from the oven.  She refused to take money.

Yesterday, while waiting on the side walk in front of the hotel, we admired the gorgeous roses and told the gardener the roses were beautiful.  About five minutes later he presented me with a sprig of roses.  And, yes, they are fragrant.

Taylor ran upstairs to get a water bottle to use as a vase.  We enjoyed our little bouquet in the bus.

We had a wonderful dinner by ourselves in a little restaurant on a side street.   Since Armenia is known for it's cognac, Taylor ordered it after dinner.  Since I had had two glasses of wine I declined.  However, our gracious waitress insisted that I try the cherry liquor. It was not heavy and syrupy, but light and really had a lovely cherry flavor. This was her gift to me.

When we have breakfast at the hotel, we check in with the hostess and give her our room number. After the first day, our hostess at breakfast remembered our room number.  Today she asked me where I am from, and if I had read about Armenia at home.  She then thanked me for knowing about her small country, and for coming to visit.

One last comment about the graciousness of this country.  Every toilet I have used has not only been clean, but it's had western toilets, toilet paper and paper towels. I really like Armenia.

We Are Not Citizens M

What a trip we've had.  Russia with St Petersburg and Moscow, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia............I'm feeling so amazed and fortunate we have actually been to all of these places.  I feel like we are citizens of the world.

To break up our trip home, we stopped for an overnight in Amsterdam.  We thought it would be refreshing to have a good night's sleep after our early morning 5 hour flight from Yerevan to Amsterdam, before starting the much longer flight from Amsterdam to Portland. For convenience, Taylor booked us into the Citizen M Hotel.

Citizen M is a new concept in hotels.  This one is walking distance from  Schiphol Airport, and a bus ride to downtown, where we planned to go to the Rijksmuseum for a few hours in the afternoon.  We knew the rooms would be small, the hotel reasonably priced and the convenience of location priceless.

On arrival the first thing we noticed about the hotel is that we checked ourselves in and made our own key cards!  I always thought it was a big mystery behind hotel desks that were a secret to guests.  Well.....it turns out to be pretty darn easy.  We made our keys, and found our way to our room, by ourselves (no porters, no problem).  And here we are:

This is the view from the door.  The circular business on the right is the shower.  As you can see, the bed goes from wall to wall. 

The circular area to the left of the photo, and in front of Taylor is the toilet.  If you feel you need privacy, pull the circular door closed.  The shower door must be fully closed in order to turn on the water, so there is no danger of flooding the room. Notice the sink to Taylor's right.

View from the bed with a good view of both the shower and the toilet.  

In all fairness, even though the room was minuscule, it was clean and the towels and bedding were excellent quality.  We discovered, however, the only way for each of us to use all the facilities and to get dressed, the other had to be on the bed.

We got our easy trip into downtown Amsterdam, we got a decent night's sleep, but we discovered that while we consider ourselves citizens of the world, we probably are not Citizens M.