There's lots of nice things you get used to when you're traveling on Bill's dime. Room service, fancy dinners, and a freshly made bed every day come to be expectations when you've done this too often. But the one luxury I must confess to have taken for granted every day of my life is the luxury of a cabbie who understands at least a few words of english.

For starters, you don't even climb in the cab unless you have your destination written out in Chinese. Most Taiwanese cabbies don't speak a word of english -- not even enough to confirm your chosen destination -- so you have to make sure not to have the concierge write the address down on a piece of paper with any other addresses on it. I learned that the hard way when a cabbie took me halfway across the city to an electronics market I'd visited the day before because I neglected to check which side of the paper was up when I handed it to him. And if you enjoy your hotel and would like to return - ever - don't forget to bring a piece of paper with you with the hotel address on it (again in Chinese). Most chinese cab drivers don't understand the word "Hyatt". This is such a common problem that the concierge has preprinted countless slips with the address, a map, and step-by-step instructions in Chinese that they thrust upon you before you depart for the local tourist trap.

Once you're on your way, you really begin to appreciate the magnitude of the language barrier. The subtleties of "Uh oh", "slow down", "watch out for the family of four on the moped in front of you", and "holy shit, he's making a U-turn into oncoming traffic" are completely lost on the average Taiwanese cab driver. I did discover, however, that they understood "stop", if screamed with sufficient fear and terror.

The few cabbies who did speak english made for an interesting change of pace. One time we got in the cab and carefully procured the proper scrap with the Hyatt address on it and attempted to pronounce the name of the hotel in Chinese, a task that is almost impossibly difficult for western lips. He said, "Oh, you're staying at the Hyatt?" The other cabbie thought he spoke english; unfortunately, his idea of sentence structure was sufficiently distinct from ours that conversation became difficult. He started with "Where are you from", which I understood, to "How many", which I eventually figured out to be an inquiry as to my age, to "First what cab Hyatt player", which left me completely mystified. The conversation ended with a proud gesture to a prominent sticker with one large, familiar English word on it: "Amway! American company. Nu-skin. Very good."

As a motivation for my various cab rights/failed suicide attempts, I was doing a fair bit of dining out as you might guess. Local Taiwanese culture is pretty remarkable. I asked a native Taiwan resident where his favorite place to go was. He pronounced something that sounded vaguely foreign, Shang-Sen, so I had him inscribe the address on one of the Sacred Slips. I handed it to the cabbie, and off we went. It was with great surprise that I disembarked at the Swensen's ice cream parlour.

The one local Taiwanese restaurant that we ventured to was indeed a culinary experience to be remembered. We passed on the sea cucumbers and chicken testicles (my dinner companions were somewhat squeamish), but we did try the Chicken Hot Pot, which was described as fairly unique. The waitress (every restaurant had a waitstaff fluent in english) explained to us that it was chicken cooked in a wine broth with Chinese medicinal herbs.

Now, I don't know when the last time you had a glass of Robitussin (just for the taste of it!), but around the world, there is one feature all medicines have in common. This dish was no exception. I'll spare you a description of the taste, but I finished a bowl of it out of courtesy. The one frightening moment came when the waitress stopped by and pointed to some odd little round orange things floating in the soup, smiled largely and said, "Eyes!" I'm hoping she meant they were full of vitamin A.

Well, that's it for the email. Time to catch my ride back. There are a few more stories, so if you catch me wandering around, ask about the rest of the trip.

--dan