Corey desecrates the memories of the dead

Day 0 (13/14 June 2007): Taipei, China

Suffering the effects of jet lag and a few beers, I woke up feeling a little furry – but quickly hardened up with some push-ups and an ice-cold shower. It was 0700 Taipei time, about 5 hours after I went to bed. With the boys from last night, we’d decided to get an early breakfast and head into the city for some sightseeing before jumping back on the plane to Vancouver. Zane had just got out of the shower when I tried to barge into his room unannounced. Apparently being a fearful man, Zane had chained his door, and my attempts to steal his stuff were foiled. He was awake anyway so it probably wouldn’t have worked.

We met Paul, the third member of our trio from last night at breakfast. He was chatting to another Aussie travelling alone, Anthony, who was the Einstein-like genius who’d beaten us to the beers last night. He was paying for it though, feeling a little seedy and already struggling with the new day. It didn’t take much convincing for Anthony to join us on our tourist adventure into Taipei, and 10mins later we were all piling into a cab outside of the hotel.

Surprisingly, from when we left the hotel, until we checked in again at the airport, we didn’t get lost at any stage. We had caught a cab, subway, train and bus all with clockwork precision. It was like we had built this outcrop of the legitimate exiled Chinese government.

The first stop of our lightning tour of Taipei was the Longshan Temple. It only took two minutes until we had managed to offend local sensitivities, with Zane and Paul wearing their hats in the temple, and myself foolishly accepting proffered prayer sticks, lighting them, then walking inside a building where they were not meant to go. Fleeing from the old angry women, I found a shrine where I had seen others leave prayer sticks, though only one or two at a time. I quickly shoved the bundle in my hand into the sand at the bottom of the shrine, and retreated to where the other boys were waiting. I figured there was safety in numbers, surely they wouldn’t beat all of us?

The Boys from the flight

Feeling very awkward, but definitely appreciating the experience, we journeyed onwards to Taipei 101 – the world’s tallest building. Admittedly, it didn’t look that tall and I was a little disappointed. I think I expected to see the top of the building poking through the clouds, it didn’t occur to me that the sunny cloudless sky would somehow prevent this. We caught the world’s fastest elevator to the top, quickly check it out, took too many photos and then caught the world’s fastest elevator down. My dreams of somehow picking up and joining the half-mile high club going unfulfilled.

It turns out that Australia doesn’t have an embassy in Taiwan. According to the Australian Government official we met on the bus back to the airport, Australia, just like the United Nations, doesn’t recognise the independent sovereignty of Taiwan. I had always thought that Australia took the same stance as the International Olympic Committee, that the legitimate government of China had been overthrown by Communists, and that one day they would retake the mainland. Apparently this view changed way back in the ‘70’s, well before I was born. I think that primary school history books in suburban Adelaide may been a little outdated.

Waiting at the airport, we decided to sample a few of the local Taiwanese beers, as we’d been drinking only Japanese beers since we arrived. This put me in the mood for a few more drinks, and upon boarding the plane, I decided to become as drunk as possible, as quickly as possible. I’d never been drunk on a plane before, and I thought this was the chance. I wasn’t going to let the old sick woman and her pleasant and helpful older daughter sitting in my row between my window seat and the toilet stop me from my dream.

Two hours later I had passed out in seat having consumed three scotch and cokes (no matter how many times I asked for bourbon, they kept bringing me scotch without correcting me once), five or six beers and a couple of glasses of wine. This isn’t a bad effort for only two hours, with the whim of the flight attendants dictating the regularity of my drinking, but passing out was unusual – I’m sure a result of being forty thousand feet up.

Waking up after a couple hours of a peaceful nap, I realized I had a hangover. I stumbled past the old woman and her daughter and had some quiet alone time to myself in the bathroom.

Deciding wisely to refrain from alcohol for the rest of the trip, the remainder of the flight passed without major incident. I chatted to the daughter beside me about my dreams of passing the New York Bar Exam, and how I was disappointed with my confusion with Thai lady boys only being in Thailand. After what seemed like a fifteen hour flight, the captain came over the intercom, “Passengers and crew please be seated, we’re expecting extreme turbulence on our approach into Vancouver”.