Charles and Christy’s Weblog

Today was a good day. I gave a talk that got good response from important people, had drinks with the Helsinki deputy mayor, and tried reindeer. Among all this, I miss home and my little boy. Clark is such a physical little guy - he likes wrestling, tickling, and hugging. I hope I never forget what it feels like when a little boy hugs his mama… and I wonder why we stop this. He wraps his little arms around my neck, puts all his weight into it, and hugs like it’s a relief to him to be hugging. Looking forward to Sunday…

So, you know you’ve become an experienced traveler when it doesn’t even occur to you to blog about a trip to a new country until people start asking how your trip is going. Yesterday I arrived in Helsinki for a conference (the same one I attended two years ago in Taiwan). This time, I have 3 of my graduate students attending with me. We arrived at 2 pm Helsinki time and spent the afternoon walking the city in hopes of beating jet lag. Helsinki is about the same size as Minneapolis but is very walkable (even though I’m pretty sure their weather gets as bad as ours) and has an astounding amount of public transit (subway, trams, and buses). We walked through the famous market square and got crepes, walked through the city center, saw the Olympic stadium (where the Women’s Euro football tournament is currently being held), and rode a ferris wheel to get a good view of the city. I managed to stay awake until 10 pm and slept a solid 9 hours (embarrassed to write this number when I know how much sleep Charles is getting at home - sorry). This morning we hit the conference right away for a full day of educational sessions and had dinner this evening at a Russian restaurant who’s menu featured bear meat (none of us got it because it was 120 euros). Tomorrow I have to give a talk that I haven’t started on yet…

I am a person who usually prefers city landscape to country landscape… I never dream of one day having a lake house but being in the Adirondacks makes me see the other side of this issue.  I’m here for a conference (I know… too much traveling lately), staying at a lodge on Blue Mountain Lake.  It is gorgeous… the lake, the trees, the mountains.  I can see why Steph loves this region so much.  I went for a short hike today, and you can tell that these trees are just about ready to start turning.  It sure would be nice to be here in the full bloom of Autumn.  Anyway, if you’ve never been to the Adirondacks, you should go… this advice coming from a self-proclaimed city girl.

Just a random cultural tidbit… I think there must be some pattern in Taiwanese speech that is slightly peculiar.  Many of the Taiwanese people I’ve met here make a habit of making a statement and then listing synonyms for the last noun or verb in the statement.  For example, “This bronze wine container is quite old, archaic, ancient, and, as I said, quite old.”  This seems to be true even when scientists are discussing scientific topics or data.

On Wednesday night, I took a guided “Taipei Nights” tour. We started by heading to Taipei 101, the disputed tallest building in the world. It’s designed was inspired by a bamboo plant. We didn’t have time to go to the top but the lower floors are filled with high-end stores (Dolce and Gabana, Prada, etc.) and it is centered right in a huge shopping district. From Taipei 101, we went to eat dinner at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant. Our guide told us that Mongolian BBQ actually started in Taiwan. When Chiang Kai-shek fled China with his closest followers, they were no longer elite people and had to start businesses. Supposedly, a lot of their effort focused on starting restaurants representing all of the different regions in China and Mongolia, including Mongolian BBQ. After dinner, we visited the oldest temple in Taipei, Lungshan Temple , a combination Bhuddist/Taoist temple. It was quite busy and beautiful, painted brightly and held up by carved stone columns. In all of my trips to Asia, this was my favorite temple that I’ve visited.  Our tour guide told us the significance of many of the gods (including one specifically to promote success in exams and one to help couple have boy babies) and we learned about how the people in the temple get answers from god to important questions.  From the temple we walked to another night market.  This market was much like the one I visited the night before except that it had a specialization in snakes.  The Taiwanese people believe that drinking snake blood or eating snake helps with skin problems.  Killing snakes has recently been made illegal but is still done in a few places, like this market.  We were told not to take pictures of the storefronts with the snakes because the Taiwanese mafia might come after us.  After finishing our walk through the market, which also included many foot massage parlors (I considered stopping), we were taken back to the hotel.

It is so hot here… and I hear it’s hot like this all year round. Accordingly, the Taiwanese people do all of their shopping at night. There are night markets all over the place, in alleys and plazas. Tonight, I went to one of the biggest ones and had my first experience on their public transit system (quite nice and easy to navigate). I was brave and bought a Chinese dumpling (love them!) and a mango bubble tea from a stand at the market. This is slightly risky here because health and safety practices are not as strict as they are at home. Then, I walked through a collection of stalls selling clothes, shoes, sunglasses, belts, and toys though I didn’t buy anything. The sidewalks were packed with people and the roads are packed with people on scooters. While it was nice to get out and see some of Taiwan, I am happy to be back in my air conditioned hotel room now preparing for my talk tomorrow.