Eastern Musings

Shit, it's been a while people. I'll go ahead and apologize for our hiatus on behalf of McFarlanes everywhere. Our highly paid, all free-range staff have been too busy creating salacious content for the @foodbauer twitter feed to blog since late September. Fortunately for all of us, I completely OD'd on Bauer this past weekend and therefore have the strength to resist tweeting on his behalf long enough to post.

Before we get into the good stuff, here's something that rattled around my headparts today. I was listening to the infinite wisdom of Seth & JahJah (of UhhYeahDude podcasting fame) this morning and they were positing that only negativity can come from recording anything on the internet to be viewed for the rest of eternity. After thinking about it, I agree that future trouble/mockery is more likely to result than fame/fortune/riches from putting personal thoughts into the public view. Despite what we've now decided is clearly a bad idea, I'll forge ahead and share my least PC views on the world so they can be used against me in 20 years.

I recently did some vacationing to Asia with Alena and thought I would record some of the highlights for posterity's sake. Overall, it was incredible. I got to meet her extended family, see where her parents grew up, where she worked/studied, etc. Lots of good relationshippy jazz, but no one comes to the lukewarm waters of McFarBlog for feel good relationship stories!...do you? Our follower polls haven't been returned yet so we're not quite sure what drives the masses to our blog. Enough stalling, on to the good stuff.

Awesome stuff that exists/happened in Taiwan or Hong Kong:

• Damper Baby - Taipei 101 is the tallest building in the city & uses a 660 metric ton ball of steel (a "tuned damper) to counterweight the building from swaying in high winds and/or earthquakes. The damper hangs from the top of the building and is visible from the observatory decks. In order to assuage everyone's fear of a 660 metric ton ball of steelhanging above their heads, the Damper Babies were born. These cute little guys are symbolic of the comicification of everything, EVERYTHING. How do you sell more cake?? Shape it like a cartoon penis & call it "Gayke", that's how. CARTOON EVERYTHING.

• Mopeds Everywhere - It's like when I started playing MarioKart Wii before realizing that 4-wheeled cars are better than driving the 2-wheeled motos. I'm not saying that cars > motos in this case because stupid Bowser & Wario aren't going to throw their weight around & squash the Taiwanese. At every red light, the mopeds ooze to the front of the traffic and then unleash their 50cc madness when the light turns green. They fearlessly weave thru traffic and cram all sorts of cargo onto the scooters. Awesomeness.
• Language barrier + Ear fuzz = entire skull shave. I went to a barbershop because I needed my weekly trim. I had a friend explain what I needed in Mandarin & sat back for what I expected was going to be a 5 min shave. I ended up getting a shampoo, haircut, head massage, hot shave, EAR SHAVE & NOSE SHAVE. Honest to God, the razor touched my nostril divider. Now I'm not about to proclaim myself an authority on men's grooming, but that's unnecessary. (Ear Shaving documentation below)

• Taiwan National Palace Museum - A huge collection of national treasures inside a beautifully built series of buildings which house only 1% of the total collection. The other 99%? You guessed it, stored in temperature controlled vaults inside a mountain! Highlights include an olive pit carved into a boat (complete w/hinged doors), Jade cabbage and concentric circles carved out of ivory. Even a fully-shaved caveman like myself could appreciate these pieces.


• Cheesehead Gift - As a welcoming/98th birthday gift, I brought a cheesehead to Alena's grandfather. Evidently many asians are lactose intolerant so cheese does not play nearly as large of a role in their diet as it plays in the American diet, let alone the diet of a Wisconsinite. This explains so much about both our cultures...anyways I think he enjoyed it despite his confusion as to why you'd wear cheese on your head. iPad saved the day w/some photos of drunken Lambeau fans, because they make everything so much easier to understand.

• Hong Kong Harbour Lightshow - Evidently this happens every night at 8pm. We were lucky enough to catch it while crossing the harbour on a ferry, so we saw both sides equally well. Imagine 25 buildings of 40+ stories, all covered with lights which are somehow choreographed together for a 15 minute lightshow. Or just watch the below video.

• Gondola Ride & Buddha Village - After a beautiful 25 minute ride in a glass-bottom gondola to the top of a nearby mountain, we set out to see the world's largest seated Buddha statue near the Po Lin Monastery. Despite the permafog that hampers Hong Kong, the gondola rides offered beautiful views of the Lantau Island harbour. In order to get to the actual Buddha statue, you have to fight through a strategically located tourist village, complete with a Starbucks. (Snarky single-eyebrow raise). We eventually saw the big man & lit some incense, which was actually more powerful than I suspected.





Again, these are only a few highlights. The meals, markets & museums were incredible but probably not all that exciting to read about. The food & hospitality in Taiwan were exceptional. The Hong Kong mass transit system is genius and I could devote an entire blog post about my fondness for it. The size of the apartment buildings in Hong Kong was staggering. McDonald's soft-serve cones are the equivalent of $0.33 USD!! All in all, I definitely give both Taiwan & Hong Kong the McFarBlog stamp of approval.