Sounds Like Life To Me

Discovering new places on foot has long been a beloved pastime of mine. The first time that I truly discovered its benefits was back when I was still in driver's ed. I would normally be dropped off at least twenty minutes early for the class, and since I didn't have money to spend at Cinnabon, like my classmates, I passed the time walking around the shopping center where my class was held. My lack of money paid off, (pun not intended), eventually when I discovered a neat little bead shop tucked away in a corner of the plaza. Since then, I've held on-foot exploration in high esteem. Today, I had the chance to do just that here in Taipei. It was a slow day today, because everyone is still tired from having to wake up at 6:00am yesterday morning, so my uncle suggested that I go walk around outside on my own. Naturally, I sprung at the chance to investigate my surroundings and test my knowledge of the neighborhood's layout. I walked around for about an hour, just seeing the sights and feeling the "pulse" of Tianmu, (the neighborhood where my uncle lives). While I am at it, I should give you all some background into that area. Tianmu is where the majority of Taipei's westerners live, because it is where most of the American schools are located. Because of this, most of the people in this area are bilingual, and the signs in the area are in both Chinese and English. Thanks to the influx of foreigners, the prices are all a little higher here than in Taipei's other districts, and that includes the housing price.  Fun fact: Tianmu in Taiwanese means "I don't understand." The reason that this area has such a funny name is because of all of the foreigners in the area who would ask the locals questions in English only to be met with the response: Tianmu or I don't understand. This happened so often that eventually the name stuck. 

Mopeds: one of the most popular forms of transportation here

street view in Tianmu

  Tianmu also has some pretty amazing stores, including a bookstore that sells English books, which is where I spent the remainder of my time "out on the town." It never ceases to amuse me that no matter where I go or what city I happen to visit, if they have a bookstore then that is where I will be. I have spent an entire week in the Dallas/Fort Worth area checking out different Half Price Bookstores. It seems that Taipei will not be any different.

Over breakfast this morning, I learned eleven different Chinese words from my aunt, all of them ending with the "zi" sound. It is interesting that they are all so similar, and surprisingly that made them easier to remember. I also learned the word eat, but a problem arose when I tried to pronounce it. I had feared that a time would come on this trip when I would mispronounce a word in such a way that it would sound like I was saying something profane or gross. Well, that time has come. Apparently, when I was trying to pronounce the word eat, I actually said eat poop. Nice, right. My cousins had quite a laugh at that, let me tell you. On the bright side, I don't think that I will ever confuse those two words again. For dinner tonight, we went to a Chinese-style cafeteria, which really means buffet table where you load up on stuff that you want and then pay for the food by the gram.

you grab a clean set of tongs to fill up your plate

cabbage

whole fried fish

This is called Chicken's neck, but it is not actually made of chicken's neck

This is what the inside of chicken's neck looks like, it has meat and vegetables in it

This evening, my cousin wanted to put a new bridge on his violin, and he let me help. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the make of a violin, the bridge is the most important part of the violin. It is what gives the strings the right amount of vibration, and also what transmits that vibration to the sound post inside the body of the instrument giving it its resonance. Due to the enormous amount of pressure that constant playing puts on this piece, the wooden bridge tends to lose its shape after a while causing the sound quality to suffer. My cousin disliked the sound that his "E" string was making, so it was time to fashion a new bridge. Every violin is different, so in order to install a bridge, one must first shape the bridge to fit the curvature of the violin's body, and also make it the right height. The process can take up to four hours to get it right because it requires a lot of cutting and sanding, so most musicians opt to take their instrument to a professional. My cousin, however, enjoys the challenge, so he does the work himself.  

This is what the bridge looks like

This is the original bridge, see how it slopes steeply downward on the right.

Cutting it down to size

Sanding the bridge down

     

This tool shows you where to make the grooves for the strings

                                                      

                                                                        Cutting the grooves into the bridge

Putting the new bridge in place

That's all folks!