Funny things about Taiwan

Over the last few days there have been three things in particular that have struck me here in Taibei. The first was yesterday when I was looking at places to live with coworkers. I heard music coming from the street, just like the ice cream trucks in my neighborhood when I was young. I turned and looked but I didn't see an ice cream truck...it was a garbage truck. So I laughed and pointed this out to my coworkers and didn't give a thought as to why the garbage truck would play music. Then when I was waiting at a bus stop later I heard another one play music and then come to a stop on the street. At that point things exploded, people started coming out of nowhere and running to the truck. It was then I realized that they play the music so people can bring out their garbage since you have to take care of you own garbage (they don't pick it up per se).

The second thing is that although we in the West see the Chinese and Asians in general as all having black hair and black eyes that's not true, especially here in Taiwan (much more so than mainland China). I don't know if its from the native Taiwanese but there are a ton of people with reddish hair. The final thing I've noticed is 7-11. In the U.S. its innocuous but over here it is literally on EVERY block so you are never more than a short walk away from 7-11. Its like the Starbucks of old in the U.S. just on uber steroids.

Also congratulations to Matt and Amy on getting married back at ND.