Michael Bolton in Taipei

On November 8, 2017, my wife and I were in Taipei for the Michael Bolton Concert at the Taiwan University Sports Center. We were only in town for a day; we would go back to Taichung in the morning. We stayed at the Puri Hotel, the hotel with the best mattresses in Taipei; exit 13Y from the Taipei Terminal Station. 

Leona and I hopped on a HSR and headed up in the morning to meet Anita, a college friend of hers who was visiting from Germany; we were supposed to attend the Michael Bolton concert together at the same place we had seen Generation Axe and The Scorpions  earlier in the year; this time we’d be seated. Unfortunately, Anita had a fever and pain in her back from a stone and another of my wife's college friends, William, went as our guest in her place. He met us outside the venue at 7:30 pm.

It was the second time we had seen Michael Bolton, the first being at Jones Beach Theater on Long Island near the entertainment capital of the world: New York City. There is not much of a choice of western acts coming to Taiwan so we went for it despite the 3500 NT ($116 us) charge per ticket.    

The Michael Bolton concert was fun; low key between songs and high energy when he opened his mouth; he still has his vox. He even did rock ‘n’ roll numbers ("Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll," "Sweet Home Chicago") accompanying himself on electric guitar with surprisingly tasteful lead breaks. He came into the audience just behind us to sing the Percy Sledge song “When a Man Loves a Woman.” I must be a magnet because Zak Wilde in Generation Axe settled near me, too as if to say,‘Let’s go to the only guy who’s dancing and get into it with him,’ they must think, and it is so. William, who replaced ill Anita, took a video of him singing (see below). It was William's first western concert; he said he loved it. 

I stood to dance for a minute in one song and sat down, glad I did, because a lousy usher came over to tell one other woman who continued gyrating to sit down; a typically lame Taiwan crowd. By the finale, "Georgia on My Mind," Bolton looked tired; he’s 64 years old. The concert should have been longer; he came out late after some dork who won a talent contest he judged, and too many breaks to catch his breath.

Video: Bolton Singing Up Close

     We hit our stride after sleeping past 8 am with a down home Brooklyn breakfast at New York Bagel’s restaurant in the main terminal station; I made a fat bastard on a Kaiser roll with a buttered onion bagel and some kinky hash browns. Leona had eggs Benedict. We got back to Taichung from our Michael Bolton trip in enough time to rest before riding in the warm sunshine up to the make-up class in Shengang from yesterday’s postponement. 

    I’m enjoying leftovers from yesterday’s lunch at our favorite Thai place in Gung Guan behind Tai Da. We were shocked when we saw that, after 35 years, they had finally refurbished the joint.

Anita returned to Germany without seeing Leona, William, or their other classmates because of her kidney stone. She definitely got the wrong fever, backed out of Michael Bolton concert ticket we got for her, got on the plane, and left. Leona and William were not happy about it; they wish she had stayed longer. Anita has a lot of baggage, some of it German. She missed a great concert.

The New Building on Shuijing Street

A Horse Farm of Different Colors

On Tuesday, January 23, the weather was perfect for a long bike ride; sunny, cool, and not windy. I would go to my favorite spot on the abandoned grandstand at the Houli Horse Farm near Taichung in front of the disused racetrack. I was shocked when I saw what they had done since summer while I was gone.                                                                                                                                On the way to the farm, I rode along the Han River. I hadn't ridden the bike past my favorite benches between Tan-Zih and Feng-Yuan in quite a while, but by car on way to class at Shengang Middle School, I had noticed some construction off the Han River East Road where it narrows. I assumed they were making a new storm drain there. I was wrong; they are building another bridge over the Han River. It will reach over between the horse stable and Taoist Temple and a road from the bridge will join Feng-Xing Rd. Sec. 3 to the west. It will take stress off the Han River East Road one-lane cutoff  before the Feng-Xing makes its big turn across the Han River to Fengyuan. It would make it faster for me to drive to class in Shengang. For now, I'd take the shortcut going straight at the bridge turn onto Fengyuan Blvd. Sec. 3 through 5 and then right at Fengshi Rd Sec. 1-2, left on highway 4 a short way to the path.

The Houfeng Bike Path was more crowded                                                                                 than I thought. I figured there would be few pleasure seekers on a weekday and no school children  with two days of school left before the Lunar New Year holiday but some wise teachers had brought their whole class for an outing on those useless days after exams. I made my way through the congregations, across the old railroad bridge over The Dajia River and through tunnel #9. I heard machinery at work and smelled the dusty air as I reached the end of the bike path, turned right and had a surprise. The  racetrack that I used to sit at was not there anymore!    

The Houli Horse Farm was the governor's stables during Japanese occupation, then was commandeered by the interloping KMT when they retreated from China after the civil war. Finally, it was opened to the public to see the variety of horses bred there. The track was actually used for races back in the day but fell into disuse.  
All of this mishegas is for a grand plan called "Houli Horse Ranch & Forest Area" that is expected to be completed in 281 days, according to the website, in time for the "2018 Taichung World Flora Expo". That is a horse of a different color. 
 
       The Bikeway will be extended 1.2 km. on what they're calling "Flower Horse Path" between the Houli Train Station and the Horse Ranch. They say they won't mess with the historic buildings of the ranch; just add a lot of flowers to create a "garden city." All this progress will crowd out my pleasant bike ride.

To accommodate traffic, they are also constructing another overpass parallel to Highway #1 across the Dajia River to the new flower exhibition center; now I know where the center will be. Not only will it cover the racetrack but also spill into the horse farm area. The horse farm will be updated. But for now, the building of an exhibition center leaves me nowhere to sit without the din of drills. I rode back up the bike path and stopped at a boardwalk and wooden benches near the Taiwan railroad line.

There I sat in peace at the end of the path with a silicon valley factory out of sight over the hill, far from the school kids on their rented tandem motorized bicycles . My solitude was short-lived though as a pensioner couple on two bikes that first passed  doubled back to sit in the area near me. I didn't mind their company if they were discreet, but they chatted at normal volume like I wasn't there. I began singing “The Sounds of Silence” out-loud, softly, then louder, just as it’s meant to be sung. The couple first thought I was cute then ignored me in typical Taiwanese fashion and talked over my singing. And in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more, loud-talkers.
I finished the last verse, got on my bike, and rode home for lunch. 

Fun in Oslob, Cebu Philippines

Tumalog Waterfall Video

The view from the patio of MWR Resto

     The fun began at around 9:30pm when I transferred from the local Taiwan Railroad to the HSR north to Taoyuan station. The 500NT combo, utilizing the new airport metro, late at night, meant minimal obstruction from traffic. I had checked-in on-line and bought all tickets in advance, a 5,500NT 12:20am round-trip red-eye to Mactan-Cebu, arrival at 3:50 a.m. I was on my way to a mystery tour of Oslob. “Come to Cebu. I’ll be your tour guide,” said Malcolm tantalizingly. I did need a vacation. This would be the perfect excuse to go.

The convenient new Taoyuan train to the plane

     I had done minimal research beforehand; all I was told, by my Taiwan-New York homie, was there would be whale-watching and swimming that I so desired. The weekly swimming I do in the pool in Taichung prepared me for the day in Oslob and Sumilon Island when I put on my swim shorts three times; to swim with whale sharks, around a sand bank, and under a waterfall. The first day there I ventured out with water shoes in the waters off the stony shore near the resort.

Open for business

     It is a no-brainer for Malcolm to be in Oslob, though he is up on a mountain, not in the sea. He hit it off there with the luck of staying in the right resort and making proper connections and venture partners for his paragliding operation. I wonder why it took him so long (13 years!) to leave Taiwan and investigate another country; Taiwan’s bureaucracy had derailed him six times, but at least he had gotten the plot for an important manual on obstructionism, The Jade Menagerie. So long as he keeps his nose clean with the local Filipinas and rubs no Roman Catholic fanatics the wrong way, he will have a good future there.

I had foolishly left Taiwan without the address or hotel name clear in my mind; it didn’t seem it would be too hard to find at the time. It was somewhere in a text message from Mary, the hotel manager, or from Malcolm. There would be a car sent to pick me up, anyway. All I had to do was look for my name scribbled on a piece of paper held up by a driver, but the driver wasn’t there; the plane was forty-five minutes late and, I later learned, there was nowhere for him to park, get out, and look for me; I missed him. A dispatcher saw me looking lost.   

“Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know; all I was given were these travel directions,” I showed him the text message.

He led me to a yellow cab, spoke to the driver, and wrote #69 on a slip of paper. I got in the back seat and showed the driver my smart phone directions.“That’s in Oslob,” Benjor said excitedly. “I can drive you there.” 

One of the ruins in the rain on the road from Cebu

With a crucifix so heavy round the neck, Benjor at the airport joined me on my mission: to find the place I was going. I had sent Malcolm and Mary text messages through free airport Wi-Fi but no one was answering at 5 am.

     “Let’s just go; I’ll contact them after eight.” The driver knew that it was wise to get out of Cebu city before the traffic congested the streets, but the rain and a jogging marathon put a monkey wrench into our plans; a freakin’ marathon! We inched with pre-dawn traffic over a potholed boulevard, one side taken over by ballerinas and Darth Vader’s handing out cups of water to joggers. It took hours to get out, but we passed over a bridge to another island, the road narrowed to two lanes, and the jockeying for position began with weaving over the double line to pass slower trucks, bikes, cars and trikes (a motorcycle attached to a one-wheel sidecar) the taxi made some distance at sixty miles an hour past ramshackle storefronts and missionary churches using two distinct horns, one more urgent than the other.

Hey Benjor; where's the action at?

    “Are you hungry?” Benjor asked. “We can stop to eat and you can go.” The Sim card dealer at the airport couldn’t install my local usage; I was limited to Wi-Fi hot spots. Jollibee or 7-11 would be the place to hook up. Unfortunately, outside the city limits, it wasn’t the case. We stopped at one and reviewed the situation over a sickly sweet fruit-like drink and the driest artificially colored 7-11 sandwich in the world.

     “What is your friend’s name? I can contact him on my phone,” said the driver. Good idea, right? But Malcolm has his name in Chinese on Facebook and the driver’s phone wasn’t equipped.

     “I have the hotel manager’s name,” I said hopefully, and he copied it down to find and friend her on Facebook. Thank goodness, she accepted his invite; I typed an SOS message: “Mary; it’s David. What is the name and address of your hotel?”

It took a few minutes but a response came. “MWR.” 

“David? Where are you?” I asked Benjor.

“An hour away!” he said. She texted the address, the driver gave me a high five, entered it into his GPS, and we hit the road at Godspeed. Jesus, could that guy drive! One horn for the motor vehicles; the other for the trikes.

On the way, we chatted about politics, and religion. The conversation was getting boring for the details and I was glad to hear the GPS lady interrupt and say our destination was a few left turns away. I paid him $50 in U.S. currency I had brought thrilled to see a friendly face peering at me through the rainy windshield. It was Mary. Despite all the obstacles, we had gotten to the destination, eighty miles away from the airport, in under five hours.

The patio with Malcolm's room and my cabana 

“You’re lucky,” Mary said. “Yesterday, one guest said it took him eight hours to arrive.” I bid the driver farewell, he gave me his card with a wink, and my vacation began.

Malcolm had sauntered out from his room to see me sitting in the casino chatting with Mary. It wasn’t that unusual seeing each other in this environment not too different from rural Taiwan, with some exceptions. For one, his paragliding operation was catching thermals here and a Norwegian patron was waiting for him to go check out a few landing sites; he would be back later to hang with me, so to speak. That was fine since I hadn’t slept all night, even too tired to be frazzled by the crazed drive. I was shown to my small cabana within earshot of the crashing ocean waves and fell out exhausted. At 1500 pesos a night ($30-900NT) two nights was as expensive as a one-way drive from the airport!

The waves crashing outside my window woke and beckoned me. Swim trunks came out of my backpack and onto my body before I took a shower, put my tan Converse back on to ask Mary where to swim. There were two sandy beaches five minutes away, she said, but directed me to the steps at the end of the cabana, if I didn’t mind the rocks. So I walked to the shore, removed my socks and Cons, and braved out into the gentle waves over the jagged rocks feeling like I’d fall at every step, but I was determined. Not ten minutes and still not deep enough to get my trunks wet, Mary was calling from the shore.
Poem: stepping on stones in archipelago

“Put on these water shoes; it’s dangerous for you to step on a sea urchin.” So I gingerly returned, pulled them on, and went further down the beach in Mary's trike. I went back out, this time where the water was deep enough to swim between two kayaks that were moored there. How refreshing!

Returning to my cabana, I took that shower letting the water fall through the day-lit drain in the floor. Outside I could hear Malcolm.      

Malcolm in the middle

A goat cage good for a rest in the rain

“Want to go up the mountain?” A four by four pick-up was on the shoreline road with the Norwegian paraglider, Malcolm’s venture partner and his family, along with two duffle bags stuffed with paraglider wings. Up we went to the take off point that had carefully been chosen for the activity; off the side on the clear 45^o slope with a half dozen clearings for a landing. Malcolm watched as the wind socks lifted and drooped with the gusts waiting for the optimal condition. The mountain side, littered with volcanic rock was perfect, he said, but the wind was erratic, the thermals not consistent, and the wind rushing down the valley to our side threatening. “I have flown in conditions like these,” he said explaining, “but I wouldn’t push this on a paying customer. Let’s wait. It rained in the morning the ground was wet so there's no thermal to ride up, and cross winds. Yes, coming up from the valley; not good.” The wind socks rose and fell irregularly.

The landing points of the paragliding operation

 I was not the customer he had in mind; my place was in the water, not in the sky. There would be no take-offs that day for anyone; maybe the next. We milled around the volcanic cinders sitting in the goat cages; admired a rainbow. After an hour waiting for conditions to change, we returned to the resort.

Me at the take off point

Manol was there when we returned. The sea captain father, founder of the resort, was introduced to me by his daughter Mary. “Would you like Manol to take you around tomorrow to see the whale sharks?”

“Whale sharks?!?” I asked. My ignorant lack of planning was evident. “You bet I would!”

“Can you swim; you might like to snorkel near the whale sharks,” added Manol. So that’s why young adventurers braved a depressing six hour ride from Cebu airport to reach this spot. And here I was being offered a personal tour by the man instrumental in founding the attractions that drew world travelers to his hometown. “Be ready at 6 am and I will drive you there.” Okay!

A nice restaurant of local dishes in the village

Night life in Oslob consisted of a 7-11, at which Europeans who’d come to see the whale sharks socialized and got drunk. On the way there, we ran into Doctor John, a young local clinic doctor who, he said, had just delivered a baby. He joined us for dinner at the open air restaurant, one with local cuisine near two or three that smacked of Western enviance. We chose one that other Caucasians had found and passed the evening chatting.
   I was curious to know why Filipinos were so Roman Catholic after being massacred and oppressed by European imperialists for hundreds of years since Magellan first debarked. Filipinos are very adaptive and accepting, Doctor John said. I was delighted he was  open-minded and impressive to chat with.

Doctor John

 Walking slowly off the main drag, we had a coffee and brownie in a shop built by a local entrepreneur and called it a day. I needed a good night sleep for the coming events. 

With my last San Miguel we sat on the cement patio chair looking up at the stars after Malcolm turned off the deck lights. 

“See you at breakfast; 5:30.”

The next morning I was up early. When I was almost finished breakfast in the casino, Manol appeared. “Ready to go?” he asked. I nodded my head and handed him two fifty dollar bills. “This should cover the cost of everything, rooms and all,”  He winked and left to get his four by four. Malcolm arrived just as I was going to leave.

Manol drove me fifteen minutes down the two-lane to a gaggle of non-Filipinos milling around a muddy parking lot. He knew the parking attendants that guided his over-sized vehicle into a tiny space. We crossed the road to join the chaotic scene of people in different stages of getting set to join the whale sharks. Manol stood on line for me and paid my fee calling me over to sign my name. I had worn my trunks under my shorts and found a niche to remove them, sneakers, t-shirt and put my cell-phone in a zip-lock baggie that Manol kept. I was brought to a table where I was given a snorkel, mask, special camera, and directed to hand it to his cousin who would take underwater photos of me near the kayak. I was even assigned a private kayak at first until asked to join a group of Taiwanese youngsters nearby, if I wouldn’t mind.

At every step, there was a guide asking me if I knew how to swim. I didn’t look like I could. How could they have known that this 110kg 63 year-old has been swimming forty laps a week in his local pool, riding 50km a week weekly on his bicycle? I appreciated the concern but was ready to go; I could remove my life vest once we reached the viewing area if I wished.

After a half hour, our time was up; back into the kayak those who chose to snorkel. We were rowed back to shore me having a nice chat with other young guides who knew Manol well. Finally, I found Manol among the chaos and he led me over to the camera table to transfer the photos onto my cell phone.

“This is a nice lady who knows how to open and close everything,” he said with a laugh. The pretty young woman placed a chip in my phone.

My Underwater Swimming Animated

Somehow, Manol managed to maneuver the four by four out of the tiny cramped parking lot with the help of the attendants and we got back on the two-lane heading further south.

Manol taking a break

Bluewater resort is franchised on Sumilon Island. I was bought a ticket for the 9:30am boat and we waited on the outdoor patio and I tried to nap as obnoxious tourists began gathering around me. We found seats on the boat at the end of a long narrow pier and rode the waves for the fifteen minute ride. Manol would meet me when I returned on the 3:30pm cruise.

Bluewater is a cheesy

 kind of place, good for families or couples, but not designed for a single man like me. More than once I was asked by employees if I was alone. I told them my wife was afraid of water and hadn’t joined me on the trip. I found my way to the swimming spots but first I would take the hike around the island, ninety minutes total. No one was on the path of volcanic black cinders perhaps five stories at the highest point. With the rain off and on, I took shelter on the stoop of a workman’s cottage and then went on my way. The sky had cleared enough when I reached the sandbar but I planned to go swimming in any event so long as there was no lightening; one can’t get wet when one is swimming. The water was delightful and the guests were few as I swam around the sandbar and lay on the beach. Back to the village I went to get my complementary free drink and buffet lunch. I was surprised when a waiter at the beachside tent called me by name. “I knew it was you because you are the last guest to eat.” The morning had passed so swiftly I didn’t realize it was 1:30pm. I spent the next hour sitting under a tiki umbrella near some noisy families and waited for the 3:30 trip back to Cebu Island.

Bluewater Lagoon 

The Lighthouse

The Sandbar on Sumilon Island

Tumalog Waterfalls Video 

Manol had another treat for me when we met up at the Bluewater office; there was a waterfall he wanted me to see heading back to his resort; Tumalog.

   Up a mountain road we drove a few minutes to a drop off point where young men with motorcycles awaited someone like me who, for a fee, didn’t want to walk the steep path down to the bottom of the falls. Once I approached the falls and saw the pool under it I realized I should have worn the trunks that I had removed for a second time after the sandbar. The young man rode back up the hill and asked Manol for my shorts and returned. To the raw unlit wood locker I changed and up to and into the Tumalog; cool, bright, and clean falling from ten stories up the mountain cliff. 

Tumalog Waterfalls

 A six foot iguana skirted by in the dusk on my return to the locker. It was approaching 5:30pm. I was having so much fun; the most fun you can have without a BJ or weed. I had to consider Manol’s offer to drive me back to the airport the next day; I had already texted to ask the driver who picked me up, but he I couldn’t see his response without Wi-Fi.

Best beer in the archipelago

Back at Manol’s resort, I placed the trunks I had changed into three times that day behind the door to dry, took a shower, and lay down on the bed. It had started raining on the way back from the falls. I got up eventually and went to the casino for a plate of pork chops, rice, a bottle of Red Horse “Extra Strong” beer and went to the cement patio chair awaiting Malcolm. I wondered if he and I would go to town as he had suggested the day before and go to a disco. We walked with umbrellas the shore road back to the 7-11 stopping off on the way to get a pair of $2 flip-flops to replace my disintegrating sneakers. The drunken young Germans with their flashy tattoos and sun-burned hair were there outside. We went straight to the open air grill and ordered more pork.

Benjor still hadn’t responded, so I thanked Manol and said I’d be happy to take his ride. When the driver finally did respond, it was too expensive and too late. He understood.

A water dispenser; 2 pesos a glass:

      In the evening to the casino we returned to pass the time. Mary and some family friends, one lovingly drunk, was singing karaoke in the canteen. A pool table covered with a buff tarp sat squat in a shadow to the side inviting us. I chose a song from a shabby clear book binder and waited as Malcolm racked them up. In sloppy non-concentration we shot eight ball forgetting who was stripes and who was solids. We noticed a spectator with a thin scarf draped over the left side of his head and asked him to join. When he cued up, he moved the scarf over the tumor protruding from his jaw. He didn’t have to be shy with us. The tone of his skin matched Malcolm’s of African and Puerto Rican heritage; neither man would experience the white prejudice of Taiwan in the Philippines, with or without a goiter. Came my cue to sing and I excused myself to grab a microphone and belt out “All Along the Watchtower,” the song that wasn't applauded and made a fuss over, unlike in Taiwan’s exaggerated English awe.  

The MWR trike out front

The rain stopped long enough for us two Taiwan homies to sit on the patio and compare notes. The rain would be coming down steadily all night and the next day; no good even for paragliding.

We walked to the 7-11 in the rain the last morning I was there. The trikes waited for local pick-ups, the foreigners eyed the chocolate bars and chips on the shelves. We passed the time at the western highlight of the village.

At noon, we moved around the corner to an Italian restaurant, once owned by a foreigner. Inside sat a blond-haired blue-eyed couple from Calgary. Malcolm started up a conversation; the male amazed I guessed his age at twenty-eight. He was between jobs and she was changing her career, he said; they decided to explore this part of Asia for a few months. 

Manol's granddaughters by Mary

 It is going so well for Malcolm; he had made all the right connections and the paragliding is legally certified by a partner with government ties; he has local investor and there’s a lot of buzz about him, but he is already moving on to greener pastures before the grass starts to grow on this turf, his best take-off spot in Asia. “I’m not getting any younger,” he said. “I will franchise it out and move to another site, maybe even start an English school.” Sometimes it seems Malcolm’s hands are moving faster than his mind. I guess you get bored sitting around thinking when there aren’t any thermals to whip you up into the azure.

Manol wrote out as clear a bill as I wanted

By one o’clock, Manol, one of his three daughters, and I were heading back to the airport on the two-lane, not quite as recklessly as my taxi driver had, and with far more at stake in far more luxury. We talked about everything in those five hours back, from Duterte to communist rebels, to American supremacy, and back to Roman Catholicism; after all, Manol had earlier shown me a cutting board with a stain he said was Jesus. He said three times he had seen his savior; he had built a shrine. To me the stain looked like Mark Twain’s cameo. I regret not taking a photo so you all could decide. I promised and sent Manol Twain’s “Cub Pilot’s Education” with a plot similar to his, about a young man who wished to navigate waters. In the end, it was clear Manol was a worldly family man with a mind as broad and as the seas he piloted merchant vessels on. Thank God Manol was there to guide me; Malcolm wasn’t much of a tour guide after all.

  There were plenty of natural wonders I had to pass up on in Oslob, more to return for. Malcolm stays and has a chance to blow it all sky high or ride the warm jets; he has earned his wings to do both.

Oslob City Hall