To Live & Play in Taipei, Part I: The Living

So what was it like to live in Taipei? What was life like when we weren't pose pose posing our way through castings & bookings? I gotta say it was pretty great. I had spent a year in Europe when I was in college and thought myself to be a seasoned traveler, but nothing had prepared me for life in Asia. It was complete and utter culture shock. In Europe I had always been able to pass as a local pretty much anywhere. My mom is Cuban & my dad is Hungarian, so I guess I don't have the typical "American" thing going on, whatever that is. But in Asia you stick out like a sore thumb when you are, well, not Asian.

For the most part people were good about not staring, but the kids and the elderly were always pretty obvious about it, albeit cute. They would giggle or say things to us like "oh, very nice" or ask us if we were all sisters. Please keep in mind that none of us looked even remotely related.....but I guess we did to them!

At the agency:



Like I mentioned before, we were all living at the First Hotel which was a business class joint on a busy avenue by the agency. It was simple but clean, and passed my no bugs test with flying colors. Most of the girls at the agency got their own rooms at the hotel, but Laura and I decided to room together in order to save money. While you do get everything paid for upfront when you travel to Asia on a work contract, the catch is that the money is advanced, so you end up paying it back out of the money you earn. The sweet part of the deal is that if you don't work, then you don't pay anything back. It is the agency's loss....a risk they took in bringing you over. But, I digress....Since there were so few of us at the agency, we tended to all hang out together and go sightseeing and eating. Because yes, contrary to popular belief, models DO eat. I have really only run into three girls in my entire career with eating disorders....I knew more girls in college afflicted with this disease than I ever met while modeling.

Our agency would advance us a weekly stipend to use for food and taxi cabs to our jobs, and we would always save up some cash to go eat all-out American on the weekends. Our favorite place to splurge on burgers & fries was always TGIFriday's. During the week we'd frequent the convenience stores, McDonald's and the supermarkets to get ingredients for our dinners, but lemme tell you, I had some awesome meals thanks to 7-11, Wellcome, Circle K and the 50 thousand other convenience stores that are found on every corner of every street in that city. Fried tofu, tuna squares (onigiri if you've been to Japan), pre made sandwiches and steamed buns filled with b-b-q pork....and lots and lots of candy. Not exactly Superfoods, but it tasted good and was fast.

During our days off we would walk around the city and explore all the little alleyways and the great boulevards. We would go to the night markets and buy tons of cute crap for next to nothing. And really, not all of it was crap. I bought some beautiful Buddhas for a fraction of what they sell for here at home, and there were intricate little incense burners, tea pots and other handicrafts that I wish I would've thought to buy but was too busy spending my loot on shoes and knock-offs.

It seemed like every corner that you turned you would run into an impressive temple or tiny, tucked away shrine infusing the air with musky incense and a feeling of utter serenity in that mad mad city. Taipei has to be the busiest and loudest city I have ever been to, yet these little spots seemed to pop up everywhere, offering the soul a place to stop, attain a little tranquility...then hop back on the moped and jet back through the thick as night smog.

One of the million temples we would happen upon at random:



Chiang Kaishek Memorial at night:



And by day:



One of our favorite places to just hang out and chill was the Chiang Kaishek Memorial. Day or night, it was always teeming with people, but still felt like an oasis in the middle of the city. And that was a nice change from our days spent in the back of taxicabs whizzing to castings or stopped dead stiill in traffic jams watching entire families on mopeds fly by (and I mean entire families on ONE moped) or watching stray dogs get hit and run. This, sadly, happened more than I care to remember.

Dude! Where's my moped? (okay, stupid, I know....but I just had to!)



It really was culture shock. But I was so fascinated by it. Where else would you see people setting up little tables as shrines full of fruits and other offerings in front of their businesses or burning "ghost money" on the sidewalks? And I always felt so welcome by everyone there....I remember leaving the agency one night and it was raining heavily. I, of course, was totally unprepared and didn't have an umbrella and was looking more and more like a drowned rat by the second. An older woman approached me and signaled to her umbrella and for me to get under it and she walked me all the way back to my hotel.....she did not speak a word of English and all I could say was "thank you" in Mandarin over & over again. I have never been treated that simply & kindly in my own country. Truth be told.

So life in Taipei was pretty good. The air didn't smell great. It was pretty rank actually. And at night you had to watch your step for fear of trampling the most enormous roaches on earth. And I mean, these things would easily out run and devour any socialite's pampered pooch in a milisecond. It was hot and inhumanely humid, but overall things were good. To this day, I miss that city a lot. I did end up going back for another contract a while later....but let's keep things chronological here. That will be another story for another day.....and that story has my best Taipei memories attached to it.