I arrived in Taiwan (you can stop worrying, Moms). The flight was delayed, a bit long, and wholly uneventful. We arrived to a warm and misty Taipei evening. After a thirty-minute taxi ride, we find Julie unpacking, and me relaxing and writing my first in what will hopefully be a series of vacation-related travel entries.
Laziness is a funny trait. Through it, you save yourself much work in the short term, but create much anxiety and work in the longer term, work that you don’t take into account during the laziness calculus.
Case in point: For the past year, I neglected to renew my passport. Every time I had the opportunity, I put it off, thinking that the effort involved would be much more than the result of not renewing. Of course, I understood that I would eventually have to renew it (it expires in August 2006), but the time value of time, as I see it, made it not worth it, i.e., now-time is more valuable than later-time, just like now-money is more valuable than later-money (this is a financial truth—regardless of whether it works when I stretch it to time).
My passport is days within that magical six-month territory. I had heard rumors that bad things happen when within that periods. For example, someone told me that the US border guards would not let you back into the country—or it might have been leave the country—when within this period. During my last trip overseas, I asked the US border guards if this was true, and they assured me it was not.
Regrettably, while the US border guards do not have a problem with the six-month expiration, almost all other countries do. In countries that share reciprocal visa-free entry (i.e., if you let our citizens in with their passports without a visa for six-months, we’ll return the favor), something changes within that magical six-month period before passport expiration. During that period, what would be a visa-free entry turns into a visa-required entry. I learned that when I checked into my flight at LAX. After arriving in Taiwan, I had to buy an entrance visa (4,400 Taiwanese Dollars, or around US $100).
I imagine these countries have good reasons for this rule. The reasoning must go something like this: the length of a visa-free entry is six months. If your passport expires in less than six months, then there’s a possibility that you will stay the length of visa-free period, and be unable to return to your home country because you no longer have a valid passport. To obtain the visiting visa, you have to present evidence that you plan to leave the country before your passport expires.
Suffice to say, had I not been so lazy with renewing my passport, I would not have needed a visiting visa to enter the country. I will also need a visiting visa to reenter the country when I travel to Korea. Speaking of Korea, Chuck, please check that I will be able to obtain a visiting visa when I enter Korea. I know you checked already, but this new wrinkle may change things. This is just more in a long line of laziness-induced problems, something that I had hoped NEQID would improve (which it has, just not fully yet).
My brain is still muddled from the trip. We slept a bit, but not really, and we’re now trying to decide whether to sleep (it’s after 11pm in Taiwan), or obey our internal West Coast clocks and go out. It seems Julie has decided for the both of us, and we’re heading to the 24-hour Hong Kong place down the street.
The day is coming to a late close. Julie spent the day working, and I tagged along, carrying bags and trying not to make too much of a nuisance of myself. We’re in a photo studio after finishing Julie’s music recording appointment for “The Dr. Julie Show” this afternoon. The best I can hope for is a short sleep as it will be another late night. We’re not supposed to leave the studio until 2:30am, and my flight to Korea leaves at 6:30am, assuming they let me on, that is. I’m still concerned about the visa issue. I won’t know any more until I ask at the ticket counter, and then again, when I arrive.
The photo studio is a converted apartment, with rubberized floors and a too-cool art décor. Cinderblocks and glass mix with metal sculptures and colorful cartoon knickknacks. Lights hang on chains, and scribbles and pocket photographs bunch in groups along the walls. The air is heavy with cigarette smoke and the low din of street sounds drifting through the two open windows in the kitchen area. This place brings to mind the origins of the name ‘studio apartment’: except for the dressing room and a small offstage area, there is only open space with little in the way of walls.
Two Apple computers sit next to the sole Windows PC, which except for an instant messaging client over a messy desktop with a dark photograph of a U.S. rapper, is not used. Photoshop runs on both Apples, showing various stages of glamour photos, which the two studio assistants make more glamorous in Photoshop with clicks and presses. Small speakers pump tinny music with a heavy beat near the computers.
The photography area dominates the middle of the studio. It consists of a large white cement floor and a wall over which the studio hangs different colored backdrops depending, I’m assuming from Julie’s shoot, on the model’s outfit. Lights on long and short black arms and small fans surround the floor. Tripods of different heights line the walls like soldiers loafing after a parade.
A drum set and acoustic guitar anchor the waiting room off the photography area. A couch with a foam cylinder for back support covered by a bronze leopard print sits opposite one leather chair. A cinderblock glass table shows the months of newspapers and magazines stacked underneath. A chair hangs from yet another chain at the border of the waiting room. It is blue with yellow stripes and looks slightly pornographic. Outside the kitchen is the dressing area, with a large mirror surrounded by lights and a changing room behind the mirror. Julie spends most of her time there changing outfits, having her hair stylized or her makeup painted.
It is difficult to determine the age of the photographer. He has a young face but his eyes betray him. He wears two sets of glasses, one thick for reading, and the other tinted to protect his eyes from the flashing camera. He a small scraggily patch of hair growing from the bottom of his chin, which—and here I’m speculating—provides him with the authority necessary to tell beautiful girls how to look good for the camera. The hair fascinates me. It looks like well-groomed pubic hair.
There has to be a story in there somewhere….
My worries seem to be for naught. China airlines believe I do not need a visa to get into Korea with my six-month-challenged passport. Why do I dwell on such things? I know I should let go, worry about the more important things, but for reasons beyond my control, my mind spins on these thoughts, reliving fantasies that do nothing to appease the worries. After catching Chuck’s comment on sewcrates, I’m calmer now. How can both Chuck and China airlines be wrong?
Last night, I left Julie a few hours before the end of her photo shoot, catching a ride back to the apartment with Julie’s parents. I slept well, even after Julie returned home and woke me up. I’m sitting in the lounge waiting for my flight to Korea. I’m remarkably well rested and very excited to visit Chuck in Korea. We only have a couple of days, but I’m sure he’ll figure out how to squeeze in plenty of sightseeing and photo opportunities, and, it should go without saying, sake drinking. I think transplants such as Chuck are better tour guides than those born to a place. I need only think how useless I am for tour guiding in NYC. When you’re born somewhere, you tend to take your city for granted and know less about the touristy spots than the big red buses that clog the streets.
I’m babbling now. Perhaps I’m a bit more tired than I believed. I’ll nap on the plane and be ready to hit the streets running. I should have more to say tonight. These travel entries have been disappointingly short.
Visiting Chuck and Hyunjin in Korea
End of week dinner with Julie's relatives and TV station people
There was a time when I would write a diary entry for each travel day. These amazing musings would describe not only the day, but also my inner thoughts, revealing unexpected and sometimes disturbing truths about me. I don't know where those days went, but it's a good thing I went to visit a fellow wanna-be writer. Instead of actually writing anything about my time in Korea, I'll just link to Chuck, who has done all the hard work for me. Isn't the internets a great thing? I can link to someone else's hard work and reap most of its rewards. Why bother writing anymore? Thanks Chuck!
