I seem to be constantly having the “Is it getting better?” discussion with friends. I believe on the whole, for married residents, it is a lot better. But somehow… I kinda liked it the way it was… (10+ years ago) Maybe people were more optimistic or something… Anyway, possibly OT.
Add a few more as they pop into my head:
-Foremost (milk) resturant where Shannon is. (great breakfast…)
-Roof of Grand Hotel missing (fire) for a couple of years.
-BBQ resturants covering the main street in Tamsui at night.
-1st Hard Rock cafe in basement near Sherwood hotel.(saw david haselhoff in concert there…)
-Tall Building across from Eslite torn down due to earthquake.
-Fire in Acer building (shijr) and Tuntex buildings.
-Red Ant resturant across street from WTC (with mini stools to sit on).
-Curtis Ambrose (?) writing letters to the editors in China Post.
-ChinaNews
-Copy software in 5.25 floppy disk form
That wasn’t torn down because of an earthquake. The story is much more interesting than that. The original builder sold each unit to more than one buyer. He collected all the money and took off to Canada. They stopped construction on the building because of disputed title. They then had to wait years for a deriliction order or something to that effect.
And for all you cricket fans, it was the first place you could get regular news on international cricket–except in the Sunday edition, Saturday was my day off. 
Don’t miss it though! Cheap bastards!
That wasn’t torn down because of an earthquake. The story is much more interesting than that. The original builder sold each unit to more than one buyer. He collected all the money and took off to Canada. They stopped construction on the building because of disputed title. They then had to wait years for a deriliction order or something to that effect.[/quote]
I think he’s referring to the building that used to be right next to the Swensens - that one was damaged from the earthquake. The one you’re thinking of (I think) is across the circle…
Caged wild animals for sale at the entrance of my aunt’s apartment on Minsheng East Road. I held a bushbaby who peed on me. I also remember a sun bear and young clouded leopard. I wanted to buy the leopard and “liberate” him back at a zoo in the States (hey, I was ten years old…) but the asshole wanted like a million NT for it.
This was 1990.
But we were happy then.
The original post covers at least two and certainly three decades, but here we go.
I’ll try not to do it all, but by various postings above, and for whomever cares:
AC / DC was actually okay. First open forum for meetings between foreign and local students that I am aware of and even then would have been monitored.
Kiosks were for paper bus tickets and where I bought my first (smuggled) imported smokes.
The original red sidewalk tiles were not squishy.
I had every printed thing I had bought in China on my first trip there confiscated (with receipt) upon my arrival back in Taiwan.
Chunghwa Street and it’s three levels of shops was an amazing rabbit warren. I can’t explain it here, but even it was second generation. I’ve heard from “older guys” that what preceded it was even more “re nao.”
Ximending in my memory was always what it is now. It’s the cat’s meow for teenage fashion with a sordid side. It’s never been industrial.
101 and the Hyatt area. There was a military factory. I’ve always assumed they were making small arms ammunition. There was a firing range up the east side of Elephant Mountain where nice apartments are now.
C119s are the flying boxcars and I guess not in use much anymore but one of those planes that were so numerous you can see them everywhere, most recently in the Marshall Field Air Museum.
Yes, Da’An Park was a dense set of houses for retired soldiers, much like some that have been apparently preserved between 101 and Wuhsing Guo Hsiao.
Then the original Eslite would have been the Schoolmate Bookstore?
Cheap smokes? 2 NT for the old Kinma brand. Arrgh!
Nonie’s navel? The greatest!
Now that most are asleep and some are sitting upright wth ears forward, let’s go!
1990:
Pretty young women rode side-saddle on the backs of scooters.
Non air-con buses cost NT$8; taxi flagfall was NT$35.
You could buy 10-ride bus tickets for NT$80.
The Homey Department Store existed.
Lucky Bookstore and Caves were the only places that sold English books.
There were only two Indian restaurants in Taipei (Tandoor and Taj Mahal).
There were Western buskers in most underground walkways.
Movies cost NT$100.
Taxis were all colors; not just yellow.
Barbershop whorehouses were commonplace.
The Chunglun Bus Station was where the Ruentex Building is now.
Pubs like The Doors, Top, and Roxy were the places to be.
Flying overseas during Chinese New Year was easy.
[quote=“Chris”]Barbershop whorehouses were commonplace.
[/quote]
They still are. Get out of Taipei often to see the real Taiwan?
Unfortunately, there aren’t any Indian restaurants in the real Taiwan. There’s one or two in Kaohsiung. That’s about it.
[quote=“mod lang”][quote=“Chris”]Barbershop whorehouses were commonplace.
[/quote]
They still are. Get out of Taipei often to see the real Taiwan?
[/quote]
You might want to read the title of this thread again before you get all pissy.
A few hazy memories…
- Roxy I, and for that matter, Roxy III New Orleans Jazz Bar in Kungkuan
- Solar System
- Two to three month bushiban contracts, followed by two week vacations
- The priest who wrote checks for cash
- Assigned seats in movie theaters and standing for the national anthem
- Writing home on ultra thin paper or postcards featuring CKS Memorial Hall
- Window 30 at the Foreign Affairs Ministry
- The Lonely Planet guide had two aborigine girls on the cover
- Rainbow began serving fresh submarine sandwiches
- Wendy
You’re making me cry in my beer, here, guys.
-Years and years and years of MRT construction (and attendent traffic snarls) with nothing to show for it except empty cars that would go back and forth all night on Fu Hsing Bei Lu.
-The squatter’s village behind the Formosa Hotel on Linsen Bei Lu. I particularly remember the shop that sold snakes, and had a stuffed snake with a cigarette in its mouth.
-Watching classic American MTV programming (including Martha Quinn) in a classic Taipei MTV.
-Flags all over the place on Double Ten day.
-Most of all, the people. Crazy Welshman Nick and his Japanese girlfriend Yuki, Steve the photographer just back from another sojourn among the Karen in Thailand/Burma, Old Ron the perennial fugitive from the Foreign Affairs police, Young Dumb Ron who supposedly laid every girl in Formosa II while he was there, Rick from Hell’s Kitchen/the Bronx . . .
-Taking British “Asia” Airways to fly to Hong Kong on a Sunday, and arriving back on a Tuesday. “You guys want me to pick up anything from Hong Kong for you?”
Wow…tripping down memory lane. I sure don’t miss the old Taipei much.
Thanks dude. 
sniff.
A few more:
The National Anthem was played before every movie, performance etc.
Those weird yellow plastic slip covered ARC cards when they first came out.
Going to Bangkok to be in a “civilized/westernized” city.
McDonald’s Uni-bomber. Guy placed bombs around the city in a few McD’s, blew off a policeman’s hands. He was extorting money from Mickey D’s. No waiting in line for about 2 months after that.
Taxi Cab Company riots. Full blown pipe swinging 2 hour events.
MTV’s burning down-like 4 a week. Massive loss of life usually caused by locked doors.
Asking directions at information counters and people running away from me. Now even the pimply kid at 7-11 speaks English.
MP cars on the prowl looking for AWOL soldiers who just missed their families so much they had to “Lao Pao” because they were posted in far away regions such as , Hsing Dian and Nei Hu.
That Friggin’ song “Ni Kuai Le Ma? Wo Hen Kuai Le!” It took a decade for that demonic ballad to fade away.
Stock Trading booths set up everywhere with every Tom, Dick and A-Han, quit their day jobs and stared at monitors all day as dreams were raised or burned in a day.
But NEVER before ball games…WTF???
Yeah, they replaced the little blue mini-passports, which were actually the coolest…and the plastic slipcovers were all, for years, like a 16th of an inch narrower than the paper ARCs, so the paper had to folded down one edge, always…
Yes, so true! I actually took a pair of scissors and carefully sliced off the edges of my ARC so it would fit.
The first ARC I ever saw was one of those little blue books, but the time I got mine it was the big slip-cover one.
[quote=“mod lang”][quote=“Chris”]Barbershop whorehouses were commonplace.
[/quote]
They still are. Get out of Taipei often to see the real Taiwan?[/quote]
Yeah, sometimes I even make it all the way out to Taipei County.
[quote=“Chris”][quote=“mod lang”][quote=“Chris”]Barbershop whorehouses were commonplace.
[/quote]
They still are. Get out of Taipei often to see the real Taiwan?[/quote]
Yeah, sometimes I even make it all the way out to Taipei County.[/quote]
Whoo hoo, Sanchung barber shops! Yeeaahhh, baybiee!
[quote=“scomargo”][quote=“mod lang”][quote=“Chris”]Barbershop whorehouses were commonplace.
[/quote]
They still are. Get out of Taipei often to see the real Taiwan?
[/quote]
You might want to read the title of this thread again before you get all pissy.[/quote]
Okay, I’ll bite, because I don’t get what you mean. The title of this thread is “Some past observations of life gone by in Taipei.” One poster said that “Barbershop whorehouses were commonplace,” to which mod lang retorted that in the rest of Taiwan they still are. Which is true.
So your reply about not needing to get “pissy” means exactly…what?
Oh KISS–I remember going to see concerts there for Samantha Fox, Technotronic, and Cathy Dennis before pesky foreign work regulations came into place. I also remember seeing Samantha K at the Samantha Fox concert.
Samantha K–She was treated like royalty here, but drove a beat up old brown station wagon. Whatever happened to her? Remember Douggy Day? Yuck.
Tchaikovsky.
Tops.
Passion California Restaurant.
The Dairy Queen on Chongshan.
Boston Pizza/Chicago Pizza
GTE–Great Time English
Moda-Link Department Store.
Sex show ads in Hsimen.
MP cars patrolling everwhere.
God, it was easy to get an English teaching job.
There was this stupid adult contemporary singing group that would vomit Western songs in sort of an easy listening style. They even had a video.
The Asiaworld Hotel’s “boutiques” that sold pirated clothing.
Ceres juice (and the many Americans who would make a big point of “boycotting” it because it was South African, and then of course there was the jokes at the bar after apartheid ended that you could now drink Castle without feeling guilty)
The giant South African Airways billboard on the expressway.
The foreign piano player at the Grand Hyatt that got deported–the first entertainer to get deported after the new performance law hysteria that is still very much in place today, esp. if you perform in Taidong.
Driving without a license/insurance and always being able to weasle out of a ticket.
Hitburger, this French fast food chain that was open on Sungchiang.
I miss “Beer House Road” up in Tian Mu, and the moments before I met that woman from Spin, for the second time, who became my wife …at Roxy right there and then. When the MRT to Xin Dian (yes I learned Hanyu Pinyin before it was cool) was full of clutter and undone. It took hours, occasionally walking past rat infested corners where the garbage was 7 feet high. Bing Jiang lu, now almost famous, was a sign that McDonalds was near… and the office too. Wearing suits then, because I still gave a damn, and the honeys thougt I was nice. Thank god I did something right, they still do (Honey thought I mean). Florida bakery was the toast, and buskers had free reign. The Zone still had flavor in a combat sort of way. But it was Bushiban, that tripped things up and Tops, where we stopped along the way. G’tonic any one?
Others, had simular stories, from night owls and pricks with shadowy names. Thoguh I never played with Monkeys I got thier Wall fFower to have my babes.
More stories I could share, from whisky’s…gogo and more…I was pushed and gratefylly into that pool. Names I’d share mean almost nothinhg to you…Stan and Arieal where are you?
Still though, my memories, abandoned and remembered, stream of concisnous…makes me a fool.
To Auld Lang Syne,
Chou