Comic Festival & Breakdancing

Friday February 15^th, 2013

Maybe it’s Chili’s and maybe it’s not but my insides feel funny in a bad way. Did the food really affect me that much? All I can do now is turn to Pepto-Bismo, my pink darling. :P

Waking up my host father took me to the kitchen to show me what grandmother was doing. After a bit of explaining and observing, I figured out she was making homemade sausage. From what I understood, she made a mix from meat and potato powder that is apparently hard to conjure up. Afterwards she stuffs the mix in the thin skin bag or whatever it is that holds the sausage. Following that she boils it in a pot. First they sink but once finished cooking, they rise to the top ready to be taken out. Interesting to examine and taste as well. We ate the concoction for lunch, which was both chewy and tasty. When I say chewy, I mean soft and gummy. Quite a different type of sausage!

Then came the time to get all ready for the exciting anime experience, thanks to yesterday’s observance! Anticipation was overwhelming as convention expectations welled up. Beforehand I warmed up the day with Japanese music and beloved characters while getting dolled up. Though I didn’t have a cosplay with me I dressed as close as possible to one, which was a pretty shirt that mimicked a kimono. It was a small effort but nonetheless meaningful to me. All of it reminded me of the world I love. Anime conventions in Texas were such a blast that I couldn’t wait to go to one in Taiwan. That was actually I desire of mine before my feet touched this ground, to attend an Asian convention in Asia. Can you tell yet how excited I was?!

Looking darn good in my kimono shirt and meeting up with my friend Mariko, we headed off in search of this event. Thanks to Google maps and the trail of bread crumbs in the form of bags with pictures of anime characters, we found our way easily. The sight of the building was terrifying to say the least. Hoards of people lined the outside walls in teeming lines. Mariko and I just looked at each other like ‘Oh dear lordie no.’ XD

Investigating with a bit of Chinese, I figured out where to buy tickets to enter the building and we went in with no trouble or wait at all. This puzzled us because we thought the lines were for the tickets. Nonetheless we disregarded it and just explored inside the building boasting the “Taipei International Comics & Animation Festival” with eagerness.

I’ll sum up the experience like this. 100% of a let down. Totally. First off the environment conditions were awful. In a small building were stuffed hundreds, maybe thousands of people with little open space. The floor was littered with disregarded pamphlets left and right. The main attractions of the place were several shop cubicles set up. We learned the hard way that those long lines were for getting into the shops. Some lines were absolutely horrendous but we waited through a few anyway. Once finally in a store I was greatly disappointed each time. The selection was so limited and biased to only a few animes, none of which I care for. No cosplays to be found. No musician. No skits. Not even Pocky or Ramune for snacks. It was nothing like a convention I’ve attended before.

I thought I would come out the building with several bags dangling from my arms just like the numerous Taiwanese people I saw but in the end the only money I spent was the 100NT entrance fee. My camera didn’t have any pictures of cosplayers nor videos of skits. All I had was a saddened and depressed heart from my high expectations. What I thought to be an awesome-filled convention actually was just an extremely crowded event for buying non-spectacular stuff.

Finally giving in and leaving the building, Mariko and I headed to Ximen. It was my attempt to redeem the day by visiting the anime store there that I like called ‘Animate.’ What did I find there? Even less than my previous visit. (A.K.A. didn’t have anything good) I left the store empty handed and spirits still in need of raising.

It was finally accomplished through a Subway dinner. A nice six-inch of vegetable-sandwichy-goodnes plus drink and peanut cookie did the trick nicely. Even Mariko who was in want of good food felt quite satisfied with our meal. It was afterwards that got…*ahem* weird.

So I went to the one bathroom in the back of Subway before we left. Once in I turned the lock and…you know… To my horror, the door opened with an older man in the entrance. He immediately closed the door and I thank God that my shirt was long enough to conceal everything but that experience was nonetheless dreadful. I got out of the restroom as soon as possible and found three foreigners looking at me. They knew what happened and couldn’t help but be amusedly shocked. To kill the awkwardness (since I was waiting for Mariko to also use the bathroom) I easily began a conversation with them.

It burned down to three Americans, two guys and one girl, that traveled to Taipei just for a breakdancing competition taking place tonight. Since neither Mariko nor I had any other plans and both of us didn’t want to go home yet, we followed them as they led us to the place. Both of us love dancing but Mariko actually is learning breakdancing at her school so she was definitely interested. Upon arrival of the location, I laughed at myself so hard. Amongst many people dressed in dark colors with caps on was this brightly colored girl in very nice clothes that could pass as church-wear. I did not fit in with the crowd at all. XD

This breakdance competition was very intriguing to watch. Dancers from Japan, Korean, America and more countries came all the way for this event held in a small back corner of Ximen. It seemed like something quite unofficial and miniature but it must have been something special for people to come all the way from America. We only stayed for a small section because Mariko had to go home. But what we did see revolved around one-on-one battles. The first type was one opponent having one minute of freestyle as the other watches quietly, then they switch positions. The second type was two or three minutes of both people dancing at the same time. I couldn’t figure out what the objective of that type was, either to show your best moves or make the other look like a fool with various close-up come back moves like air punches. Whatever it was, it was entertaining!

Unfortunately we didn’t get to see our Subway American friends before we had to leave. The fact that we just ran across something like a breakdancing competition so unexpectedly in Taipei makes me smile. You never know what could be around the corner in this city. Who knows what other kinds of surprises may be hidden within its depths. Definitely a city full of life!

Home, shower and then mahjong time when Michael’s girlfriend came over. I won a couple games against the esteemed professional playing chica. Booya! It was a lot of fun and I grow fonder and fonder of the game with every time I play. A quite excellent activity!

That’ll be all for today. Sleep well darlings. Good night.