On Secondary Achievements
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| Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium, 2013 |
Lamingo Monkeys vs. Uni-President 7-11 Lions
Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium
Chinese Professional Baseball League
17:05
Tainan, Taiwan
Outside the Game:
I had a weird night of sleep for whatever reason, but I got up with plenty of time to grab breakfast, pack up, and head off to the train station. This would be my first adventure on the Taiwan high-speed rail system, so I decided to give myself some leeway for unforeseen situations.
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| High-speed |
I got the station very early, so I killed some time at the waiting area reading the Interwebs and whatnot and then boarded my train. As with every other rail service in Asia, it was quick, clean, timely, and painless. I found my seat, and we were soon underway. The ride was a mixture of naps and staring out the window, especially at some rather unwelcome rain. As fast as we were going, it would be sunny one second, cloudy the next, unable to see out the window due to the rain in the next moment, and then back to cloudy and sunny (though damp in the wake of the rain storm we'd just gone through). And eventually, it was just back to sunny, but not directly affecting me at the moment, as I was in a nice, air-conditioned train.
I eventually got off at the station in Tainan and made my way over to the tourist counter to collect my maps and work out how to get to my hotel. The high-speed rail station is actually about a half hour or so from downtown, and there is no mass transit to speak of in Tainan, but there are free shuttle buses to get you to where you're going in the city proper. I had to find out what stop on the shuttle to get off at for my hotel (which was the rather swag Tayih Landis in the center of downtown), and it turned out that the hotel actually had a booth right in the rail station next to the tourist information center. Now that's service. The woman there gave me a map, and told me which stop to get off at for the hotel, and then urged me to hurry over to the buses, as the next shuttle was just about to depart.
A quick sprint over to the buses later, the driver was good enough to re-open the doors for me and pop the cargo hatch so I could stash my luggage, and we were all off for downtown Tainan. I spent most of the first part of the bus ride blankly staring out the window, and then, having most of the late morning still available to me, I started flipping through my guide book to see what I should visit until I had to head out for the ballgame. One gentleman saw me reading the book, and, if the being white and dressed as a tourist didn't tip him off, took this to mean that I was a tourist. He came up next to me and asked where I was going. I told him the hotel, and he said that it was a very nice hotel and that I was probably spending a lot of money there. I told him I had gotten a deal, and he was very happy for me. He asked what I was going to do in Tainan, and I mentioned the baseball. He seemed to take that in stride, but he also told me that I should visit a museum outside of town that we had just passed. It didn't seem polite to tell him that I had no way of getting out there to see it, so I mentioned I would go if I could make it, which seemed acceptable. He got off several stops before me, but before leaving, he told me how many more stops I had to go, and where to go once I got out. The stop was apparently right across the street from the very big hotel, so I thought I'd be okay.
Several stops later, we arrived at my destination. I got off the bus, got my luggage from the carrier, and promptly had no idea where to go, and for the life of me, I couldn't remember what the man on the bus had said. There was a big building across the street, but it was labeled something for a party store, or so it seemed. A passing woman saw me looking at the map, and then told me that the building behind that party store-looking one was the hotel. I eventually worked out where the entrance was, and had the door held open for me by someone in a suit as I went inside. I expected to leave my bags and go about my day before check in, but they let me check in early, so up to the room in the really nice elevator I went to disgorge my bags. I had managed to spill some ink on my pants on the train ride down, and because of the unceasingly hot weather, I was running short on pants that I could wear in public without shame. I took off my inked pants and a pair that I had committed war crimes against to this point and had them and one or two overshirts picked up for laundry service. I donned my last pair of semi-acceptable pants to go out into the day and see the sights.
My guide book had a suggested path to see the best that Tainan had to offer, so having no agenda of my own, I decided to follow that. It started up near my hotel at the Tainan Confucius Temple. While the Buddhist and Taoist temples and their grandiose ornamentation are always a spectacle, I have a soft spot in my heart and a predilection,perhaps, in my aesthetics for the more modest designs of Confucianism, and, no doubt, its penchant for intellectualism. It was not bland or unornamented by any stretch of the imagination, but it was sedate and unified. I spent a good part of the late morning exploring the extensive grounds of the temple, and, given the extensive heat of the afternoon, I capped it off by visiting the cafe adjacent to pound some liquids and load up on some more for the rest of the afternoon.
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| Dacheng Gate |
My next stop was the Great South Gate, a fortification of the old city dating back to when it was the provincial capital of the island. Then it was to the nearby Wu-fei (of "Five Concubine") Temple, dedicated to the titular five concubines who committed suicide to show their allegiance to one of the failed contenders for the 17th-century Ming throne. After exploring the temple and small park on the grounds, I realized that I had to get back to the hotel to switch up for my game bag, as the weekend baseball games started up an hour earlier, and after the lesson of my first game in Taiwan, I was not going to arrive late and not get a good seat.
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| Five Concubine Temple |
So I headed on back to the hotel in the afternoon sun, drinking down water as fast as I could sweat it out, and my dripping and uncouth self had the door held for me again by gentlemen in suits. I dragged myself up to the room and had to put myself through a rather vigorous spin cycle in the shower to feel human again, dressed up, grabbed my game bag, and went back out into the sun. As luck would have it, I was to find that the Five Concubine's Temple was just down the street from the stadium, so I could not have planned my excursion any worse to ensure that I would do the most walking around in the most heat for no reason.
I eventually found the stadium, and the trip back after the game, while in the deepening night, was not nearly as bad as I was expecting. On that walk, I passed several interesting stores, including an open-air video arcade just sitting in an alley, a casket store, and a full-in Internet gaming parlor as one would find in Korea. The exterior of the hotel was lit with blue LED crystals to lead me back to my room. I showered and got changed to visit one of the restaurants in the hotel for dinner, but thanks to the very necessary shower, I got there too late for the last sitting. Not to be put off, I went to the large food court in the mall next door to the hotel and had a big duck and rice dinner before retreating back to my room. Still relatively early, I spent the rest of the evening soaking in the tub.
The Stadium & Fans:
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| Home plate to center field, Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium |
Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium was more the product of its environment than any other stadium I saw on this trip. In the temple city of Tainan, it had an elaborate pagoda archway framing the entrance to the stadium grounds, which were tucked off of a main street in town. The largest area of activity was along the right corridor next to the stadium on the first-base side, shaded by trees and dotted by a stage and several concessions. Along the left side of the stadium was more of a parking lot, and it was also the location of the visiting team entrance and merchandise stands. Further around the more disused back of the stadium, it was quite worn down, with the paint flaking off rather heavily in some places (especially when facing the afternoon sun), but this area was mostly garage and storage areas built into the base of the stadium under the seats.
The VIP entrance was at the front of the park, by home plate, and flanked by a tea concession on one side, and some mascot picture spots and a wall commemorating their Taiwan Series win on the other. There was also the big stage set up so that you could try your luck at a skill game to win some bottled tea or other 7-11 food. Across from that was the ticket booth, which was right next to the main infield entrance to the stadium. A little further down from that was the team store, which had a smaller, glass-doored, air conditioned indoor part, and a much larger explosion of tables and hangers selling stuff outside, next to the fan club sign-up table.
Once inside, the park had some quite interesting features. The outfield seats were once-again completely segregated from the infield grandstand, served by their own entrance in back and several stairwells that led out to the seating area. What was particularly of note was that it was a bi-level bleachers, with another level of bleachers completely underneath the first that extended as far as the regular bleachers did. This is no doubt helpful for those who want to sit in the cheap seats but get a bit of shade as well. An unexplained inflatable alcohol bottle sat perched at the top of the left-center bleachers.
The infield grandstand seating was one section of seats served by a central walkway at the base of the seats. There was a shade overhang that extended almost around the entirety of the grandstand, stopping about three sections short on either side of the field. The home team was on the first base side, and the visitors the opposite, and both sides had a rather large stage area built over the dugouts, which were nearly completely inset into the stadium structure.
There was "VIP" seating behind home plate, and a small selection of luxury boxes by the press box behind home. Two of them flanked the home base seats and jutted out a little towards the field. The park had a "Food Court" in an area completely indoors behind home plate that offered a modest selection of boxed foods for park grub needs, as well as sausage vendors dotting the infield. Stairs led down from the food court into what looked to be a players area, or at least the luxury box area, and memorabilia of past important games (such as a scrimmage with the Japanese Tokyo Yakult Swallows) were commemorated on the walls.
Most of the seating looked fine, but there were a couple of stunted rows of seats right next to stairway walls that no doubt offered obstructed views of the field. But to be fair, none of them seemed to be sold for the game. The visiting seats for the Monkeys were about a quarter filled, and they seemed to bring a contingent of their cheering squad. The home side had a more sizable turnout, including a hardy contingent hiding under umbrellas in the top bleachers in right. A family "K" crew was stationed out in the lower deck of the bleachers, putting up the appropriate letter as the number of strikeouts increased in the game. Cheering was organized by the MC and his crew on the dugout, and the fans seemed quite drilled in the songs and choreography throughout the game.
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| Sing-a-long |
There were roaming vendors during the game selling merchandise and food. One particularly egregious example were the "ice cream girls," young ladies in short shorts and skin-tight, nearly missing tank tops who sold ice cream in the stands throughout the game. No one seemed particularly embarrassed by this state of affairs, so who am I to judge?
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| Mascots, ho |
A male and female lion performed the mascot duties, and were more heavily involved in the pre-game festivities and the between-inning dance numbers with the cheerleaders, not the mention the post-game celebrations. It was pretty unique in that after the game, both the mascots and the cheerleaders were stationed in the front of the stadium to pose for pictures with fans. I'm not sure if this was something they did because they won, or something that always happened either way. There were someone longer breaks for grounds keeping maintenance every three innings in lieu of a seventh-inning stretch was also in effect here.
In a bit of nostalgia for Shea Stadium, there were semi-regular fly-overs of planes heading to Tainan International Airport a short distance away. You can't go home again.
Living dangerously, and unlike most other baseball parks in Asia, there was only netting directly behind home plate and out to the dugouts, similar to American ballparks. I'm not sure why this part wasn't done in the Japanese and Korean manner (with foul fences or netting all along the lower level), but no one was killed by foul balls during the game, so it seemed to be working out okay for them.
There was one inexplicable bit to the proceedings. There was a pre-game... something. Here's where not knowing the language well was a detriment. This was either an actual proposal that involved a dance number, or a dance number that was themed on a proposal at a baseball game... There was a girl there with a lace veil in her hair, and there was a guy, with what I guess was his groomsmen, all dressed in suits. And then they danced... Maybe someone got married. Hand to heaven, I have no idea what actually happened there.
At the Game with Oogie:
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| Sensible sausages |
I was wearing my Wyverns shirt to the game today, and while I was taking my pictures of the outside of the stadium, one of the Monkeys players came out, looked at the shirt, and gave me a thumb's up, which is a very American kind of hand sign. I gave him a thumb's up back and he went onto the bus. So there's that.
I had arrived early enough to get a ticket in the infield grandstand on the home team's side, in this case, first base. After I had taken all my pictures and had visited the team store for some portable trinkets, my thoughts turned to getting into the stadium.
As I stood there, staring at my ticket and wondering when I could get in, a young guy came up to me and asked if I needed help. Either the Taiwanese were really friendly, or I look a lot more clueless than I hoped I do. I told him I was making sure this was the right entrance to get in, and he told me that the doors just opened, and we could go in for batting practice. We both went in the stadium, and he took me over to my seat up by the end of the dugout. We both sat down, and I asked him if he was sitting there, and he told me he had seats down closer to the dugout, but he wanted to make sure I was okay. He asked why I was there, and I told him, and he seemed okay with the answer. There was a crowd of people forming up by the dugouts to get autographs, and I told him I had to go take pictures of the stadium, and he wanted to go down and watch BP, so we parted ways.
I put one of my white towels on my seat so I could easily find it again, and went off to do what I do. When I came back for the game, I had a family with a small child on my left, and a guy by himself on my right. All of them seemed particularly interested in what I was doing when I was scoring the game, but none of them either got up the nerve or knew enough English to ask me.
One of the families sitting in the row in front of me had a very well-behaved baby, who stayed awake for the entire game and did not cry, which makes him better than most teenagers at the park in America.
The Game:
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| First pitch, Monkeys vs. Lions |
This contest pitted the visiting Lamingo Monkeys against the Uni-President 7-11 Lions, which just rolls off the tongue. It was my first time seeing both teams, and the last that I would see a team I hadn't watched before, as I had now seen all four of the league's teams in play.
The game did not begin fortuitously for the Monkeys, who went 1-2-3 in the first three innings. The Lions avoided the same fate by getting a leadoff single in the first that was erased on a field's choice before two ground-outs ended their inning. They did share the Monkeys fate in the second, going in order, but the bottom of the third was a different story. A Lions' leadoff single was moved to second on a one-out single to left, and then a double to deep center brough them both home. A fly out got the second out before a two-out single scored the runner from second. A fielder's choice ended the inning with the Lions up, 3-0.
The Monkeys got their first baserunner in the fourth with a leadoff walk. The runner promptly stole second and was brought home by a single to right. A double-play cleared the bases before a strikeout ended the half with the score 3-1, Lions. The Lions had a leadoff single in the bottom of the fourth and nothing else, leaving the score as is.
A leadoff walk proved fruitful for the Monkeys in the fifth, as it moved to second on a single to right by the next batter. A double-play erased the first and last runners, but a two-out single to center brought the runner from second home before the batter was caught in a good-ole' 8-1-3-6 rundown to end the half. The Lions only managed a leadoff single (erased on a double play) in the bottom of the fifth with the score 3-2, Lions.
And then the Monkeys lost all momentum, going in order in the sixth and seventh. The Lions didn't fare much better, going in order in the sixth, and only having a two-out walk and stolen base to show for the seventh. It looked much the same in the eighth, as two strikeouts started things off for the Monkeys, but a two-out hit-by-pitch moved over to second on a stolen base and then third on an infield single to third. The starting pitcher for the Lions got chased, and a reliever got a pop out to short after a ground-out to first by the same batter was called back as a foul by the umpires.
Looking to get some insurance in the bottom of the eighth, the Lions got back-to-back singles to start the inning, leaving it first and third with no outs. A sacrifice fly to center brought in a run, and a two-out single almost set up some more damage before a fly-out to center ending the inning 4-2, Lions. Not content to go quietly into the... late afternoon, the Monkeys drew a leadoff walk from the Lions' closer. A fielder's choice changed up the runner at first with one out. A single made it first and second with only one out, but a routine grounder to short led to a double play to secure the Lions victory at 4-2.
The Scorecard:
Monkeys vs. Lions, 06/09/13. Lions win, 4-2.
I was using the BBWAA scorebook again, and while perhaps not as odd as the first game (or the ones to come) this one had some interesting scoring moments. The 2-5-3 double-play in the fifth was likely a first for me, as a failed bunt attempt led to a rather unique around-the-horn play. Yet another outfield assist followed on the 8-1-3-6 put-out. There was the play in the eighth, where the batter grounded out to first for a 3U, but it was subsequently (and after great arguments by both managers) called back as a foul ball before leading to a fly out to short.
Everything else was pretty much mundane from a scoring perspective.
The Accommodations:
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| Tayih Landis |
As alluded to previously, I was in quite a nice hotel, the five-star Tayih Landis, part of the Landis chain of luxury hotels. It was smack in the middle of the city, right next door to one of the ritzier malls in Tainan. It was all first-class, from the huge entrance lobby, which had stores and a grand staircase leading up to the second floor, where more luxury restaurants lay, to the fitness center, which lay at the bottom of the atrium in the center of the guest rooms, visible from the top floor on down. (The hotel did have rope netting in the central atrium every few floors, whether a precaution against suicides or (more likely) drunk guests was never made clear.
My suite was in keeping with the surroundings. There were several large closets to the left at the entrance, and the large bathroom had an entrance to the right. The spacious bathroom included a glass-walled shower to clean yourself and a big old tub to bathe in. Even the toilet had a satisfying giant big flush button located above the bowl.
The bedroom had two parts. Closets to the entrance was the huge-assed bed and opposite it was dresser space and a big flat-screen TV. In the back of the room was a set of easy chairs next to a table an ottoman, and a full-sized desk with glass work surface and fancy executive desk-chair.
The closets, of course, held a big fluffy robe that was my primary clothing whenever I was in the room, usually because I had just taken a shower or a soak in the tub, and getting into regular clothes meant admitting I was going back out into the unending heat and humidity of the Tainan days.
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| All gods welcome |
The nightstand by the bed included a Bible and two copies of the teaching of Buddha, in addition to an emergency flashlight and some manner of safety hood for escaping fires, so I felt relatively secure. The small table by the easy chairs had free Dutch cinnamon cookies, and no matter how many I ate, every time I came back to the room, there seemed to be more of them. I didn't question it too much, because perhaps that would make the magic cookie fairy stop coming to my room.
On a Day Off, My Feet and Otherwise
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| Tainan from my hotel |
Tainan, Taiwan
Outside the Game:
After the second game of the trip, I had another day off, thanks to Monday being an off day for baseball in Taiwan, as well as all of Asia for some reason. Last year, I went to Jeju, and the previous two years, I spent in Kyoto. Tainan, second only to Lukgang as a temple city in Taiwan, was as good a place as any to spend the day off down south.
The much complained-about drought in southern Taiwan got some love with a torrential rain storm early in the morning. It was over before I went down for breakfast, and what a breakfast it was. It was in the basement restaurant at the hotel, and the restaurant took up what looked to be most of the floor. It was easily the biggest breakfast buffet I had seen in my life. Each individual station was as large as a regular buffet, and there were about a dozen of them, for Chinese breakfasts, Japanese breakfasts, Western breakfast, vegetarian, eggs, cereals... it went on and on.
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| Small breakfast |
I loaded up within an inch of my life, and then went to my reserved table. A young Chinese family were next to me, with their young daughter. She apparently found me alternatively amusing and terrifying gauging by her reactions. I ate my breakfast and read my free newspaper, and then went back up to my room.
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| Madame Linshuei's Temple |
With the Monday devoid of any baseball, I set back out to complete my tourist sweep of the town that was interrupted by going to the ballgame the day previous. The first stop was Madame Linshuei's temple, who was some sort of patron for children. Even early in the morning, there were expectant mothers there asking for the Lady's protection. Nearby was Koxinga's Shrine, dedicated to the general of a deposed Ming dynasty line who came to Taiwan and tossed out the Dutch invaders. He, like Chang Kai-Shek after him, never lived to retake the mainland.
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| Koxinga |
Tainan was similar to Lukang in that there were some many cultural treasures to see that you almost got overloaded with them. I rifled through so many that morning: Dongyue Temple, the City God Temple, the Altar of Heaven, and the God of War Temple. Each of them were alternatively tucked in little side roads or along long passageways, and they all were just filled with details and artwork that could keep you staring at them for hours, which is pretty much what I did.
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| Altar of Heaven |
The last stop in town was the Chihkan Towers, built around the foundation of the old Dutch fort. It was one of the only Western-style buildings I saw in the country, so it was interesting in that regards, as well as the historical import of the site. The Towers shows off the archaeological Dutch foundations and the other masters the site has had throughout history. One building has been converted into a temple to the sea god, and there are several turtle statues with stellae on their back on the grounds as part of it.
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| Dutch-style window |
As it was only early afternoon at this point, I decided to try and get to the other center of Dutch colonial buildings that were located in the west of the main city, across the river. Now, there would be those among you who would point out that there are tourist buses that go out there, or, barring that, convenient taxis that could take a person there. And all of those people would be quitters, because I thought that even though it was on the long side, I could easily walk the distance to Anping.
Which may have been true if I had gotten the route right. I decided to stay directly on roads that would take me straight where I wanted, which helped me make good progress, until I decided to take what I thought was a short cut. This, of course, threw me straight off the path, and, while wandering around with my map out, I managed to catch my foot on one of the uneven "sidewalks" on the road and roll my ankle pretty good. And here my excursion to Anping ended. With about half of the trip left and nothing compelling me to go out there, I decided to turn around and head back to the hotel for some R&R.
Which I did, and promptly made a wrong turn and went in the entirely wrong direction before discovering my error and heading back in the other direction. After all the extra walking, and my previous running about all morning, I was just about dead when I made it back to the hotel, where a nice person in a suit held open the door for my injured, sweaty self, and I crawled up to my room.
The clothes I had sent out for laundry were pressed and ready for me back in my room, and I promptly ignored them as I ran a hot bath while I took a shower. I settled in for a long soak, hoping my ankle wouldn't swell up, and the timely application of a long, hot bath seemed to help. I bundled myself into my fluffy bathrobe, and sat on the bed with my ankle elevated while I watched some late-afternoon TV. Convinced my foot wasn't likely to break in half, I got dressed in my clean new clothes and went across the way to the ritzy mall to walk around for a bit to test out the leg.
In the course of wandering around, I found an arcade/entertainment complex on one floor called "Tom's World." You had to change all your money into tokens, and then you could play video games or standard boardwalk games of skill (skee ball, coin pushes, etc) to win tokens that could be redeemed for prizes. After being addicted to the iPad skee ball application for so long, I felt compelled to play a bunch of that in real life, as well as other nostalgic games. There was also an action baseball game at which I spent a lot of time and tokens. It had a plastic cricket-like bat and a tube that used air to levitate up some hollow plastic baseballs. You then had to hit the balls into a scoring grid on the other side of the game in order to get tickets. I spent way too much time at that game. After all my shenanigans, I found myself with 60 tickets, which was just enough to get me a small pad of sticky notes with the "Tom's World" logo imprinted on them.
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| World of Tom |
I took my outrageous winnings back to my hotel room, and decided to just order room service. A steak, a crème brule, and a Scotch soon made it up to my room, as I transitioned back into my bathrobe for the remainder of the evening. As I sat and looked out of the Tainan evening, drinking my Scotch and eating my steak, I though that, ankle aside, this wasn't that bad a day.
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| Small dinner |
The Accommodations:
I spent a good deal of time today at the Tayih Landis later in the afternoon after the aborted attempt to go west and the incident with my ankle. Not to mention the room service I had for dinner. Look, I'm in a five-star hotel; I might as well enjoy it.
2013 Taiwan
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