2006 at 101

On New Year's Eve, there are a lot of people hanging around the Taipei 101 area. And I mean, a lot. So it struck me as a funny decision for my friend to arrange his wedding photo shoot that evening in that venue. Still, a few observations came to me.

1. A couple dressed up in wedding garb gives you the ability to squeeze through the crowd more easiliy -- people seem more inclined to let you through.

2. Everyone wants to take photos with the wedding couple, even if they have no idea who they are. Especially little girls, who see them and bug their parents for a photo -- I'll bet Santa doesn't get this attention.

3. Even more people will take pictures of the wedding couple. I'm not sure what fond memories this brings for them, but they seem happy in snapping away anyway.

4. There are a lot of people in Taipei normally, but this population explodes on that night, and they all want to be around the 101 and Hsin-Yi District. Yes, all 400,000 of them. This is not a good place to take your young kids unless you secretly want them squashed and trampled.

5. Tons of people will courteously part for a blaring ambulance. Tons more will take the opportunity to run behind it because of the "wake" of open space it creates.

6. Professional photographers in Taiwan seem to have all schooled at the Asian School of Karaoke Photography and Cinematography. At least, their photo ideas give us this impression.

7. To "capture the moment" for the newly-wedded couple, everyone posing in the photo must relive the countdown no less than twenty times. On the 16th iteration of

"10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ..."

one genius in the bunch will suggest we just start counting from 3 instead.

8. Everyone always blames the person behind them for pushing into the crowd. If this is true, then it's clear that the fault lies with some mythical evil person who is at the very outside and is ramming into somebody, and thus creating a chain reaction of "pushers". We should hit that person.

9. Always trust that some crazy-drunk white guy will make a fool of himself after the crowd has mostly dispersed. Not good for the reputation of drunk white guys (as a general population), but damned good for a few laughs, though.

10. If you are looking for the people you lost (while getting pushed around in the crowd), and you see a flash of light and the fireworks starting from the top of the 101, guess what? You've just missed the countdown.

In other news, it was nice weather on the Sunday, and I had the chance to pull out my brand new, 8-month-old inline skates for a tour around some areas of Taipei. And we only got kicked out once!