Season Finale: Adam in Tulsa, Sarah in Taiwan, World in Disarray

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm Sarah and I'm Adam.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
E'sivitable.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
This is the DKs Podcast, a podcast about love, sex,
culture and society. This week we'll be taking a trip
to Taiwan and answering a listener question. Enjoy the show.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Whether you're.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Married or single or palla, you're a bar hanging on
Wistmanner's back at your place, Listen to us and beginning
buck a tender and mumble of plenty of youngs trying
and trying and having.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
To luck because we all know dating kind of sucks.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
So it's our last episode of the year. We did
take a break this fall to figure out the direction
of the podcast, and Adam and I are excited for
the changes that are to come. Currently, our plan for
twenty twenty five and beyond is to feature different types
of episodes, like travel episodes, episodes discussing different aspects of
relationship in life, and interviews with interesting people, all while

(00:58):
we rebrand fully from dat kind of Sucks to the
DKs Podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's right, and your feedback will be so important more
than ever. We want you to reach out through the
DKs hotline at four oh seven five one nine zero
one eight one and leave us a voicemail or email
us at Dating kind of Sucks Podcast at gmail dot
com with your thoughts, suggestions, and input. Now that makes
me wonder if you have to change that email address.
We're going to keep it Dating kind of Sucks Podcast
at gmail dot comcast.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
We're not changing it yet.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
We don't need to. We're need to set up a
new Gmail account for that shit. But uh, and of
course we do want you to still ask this advice
because we will answer and give advice in future episodes.
But this is exciting for us and we're really happy
to have you along for the ride. So thank you
so much for being with us for a tumultuous year.
And here's to an exciting twenty twenty five. Kay.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Well, as we wrap up the year, I guess we
should get into our lives before.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
We talk about talk about our lives a little bit. Yeah, well,
let's let's before we get to touch based on not
kind of what we just said in our intro about
changing it, those listeners who have listened to understood that
we've kind of got away from Dating kind of Sucks
as far as the name recently, you know, like I
would say, year and a half, we switched it to
kind of the DCS podcast. We had kind of I think,
bigger plans of trying to just you know, expand it

(02:12):
to it to a variety different types of episodes. But
with Sarah's being in a relationship that doesn't involve much
dating anymore, and.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, and I want to be more prize like I
say that, but with what I'm going to talk about.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yes, yeah, we'll see what we're talking about. But yes, generally,
with just kind of shifting into something that that's less
about her personal life and with me just not really
doing much in the way of dating, it seems kind
of odd for us to have a podcast focused like
the focus seems to be on dating, even though we
talk about all types of topics. So this way we
can kind of expand Sarah's you know, travel so much,

(02:47):
and there's so many interesting and exciting things that she
has and she experiences that I feel like our audience
would love to hear about. I have some concepts for
interviewing cool people that you know I have I have
unearthed over my travels and just over the people I
know that I would love to kind of just sit
down and talk to. And so we have a lot
of different ideas, and then of course there always is
random relationship, ship and life stuff that we want to

(03:09):
talk about and share with our audience. So this allows
us to kind of have a variety of different types
of episodes without getting so stuck in the format that
we've been doing for almost you know, seven years.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, and keeping dating kind of sucks in the title
kind of holds us even more to sticking with dating,
which is why we've been saying DKs podcast And Adam,
you coined the term term because I didn't like it
of the DKs ers, but I mean that's really what
we are.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, yeah, you hate that. When I first came up,
I mean that was years ago before we were still
dat data kind of sucks, but uh yeah, and I
think we originally I came up with some idea that
DKs she could stand for different things like dating and relationships,
and K is like knowledge information, and S is like
society and travel or something like that.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
It's going to remember that sh and we're not etually
going to remember.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
So we're just gonna pretended it all means, like I
don't know, something like something to do with Sarah because
there's an essenate I don't know, but okay, yeah, there
we go. Who knows it's it's not the Aks. It
could be like Adam Adam in Sarah with a with
a K. I don't know, but yeah, so who knows
there's anything. It's gonna call the Decast Podcast. I don't

(04:17):
think any need to change that name, but we might
see you might see some graphics change at some point
next year as well, and other minor changes, but otherwise
it's gonna be the same same podcast.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, still going to be us, Still going to be us,
bullshitting our way through whatever is going on in our
lives and interviewing people because we did interviews in the
past too. It was just the process of finding someone
to be on the show and.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
It was three of us, and yeah, it was it
was a lot of work to do remotely, and it
might you know, might be a little easier just to kind.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Of spin that all one person takes that over for
one topic and another person or you know, just if
one person is feeling more inspired to do something, they'll
kind of take over for a week or two and
then the other person will jump back in. So it
gives us more flexibility on a lot of fronts.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Exactly, And so that's why we're excited to do that,
because we didn't want to just let it, let it die,
because that didn't seem right. Because we do enjoy this.
We enjoy our audience, and I know our audience likes
to likes to hear hear us blather sometimes, and here's
something we like to talk. We do like to talk.
It's very true.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
We talk every fucking day. Well why not recorded?

Speaker 2 (05:22):
And when we don't, I'm sad. I'm like, you know,
and I don't. I don't get a call from Sarah.
I'm like, what happened? And so yeah, when we like
when you travel sometimes honestly, yeah, like when you went
to Taiwana, I was like, I'll get it like a
late night I'm sure I'll get like a late night
FaceTime and I never got one. I was like so disappointed.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
So I apologize. I didn't realize that was an extation.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Just so used to it.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
So yeah, So that's that's what's going on with the podcast.
We're gonna get into it. We're you know, sharing a
little bit of what's going on in our lives. That
part of it won't change the detail, maybe might change occasionally,
like says Sarah, starts to getting maybe a little bit more,
maybe a little bit less open about some things that
she h she talked about in the past. We'll see
and uh, I guess I'll kind of jump into what's

(06:04):
going on in my life. So here I am intel.
So we had, we survived Thanksgiving, and now we have
Christmas coming up, and it's it's what we call the
famous season from like Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day, cuffing season.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Still talking about that.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
I know it's still a thing. It's still a thing.
I still see it on people talking about it. But
maybe in the vein of that I have I have
I've told you about almost a year ago, I think
is what it originally was that I matched with somebody
on a dating app and we made plans to get together.
We got together and talked about photography a lot. She

(06:41):
wanted to do a lot of photos. And then the
next our next like date quote unquote, was actually meeting
in an abandoned junk yard and we did a photo shoot.
I remember talking about that.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
I mean that that is the yes, of course, of.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Course, yes, you know, go to go to an abandoned
place in the middle of world, rural Oklahoma. That's what
at least was broken into. She happened to have a
key because there was somewhere she knew, which was probably
even a worst sign for me, Like to put yourself
in that type of risk. Oh yeah, let's go, let's
go through an aband like you know, that's just that's
how you die, that's how that's immediately how a horror
movies start. Oh I've got a key, and you know

(07:15):
my uncle owns it or whatever. You know, like it's
that's not creepy at all. But we have stayed. Uh,
we we we've stayed. We stayed in touch with each other.
This is the model and I and uh she was
going through divorce and we needed to I think process that.
We took some really.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Bad ass but you weren't interested at that point.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Well, no, here's here. So here's been my my disconnected
in and I'll explain that. Yeah. So we took some
really cool photos and then we wanted to do had
better ideas for photos, and so we wanted we did
another photo shoot and interested. They came out cool. But
when I do photography with someone that I'm not romantically
involved with, like when I was dating Katie, you know Tickerbell,
Like you know we were we were dating at the time,
we were romantically it's actually evolved, and so when we

(07:59):
were doing photo shoots, like there was different we had
to do. We already cross that kind of that boundary.
So it was it was a little different. But if
I'm doing photo shoots with someone who I don't know
that well and I don't know in a romantic sense
or or an intimate sense, it's very important to me
that they feel extremely safe and comfortable and able to
say no to anything. I don't want them to feel

(08:20):
any pressure to go along with anything that makes them
the slightest but uncomfortable, especially because there's usually some type
of nudity and a lot of vulnerability in that and
and so uh so with that, that means I have
to really be extremely professional, which makes it hard if
you're talking to someone in a dating capacity to then
do like those types of photographs with them and keep

(08:40):
it professional and then also at the same time try
to date. So it was, it was it was something
that I felt like torn between the two and I
didn't know how to act, and so I was I
was like, I'm going to focus on being safe and
being being a professional side because that that at least
I know I can't go wrong with that, and so
I just and that's I need to make sure that
no matter what, that she feels comfortable and safe. Like

(09:03):
that's it and end of story. And at one point,
while we were kind of chatting about photography, she also said, hey,
you know, we should get together. Maybe we can watch
a movie sometime. I can come over and we can
pick a you know, good movie to watch. And I
don't know if we talked about this on air or
if I only talk to you about it, but what
I did tell you about it, what was your first instinct?

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Are you serious?

Speaker 2 (09:23):
Well, you know your first instinct was Netflix and Chill,
is what you said.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Like you're like, oh yeah, yeah yeah, but yeah, like
are you serious guys?

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah yeah, it basically yeah, So she's essentially like you.
You were like, she just invited herself over to Netflix
and Chill basically, and I was like I kind of
think she did, and like, so so you know, that's
that's great, which is nice, but I don't know for sure.
I don't know, you know, I don't I don't want
to assume. And this was this was nine months ago.
I don't want to assume that. And so she came

(09:50):
over and we watched a movie and I had you know,
I had some food and drinks and we sat there
and talked and then watched the movie and had a
really good time watching the movie. It's when I also
realized that my cow which was terrible for like, it's
not a cuddling couch, like I bought it for esthetic
purposes because it looks cool, and it is a fucking
an awful couch when it comes to anything else. Actually,
we'll say it's great to set on, for one, but

(10:10):
not like it's not a cuddle couch. Like it's say,
it's a sit there while your grandmother like ask you
questions about who you're dating, you know, like type of couch.
Like it's a you know, it's a well no but no,
but without the love. Yeah. So essentially it's just it's like,
you know, you sit there very straight out. You know.
It's just not not great. And I am sad about that.
But we had a great time and then she left
and that was it. I had no assumptions. I obviously

(10:33):
I made no I wanted to let her, you know,
show However, she wanted to feel and if for some
reason she felt like if she had indicated, hey, come
sit with me on the couch, or wanted to sit
with me in my my recliner, my old man recliner
that was you know, has the heat and the vibration
and wanted to join me on that that, then maybe
things would have gone that way. But they didn't, and
I left it up to her. And since then, we've

(10:54):
seen each other a few times, you know, every maybe
every month or so, either would meet up for or
something like that, but it's been mostly platonic. And recently
she reached out and said that she wanted to she
was having a hard time, and she asked me to
come over. She I was like, hey, how you know
we actually use an ear and has asked me to

(11:15):
come over, So I was like sure, So I came
over and went to her place and we sat there
and we watched just had the I think the TV
was on. We just kind of chatted and talking through
her life and saying that like she's recently been going
through like therapy and learning that she needs to kind
of communicate more and like and when she's feeling like
alone or wants to share what she's thinking. It's okay
to share what she's thinking. And I encourage that. And

(11:37):
then I left, and then we and then she wanted
to do something with with like maybe going to karaoke
some night, and she's talked about me to like her
sister and her daughter. Her daughter's like in her twenties,
and wanted to like bring them all out to like
maybe do karaoke together. I was like, yeah, that's fine,
you know, and that'd be fun. So we did that

(11:57):
last Tuesday. And when we were discussing, like, you know
how the karao Okaine, now you know, her sister was
like very much. Oh you do the photography. I love
your stuff. It's in your comedy. You're very funny, you know.
It was it was nice. It was clear that she
that she had talked about me quite a bit. Towards
the end of the night, after her everyone else that
kind of left, it was just she and I. She
told me that when she invited herself over to watch

(12:21):
the movie nine months earlier, it wasn't until late that
she realized that she had inadvertently invited herself over to
Netflix and chill, and she was kind of scared about it.
She said to one of her friends, did I just
do that? And her friend said, yeah, it sounds like
you did. H. I don't know what you're gonna do now,
because you basically just told me you want to come
over and fuck. And so she was like really nervous
about it, and she said, but you were so like

(12:44):
just like I never at all felt any pressure to
do anything. And that was like, I realized that you've
been like that this entire time I've known you, have
known you for you know, for over nine months or
you know, almost a year now, and you've always been
very like just kind and considerate and thoughtful, and and
she's like, but you know, I like I want to
I'm trying to say this and I don't know how

(13:05):
to say this, but I like, I do like I
would like to make out with you. I would like
to maybe netflix and chill and do other things. And
she's and she yeah, for real, and she got very
she blushed extremely extremely like quite a bit. She was
very like shy about trying to say this and was
saying things like like, you know, she goes, I don't,

(13:26):
I don't there's words I can't even say she goes.
And she was I didn't even try to say whatever
words she was trying to say, and so I said, well,
that's you know, I'm glad to hear that. You know,
you've come to this realization. I appreciate you being honest
about that. And then we made out for a little
bit and then we went our separate ways and we
haven't seen each other since, but we've chatted a little bit.

(13:48):
But here in lies the problem, because of course it
can't just be that easy, right, I mean, it can't
be that stuff all.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
No, and I, yeah, the problem.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Is very let's talk about it.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Or second here, So Adam has lived in Tulsa for
over a year, and he has committed to two years
at least living in Tulsa, but after that he's a
free agent to move anywhere he wants. And so Adam
doesn't want to plant roots somewhere he might not be
long term, which really deters you.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
If one, Yeah, that is a big part of it
that I might, you know, sign my least through January
of twenty twenty six, and then I'm done, and I
don't think I'm gonna stay like I do think that
this has been a fun and fun experience for two
years I don't think this is the like they're there
are cool things about this town, you know, I found
a good community friends, But I just something really drastic

(14:40):
would have to change for me to decide to to
like stay here, stay here.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
Would it be love?

Speaker 2 (14:46):
No, definitely. That's the one thing that I'm not worried.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
About, like, you know, like Okay, I just had to ask.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, yeah, I just because And that's that's the hard
part is that she's not gonna have to have a conversation,
you know, a real kind of about the fact that
I'm open to, you know, taking things to to a level,
but it's going to be a temporary level. And I'm
also somebody who I don't know how much I do
want to have like a like a formal relationship right now,

(15:16):
which which sounds so like fuck boyish to kind of say,
but it's just I just I like my alone time,
I really do, and I would like to have someone
who's it'd be Yes, it'd be nice to have someone
occasionally when when I'm not alone. But it's also I
don't want to feel bad about somebody feeling like they're
being abandoned or or not or neglected in any way
because that's obviously not something that I would enjoy doing,

(15:40):
and so I'd love to talk about it and just say,
like if if this is something that's unfortunately going to
have to be something that's going to be more casual
than I think she would prefer, and so we may
just rather have be relegated to being photographer and model
for you know, some other shoots ideas we have and
leave it at that. So I I don't know, but

(16:00):
it's been an interesting little journey and antient journey hearing
from her perspective too, about like how she's had some
bad experiences with men obviously or her ex husband does
not sound like a very good person. But even like
in the little dating that she'd done over the last
year that I've known her, as she's gotten divorced, it
hasn't been easy for her either, I think. So, you know,

(16:22):
I'm glad that I can be someone positive in her life.
That's that's fantastic. I just also don't want to end
up like hurting her because I'm like, yeah, let's let's
do this and then like, you know, nine months from now,
I'm planning where I'm gonna move to without considering, you know,
without any consideration of you know, of her because it
because it wouldn't be That's the That's the thing is like,

(16:42):
I would would really be surprising to me to have
anybody else have a factor and where I decide to
live or go.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah, I think you need to set the expectations. And
you're just in that season of life of I'm here
in Tulsa and this is just the short term journey
I'm on and till I go somewhere else. And I mean,
you and I have talked about this, but I love
that you found such a great community of friends in Tulsa.
I think you would stay with that community if you

(17:11):
were in another city. If that, if you found that
same community in a different city in the US that
you actually really enjoyed, you would stay in that city
and play more roots. It's just the city itself is
just not your vibe. And that's totally fine, but just
setting the expectations. If you guys, do decide you want
to explore something, you don't want hurt feeling, and it's

(17:32):
gonna be hard to because you won't want to get
too attached. And then you also don't want her to
get attached because you know the inevitable.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Right, So yes, And I know I'm like velcro. People
get attached, so I have to be careful.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
You're not okay, okay, sit down, you're so great, You're
like okay.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
I didn't say the great party, just that I'm like
hellor crow and can you can you will you deny
that people get attached like I like I've had that happen.
Know how many times have I started dating something they
just moved in just like within like the immediately, like
it wasn't even a consideration. Yeah yeah, so so yeah
and uh. And that also leads me to the next
thing I want to say too briefly, which is that

(18:14):
after January of the next year, when I in my
least sense here and I do decide to live somewhere else,
I'm kind of open to where I want to be.
I think, like I think being in the mountains sounds beautiful.
I want to be by the water would be nice,
like I wanted somewhere in nature, which Telsa doesn't really
have a lot of.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
You know, it's every time stains.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
Northwest is you know that the or like the Great
Smoky Mountains lots of rivers and things like that too.
Is nice. You know, there are areas like that or internationally,
and so this is also when I would like to
suggest to any international listeners we have that if you
really love your area that you live in and you
think it's something that someone like me would also enjoy

(18:56):
and love, pitch it to me. Let me hear. Let
me hear about your town. Maybe maybe it's an area
I've never thought of or considered. I mean, I know
I've I've had listeners from from Norway tell me like
I'm about Norway, which sounds amazing. And then you know,
like obviously Italy is a big one that I've considered,
Ireland and Scotland, and so I would love to hear,

(19:16):
you know, Australia, New Zealand place like that too. But
where you live, let me hear. I'd like to hear
personally from from any listeners who hear this and live
internationally and would like to pitch their area it is
like somewhere that would be cool to like for me
to explore, maybe come visit to try to see if
I wanted to live there. So reach out.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Last what when you were figuring out your city, you
did a tour of the US, and now you're just
going to tour the world.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
I might might just do that. I might just do
that for like three years and then, like, you know,
come back to Tulsa. Who knows. No, I'm not coming
back to Tulsa.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
You'll come back to the US.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
I'll come back to the US probably if it still exists.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Chill.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
So what about you? What do you now? You went?
You went away for Thanksgiving and then you're back? Are
you going away again for Christmas?

Speaker 1 (20:02):
Not for Christmas? But because Canada is so close to Seattle. Actually,
this weekend, Roy, myself and our couple friend, we are
taking the train up to Vancouver, Canada, and we're going
to spend the weekend there, just a quick weekend trip.
It's like three and a half hour four hour train ride.
We could drive, but I don't want to drive. So
the trains, I know.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
And you took the train before to Portland, right I did. Yeah,
so that was going but that was going so that
was going south. So this one's going on.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, this is the same train line. It's just going north. Okay,
obviously yeah the other way.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
So let me let me ask you. This is just
because I don't I don't know anything about the trains,
And I think I asked this before too, but like,
is this something where you guys have, Like, is it
like a private car that you have, because all I've
seen is from movies where like people either have private
cars have little beds in them, or they have like
or you're sitting in a row on a like on
a bus where you're just sitting there facing forward, and
that's it. What is this like?

Speaker 1 (20:52):
So for mine, we purchased economy tickets. The train is
not long enough to get a sweep. Now, if you
were doing the from La to Seattle route, that's a
ten hour train ride, and you could book a suite
where you have your own space and your own bathroom,
you know, just a little toilet area and whatever. But

(21:14):
because this is it's not a commuter rail. But at
the same time, it's not that long. It is more
spacious than a flight. You don't have to wear a
seatbelt while you're While you're there, you can walk to
different cars and get up and okay, adam good to
share with the world. Cool. But yeah, you can walk
to the food car and get a snack there. You

(21:38):
can work on the train. There's obviously views. I don't
know I didn't because I was traveling alone. The last time,
I didn't actually get up because I was I don't know.
I was worried about like just leaving all my shit
and walking to that or whatever, so I didn't actually
check it out. I don't think there's alcohol, but I
could be wrong. I just know they have like basic
sandwiches and sodas and things you can buy for sure,

(22:01):
but you can bring your own shit too. And I
also like trains because there's not a huge like a
TSA security check process either, Like you go through, you
wait in line, and then the trains there and you
board rather quickly and you know you don't have to
be there more than thirty minutes before your train leaves,
which is nice. I really enjoyed it. And yeah, I
think you know, obviously the US is sleeping on train travel,

(22:23):
but from where I live, there's a couple of options,
so why not take it well?

Speaker 2 (22:28):
And I've told you about the I don't think I
will talk about this on air, but that that show
a jet Lag on YouTube that I love where they
play all types of games, but it's all it's usually
in Europe or Asia, and like in ninety percent of
what they do is getting is train is train travel
because like they play you know tag throughout you know,
throughout the you know, throughout three countries, and so uh,
basically it's all picking the right train and then trying

(22:50):
to make sure you get far enough away. And then
you're you're trying to your friends are trying to guess
which train you want to take it. And so it
amazes me how much train travel is important there and
then how just how little we you use it here
at all when it could be so like that sounds
it sounds nice, Like it's like taking a road trip.
Be able just to get on a train for four
hours and you can read and do whatever. You don't
have to like pay attention to the road. Like that

(23:10):
sounds that sounds nice. I actually could totally see myself
doing that, and.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
You actually have views. Sure, an airplane seat is nice
for the first i don't know, twenty yeah, thirty minutes,
and then you're in the clouds and you can't really
see anything. This time, at least going north to Canada,
we'll be right on the water, so we'll have all
these beautiful water views. And the train ride down to
Portland was super nice, and you had, you know, not
super mountain mountainous views, but you had you had some

(23:38):
rolling hills type of thing. But yeah, I really enjoy
train travel, and uh, we'll take more trains in the future.
I can't rast.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
You guys are going to Vancouver for how long?

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Just the weekend? We leave Friday, we come back Sunday night.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
Now ice, Okay, that'll be, that'll be, that'll be exciting. Yeah, okay,
but then you're here for Christmas itself.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
We might go to Portland for Christmas, just because that's
where Roy's sister lives, and it was either us just
staying in Seattle just the two of us are visiting her.
So we'll probably end up going to Portland and driving,
unfortunately because we didn't plan ahead for the train. But yeah,
and then looking forward into next year, nothing is really
planned as far as travel. I have some loose ideas,
but nothing is booked yet. And I'm actually kind of

(24:18):
itching to book something, but I don't want a book
too soon.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Okay, all right, did you decorate for Christmas?

Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yes, but we are waiting on our real Christmas tree
to be delivered tomorrow. If it was up to me,
we'd have a fake tree and it would have already
been up by now. But Roy likes the real tree
thing because he likes the smell and the process of
getting one. Bro it just let a fucking candle. I
don't know. I don't that's his thing. I don't. I

(24:45):
decorate the entire fucking house inside and out. The tree
can be his thing. And that's fine. Well, that that is.
That is the deal that we've made. Is I fucking
hate a real tree because I have to clean up
all the pine needles, and he knows the tree is
his responsibility. I might have to help him lift it
to get out of the door, but you are cleaning
all this other bullshit up because that's not on me.

(25:07):
So we've talked about that because it really pisses me.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah. I remember one time when I when I had
when I was yeah, I was still I was, I
was married. We would do real trees, but we left
the tree up a little too long and I didn't
want to bring the tree out. So I told my brother,
who worked for me at the time because I also
had the business out of my house, that he needed
him to bring the tree down to the curb. And
so he takes the tree out of the stand and

(25:31):
puts it through, brings it through the front door forward
like like you know, if you imagine going against all
the branches, they instead of going, instead of flipping it,
go backwards and going from the trunk forward so that
it like it, you know, it collapses the way it's
supposed to. It makes it less of a mess. He
literally pushes it forward against all the branches, leaving like

(25:55):
three feet of pine needles at the door, and then
brings it out of the curb and things. They did
a good job.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Well you had to clean it up too. No, that's
not why you fired him.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
But I should have. That should have been the reason
right there. But yeah, yeah, and I was like, so then, yes,
I had to clean it up because it was originally
my responsibility. I was trying to delegate. I should have
known better.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Just take care of it yourself. I mean, yeah, that's
kind of how it is that I get frustrated with
little things around the holidays of I do something this way,
Roy does something another way, and then you just have
to accept that's his way of doing things. It's not
that big of a fucking deal. Chill, he'll handle that.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
But you know what Christmas is one of these things
I like, I enjoy like I do enjoy Christmas. I mean,
I know it sounds like I'm a big grinch about things,
like I like it's it's nice when it's out there
any other lights and stuff. But I went to this
restaurant locally because a couple of my group chat friends
really wanted to check out the they decorate like they
go overboard our Christmas and they do like these Christmas decorations,

(26:56):
and people come from all over the place of it
to see. And so we went to this this restaurant
called Roosevelts and walk in and the Christmas ornaments are
literally like it's a it's a place that normally has
I want to say, like twenty foot ceilings, and because
the way they've decorated the ceilings with like all these
like I don't even like all the snow flavornaments and

(27:17):
ornaments and all that shit that coming down is like
it literally goes into like an eight foot ceiling as
a results of it, Like they they they it's so
packed full that it felt I felt like I had
to duck when I walked in. It was it was
that crowded, like claustrophobic, almost and it was it was
it was intense, it was overwhelmingly like just it was
too much. I think I had enough Christmas in the

(27:38):
the hour that we were there to uh for the
last the next ten years.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Well, those things are less fun because everyone also goes
to them, so you're trying to enjoy the experience, but
it's hard when you've got screaming kids and just ten
million people everywhere. That's that was me at the Christmas
Market last year. I really just wanted to walk around
and have a good time, but your shoulder to shoulder
with people, you're not gonna have a good time no
matter what you buy or you know, I don't know,

(28:04):
if the weather's nice, doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah. Yeah, I think we made the mistake going on
a Saturday night too, and that was part of it.
You know, I'm glad we got there. There was a
two and a half hour wait, so we'd actually even
get into almost ten which I'm glad because I feel
like that's there were there were no kids when we
got there, because I think the kids would have been
there earlier, and so that that was nice. But yeah,
it was just it was just one of those things.
I don't as as you probably know I don't decorate it.

(28:27):
I don't really see the point where oh I see
all yours, right, Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
You could say the same about me too in this race, Yes,
but yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
I don't see the point of decorating just for myself.
You know, maybe at some point, when I'm settled in
a place, you know, I'll decorate, but who knows.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
I felt the same. And then I moved in with Roy,
and then I remember when we first started dating. I
didn't have a tree, any decorations or anything, and he
bought me a fucking mini tree and gave me some
decorations and lights and said, we're going to actually have
a Christmas for you here this year, and it was
actually really sweet. And then I realized, so, yeah, I
really don't I don't have the space to store it.

(29:03):
But I also don't need this ship. But ever since
then and then we moved in together, I started my
small little collection.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Now, you spend two grand a year on Halloween decorations alone,
so look at you you turn in.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
It was a lot less, not not not two grand,
not too grand, I would say, four hundred dollars not
too grand over the span of four months.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
Because you kept seeing things you just had to have.
I know. That's what's so funny.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
You got to buy it early. It's just like anything,
you got to buy it earlier, it'll be sold out
of course, you know.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
So I feel like before we get into uh, the
you have to this to this one out I have
in the notes, and this is just from a conversation
that yeah, that I was like, oh, yeah, I remember
what we want to talk about. It just says no
blow jobs, no blow jobs after midnight. So this is
the last note on the agenda for kind of what's
going on in our lives? And so what was that about? Again,

(29:56):
I don't even remember that part.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Well, number one, it's no blow jobs after thirty.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Yes, yes, because I go to bed at ten thirty.
So yeah, there's no blowjobs after ten thirty. But it's
just been funny. Roy and I just had this ongoing
thing OF's like I really want a blowjob and I'm like, oh,
it's too late in the night or I'm too tired,
and honestly, it'll be ten o'clock at night, and just
especially during week nights where we have the routine of dinner,

(30:22):
we watch an hour or two of TV and then
I start getting ready for bed, and so it's been
the time where I'm transitioning to go to bed and
he's like, oh, i'd really like a blowjob right now.
I'm like, sorry, shops closed, no blowjobs past ten thirty.
So that's been that's been our little thing. And I
told you that and you got a good laugh out
of it. But it's a joke. I mean, not that
I'm bad stringent on it, but because last night I wasn't.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
But yeah, I think I think this might be you know,
you were saying that, you know, you were trying to
scale back being explicit, maybe as explicit in your descriptions.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
But well there's still stuff I got to share.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Just yeah, of course, but you're pretty proud of yourself
last night, I.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Guess, well, mostly how do I say this? And then
I haven't even like talked to you privately about this
before I share this. But I have been doing more
deep throating and that's been that's been the avenue I've
been exploring as of late, so I and oh oh oh,

(31:21):
and also getting mouthfucked. So yeah, yeah, just just experimenting
with it. Of like, oh, I don't like that or like,
oh whatever, but with practice you get better. And so
I last night gave a standing ovation. I got a
standing ovation from my performance deep throating and compliments to

(31:44):
the chef. I I did a I did a great job.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Real sense when you think about it, I knowing after
that and uh, well, I feel like.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
What I'm But after after it was over, it's like,
you've really gotten a lot better deep throating. And I
was like, I mean, I've been doing it more frequently,
and I just think I'm more used. I mean, like, look,
I still cough like a bitch. Every once in a
while I hit the thing. I'm like, oh my god,
this is the one where I actually throw it up.
But it hasn't happened yet.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
That's good, that's good.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
But last night I got really close and I was like, okay,
we're done. We're fucking done. We'll switch to something else.
But yeah, have you.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Ever heard the and I don't know if it's an
old wiveslat or not, that if you pinch your thumb
that it holds back your gag reflex where it has
to be like you have to hold you hold a
fist so like you're closing. You're like you close your
thumb within your fist that it.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Holds, and that's supposed to stop me from a gag reflex.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
Help.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be thinking about
that when I'm got a huge ass dick in my mouth.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
One study shows that folding your left thumb into the
palm of your hand end and then making a fist
and squeezing your left thumb helps some people with their
gag reflex.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
What fucking study did they?

Speaker 2 (33:09):
I don't know. It's a study. It says what studies
sat sat over said. This is funny. This is Saint
Mary's dental. I don't think that they know they're talking
about the same gag, but I think it can still
apply to it as well. Yeah, and corus so somehow. Yeah,
this is interesting that that it does that. It's a
it's a pressure point.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
I understand pressure points.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
So I guess if you you know, maybe that'll also
does something I don't know.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Well, I will test it out.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
It's all in the name of science.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Well, after this weekend we'll have an answer. But that's
that's really what's going on with the traveling and taking
dick traveling and honestly, what else is you But.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Well, I think with that then we should go ahead
and uh take a break, and when we come back,
we have a question from a listener. Did I mentioned
that Friday, I'm going to a a goth rave.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
What is up with you in the specifically themed raves?
What do you wear?

Speaker 2 (34:22):
I don't know if it's really.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
Well, you wear black.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
It's called what we do. Yeah, exactly, it's called what
we do in the disco. So they want you to
like dress like what we do in the shadows, so
it's vampire themed.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
I like that. Oh, I like that. This is in December,
too good.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Good. I'm gonna wear my black trench coat, my full
length black black trench coat. I figure to pull a
little guyliner on. You can just a pair of fangs.
Another guy I'm calling a guy, got some fangs that
I might wear. And I have a black black mesh
shirt to wear underneath the trench coat because I was like,
it's gonna be too hot, like I feel like to
wear like any type of like actual shirt.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
I mean, what's I guess you'll be inside a ballroom.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Or inside Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's inside. There's a little club.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
So anyways, yeah, you'll be like spike but.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Not but not but fatter and with a really colorful
with no hair, with no blonde hair, with no no
blonde hair. Yes, we're at poor accent. Yes, uh yeah, anyway,
so that'll be, that'll be this Friday, should be. Should
be a fun experience, I think, even for a little bit.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
I like that. Yeah, prepared to get more sick, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
I know, I know, I'll just drink a lot. All right,
let's get into this question for a listener. And uh
and she she emailed us, and you can email us
to a dating kind of sex podcast at gmail dot com.
And she has a very unique name, so she asked
us not to use her name. All right, so I'm
not going to So I'm gonna go ahead and read
this and then we'll talk. I am freshly twenty two

(35:51):
and internally struggling with my dating life. For some background,
most of my life, I've always wanted a boyfriend, starting
in fifth grade and throughout high school and college. If
I didn't have a boyfriend, I was looking looking for one.
It wasn't until I moved back home from college about
eight months ago that I finally felt content being single.
I wanted my early twenties to be fun by not
being tied down. In July, not long after I came
to this realization, I started talking to someone. His name

(36:13):
is Brayden. For context. I'm from a super small area
and an even smaller school where everyone knows everyone. I
went to school with him, but I am two years older.
Despite my wishes of not wanting a relationship, ours progressed
pretty quickly and we were officially dating in August. This
is where my internal struggle comes in. I have often
regretted getting into a relationship, but on the other hand,

(36:33):
he treats me better than any guy ever has, and
I want to cherish that. I'm very bad at expressing
my feelings and thoughts, especially vocally, but I have told
him that much because in the beginning I was obviously struggling.
I feel selfish because I don't see a future with
him the way I know he sees on with me,
and I know that the longer this goes on, the
more heartbroken he will be. Sometimes I really feel like

(36:54):
I love him, and other times I honestly don't really
like him that much, which I don't understand and I
feel terrible about it. He can usually tell when I'm
not content and wants to talk about it. Those serious
talks are where I don't like being in a relationship
the most. Our personalities are different in the way that
he's definitely emotional, where I am just not that serious.
I know that I've expressed a lot of negative points

(37:15):
in this email, but of course I decided to date
him for a reason. He has become one of my
best friends. We do everything together and I'm able to
be myself around him. I love his family and being
a part of all their events, etc. Thank you so
much for taking time to read this, and I would
really appreciate any advice you can give me.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
I've got. I have a couple of questions. My first
one is do you actually like him? I think my
advice changed as this email went on, of like, oh,
maybe you shouldn't date him, and then I was like, well, well,
I guess you do like him and like having him
in your life. But when it all boils down to it,
do you actually like him? And have you talked to

(37:55):
him about And I understand the relationship is still pretty fresh,
but have you shared some of your frustrations with the relationship,
some of your resentments, some of your fears about being
in a relationship and what your plan was before you
met him, because I think that you need to figure
it out and have those internal discussions first, and then

(38:16):
I think have that discussion with him and say, here's
kind of why I feel conflicted about these things. This
is maybe why you sense things or off with me
at some points or whatever, And I think you just
share those feelings with him and have that conversation. Now,
I will say, twenty two is still young and you

(38:38):
can still live your life and be single at any point.
I mean, you could explore this relationship, have a fun time,
and it could end. You're clearly not on the same
page right now where you think he has stronger feelings
for you and you're just not there yet. That's okay,
but I think you need to figure out what you
actually want to get out of this relationship. I mean,
long term partner forever, probably not like you just call it,

(39:02):
call it out. But what do you want? Do you
like him? What do you want? Have you talked to him?
Those are those are my points.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yeah, I think that you know do you like him?
Very important question to try to answer when you actually
actively say sometimes you don't really like him that much.
And so when you do feel like that, what is
it that makes you not like him? Is that he's clingy?
Does he not wash his ass? Like? Is it like?

Speaker 1 (39:27):
What? Like?

Speaker 2 (39:27):
Because though there there are a variety of things that
can make him not that make you not like him,
some of which are insurmountable and some that are surmountable,
and so I would would say that that'd be, that'd
be My advice is to figure that part out. But also,
you're twenty two. He's twenty because he said he's two
years younger, and so of course he's gonna be he's
gonna be more into you because you you are, you know,

(39:49):
you're you're a little bit more. You're I went away
to college, et cetera. I think that, you know, he
probably sees you as someone, you know, with a little
more experience, and so it's more exciting to date you.
You can't have a relationship built on one person being
really into the other person.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
That's just that's not gonna work.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
And you can't have a relationship that you that you're
happy with because they treat you really well. That's not
a relationship. I mean, it's great when that happened Okay, yeah, yeah,
he treats you really well. That's good. You do say
in here that he treats you better than any guy
ever has. Yeah, you're twenty two. I mean you have
been probably dated nothing but a series of just fuck
boys over your courses and immature kids mostly, you know,

(40:28):
during your your you know, younger years. Maybe instead of
seeing this something like well, you have to hold on
to it because he treats you better. You use this
as a standard set for future men, and that you
see this as he's an example of the good things,
and you keep in mind the good things that he's
done while also recognizing the things that you don't like
that make you not like him and not want to

(40:49):
be with him. So you try not to find people
with those traits and you focus on all the positive
things that he's brought to the relationship. It's okay for
relationship to be stepping stones. This is one that maybe
you finally had one where there's a lot of positive
So that's why maybe you're so conflicted, because there's finally
some good things to your relationships where you previously, i'm
going to guess, had relatively shitty ones, and so it

(41:11):
can be hard to say, well, how do I end
that when you know, when I.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
Treats me well, treats me. Well, yeah, yeah, you're allowed
to not be into him. Yeah, and just end it.
Even if even if everything is fine and you guys
are cordial and sex is great or whatever the case
would be, You're still allowed to end it and be like,
I'm just not feeling it. I think my other question,
just based off of other things Adam was talking about,
is like, do you think this relationship is going to

(41:37):
hold you back from the plans that you want? The
things are the plans that you have and the things
you want to accomplish. Maybe you want to move to
a different city, maybe you want to do something that's
not tied to where he wants to be in life.
You're still there's there's so much. This is a huge
area of change in your life. The next I would
say five to ten years, a lot is going to change.

(41:57):
And where do you where do you see yourself really
taking risks and going places and well this relationship pulled
you back. That's just something to consider.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah, and especially if you're looking at your kind of
early twenties, being a place to go just kind of
be free, and do things. Relationship can kind of sometimes
hold you from doing it. Like if you want to travel,
you want to just go somewhere with your friends and
you don't have to worry about having a boyfriend back
home who's worried about you or whatever or insecure, et cetera.
It's okay to decide that you just want to be
single and you just want to live a single life
and try to you know, express to him. That's nothing

(42:28):
to do with him, it's just to do with the
timing of the situation. That's okay too. It probably does
sound like it would be maybe better for both of
you if you really figure this out, but also maybe
let him go find somebody else and let you go
have your free early twenties that you want to have. Yeah,
but thank you for the email, and hopefully that gives
you a little bit of guidance. And I know people

(42:49):
don't always let us know how things go, but we'd
love to hear an update at some point.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
If you want to update this, we would love to update.
Pick an emails of course, Dating kind of Sucks podcast
at gmail dot com. If you have a question of
your own, or you can call the hotline and leave
a voicemail, which we would love for that. That's always
nice and it fills content for us, which is always great.
It's four oh seven five one nine zero one eight one.
You can leave a voicemail asking about anything, anything you
want to ask about. Would be happy to hear it,

(43:15):
and we will share it in future episodes. But so yeah,
thank you so much for that. We're going to take
a quick break and then we're enjoy us for our
final part of the episode where we talk about Sarah
going to Taiwan. Excited for this, wooh, we'll be back.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
As Adam said, I went to Taiwan over the week
of Thanksgiving and I did a solo trip actually because
why not. It's been a minute since I've done a
solo trip, and I think I've learned a lot. I
experienced a lot and learned a lot through my experience
in Taiwan, and I thought it would be valuable to
share with everybody. Also want to start off with a
disclaimer that I apologize if I mispronounce anything that I'm

(43:55):
about to say, because I with my TikTok videos and
just other social media posts, I have listened and re
listened to the Google translated version of how to say
certain words. So I think I know how to say them.
But again, I'm human and I don't speak Chinese, and
that was obvious when I traveled in Taiwan as like
one of the only white people around most of the

(44:16):
time when I was traveling solo.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, and Chinese is one of those interesting languages too
that it really like that it's not intuitive if you're
like a native English speaker, because it's not how the
letters look that they sound a lot of times, it's
it's very different. I learned that taking Japanese even and
so really so that was something you had to learn
quite a bit of.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Yeah. So just as a background too, I booked this
trip knowing only one word in Chinese, which is NHow hello,
And then I stupidly along the way everyone was saying
she shei, she shehi, and I was like, what the
fuck does that mean? Oh, that's thank you. So I learned.
I knew hello going into it, and then after the

(44:59):
first I learned thank you and that was all I needed. Sure,
there were there were times where I would show up
to a restaurant and I, you know, the menu was
entirely in Chinese and I would look at it and
I'd pull up my Google lens and it would give
me the best translation it could and it ended up
being fine. And you know, if there were if I

(45:20):
was ordering something and not sure, I would just ask
them is this the best?

Speaker 2 (45:24):
Or?

Speaker 1 (45:24):
And I always had and I experienced this a lot
when I traveled, that people will apologize for their English
not being good, and I'm like, no, seriously, I'm the
one who sucks. I'm in your country and I don't
know the language. Thank you do not apologize. I'm the asshole.
So that happened a couple of times where people were
overly apologetic that they didn't know English, and I was

(45:46):
just like, it's okay, like I'm I'm yeah. So everyone
that I encountered and just talked to was incredibly sweet
and kind, and I had a really good experience and
I would honestly go back. So backtrack a little bit
of why I booked this trip to Taiwan. I spent
a lot of my free time on Google flights looking

(46:07):
up cheap flights from Seattle, and I hate taking a
flight that has a layover. If I can avoid it,
I will, And with the trauma of flying to South
Africa around this time last year, where I had an
eleven and a half hour flight, a long layover in
London Heathrow, and then another eleven and some change hour
flight to South Africa that completely wiped me out. And

(46:31):
I did not ever want to do that again. I
need a long break from that. So I was able
to find you know, I was looking at flights that
fly internationally direct out of Seattle, and Taiwan was one
of them, and the flight was under seven hundred dollars,
so immediately I was sold. I did not do a
premium thing or no first class whatever. I just flew economy.

(46:52):
I typically just fly economy and just really bring my yeah,
bring my gear with me and I'm good to go.
Take some melatonin, do whatever. And this this go around,
actually I had sleep trained myself to prepare for the
time zone shift because it was gonna be sixteen hour
difference the day ahead of the Seattle time. So I

(47:15):
was staying up till two three in the morning doing
light exposure, like light exposure and all of these things
to try to get my body to adjust. And I
would say I didn't really have that much jet lag.
Obviously the first day hits you the hardest, and I
say that with air quotes, because I was really tired,
probably three or four in the afternoon my first full day.

(47:36):
But that was also because I got up really early
and did so much shit around town and I had
already gotten in like twenty five thousand steps. So I
was tired and took a little nap, which I think
anyone would do. Ye, So yes, I did take a
nap my first day, but I don't think it was
like entirely because of jet lag, but yeah, overall, and
then coming back the jet lag hit me even harder.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
But you found have you found that with non flight
or non stop flights that international NonStop, they're more likely
to have empty seats because it's not they're not gone
to a hubs, so that way they can't like book
them that way they have to like they have to
go regardless of if they have full you know, a
full plane or not.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Yes, and no, I mean I just don't know if
the demand is there for Taiwan, if I'm being honest,
because I guess I did get lucky when I flew
to Argentina earlier this year and I had an empty
seat next so when I.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Went to Iceland, I had I had the roast empty
both ways going to Iceland because it was a non
stop Orlando to Iceland too, So I just wondering if
that might be part of it, is they can't front
load it like they would with they flight with a
bunch of stops because those stops are obviously going to hubs.
So I just didn't know.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
If you I get Yeah, but like in Atlanta to
Iceland flight I would assume would be pretty full. Like
I think it's the airport that you're flying out of. Yeah,
not if you're connecting, but the airport that you're flying
out of.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
But it makes sense, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Yeah, I think the NonStop flights from Taiwan, especially on
Delta from Seattle, are relatively new. And actually a friend
who works at Delta in Seattle, and she said that
those flights are typically not full. So I had an
actual good shot of getting an empty seat next to me,
and she was right. I had two empty seats next
to me. It was awesome. But yeah, the flight too
was not Yes, it was thirteen hours is actually a

(49:17):
little less just because of I don't know, the flight
time was less, but it wasn't that bad. I watched
three Harry Potter movies, I ate, I got up, used
the bathroom a couple times, drank a lot of water,
played a video game on the thing, you know, and
then took a little bit of a nap. It wasn't
that hard for me. But of course I'm more used
to it. So, like I tell my dad that, He's like,

(49:39):
there's no way, so.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
But once I landed, I had the option to land
take an uber to my hotel, but the train system
in Type Hay, and I flew into Type Hay. There
are two major airports, one on the north side of
the island and the south. I mostly spent my trip
on the northern side of the island. I would want
to go back and explore more of like the middle
and southern part of the island. But I flew into

(50:06):
Typeey and then took the forty five hour train ride
from the airport to what did I say hour? I'm sorry,
just a minute, not hour, not forty five hour train
that's crazy. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. The forty
five minute to an hour train ride into type and
from there I was able to take the connecting Metro

(50:28):
and get to my hotel relatively quick, and then I
landed around nine nine to thirty pm, and then I
just took a shower and went to bed. So it
was a really easy way to adjust to the new time.
That way, you just go to bed whenever it's the
local time, and you're you're typically good. My biggest dilemma
when booking this trip was honestly figuring out which area

(50:48):
to stay in. I had watched there weren't a whole
lot of creators creating like hotel videos in type and
things like that, and I was trying to figure out, Okay,
which should I stay and that there's there's like four
main areas that you could stay in my opinion anyways,
There's one on like the far west side, which is

(51:08):
the shiman Ding area, which is all the shopping. It
kind of gives the vibe of that, you know, that
big crossing intersection in Japan, that's like all the shopping.
It's it's Taiwan's version of that is what it's compared to.
So that was one area I could stay at. I
could also stay on the far eastern side on the
Taipei one oh one side, which was more of the

(51:29):
high rise upscale hotels, but I felt like it was
far away from all the stuff I wanted to get
to on the other part of the city, feel like
from the siman Ding neighborhood on the west side. It
kind of just it's better to stay somewhere in the middle.
So that's where I ended up staying with somewhere in
the middle. I stayed in the zong Zen district and
I stayed at Cozy Hotel, which was super nice. It

(51:51):
was actually pretty affordable. I think I spent one hundred
and twenty two dollars a night something like that, and
it included free breakfast every morning, which was a bad
The room was I had two beds and a nice
bathroom whatever. Obviously I didn't need the two beds. Actually
I had one bed for my day stuff where I
wore my day clothes in that one bed and the
other bed exclusively for sleeping. But that's that was my process.

(52:13):
After a couple of days. I don't know why I
did that.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
But good now breakfast more like americanized breakfast or is
it a Chinese breakfast?

Speaker 1 (52:21):
No no, no, no, no. The breakfast. Actually I was going
to get into the breakfast. The breakfast was interesting because
I was like, they do not because they don't get
a lot of American tourists. I think a lot of
their toursm comes from probably Japan, Korea, China, other parts
of Asia. Sure there are some Americans and Westerners there,

(52:43):
but not a majority. It was more an Asian style breakfast,
and I'll be honest, a lot of the things I
had never seen before for a breakfast, so I typically
stuck with your standard egg. I would try a couple
pieces of things in the morning that didn't look like
the look like something I knew what it was because
the breakfast menu was all in Chinese and I wasn't

(53:06):
gonna take my phone when everyone's walking around the thing
trying to scan scan it. So I was like, looks
good to me, I'm just gonna take it. So that
was okay. They had a couple of like potato dishes
that were different to me that I thought were pretty
pretty good, But overall I didn't go too crazy on breakfast,
and I think that's one of the mistakes I made.
Taiwan is actually really known for their breakfast foods, and

(53:29):
towards the end, I started going out more for breakfast.
It was just I didn't want to get my ass
up early enough to fight the crowds to go to
those breakfast places until towards the end of my trip.
There are certain areas that are known for their onion pancake,
and it actually it was super good. It was like
a dollar fifty and you just picked do you want
the pancake to be plain It's like egg pancakey is

(53:50):
a way to describe it. It's kind of wrapped in
a tortilla. It's just wrapped in a way in a
tortilla and you kind of just put it in like
a little paper sleeve and eat it on the go.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
I think I've seen those on like YouTube shorts or
TikTok or something like that. I feel like I have.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
Yeah, okay, yeah, so you just it was one of
those things where again couldn't read the menu. It was
in Chinese. Everyone was ordering number five. I got a
number five. It was fantastic. Glad I ordered what the
locals got and it ended up being fine. But yeah,
you could add ham to it or you know, cheese
or whatever to it. But that was a really popular

(54:24):
thing and a lot of the breakfast places too, they're
not your standard or your typical Americans sit down breakfast.
It's more on the ghosts. You're just standing. You grab
it from a stand and then you continue on. You
can eat it at a park or whatever. And of
course some mornings I actually wanted to sit down and
have a breakfast, so I didn't opt for that option.
But yeah, let's see things that I did. I did

(54:45):
a lot of shit. I'll cover the things I did
in type and then a little bit. I did a
handful of day trips from the main city that I
just took a train to and I'll touch on that
as well. On my first day, I did a lot.
Like I mentioned, I walked fifteen minutes and did the
Shanghai chech Memorial Hall. It was free. I love a
free thing, and I didn't book any walking tours or

(55:06):
things like that. I just kind of was winging it
on my own. But the audio tour was free, and
so I walked around and just kind of listened to
everything that the audio tour was saying. And then that
of course, I thought it was really interesting that because
there there is some tension between China and Taiwan, and
through the audio tour, they were very adamant of the

(55:27):
country of Taiwan, the country of Taiwan, the separation of
China and Taiwan. Ta da da da da. So I thought,
I thought, I first hit or you know, just an
experience of that, of listening to that at the museum
my first day there, I was like, got it, you know,
that was kind of what I assumed. But it was
really spoken a lot in that museum, which was interesting.
And then of course they mentioned just the US interfering

(55:48):
and shit, and I was like, oh, okay, we're the
fucking bad guys. Cool cool, cool, cool, carry on. But
I found that Memorial Hall to be really interesting. Not
only is the audio tour cool, but a whole area
and the building that it's in is really historic. They
have a lot of like political gatherings there. When people
are protesting, they go to this Memorial Hall. It's a

(56:11):
beautiful traditional Ish style building. I don't have like all
the details of who built it or whatever, but it
was a good, like first couple of moments in Taiwan
to just experience the buildings of the architecture there, which
was really cool. From there. Oh and in that area,
Boba Te was originated in Taiwan and you can go

(56:34):
to the first place where Bobo was created. I didn't
do it because I stupidly forgot about it and I
was like, I'll do it at the end of my trip,
and I didn't. So don't make that mistake. If you're
already there, you should just stop in. It's located like
right where probably the audio tour is and you just
stop and grab some boba. Anyways, from there, I took
the Metro and I went to the Shimanding neighborhood, which

(56:55):
is like the really popular area for shopping and just
people literally everywhere, and I was checking out the Red House,
which apparently is a really important building for Taiwan. I
do have some facts on that. It was constructed in
nineteen oh eight by a Japanese architect and it was
the first government built public market in Taiwan. There were

(57:16):
a lot of people taking photos in front of this building.
It was a cool looking building, but again, like the
cultural significance to me was like I felt like an
ignorant American. I was like, it's a cool building, I
don't need a photo in front of it. It's turned
into now more of a shopping area, so they have
a bunch of vendors inside, and you can go in
and kind of read the things on the wall about
the history of the building, and then you know, carry

(57:38):
on your way to all the other shops.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
But it was kind of do you feel I know,
in like other places, you kind of feel a little
self conscious when you have to set up your tripod
and take pictures of yourself in a I would say,
I would say that Asian culture that tends to have
a lot of photography, that tends to be a thing
that they're much more comfortable like with. I think they
invented selfie sticks and all that stuff. Is it less
would you feel Do you feel less self conscious about

(58:02):
it there? Or because you were one of the only
white people, do you feel more self conscious?

Speaker 1 (58:07):
That's why? Yeah, so I did feel a lot more
self conscious actually, which I was. I was really surprised
by because there were other people taking photos, but it
was I was the only Like you said, I was
the only white person around. And there was a moment
where I was taking a photo in some alleyway of
Type one oh one, which is a very large building

(58:28):
in the city, and I was trying to get in
the background and people came up to me and they
were then trying to take my shot and it was
a weird They were all staring at me, looking at
like the poses and shit I was doing, and I
just wanted to get the fuck out of there. So
I was trying to get my shot and fucking leave
and I hated it. And that was my first experience
pulling out the tripod too, because I was a little

(58:50):
resistant at the beginning of like my first day to
do it. But then it got better and I just
decided to not give a fuck typically how I am,
but yeah, it was I don't know, I was being
weird about it my first couple day. So, like I mentioned,
in the shumanding area, there's a lot of shopping. Something
I found really interesting. If for my skincare girlies, they

(59:11):
really do love a face mask, a good or a
sheet mask, you know, the you it's a little wet,
do you know what I'm talking.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
About, Like the silence of the Lambs mask. It's just
like someone's face on top of yours.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
No, no, no, no, It's just like a papery type
of mask. It's got a lot of liquid on it
and you pull it out of the packaging and then
you put it on your face for anywhere from ten
to twenty minutes and then you take it.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
That's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
Well, I haven't seen Silence of the Lambs. There's no
way we're talking about. No.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
He carved someone's face and puts it on is like
the silence of the Labs, And it's just but it's
it is. It's what those face masks look like. Yes,
that's what they look like. So, yes, yes, I know
what you're talking about. And my reference was sorry.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
Lost on you gotcha? Okay, Yes, I'm just again an
ignorant American. But uh, they when I went shopping in
all the pharmacies and just beauty store, they had walls
covered of these sheet masks and I could not believe it.
And they were like, get one, there's a deal. There's
a deal. And I just felt like very encouraged to

(01:00:12):
buy them because there was a deal going on, which
was something like everywhere I went, people were like, but
it's a deal, you need to buy more, you need
to buy more. And that's not It's not like I
was conned into spending more money because I was like, well,
you know, I am here, and they don't have these
back home, so I will. It's buy one, get one free.
What does it hurt for me to grab another one,
except for I probably don't have the luggage space. But

(01:00:33):
they were just really encouraging of like trying to get
me the best deal of whatever thing I was trying
to buy when I was shopping there, which was I.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Enjoyed pass work were they? Did you like them?

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
I like them a lot. I bought. I got what
four four boxes of sheet masks, so I have probably
there's about you know, ten in each box, so I'm
set for a while. It's not like I do one
every night, but I'm giving one as a gift and
then you know, we'll use them every once in a while.
But I, you know, moistrice is the face I think.
And I got the best one, apparently the best ones

(01:01:04):
in the country. I bought at this store because the
one's like these are this is the one everyone wants.
You gotta get these. I'm like, okay, twist my arm,
I'll get them. Fine. Yeah. So shopping was a lot
of fun, a lot of fun little Kitchi products too.
I bought this Hamburger coaster for Roy. Just things that
I've were very fun that I just don't see as

(01:01:25):
many fun products back home. I see a lot of
functional stuff, but these are just silly but yet functional products.
So I had to pick up some of those. But
I talked about Type one on one a little bit,
but that was probably the thing I did not like
my entire trip. I enjoyed the least. It is probably
the most touristy thing you can do while you're in Taipei,

(01:01:49):
probably let alone Taiwan. It's eighteen US dollars for a
ticket and type one to one is if you look
up a photo of it. It was the tallest building
in the world from two thousand and four twenty ten
and then the Bersh Khalifa and Dubai surpassed it. But
you can go up to the eighty eight, eighty ninth
floor whatever, depending on what ticket you purchase, and you

(01:02:10):
can see all of the views of the city, which
I think the views are fine. It was just I
went because I was reading, Oh, you should go during
the sunset so you can see whatever. Well, everybody else
fucking does that too, and so the line getting up
the elevator wasn't bad. It's once the sun goes down,
everybody wants to fucking leave, and now you're in a
line because there's only so many people who can get

(01:02:31):
in the elevator. Now you're in a line waiting for
thirty minutes to get off this fucking floor, to get
out of the building. And at that point I had
been pushed, I had been there was just there's this
lack of it's a cultural thing. I don't think it's
a respect thing, because I talked Roy has traveled extensively
through Asia, and it was something that like kind of
frustrated me a little bit during my trip that I

(01:02:52):
just had to get over. But just the lack of
personal space in certain areas where if there's a if
there's an opening for some want to stand, they're going
to stand there. They're going to stand right behind you.
And just being an American where people leave a little
bit of space, that was and I knew that, but
I hadn't experienced it. And I traveled to Thailand before
where I didn't really have that experience at all. But

(01:03:15):
in Taiwan, I really felt it where people were really
next to you, and after just so many people being
pushed trying to stand and take a photo and someone
just literally getting in the small space in front of
me in the fucking window and blocking and taking basically
taking my spot. I was like, I want to get
the fuck out of here. I'm done. This is not
fun for me anymore. So be warrened if you like.

(01:03:38):
I think it's worth going because it's like going to
New York City and going to the top of the
Empire State Building. It's it's a similar experience.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
So that's how high it goes.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
It's not the tippy top of the building. It's one
of their main viewing point areas. You could pay a
lot more money and book in advance to go even higher.
Thing is, I'm already pretty fucking high up. Do I
need to go to the ninetieth or whatever? For so
my I said, no, I'm good with just the main
viewing area. But yeah, I do think if you want

(01:04:12):
to see TYPEY one on one, the better because part
of the view is seeing the building. That's kind of
a like it's cool to in Seattle to go up
to the space needle, but a lot of the cool
views of the city are with the space needle in it.
And so I was on a hunt to find better
views of typeey one oh one around the city and

(01:04:33):
the Elephant Mountain hike ended up being what I thought
was a much better experience than actually going up to
the top of typey one on one. It is six
hundred steps. It's a little for some it could be
a little challenging, but it's like actual and thick ass
steps too, like big steps to the each one after
another to get to the viewing point to see the building.

(01:04:54):
But I thought it was It didn't take me more
than thirty minutes. There were a bunch of people on
the trail. People go, you know, morning, new night, that's lit,
and it's lit. I don't know, it's lit, like you know,
there's lights light, it's a party, it's lit. No, there
was no party there. There is randomly like an open

(01:05:14):
gym at the top, like pull up bars and people
working out. So if you got all the way up
to the top and you're not dying, you can do
some pull ups and some push ups and do some
of the machines that they have up there, which I
thought was interesting. Yeah, which not a lot of people.
Only the people who were shirtless up there were partaking
in that, which I thought was funny. But you can

(01:05:36):
obviously see good views from there, and then the neighborhood around.
If you just walk around that area where the trailhead
is for that hike, that's where I found that one
alleyway where I was feeling self conscious about taking a photo.
I was walking around and someone was like, oh, where
are you from? And I was like, oh, I'm from
the United States. We're like okay, where and I said Seattle.
He's like, okay, cool, my aunt lives in this building.
Da da da da da, And like I was having
a conversation with some locals and that was cool. But

(01:05:58):
then I was like, please go away so I could
take my photo now because don't look at me. But yeah,
there's a lot of There's a couple of cool alleyways
where you could take photos if that's something that you're
interested in as well. That was Those were a lot
of day activities, I would say. The other draw. Another
big touristy thing in Taipei specifically is the night markets.

(01:06:19):
There are a handful of night markets around. That is
probably where I ate. The best food was at the
night market. Similar experience, you just go up to a stand,
order something, find a seat, or you just stand and
eat the food.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Did you out later than you normally do then, because
I feel like you're normally like ready for getting ready
for bed at eight o'clock at night.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
So well, the night markets opened around five, Okay, So
depending on where I was, if I was close to
a night market and I was a tad bit hungry
or just wanted to check it out, I would just
go ahead and go. I didn't stay too too late,
I don't. I don't remember how late they stay open,
but they obviously stay that's a night market. I think
they stay open at least till like midnight at the latest,

(01:06:58):
or at the earliest. I would assume they stay up
until like at least one or two in the morning.
But there are there are three that I visited specifically
that I enjoyed, and one is by far. It was
said that it's the best one in type AI and
I totally agree, and that is the I'm gonna butcher
the name of this one because I actually haven't said
it out loud before the Rau night Market or raw

(01:07:20):
Hey night Market that's probably more correct. Yeah, probably it's
r aoh E. This one had it was the largest
out of the ones that I had visited, and there
was like substantial signage for it, which was esthetically pleasing.
But then also they had this pork bow bun area,

(01:07:42):
and it sucks because I don't eat pork, right, But
there was a huge line for that, like an actual
like wrap around line that was established, and they had
barriers for lines, where a lot of the other things
people just line up on their own and there's not
barriers for anything. But they were established, and people traveled
for this specific pork bun and it looked cool, it

(01:08:03):
looked it looked awesome. I think when I traveled to Thailand,
I actually you've been doing and saying, oh, you travel
to Thailand. Yeah. When I traveled to Thailand, I was
actually kind of afraid to eat it the night markets,
just because of I had like been around in the
morning and just seen like the flies or whatever, and
I don't know this this go around, I was like,

(01:08:25):
fuck it, I'm not even gonna care about I'm just
gonna experience it because it's the thing to do. So
I ordered fried chicken, which was I think fried chicken
in Asia is so much better than some of the
fried chicken in the US. They've just got it. They've
got it down to a science. There. Obviously, I've I
had a lot of Tai tea. I had poimochi donuts
and just all the sweets and like fruit on a stick,

(01:08:48):
but it's like a dessert. Just little things here and
there that I just had to try.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
And non traditional type of proteins like crickets and things
like that too.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
I didn't see crickets, there were there were a lot
of fish things that I've never seen prepared in certain ways.
I wouldn't say like I haven't seen that specific fish,
but just the preparation of food was different, for sure.
There was and this was and I didn't know it
until after I looked it up because I of course

(01:09:20):
I didn't want to be disrespectful, but I'm the first
night market I went to. I smelled this smell and
I was like, this is the most horrific smell I've
ever smelled in my life. And I was like, check yourself,
you're not from this culture, you you know, just immediately,
maybe you should try it. And I was like no,
Like I could even walk past it without being like,
oh my god, Oh my god. And it's this dish

(01:09:43):
called stinky tofu. Because I had to look it up.
I was like, what's the stinky thing at the night market,
Like I cannot be the only person who thinks that.
It's like it smells a certain way, and that's what
it's called. It's called stinky tofu and people really like it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
I was afraid to try it just because of the stink,
but I thought it was interesting. That's what it's called, right,
I don't know, would you try it? Would you? Maybe not?

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
I'm not a big fan like that consistency. Why is
it sits weird? I've tried weird foods. I've eaten ants
and things like that, so I think I would drive
most things at least at least take a bite of them,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
Probably yeah, yeah, I think the lines.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
Move why because concern would be something too spicy, because
I cannot handle spicy, So accidentally eating something that has
a like a spice that doesn't kick in or whatever,
that would be my Probably my biggest fear would be
getting something I didn't realize was going to be, you know,
gonna melt me from the inside out.

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
Maybe it was what I ordered, but I don't feel
like I came across spice very often, like it was
seasoned well, but not any maybe it was just the
dishes I was ordering. It wasn't flavorful, but not spicy. See,
I think you could have been fine. Yeah, So that's
That's a lot of the stuff that I did while
I was in type Ay, and then I'll let me

(01:10:56):
let me chat about I took four day trips, so
I can kind of touch on each one and what
I liked and didn't like or just experienced in general.
Like I mentioned, I took the metro pretty much anywhere
to get to the places I wanted to go. And
for the I went to Wulay Falls my first free

(01:11:17):
day outside of Taypeei, and this required a bus. Some
countries are very hit or miss on buses. I had
a wild experience in Nicaragua once where I was like, oh,
this is the bus system. Oh we're all crammed on.
This is wild. So I wasn't sure if it was
going to be what it was going to be like,
and it kind of was a mixed bag where one
bus ride was incredibly wild and the other one was

(01:11:39):
really tame. And I think it was just what the
inside of the bus set up looked like facilitated that experience.
So when I went to the Falls. There were so
many seats. It was like more of a commuter bus,
and so it was. It was very chill and normal,
and it was very straightforward getting from the Metro to
the bus station. Like I asked the guy, where is

(01:11:59):
this bus pick up? My blog only told me it's
this number, but I don't know where, and it's again
all in Chinese, and so he was like, oh, no,
you just go over here. And I bought this. When
you travel the metro or anywhere in Taiwan, it's called
an easy pass. I picked it up at the airport
when I arrived, and I had little sailor Moon card.

(01:12:19):
You can pick characters that you want on the car,
just fun little things of a government, you know, like
your little government metro pass. But you can customize it.
And that got me. Once I had had it loaded
with money, I could use it on the bus. I mean,
it was like the card easy. You could just the bus,
the metro wherever. So tapped on and then went to

(01:12:40):
the falls. Trick was to get there early because by
the time I got there, it was around like nine
nine thirty at the falls and there was no one around.
So pulled out the tripod, took some photos or whatever,
and then I realized, oh, I'm not actually at the falls. Like,
I didn't have a big agenda. I just kind of
wanted to walk around the town and see what I saw.
I was like, oh, I have to take a log

(01:13:01):
cart to see the falls. And I was like, what
is it?

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
That's my question too.

Speaker 1 (01:13:08):
It's basically like a little train. It's like the cutest
little train I've ever seen, but they've kept the name
log cart. It kind of just looks like a two person,
two seater trainka, just cart after cart after cart. But
back in the day when they built it, it was
like mad ride. Yes, it really felt like a Disney ride,
and you do pay to ride the ride, like you
ride the ride. Yeah, So you take this little log cart.

(01:13:31):
It's maybe five minutes and then you you stop, and
then you walk to the falls and you see the
falls and they have this little museum for it, and
that's it. And it was just like it wasn't like
a crazy day trip or anything. But it was a
cute little town to walk around. And they have some
hot springs areas too that I didn't realize. And yeah,
all right, oh did you have a question. I thought

(01:13:51):
you were gonna ask no.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
No, no, not about that. That's interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
Yeah. My other day trip I took was to Joefen,
so there's Chauffin and a lot of people do those
two trips together in the same day. But I didn't
want to deal with the commuting back from one city
to the next. It was just gonna be a lot
of travel for me, and I just really wanted to
focus on one of the town's So I just focused

(01:14:16):
on Jofun because I knew, just based on my experience
of how busy things get as the day goes on.
I wanted to get there early. I want to spend
as much time as possible, and then when shit started
to get packed, I wanted to just get the fuck
out of there. So that's basically what I did. I
arrived before anything opened at around nine in the morning,

(01:14:36):
walked around, and the town in itself was built. They
say that it was the town that inspired the movie
Spirited Away, but locals and other people say that's not
necessarily true, but it is a really beautiful town. Now,
there's a lot of steps, so it's small alleyways up

(01:14:57):
a staircase, small alleyways down a staircase. If you want
to get anywhere, there's like a main area which is
kind of relatively flat, but a lot of the times
you're either walking up a fly to stairs or walking
down And unfortunately for me, when I went, it was
fucking pouring, so you don't really want to be going
up and down a lot of stairs when things are wet.
Everyone's carrying umbrellas and being in each other's space and

(01:15:18):
no one knows how to like lift their umbrella up
so it doesn't hit you in the eye type of thing.
So I decided instead of walking around when it was pouring,
I wanted like the rain to kind of let up
a little bit. So I ended up going inside one
of the historic tea houses called a me Tea House,
and they had like this little tea experience. Do you
think I missed a probably May's probably right, Yeah, yeah,

(01:15:46):
you're right. Who knows, but this little tea I wanted
to try a traditional tea house experience, and so when
I arrived there, the woman she's like, Okay, what do
you want. I'm like, I don't know. There's it's like
the cheesecake factory menu of tea. I don't know how
many how many teas should I get or try or whatever.

(01:16:09):
So I'm like, what a normal tourus like me gets.
She's like, just get this special it's ten dollars. You
get some tea cakes and things that go along with
I was like, perfect, great, sold. Well it's not I've
done like a tea time in the UK. Done. I've
done tea times in other places, but not the same experience.
In Taiwan. They give you your pot of water and

(01:16:33):
then they give you a bunch of different pieces to
fill and to steep and to do everything yourself. So
they give you like the burner and the teapot with
the water, and then they're like, okay, well you have
to and it's all clay, so you have to wet
all of the pieces to open them up or expand
them or whatever, which I'm like, okay, cool, whatever you

(01:16:53):
say I should do. And then you put the tea
in and then you let that sit for twenty seconds
in this little a little little teapot, and then you pour.
You pour that tea in it's sniffing tea cup, okay,
and that that teacup is just for sniffing the first one.
And then you dump that water and then you pour
your tea. So they're just like all these things where

(01:17:15):
each time you start anew you have to follow this process.
And I picked it up. But she showed me really quickly.
She's like, next time, it's you, and I was like, fuck, okay,
I hope I know what I'm doing. Okay, cool. It
was fine, but it was just the learning process. She
like didn't really she showed it, but so quickly that
I was like, I at least I drink tea, so
I understand. But it was funny. I enjoyed Jofun. I

(01:17:39):
think it's a good day trip. It's a crowded and
popular day trip. So if you were looking to experience
the town that so you know, inspired, spirited away or whatever,
get there early or do just get there before the
tour group show up around noon, because after that it's
a madhouse and you're probably not going to have as

(01:18:01):
great of a time than if you got there early.
Speaking of Hot Springs from the other day trip I took,
I did an exclusive Hot Springs day trip which wasn't
really out of Taipei that far. It was just taking
the Red Line up to Beto Hot Springs.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
Your Instagram stories or something potentially yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
Yeah. So I booked a massage and a private hot
springs in the Beto Hot Springs area at the Grand
View Resort, and I was probably most excited for this
because this is the only thing I had booked for
my entire trip. And I get there, people are super
nice and they're like, oh, it's just one person, Like, yep,

(01:18:44):
I booked everything for one, just me, solo traveler. They're
like oh wow wow, and they were like really making
a big deal out of it, me just being one.
And then this one woman comes up and she's like, well,
I know you booked a private room for the hot springs,
but we can't give you that room. I was like, okay,
what why not? I don't understand. And I've been to

(01:19:04):
I've been to hot springs before where I booked private
things or you know, done bathhouses in the US never
been an issue, So I was like, what's going on.
She's like, well, you know, if you pass out in
that hot springs and the door is closed, you know,
the door is locked for your time in the hot
springs and you stay too stay too long in the
tub or whatever, and you pass out, we can't legally

(01:19:24):
enter and you could die. And so we don't want
you to die, and we don't want to be held
responsible for anything, so we don't allow just one person
to book a private room. I was like, well that's
a bummer. Okay, Well what's the other option. She's like, well,
you can do our public hot springs. It's cheaper and
you know you'll still get the same experience. I was like, okay, cool,

(01:19:47):
I know I booked private. Is this like do you
wear like do you wear a bathing suit? Like what's
the protocol? She's like, yes, yes, yes, you wear bathing
suit like you we you wear clothes. And I don't
know spoiler alert. I don't don't know if just the
understanding from Chinese to English like what the miscommunication was.
But in my mind I heard after asking three different people.

(01:20:09):
So I was like, I want to be sure before
I'm like, yes, this is what I want to do.
I brought a bathing suit. I'll be fine because she
was like, oh, well you don't have It's different in
the in the public one, and I was like, oh,
you know, because you could be naked and the private
one is what I was assuming. Oh no, opposite, the
public one is fully naked, fully nude. So I got
my little massage. I'm feeling all relaxed and like, okay, cool,

(01:20:31):
now follow us to follow us to the Hot Springs area,
and they're like, well, we have two locker system, so
room number one you put your phone and your shoes
in and you lock that one, and then room number
two you put all is all of your other belongings.
I was like, that's really weird. I like again, been
to places before. I'm like, that's interesting that my phone

(01:20:52):
has to be locked in the first locker in this
first room and not the main room. What if I okay,
following the rules, not trying to be respectful, So I
do that. I get into the changing room, I change again.
My dumb American ass puts on my bathing suit and
then like, okay, well to enter, you have to wear
a shower cap. Can do? Will do? Here's your towel,

(01:21:13):
here's your locker dah da dah you have to shower
before entering. I'm like, perfect, awesome. So I leave the
locker room and there's there are another a couple of
women changing around me, obviously nude. But don't think anything
of it, because I've been told by three different people
that everyone wears a bathing suit. So I walk out
in this thing again, the only white, like the only

(01:21:35):
foreign person in here, in my bathing suit. I just
felt all of the eyes on me of what is
this person doing? And I immediately was like, oh my god,
I'm disrespecting the air, Like I am being so fucking disrespectful.
But I really thought it was fine to wear a
bathing suit. So I go, I go into the shower
area and I like have a moment where like I

(01:21:56):
saw everyone naked in all of these pools and I
was like, oh, this is the moment. I'm either gonna
get the fuck out of here or I'm gonna do it.
I'm like, well, I've already paid for it. I want
to experience this. I don't know anyone else in here,
so like, who really fucking cars? It's fine. So I
like took off my bathing suit, put it back in
the locker room, grab my towel, like, wrap my fucking

(01:22:17):
towel around me. I'm just like, it's fine, it's fine,
it's fine. Like see everyone naked, like, okay, found my
little hairnut, put my hairnut on. Nope. And Roy's question
was did everyone look hot? In there, you know, I
was like, it was almost impossible to be attractive because
everyone's wearing a fucking hairnet, Like there's there's just no like,
it's just it's just naked bodies in a pool, you know.

(01:22:42):
But it was really like I I was there for
a decent amount of time, so I like got into
the two different pools and then they had this really
what I found was the most relaxing, honestly, because one
pool was just way too hot for me. They had
an ice one. They had a couple of saunas. They
had like a medium temperature one and a super hot one.
So I stayed in the medium one. And then after
I realized there was this really long it just felt

(01:23:04):
like everyone was laying down on this thing next to
the pools, but it was like kind of shit. They
had like a shade around it so you couldn't really
see in, but you just saw everyone like kind of
laying underneath it. I was like, that's really interesting. I
don't know what that is. And all the signs of
like you know, for sanitary reasons like place a towel
down and then place a towel over yourself or whatever,

(01:23:24):
you can still be naked, but if you're gonna lay
down on this thing, lay down. It was a heated
like a stone, so everyone's laying on this stone thing.
Oh my god, I could have fought. I almost fell asleep,
just relaxed after the massage, after being in that. That
was really nice. And then I changed and got out
of there.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
But that's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
Not what I expected, but that it was.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
It was one of the ya use a shit, you know,
like it's just at that point you just have to
you know. You know. I'm a big proponent of just
random nudity, so I support that entirely.

Speaker 1 (01:23:56):
Yeah, I just have never been that naked around thirty
other women like ever. I mean, it was very out
of my comfort zone, is really the only thing I
could say. And I usually funny you should ask. I
did band, which is not a sport, but like there,
when I auditioned for Drum Corps, they you stay over

(01:24:19):
a weekend at a high school and you shower in
the high school locker rooms. And the first night that
I was there, I was like, oh, I can't wait
to really shower, but they don't have shower curtains or anything,
so everyone was naked in that thing, and I was like,
I can't do it. I can't do it. So I
didn't shower for the entire weekend. I'm sure I smelled atrocious.
I just couldn't, Adam, I could not do it. As
seventeen years old, I couldn't do it. Wow, not something

(01:24:41):
I was going to do. So I've come a long way,
Yes you have. And I also think if I would
have been with some of my other travel friends, I
might have been less likely to do it. But because
I was solo, I was like, well, I'm literally never
going to see these people again anyways, and they don't
seem like they're caring. And I thought it was interesting
because they were a handful of women, all that all

(01:25:03):
knew each other, just chatting it up, chat it up,
just naked as fuck, just hanging in the hot you know,
in the hot springs. And I was like, I couldn't
do that, But I'm happy I did this, at least
by myself.

Speaker 2 (01:25:14):
These baby steps, well we'll get you there at some.

Speaker 1 (01:25:16):
Point, yeah, yeah, sure, baby steps. Yeah. But it's just interesting.
The culture of that would never fly in the US.
Like I went to a hot springs in Arkansas. There's
no fucking way, no fucking way.

Speaker 2 (01:25:30):
I mean, there's a place in Florida that is like that.
That's so I mean it's it's a it's a but
it's a new resort too, but like yeah, but that's
also it's also you know, and it's it's not just
it's co ed basically. So oh yeah, you just put
down towels where you go and people just hang out there.
There's the body Pink community would have a lot of

(01:25:50):
events there and actually some comedian friends of mine used
to do comedy shows there, which was hilarious because the
comedians were not naked. Oh now, the comedians were not
like they would go perform like normal, but like everyone
when else their audience was a little literally naked.

Speaker 1 (01:26:02):
Like the audiences in their underwear, except not underwear.

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And there's Ply you know Ply Linda
in Florida too, that's a nude beach and uh well,
on my my first anniversary wedding anniversary, we went to
a resort in Malibu that we had looked up and
looked really cool and it was an airbnb for two nights.
And as we're checking in, she's showing us the room.
She's like, oh and here's the pool and this, oh,
and this is the clothing optional area and uh, and

(01:26:27):
then we look out of our balcony and down right
directly below us is this guy that has just the
giantess dick I've ever seen in my life. Like he
was he only looked like he was like five to three,
and I think his dick was probably five to three
as well, like, and he was just laying out sunbathing.
And we realized afterwards that we were at a like
very close clothing optional uh tend to be a swingers resort,

(01:26:49):
and we didn't actually realize that we were when we were there.
So that was Amy Amy. Remember she was like, oh,
I'm gonna sunbathe, and she did. She just like stripped
down and went sunbathed and everything like that with no
compunction whatsoever. So yeah, the US has places like that too.

Speaker 1 (01:27:02):
Yeah, well, just not the ones I'm aware of that
are not a tourist destination for me. Where this was
a tourist thing for me. That whoops, But like again
ended up being fine, so who cares. It was good experience.
I recommend it. I think everyone should be naked in
the hot springs at least once in their life.

Speaker 2 (01:27:23):
I agree fu Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's so it's
so great. I definitely I recommend Hot Springs no matter what. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:33):
Totally wrapping up a little bit, My last like big
day trip was about two hours outside of Taipei. It's
the yay Lou again. It's y e h l i
U Geopark. This is on the coast of northern Taiwan,

(01:27:53):
so you have to really get out there, but you can.
Obviously you'll have beautiful views of the ocean. The geopark
itself was only like three or so US dollars to enter,
and it's known for all of these really cool honeycomb
and mushroom rocks that were e roaded by the sea,
and they have all these different rock formations, and there's

(01:28:13):
there's a popular one called Queen's Head and Dragon's Head
that a lot of people stand in lines to take
photos of. But I thought it was really interesting with
all of those structures around, you can actually walk right
next to them. Obviously you shouldn't touch them, but I
was surprised by how close you could actually get to
things that are that important that right people are trying

(01:28:35):
to preserve. I'm like, damn, they're letting you walk right
next to this thing. Obviously not to the end to
like fall into the water type of thing, but right
up to all these formations. You could get up to
it and you're not supposed to climb on them. But unfortunately,
there were some kids on a you know school really whatever. Yeah,
there were kids climbing on some of them, which made
me feel a little worrisome. But I mean, I'm not

(01:28:56):
gonna say anything. I just it wasn't a lot of people,
but there were some people climbing on them. But I
thought it was Yeah, that's annoying. Yeah, they're just weren't
security in that in that area. But overall that was
this is a really cool park. There's a little hiking
trail there if that interests you. There's there's not much
around the town unfortunately. That's kind of the main draw

(01:29:18):
of that area, and then you really have to take
a bus to get to another part. But to see
something cool that I've never seen before, I thought I
thought it was worth the trek out there. Now, that
bus ride was a rough one, but again I survived it,
and I actually after that bus ride, I said, fuck it,
I'm taking a goddamn uber. I will pay twenty dollars
for an uber, I do not care. I'm not getting

(01:29:40):
on another bus like that, and then I just ubered
to my next spot.

Speaker 2 (01:29:43):
But maybe, yeah, I didn't know whatever. Listening to any
of your travel stories that I always know that I
would have to probably add on at least five hundred
dollars in just random convenience costs that I would spend,
be willing to spend that you you don't because ubering
just all the little things that I would be like,
I'm not gonna put in that hardship. I'm gonna spend

(01:30:04):
for the more luxurious aspect of it or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
Yeah, I mean, towards the end of the trip, I
definitely ubered a little bit more. I ubered to the
airport because I didn't want to risk it. So there
was fifty dollars I did a twenty dollars. I probably
spent close to one hundred dollars in ubers. But the
majority of the time, I think I spent thirty dollars
on the Metro the entire time, and I took the
Metro multiple times a day, you know, so I think
I really got a good use out of the metro system.

(01:30:30):
I will say as I wrap up the Metro. What culturally,
what I found so interesting about the Metro in Taipei
was how orderly it was. There are a fuck ton
of people in that, but everyone knows their place. So
for instance, there's unlike the New York subway system, they
are walls preventing anybody from falling into the tracks. They

(01:30:54):
have these walls then, and some I think some cities
have them already, but you know they opened when the
train arrives, it open up in this specific spot, so
you know where it's going to come and there's a
safety element there. Awesome. Great. They have a lineup line,
so on the floor, there's not like people aren't just
cramming on. People line up specifically so they have their

(01:31:15):
place in line. So when the doors open and the
people come out, you know your place in line if
you're gonna get in.

Speaker 2 (01:31:22):
The train, okay, okay, which which I.

Speaker 1 (01:31:24):
Enjoyed because if you see one section of the Metro
like the line is really long, just keep walking down
the track to find another spot and maybe you'll get
a closer spot in line and you'll get on the train.

Speaker 2 (01:31:35):
And once again it sounds like Disney like when you
would go on the riots where they put you at like, oh,
go to number five and stand on the dot on
number five and then you all move forward like kind
of thing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31:44):
Yeah, so that was incredibly orderly. There was my first
moment on the high speed train from the airport to type.
I didn't see it because I was a little bit
tired at that point, but there were signs saying no
eating or drinking, like keep the noise to a minimum
type of thing. And there was a woman behind me
who had grabbed her water bottle of her bag rightfully,
so after taking a fly and took a sip of water,

(01:32:04):
and a gentleman who was also just a passenger on
the train got him was like, ma'am, you can't drink.
I don't want you to get fine, because they had
these signs of like the fine was not it was
a couple hundred US dollars. He was like, I don't
want you to get fine, to get fined, please do
not drink on this train or eat. And I kind
of was because I was a little thirsty, and I
was like, oh, now I can't drink for this next hour. Great,

(01:32:26):
Like when you know you can't have it, you're just
ad the thirsty fuck. But I knew that like going
on like any place in the Metro was like do
not eat or drink on the train, and people followed that. Also,
people were still wearing face coverings. I would say thirty
to forty percent of people were wearing a face mask,
which is more than the percentage of people in Nashville
who wore a face mask during the pandemic. Was that

(01:32:50):
was interesting. I'm not surprised by that, but I again
thought it was really interesting. And it was incredibly quiet
on the trains, like no one was if you you
were taught, if you answered your phone or whatever. Because
I saw a couple of people on the phones. They
were whispering. People were not having loud conversations and or
just talking at all. Again, people knew their place and

(01:33:11):
when they were leaving. The last thing I'll mention, as
they were going up or down the escalator, there were
lines of if you were going to walk up the escalator,
you went towards the left, if you were going to stand,
you went towards the right, And people just like all
went the way that they knew they were supposed to go,
and it was so orderly, and I was like, why
don't we have this the I don't understand. I mean,

(01:33:31):
we don't have a lot of public transportation to begin with,
but why don't we have a system like this? This
is incredibly efficient. And they had security guards during you
know times of what is it, uh, traffic times, what
is the just the nine to five, like around the
nine o'clock or five o'clock hour rush hour? Like why
can I think of the word that they were regulating

(01:33:54):
where people stood and everything. I was like, this is smart.
Instead of just them being security, they're also helping with
the flow of traffic. Just a really simple smart idea. Wow,
people in.

Speaker 2 (01:34:03):
America can't even merge properly in their cars. It's just insane. No,
nobody has any sense of I don't know, propriety.

Speaker 1 (01:34:12):
Uh maybe yeah, yeah, well yeah. So overall, had a
great time and like a lot of cultural differences that
I that I enjoyed, and uh, I told Roy I
want to go back, Like I said, that's.

Speaker 2 (01:34:24):
Great, Well, thank you for telling us about it. Of course,
Well that brings us to the end of the episode,
and we are going to this is the last episode
of the year, so we will be back in twenty
twenty five with brand new content. We would love to
hear from you once again with thoughts about about the
direction of the podcast, with any questions for advice. If

(01:34:47):
you are living international and you want to pitch your
town to me or your area to me, you can
call the Decast hotline four oh seven five one nine
zero one eight one or email us at Dating kind
of Sucks Podcast at gmail dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:35:00):
If you do have a Facebook, you can join our
Facebook group at Facebook dot com slash Group slash DCS podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:35:07):
It's slowed down a little bit, but it's actually people
still ask for advice. It's still you know, so we've
got I think twenty five hundred people in there right now,
so it's a it's a good group and people you know,
we'll show up occasionally. It gets to goes through waves,
so they're always always welcome to members with new questions.

Speaker 1 (01:35:21):
So yeah, you can also follow us on our respective
Instagram's tiktoks. Adams is at adam Avitable and mine is
at simply syergy Underscore, as well as our podcast which
is currently still at Dating kind of Sucks. And then
our YouTube is YouTube dot com slash Dating kind of Sucks.
So we didn't change that yet. I don't know if

(01:35:43):
we will change that handle immediately.

Speaker 2 (01:35:45):
But yeah, we might, we might not. I think it
depends to see, Uh, with all the links that we have,
there might be better just to keep the legacy name.
I'm also in our Instagram's. My Instagram is actually Avitable,
not Adam of Vitable only TikTok is Adam a visible
And I'm now, well, that's okay, Well you didn't say that.
I'm just I'm saying like our you know, like I
post more Instagram that TikTok right now. But I'm also

(01:36:06):
if you are on Threads or Blue Sky, I'm on
there now and I'm just a Vitable on there. I'd
love to get the you know, hear from here, and
you know, I follow back people who who I know.
And then finally, if you were listening on on iTunes,
would love a five star rating and review. If you're
new to the podcast, that'd be great. If you're older
of the podcast and you haven't done it yet, what
is wrong with you? That's the question I have.

Speaker 1 (01:36:27):
I think we just accepted they're not going to do it,
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:36:29):
But I'm going to keep asking. And then finally of
course leave us a like or a thumbs up on
Spotify as well, that'd be great. And uh yeah, we're
we've been having a lovely year and we will talk
to everyone in twenty twenty five until next time, whether you're.

Speaker 3 (01:36:50):
Married or worrying, and on back of your plate, listen
to us and be getting no buck a tenderburn, muffle
of plenty of young trying and trying and happen.

Speaker 4 (01:36:58):
To luck because we all know, Oh, dating kind of sucks.

Speaker 3 (01:37:09):
Sarah and Adam are Duepa kind says, stupid hit and
she doesn't mind. They're not doing with this, so don't
make any fuck. Life as a chickenoos, they say, Buck,
why does it work?

Speaker 4 (01:37:16):
We'll hear with the frugs. They all know dating kind
of sucks.

Speaker 2 (01:37:27):
Dating kind of sucks

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