clean up after yourself

in at least two places i've showered here in taiwan, they don't have any use for shower curtains or bathtubs. at the hostel, the shower was a section of the floor partitioned off from the rest of the floor with a raised section of tile about two inches high. using a hand held shower head, you can bathe yourself and depending on your level of care, minimize the amount of water you let out of the partitioned area by meticulously aiming the shower head towards the corner, or if you're like me, let water go everywhere intending to mop it up later.

in my new place, there isn't even a partitioned section of the bathroom floor. the whole bathroom is the shower stall with a raised section of tile preventing water from running out into the rest of the apartment. this suits me just fine because shower curtains get nasty and water is easily mopped into a drain.

tonight i witnessed my first trash pickup in taipei. it looked like a block party. back home, ice cream trucks play music to summon little kids to spend their parents' money on candy cigarettes and overpriced ice cream cones. here, garbage trucks play music, fur elise among other selections, to summon everyone to take out their trash and whatever is the recyclable item of the day.

one thing i've noticed is that public trash cans are almost non-existent. instead, everyone is responsible for keeping their trash until the trucks come at night. all trash has to be bagged in special blue bags which are sold by the government to finance trash collection. since people have to pay for these bags, they do their best to limit how many of these things they need to use, which brings me to recycling. they are very systematic about recycling. my landlord gave me the weekly schedule for what items are picked up on what night. from what i've read, the collection workers give you a hard time if you don't sort and clean your recyclables very well. so, you can keep paying for blue trash bags, or you can recycle as much of your stuff as you can, or even better, minimize how much trash you have to haul down the block every night. you can see the results around the city. there's no stinking rotting garbage on the sidewalks. now if they could tackle the air pollution...