wingzero023's Journal

so far so good.
Since break started on 12/23 I've been in Taiwan--it's been nice living somewhere other than California and not having to worry about school, homework, studying, and such. During the school year, everyday's the same--I wake up at 6:30, go to school, come back from school, study, do homework, and go to sleep--not much to write about. But since I finished school and submitted my last dreaded college app, things have gotten a lot more interesting and stress-free--I can finally do stuff I've always wanted to do and one of these things moved me to create a livejournal. It all started when I heard about a New Years'Eve Concert in Taiwan featuring Jay Chou among other artists that I like. On December 31, I took the subway from where I live in Taiwan to Shilin, a city known for its busy nightmarkets, and stopped by a boba store and bought myself a small cup of regular milk tea boba. From there, I walked down to the next subway station, proceeded into the station,and was waiting for the next ride when an officer unexpectedly taps my shoulders. He motions for me to follow him and asks me for an ID. Apparently, no food or drink was allowed into the subway station(I don't take the subway much). When I told him this,he pointed out a sign with a big red line drawn across a picture of a hamburger and soda. I wasn't very glad when I read the fine print below the picture that stated that any violators of this simple rule would be fined 1500 yuan (around $45 US dollars). The officer became very flustered when I told him that I didn't have an ID, wasn't carrying my passport, didn't know my phone number or my address, and didn't really understand what he was saying. It didn't help either when I unknowingly sipped on my boba while he was questioning me. After lecturing me on how dangerous it is for me to go out of the house like this, he brought me into his office, where he made some phone calls to verify the little information that I had given him (name,fake birthdate,and fake entry date into Taiwan). While he was doing this, I looked around the subway station (the office windows were clear so I could see what was on the outside) for any possible escape routes. After a couple vain attempts at verifying the information I had given him, he told me that he had the right to keep me there for 3 hours, at which point, he would fine me and finally allow me to go. I didn't like this idea very much so running away, which seemed like something extreme to do, seemed pretty practical now. My chance came when he told me to follow him to another office with chairs so I could sit. Still, there was one more problem--I had to find a way to quickly cross the ticket gates (inserting my ticket into the ticket slot and pushing the levers was too slow). My best option was to jump over the ticket gates and run as fast as I could. My problem was solved when the officer opened a side gate for me to enter his other office. After opening this side entrance, he turned his back for a split second to inform another officer of my situation--I ran, I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, almost into a truck, but didn't stop for 5 whole minutes. The adrenaline that was pumping through my body was amazing..I felt so excited and yet I was scared for my life and thinking how crazy it was for me to be doing what I was doing. In retrospect, I could hear the police shouting "hey! follow him!" (in chinese) in slow motion while I was making an escape..I really thought he was going to shoot me. But I ran and ran and ran until the bag I was carrying dropped and all its contents were scattered on the ground. I picked up the most important things (cd player, a couple cds, glasses)...but I later found out I had dropped a small slip of paper with my phone number on it. I decided it was too risky to go back to find it so I called a taxi and went home. Even though I ended up not going to the concert, I 've always wondered what it felt like running away from police so that was definitely an experience I would never forget. Phew...hopefully the slip with my phone number ended up in hands other than that of the police officers. Well that's it for today..I'll update when something this interesting happens again. C ya =)