Infrequent Nights

It's my last weekend here in Taipei. I'm getting around to doing a few things I've wanted to do. Friday night I went to Shilin night market and had my ears cleaned by the magic ear cleaning candle man. I'd heard about it and seen it before, but before Friday had not gotten around to trying it. Because I'm always one to appreciate clean orifices I decided to give it a go.

It was not unpleasant. Nor was it particularly pleasant. The burning of the candle takes about ten minutes and while it burns it slowly draws stuff out of your ear. I was quite anxious to see what had come out of my ear. I suppose less is actually better when it comes to ear stuff. Nonetheless I was hoping my ears would produce a motherload of ear stuff, as the sight of it would have been distinctly satisfying.

I was pleased with my ear produce. It wasn't HUGE amounts of stuff but it was certainly appreciable. The fellow said if I came back the next day even more would come out. I'm not sure whether to believe him or if he was just using my innate desire to see crap come out of my ears to encourage repeat business. I decided once was good enough and paid the man. The results weren't terribly perceptible. I reckon my ears feel slightly emptier, and I can maybe hear a bit better. It's hard to say because today I managed to fill my ears with water, likely counteracting any benefit derived from having them specially cleaned. Nonetheless I recommend the ear cleaning if you get a chance. Even if it doesn't do anything good, it is still satisfying to see all that crap come out of the side of your head.

On Saturday some friends and I went to a waterfall in Neihu. Getting there was a dodgy affair involving climbing across fallen logs, scaling a cliff with the assistance of some plastic-covered wire rope, and then scaling down the other side using a similar set up. Once there though, it was very nice. Due to the difficulty in reaching the waterfall there were no other people there. The pool was large enough to swim around (maybe 7 by 5 metres at the longest/widest points) and it was plenty deep for jumping and diving off of the surrounding rocks.

I did more than my share of jumping and diving which is how I managed to re-fill my ears with crap. Hopefully it comes out before I fly home as flying with crap filled ears is always a less than enjoyable experience.

If you want to check out a high-res ear crap photo click on the one above. I put some other photos up here: http://picasaweb.google.com/gryanwhalen/07212006