more Taiwan notes
2026-03-13 10:26Japan drives on the left, so in streams of people, they tend to walk on the left. Unless they're walking on the right to face oncoming traffic, or are standing on the escalator in Osaka (which for some reason went to the right), or randomly ended up on the right. But mostly they're on the left.
Taiwan drives on the right, so people walk on the right, and after 3 months of doing things the Japanese way, it takes effort to adhere to local custom, and I still find myself going on the left "to be polite."
You might wonder why I just don't fall back to US habits. But the US rarely has pedestrians dense enough to need stream efficiency, outside of some escalators and airport slidewalks. Even where sidewalks are congestion, like in Manhattan, my impression is mostly of interleaved chaos.
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