My favorite place in Taiwan

There is one place in Taiwan that stands out as my favorite place to be. I love hanging out at Kevin Pipe. I had the great opportunity to make friends with Kevin, the owner of the best pipe shop I've ever been in, when I lived in Kaohsiung. We used to spend many nights enjoying a smoke and a conversation. Kevin would close down the shop around 10 and we would often be there until 1 or 2 am. Every so often one of us would comment on the strangeness of a 25 yr old Canadian developing a valuable friendship with a 45 yr old Taiwanese man. I had the chance to go to Kevin's shop on the weekend and it was an awesome time. I took my friend Mike and we sat and chatted with Kevin into the night. I think part of the depth of our friendship comes from the fact that we can't chit-chat...my Chinese isn't good enough and his English isn't good enough to waste energy with small talk. We get right to the meat and it's awesome. I often share about my faith and philosophies on life and he shares about his culture, his marriage, his life, his business...In a lot of ways I wish I could cut through the small talk with so many English speakers...we waste a lot of energy on small talk and rarely develop friendships that get beyond the surface. I think that's one of my greatest regrets in life...I spent too much time developing small talk friendships and haven't invested enough getting deeper with people.