Mechanical car park

You've probably heard me do some whining about how difficult the simple things can be in Taiwan and the mechanical car park is the perfect yin & yang situation, the sweet and sour. On the day I was about to receive the rental car, I went to the apartment manager and asked what the parking situation was. It started with a response of, "I don't have a parking spot available" and I eventually worked it to, "I don't have a spot available in this wing of the building right now but if you come back at 2PM I can set you up in the wing next door and move you over to this wing on Sunday." I liked the second answer much better as for a brief moment I had that sinking feeling like, "What the hell am I going to do with this car?"

After learning the drill with parking next door, on Sunday I went to arrange the switch. I thought I would just exchange swipe cards and she would tell me my new spot #, but it could not be that easy. She said to go get the car and meet her curbside in three minutes, three, not five or ten. I scrambled to get the car and she met me on the ramp heading into the garage below my wing. Earlier in the week when I was out apartment hunting, one of the landladies noted that her building had a "real" parking garage and not a mechanical car park. I didn't know exactly what she meant but thought a parking attendant must take your car and bring it somewhere else where cars are stored on top of each other like you see in some places in Manhattan. I was partially right.

The reason why the apartment manager had to take me down to explain it to was that the garage in my wing is a mechanical car park, and there's a system to it. First of all, you turn from the street down a ramp, and unlike the other garage where you had a sensor mounted in the window to trigger the gate, at this one I need to press a button on a remote control on a keychain. Right beyond the gate is a metal garage door that covers the entire entrance. A different button on the same remote operates this door.

She motions for me to pull up to one of two garage bays and to put the car in park. Then I have to get out and use a new scanner card to walk up to a sensor by the garage bay door and swipe it. The light above the door turns red and it takes about a minute to open. I then have to drive the car into the bay and into a specific depth at which point a sensor indicates the car is in the right spot. The manager tells me I need to fold in the side view mirrors, if I don't they will probably get sheared off. How long before I forget? There's actually a button in the car that automatically moves the mirrors. With the car in place I can turn it off and lock it up.

In the meanwhile the garage is talking to me, a female voice in Chinese, perhaps telling me that the car is in the right spot or "Don't forget the mirrors idiot!" In English, automatic voices are typically female, soothing and pleasant even if frustrating, i.e. "Press one for this, press two for this, press three for this..." There's something about Chinese that just sounds mean, especially when you are being told what to do. Shirley and I were at a dim sum place in Boston once and one of the cart ladies shouted, "Cheezy Mussel" at me. I was so scared I took the cheezy mussel. Who would ever think it was a good idea to put cheese on mussels? I guess as long as I'm in the restaurant, there's a market for "cheezy mussel".

So after the car is all buttoned up I have to step out of the garage and reswipe the card. The door closes and I can leave. What threw me for a loop was, the manager pointed toward two garage doors on the other side of the parking facility and said, "When you need to leave, you go get the car over there." For some reason, I had a hard time wrapping my head around that. How does my car come out over there? Where does it go? How does it find it? Are there elves behind that door running this operation?

The mechanism comes up, grabs the car, takes it down into a multi-level parking grid, stashed the car on a shelf, then comes back to get it out, and sends it op a different elevator into a different garage. I left the car there for the night and  the next morning went to get my car. I swore there was no way that car was showing up. Especially since she told me if I had a problem and the garage attendant wasn't around I could go ask the lobby security guard for help. I swiped my card, a low and behold, the door opened and my car was there, pointing outward nonetheless.

I love you, mechanical car park!