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Fixed my website!
1 min read
Reformatted some things and fixed some errors, yay!
happyfunnotes.wix.com/cheesnsq…
happyfunnotes.wix.com/cheesnsq…
I won't be uploading comics as often now that school has started ._.'
Also like the facebook page! Thank you~
Also like the facebook page! Thank you~
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Chees 'n' Squees
1 min read
I made a website on Wix. It's going to be temporary...for an unknown amount of time until I get a domain. All the Cheeto/Marshmallow comics are there. happyfunnotes.wix.com/cheesnsq…
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Taiwan Trip 2011
40 min read
Note: These journals were started in June-July of 2011, and have not been touched until July 7 2012. I've revised the portion already written in 2011 to make it less chatlike (more words, less emotes). The journals preceding that of 6/23 were written in 2011. Hence, the other journals were written in 2012 and so might not be as detailed.
All of my Taiwan photos are on my facebook account. You may only view them if you are a facebook friend.
6/17 CA - 6/18 Taiwan
Well, we got to the airport early, went through the necessary procedures, and had an hour left. In that time, Sarina and I paced terminals 101 to 10-something several times. At some point we heard someone yell "I love Deathnote!" which is a bit strange to do spontaneously. Then I remembered I was wearing a Deathnote shirt today. (I wore it because it's light, and in Taiwan, light clothes are a must.)
Anyways, the plane took flight at 6/17 3:58 PM PST and it landed at 6/18 5:12 AM PST, which is 6/18 8:12 PM Taiwan time. Taiwan uses a 24 hour clock, so it'd be written as 20:12. (looky, it's 2012…) But I'm getting ahead of myself. This is how the plane ride went for me: Ratatouille, dinner 8 PM PST, a few plane videogames, "sleep", wake-up at 4 AM PST and breakfast, nap, arrival. Plane food is gross in general; I think the only thing I can stomach is fruit and bread. The rice thingy was just icky. Some of the other movies on the plane were HP6 and Never Say Never (I don't know what this movie's about). Apparently first class can watch HP7.1. Taiwan has a pretty aerial view. I could see Taipei 101 when we were flying over the ocean. When we finally arrived in Taiwan, the temperature was 28 C (84 F), which is um...ok. Keep in mind Taiwan is humid. Once we stepped outside from the airport, we landed in a sauna reeking of fumes from smokers and vehicles. The moon had a ruddy glow, which is pretty. We got onto a bus with window curtains and went home to our grandparents' house.
At home, we unpacked our stuff, of course. It was then I realized one suitcase was full of food...stuff like oreos, chocolate, ritz crackers, pistachios, and blueberries. They're gifts, but an entire suitcase full of them seems a bit overkill. Well, we went to bed quickly enough...and closed the door to our bedroom. (Because if you don't always close the door behind you, there will be bloodsucking mosquitoes.)
Random stuff:
-Telephone numbers have this format: (##) ####-####
-Motorcycle license plates generally have this format: ABC(dot)123 and cars have this: AB(dot)1234. The letters and numbers are reversible and of course there's sometimes variation between them.
6/19
We all woke up really early -___-
Later, we went to get breakfast at a shop near our house. Soymilk is delicious. Then, we went to the outdoor market near our house. There were flies everywhere. The cicadas were loud. If you've never heard one, you'd be surprised at how loud just one can be (of course, you'd have to find it first). There were white pigeons on the grass and a few dogs. My uncle says once you take a dog out for a motorcycle ride 2-3 times, it'll love it. The market mostly sold food, but there were clothes too. My grandma loves shopping there.
Back at home, we ate pineapple. It tasted as if it were soaked with honey, but the texture was the same as the ones in CA. I also tried this one spicy peanut...it turned my tongue numb for a while. It was 30 C in my room, and we heard thunder outside.
Later, we took a taxi to lunch with our relatives. Taxies are very efficient. But if they were in the US, they'd be…well, nonexistent. That's because they don't exactly obey traffic laws when they're going somewhere (crossing yellow lines, turning whenever, etc.) Well, when we got to the place, we had to crowd into an elevator. I think elevators in Taiwan either have a larger carrying capacity than those in the US, or they are frequently at their carrying capacity. Or both. Here's the relatives family tree I met. My grandma has 3 brothers (my great uncles) and 2 are married. One has 3 daughters (my mom's cousins) and 2 have 2 kids each. The kids are Amanda (5th grade) and Andrew, and Michelle (2nd grade) and Angel. They all have iTouches o.o They also speak a little English, but they're too shy to talk to us. Surprisingly, one of our great uncles can speak English ok.
We ate a lot of food...mostly seafood. The kids made a paper airplane and flew it around...it first landed in someone's wasabi, then landed in another person's beer. They then did 2 dances, of which one was to the song "Nobody Nobody." Apparently it's a popular song or something. Angel, being very very little, was mostly off on the dance steps, but it was really cute. Then people fought over the bill and one person was trying to give money to my uncle. Fighting over who pays for the meal is a tradition. If you don't do it, you're considered rude. Unless you don't have money or you're a kid. Then you're excused. Afterwards though, we left. Sarina and I decided to run down the 8 flights of stairs instead of crowding into the elevator. Good thing we were going to the ground floor because we lost track of which floor we were on while we ran. We got there ahead of them, too.
Then, my uncle took us to visit a childhood friend, who came from a poor family but is now a wealthy investor. He's constantly changing luxury apartments. He gave us a tour of the one he lives in now and the one he'll move to once construction is complete. They're both really clean. And huge. Each has a mini theater, karaoke room, pool, cooking room, and more. The first one has 29 floors plus a B1-B4. The under construction one has 32 floors plus a B1-B4, but it's missing the 2nd to 4th floors 0.o It drizzled a bit today. Later, we went to the metro to get passion fruit popsicles, then went to Hi-Mart and bought clothes. Then, home!
I saw a cat today. And a cockroach.
Random stuff:
-There are convenience stores everywhere, namely 7-11, Family Mart, and OK Mart. I don't remember the other ones right now...
-There are escalator rules: stay to the right if you want to stand, go to the left if you want to walk. 'Tis genius
-My uncle told me once his parents took a friend from Japan to Taiwan. When they rode the metro, 7-8 people stood up to allow them to sit. Their friend was so touched by their kindness his eyes started getting teary. From what I've heard, in Japan it's more crowded so there are people trying to push you in the train and there are no seats available, even if you manage to reach where they are. There's a joke saying that in the metro there, your feet don't touch the ground
-My mom has 1 mosquito bite (near her foot again…I wonder if it's going to swell up this time too…)
6/20
Sarina and I watched the last part of a Powerpuff Girls episode on TV this morning. It's in Mandarin. The episode was about the mayor wanting to save the town or something… Anyways, the weird part is Blossom's name translates to "flower flower." o.O
I had 2 potstickers from this one restaurant near our house for breakfast. It cost 10 NT.
We took a taxi to this one passport ID place my mom needed to go to for some reason. Let's just say taxi drivers there are very…proficient at their job. Even if they break a few rules…;D (Wait, I've explained this already…) I saw a cockroach outside the building as we walked in. Um…we didn't really do anything here. When we walked outside, I saw 2 squished cockroaches. Moving on…
We went back home and saw one of our great uncles. I now remember that he lives in the same neighborhood as us in Seattle. He speaks some English. Apparently he's going back there soon.
Later, we went to our grandma's house (dad's side) and prayed to our grandpa (dad's side) whom I've never met. Then…we went to the Taipei Zoo!
We were lucky there weren't a lot of people there today because well, all the kids are taking finals/tests this week. It's their last week of school. So that means today there's no line for seeing the pandas. When my sister saw the pandas last time, she was stuck in a line where there were people saying "keep moving, keep moving" and so she only saw them for a really short duration. They are very cute but one of the cool features of the exhibit is that they are in an air-conditioned building (no pun intended). After seeing the pandas eat and sleep, we went to the panda souvenir store. There's literally thousands of pandas in there *_* There's shelves of panda stuffed animals in different styles, stationary, pillows, hats, keychains, random stuff, etc. We took pictures of the store and merchandise. When we got out (into the hot hot humid outside Dx ) we quickly ducked into the nocturnal exhibit, which is another air-conditioned building. There were lots of owls, lemurs, monkeys, rodents, and fish, which were all pretty cute. It was hard to take pictures inside though because no flash photography was allowed and um…well…it's dark! Also, I didn't know the effects of adjusting the sensitivity on my camera yet ._. After getting out of the exhibit, we walked around outside in the rainforest-like section of the zoo. It's a bit like the rainforest dome at the Academy of Natural Sciences in San Francisco, only it doesn't need a dome because Taiwan is already so sauna-like. After exiting the zoo, I realized we had skipped a large section of the zoo, like the waterfowl region x_x Oh wells. What we saw was pretty cool, and the animals there were those we can probably see at zoos in CA.
After lunch, we went back to the picture place because the ID place rejected my mom's picture (the top part of her ears didn't show in the picture). We watched a lady edit the picture on her computer by erasing my mom's hair where it covered her ears. Then we went home.
Yesterday was Father's Day. Oops.
Random stuff:
-Sarina has 1 mosquito bite.
-A typhoon is coming soon, yay! ^________^ (Typhoon = natural air conditioner outside)
-In Taiwan, a lot of roads have only 1-2 lanes in each direction, so drivers can cross yellow lines…to get ahead of the car in front if it's slow or stopped or something…but I don't know if that's legal…
-It's illegal to turn right on a red light.
-At the zoo, some signs have the emoticon ^_^ on them
6/21
This morning, we went to Mos Burger for breakfast. It stands for "most delicious burger" and it's from Japan. Instead of using hamburger buns, they use baked rice compressed as hamburger buns. They also put a variety of stuff inside the burgers (they're not your typical hamburger). There was a picture of one with seafood in it. The food was ok…I don't particularly like it, but it's definitely interesting.
After that, we went to 2 different banks. I saw a giant deadmau5 poster on a building. Anyways, in the first bank, we saw the foreign exchange board. It turns out 1 USD = 28 NT, unlike 33 NT from 2 years ago. Gah…inflation. There's also no 2nd – 4th floors here. I'm starting to think it's a conspiracy by the construction companies to keep the 2nd floors to themselves. In the second bank, we saw the stock market stockbrokers place. There's a giant screen of stocks I can't read and people sitting in rows of desks and computers facing it. Sometimes, they receive a phone call, other times, they're chatting with each other or staring at the screen. It's interesting to see…as you might know, the Chinese lucky color is red. So up arrows (increasing value) on stocks are actually red here. Meanwhile, down arrows are green. Blue is neutral, by the way. Oh yea. We went to the banks because my mom needed to get money. She has a stamp seal thingy…it's cool. Sarina and I both stamped our hand with it.
For lunch, we went to a Din Tai Fung, dumpling restaurant. Apparently it was one of the top 10 in the world in 1993. It's also the only restaurant I know which has a souvenir shop (other than amusement parks, I guess). Plus it has a cute mascot ^^ We ate lots of yummy dumplings and potstickers, which were perfectly rectangular and flat on one side. (By the way, there is a Din Tai Fung somewhere in CA, but of course it's not as good as the one in Taipei.
)The restroom is weird though. There's this one 25 second water sound sensor thing there…I waved my hand across it and then there was a really loud toilet flushing sound. 25 seconds is a long time for an awkward moment.
Well, now that we gained our energy for walking, we rode on the metro to Wufenpu, the ultimate outdoor market. Well, technically, there's actual buildings and signs and names of stores, but there's no wall or door in the front part. Also, they mostly sell clothes, instead of food. I guarantee you there's something you like over there…seriously. It has a large variety of stuff. I'm glad I didn't pass out from all the secondhand smoke though. The air is noxious. Towards the end of our shopping the sky started sprinkling a bit. Then we got lost, but eventually found our way back to the metro. Part of the reason we got lost is most streets aren't exactly perpendicular
Then we went to a shave ice shop near our house My mom tells me it's always been the most expensive shave ice she's seen, but it's of very good quality. We each eat a bowl of shave ice…which, combined with the air conditioning makes the air kind of chilly.
Well, it's raining harder, and we leave the shop to go to 7-11 (also near our house) to get custard pudding. We happen to run into grandma, and she happens to carry 2 extra umbrellas for us. Talk about prepared.
We go back home. We greet our aunt who was watching TV on the 2nd floor but she doesn't seem to notice us. We go out again to eat noodle soup at a nearby mini cart thingy. It's drizzling. We go back home.
Random stuff:
-Our aunt lives on the 4th floor alone. She doesn't talk to anyone :/ I don't know if she recognizes us either… She was like that 2 years ago when we came then.
-There's a temple in the outdoor market. Apparently you can pray for good grades there.
-There is a "90.5 C Caffe" near our house.
-85 C is a café, not just a bakery here.
-Both the metro trains and the elevator to the metro can carry bikes.
-Motorcycles > cars.
6/22
Well, we went to the outdoor market again, no surprise there. This time we got tofu + peanut soup (I had tapioca in mine too) from a cart there for breakfast. It was very yummy :3 Also, the vender prepared it like a pro. Afterwards, we took the metro with our grandparents to Beitou, famous for its hot springs. We took a bus after the metro to actually get there. Bus rides are so fun…especially if you stand up when there's no seats left. The road isn't smooth, there's lots of bumps, strong, frequent acceleration and braking…all this on a very winding road and going pretty fast too. Well um…Sarina and I stayed in the lobby (because we didn't want to take a bath, plus it saves money) and played with a RC helicopter. It looks like one of those helicopter thingys from Avatar (the blue alien movie, not the TV show). It's also easier to navigate than mine at home, though it can't be adjusted for balance. During this time, a mosquito happened to bite me on my knee when I wasn't paying attention -___- but there's no visible mark at all. A few minutes later it was on the ground so I seized my opportunity and stomped on it ^________^
For lunch, we went to Kent restaurant to eat curry chicken. There's a cute but demented fake grand piano for decoration there. The keys are super huge and um…the curve of the shape of the lid is demented. Then we and our grandma went to a different outdoor market. We found very cute underwear. One design had pedo-bear on it (it's a joke – I'm referring to Rilakkuma).
Back at the metro. This time, in the underground mall. I want to scooter or ride a bike or something across the whole length of the mall because it's super long and straight. We passed by 5 Miki stores and saw sword/rifle umbrellas They even have a strap to let you wear it like the real weapon (airport security might not let it through though…) Meanwhile, Sarina bought a shirt with smileys and legit English gibberish in its background.
For dinner, we all went to Kaiten Sushi (different kinds of sushi on little plates served on a conveyor belt. You take what you want, and they count the number of plates you have at the end). You also get to watch the cooks make the sushi in front of you. They'll even do requests. Sometime during this I realized I had a red mark on my shoulder. I guess it's a mosquito bite, but it doesn't hurt or itch, even if I press on it.
Well, we went home, and I adjusted the singing clock to 8:20. The clock supposedly sings every time the hour passes, but for some reason the hour is always off and its singing schedule has a mind of its own. When the minute hand passed the 8 hour mark, it began singing, as expected. But then it chimes 6 times. --'
Random stuff:
-My mom and her sisters all have "moon" in their Chinese names. My uncle, their brother, has nothing to do with this in his name. It doesn't even have any part of "sun" in his name either.
-All the clocks on the 2nd floor are off…and there are a lot of clocks o.o'
-Sometimes the singing clock sings another song immediately after the 1st song and chime are finished. It then chimes a different hour…
6/23
Apparently my grandma woke up Sarina and my mom to go to the outdoor market to get cheaper stuff (My jet lag is over, now I sleep in a lot). Sarina described the experience as, "ooh this looks nice" -yanks from hanger- Grandma tells salesman we're going to try them on first walk out without paying for them yet. After I woke up I pretty much did the same thing, only without the yanking. I drank almond milk from 85 C Café for breakfast. Sarina hogged the computer like she did for the past 3 days. At 9 AM, the singing clock finally chimes the right number of times.
We took the metro to eat with dad's mom's sister and her husband at Taipei's Hero House, a dining place for war veterans. He is 96(?) and healthy with no tooth decay. They talk a lot, and we wait. Time passes…
Later, we took the bus to near Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall while they go home. When waiting for the bus, we saw 5 other buses consecutively pull up to the single bus stop (they were all going to different locations). Anyway, surrounding the memorial hall is a circular wall. There are different decorative windows in a repeating pattern on the wall. It's very hot outside, so going indoors was a relief. While exploring the Memorial Hall, we saw 2 English speaking tour guides leading several groups around. I think their English was pretty decent. In the exhibits, there were many photos, badges, and writing. The writing is incredibly well done; it looks as if it were typed. I took many photos of photos.
Once again, there is no 2nd floor. We went outside on the building to where the giant bronze statue was. Every hour, there is a ceremony to change the 2 soldiers guarding the statue (yes, out in the sun in full uniform, standing still while the sweat drips down their faces onto the pedestals and some other guy wipes it up). Since it wasn't the hour yet, we walked around outside the place, using umbrellas to block the sun. Well, our umbrellas then were better described as wind-sensitive satellites. At the hour, we watched the ceremony of soldiers switching shifts. I'd describe each action as very precise and strict. I took a ~8 minute video of it.
We then stopped by 7-11 and went home, burning up as we walked. At home Grandma cooked curry rice, and we rewatched I not Stupid, a comedic movie parodying Singlish and Chinese culture. I asked my Singaporean friends at school about the movie, and they replied the culture shown in it is pretty accurate.
Random stuff:
-an inverted umbrella in Chinese translates to "open flower". I found this highly amusing when I learned this.
-turns out I have 5 mosquito bites: red mark on left knee (itchy), 2 on left elbow (itchy), 1 on right shoulder, 1 on knee. Yikes. I'm glad I'm not allergic.
6/24
We took the metro and ate breakfast at a popular breakfast place. Their dan4 bing3 (egg…Chinese pancake? 0.o) was very thick compared to the ones I usually eat at home. The food was yummy, but there was a long line. We went back home via the metro. Of course, this is all cheaper than in the US. On the walk back, I saw a black cat, which stared at me when I pointed at it. It was very cute.
Later, we went to Chen Chin's (our great grandmother) art gallery. She made Japanese style paintings on silk. There's a lot of detail if you look closely. Apparently some of her paintings are of her family, including my grandma and mom.
There is no 2nd floor in the building. We ate with my dad's mom at a hotel buffet, but the food seemed gross (goose liver paste on crackers and sea snails). We went to Q Square (part of the metro mall) and had almond tea. We sat there for a long time. At the mall, we looked at books and bought a manga drawing book. We walked home. It was raining only a little bit because tall buildings block rain. It was also windy outside (le typhoon has arrived).
No random stuff
6/25
The typhoon rain kept us indoors in the morning, so we played games on our DSs.
At noon, there was light rain, and so for lunch we went to a vegetarian place to eat. While we were walking there, we saw our grandma walking past us so fast she didn't notice us, which was funny. We went home to rest a bit, then took the metro to Danshui.
The part of Danshui we visited consists of a single road with an open door market on one side, and the harbor on the other. (There's branches off that road but that's a later part of this journal.) We played ring toss there. Despite being supplied with a full bucket of rings, we failed to get even a single ring on an item. The other difference between Danshui and the market at home is the proportion of items sold there – there are fewer clothing stores, but more games and toys. The food there also resembles amusement park food more than normal food sold at the open door market at home.
We took a boat to Fisherman Wharf. The boat ride itself was like a roller coaster ride. Since the timing is pretty much right after the typhoon, the weather is very, very windy. Much wind = large waves. Since we were standing at the back of the boat (clinging to a pole for balance) we got a nice, first-hand view of the waves behind us. They looked like they were chasing us actually – quite thrilling. We didn't get soaked like some other people on the boat because we were standing towards the front of the back of the boat and they were standing closer to the edge of the boat. At the Wharf, we walked around and went to a "Fishiegoodies Museum" which was an exhibit of Danshui's fishing industry history. Outside the mini museum there were large flowers falling from a tree nearby. We took the boat ride back to Danshui after a while. The waves were calmer this time.
Later, we successfully obtained Turkish ice cream. Turkish ice cream is different from typical ice cream because it sticks to itself very well and doesn't melt very quickly, even in Taiwan. Watching people trying to get ice cream is highly entertaining. You see, the vendor doesn't just hand it to you. You have to fight for it. He scoops the ice cream with a long metal stick and puts it on the cone. The cone and ice cream are still stuck on the rod. When you try to get it, he'll quickly place it out of reach by jerking the rod up, or by flipping the ice cream upside down, or by other shenanigans. For one man, he actually had 2 cones on it, so when the customer grabbed it, he only had the outer cone in his grasp. The customer before us managed to crush his cone while trying to grab his ice cream. He ended up breaking the cone, so the vendor put another cone on the other side and handed it to him, making his ice cream look kind of funny. In my case, he started whacking my extended hand with the ice cream itself. With good timing, I suddenly grabbed it from him, and thus "won" my ice cream. It makes it so much more satisfying
We walked around the shops and got almond/tofu flavored drinks and potatoes covered in crunchy sugar. They were both very yummy. A vendor also gave us these funny suction cup toys.
I saw 3 cats today when going home, including the black one I saw earlier. Their tails are shorter than the cats I usually see in my neighborhood in CA.
Random stuff:
-I don't know much about traffic rules in Taiwan. I also don't see very many signs.
-I haven't encountered a single gas station on this trip. I probably don't recognize them in the first place.
90 km/h is the freeway speed limit, but I don't know about local ones (there aren't any signs).
6/26
We played our DSs until lunch, where we ate with relatives on my mom's dad's side at a restaurant called Artco. One wall was a very odd piece of art itself – it was a scene of a nightclub maybe, but had humanoid creatures in them. We met very loud/chaotic kids and gave them the suction cup toys we obtained earlier. They stuck the toys to the walls of the elevator and windows.
Later, we tried to meet up with the Chius (our neighbors back in CA who were also in Taiwan at the time), but they were elsewhere, so that didn't work. Instead, my mom went to visit a doctor and my uncle, Sarina, and I went to Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. Like CKS Memorial Hall, soldiers guard a giant bronze statue, but this time indoors in an air conditioned place. There were many small photos. Overall I think the Hall was not as interesting as CKS Memorial Hall. Later, we went to the metro mall (the metro is everywhere; thus, the mall too is everywhere) and walked around. We got Coldstone ice cream, which I haven't had in a long time.
When we walked outside, the sky was pouring. We then ran to pick up mom and went to a different mall and some other place and bought cute stationary. We then walked through Zhongshan metro mall to go home.
Random stuff:
-I have now finished the first paper of notes I used to write these journals. There is about a week to go. These have taken up 7.5 pages on MS word so far.
-Zhongshan literally translates to "middle mountain" in English.
-Yamaha is the brand of many musical instruments and motorcycles. I don't know if they're actually the same company, but their font and symbol are identical (the 3 tuning forks). In Taiwan I only saw Yamaha stores for motorcycles.
-There is no hope. The clock times and chimes are independent of each other. The clock is also slow.
6/27
Today, my uncle drove me on his motorcycle to a dim sum restaurant. Motorcycles are the way to go in Taiwan – if I haven't expressed it enough – because it's easy to find parking spaces for them as opposed to cars. We ate and listened to Uncle's stories for a long time at the restaurant.
Two stories were about my grandpa and his encounter with snakes. Once, my grandpa was taking pictures when a green (poisonous) snake slithered near him. Some people luckily shooed it away somehow before something bad happened. Another time, some neighbor's pet snake escaped. It was about to crawl inside the house (I don't know which house) but my grandpa shut the door. As the snake still attempted to get in, my grandpa took pictures of it.
Another story involves my mom and uncle when they lived in Seattle. They had 2 cats. One of the cats had a black patch over its eye, so my uncle called it Pirate, while my mom called it Neko (which means "cat" in Japanese). Both of the cats loved to eat corn. Once, my mom cooked corn, put it on the table and went elsewhere. When she came back, she found parts of the corn missing, and thought it was rude of someone to nibble a few kernels and leave it there. In addition to corn, these cats liked watermelon and sleeping on sleeping people's tummies.
We later walked to an appliance/electronics store (I only remember the kitchen appliances), then took the bus to a temple. We watched part of a ceremony and a ritual where people lined up to get cleansed of their fears. Then we went home.
At night, we went to Longshan temple. It's about 300 years old, I think. There, we prayed to different deities representing different aspects of life. We each held 7 incense sticks, which were then thrown into 7 different pots. (Yes, we had to throw them and aim because the pots were very hot. The sticks often bumped into the container walls when they were thrown in.)
Later, we went to the outdoor market near the temple, which had games, clothes, and lots of food. We then took the metro and went to another outdoor market, where we browsed the shops on the streets near our house. There were also games there. My sister and I played 2 games: BBgun shooting at balloons and spinning a basketfull of balls into holes labeled with numbers to get the highest number of points possible. We got 2 prizes, then browsed around some more and ate shaved ice at the yummy place again.
Random stuff:
-Some bus stops are at the divider in the middle of the road, as opposed to sidewalks.
-One game there you might not see often in the US is goldfish fishing. You use paper "nets" (hoops with a stick for a handle with a stretched piece of thin paper across the hoop) to fish goldfish. It's tricky, considering you can immerse the paper into the water only for so long before the paper disintegrates. There's a virtual version of this game on WiiPlay, I think.
-Shaved ice in Taiwan is amazing. It doesn't use colored syrup. Instead, it uses toppings such as tapioca, jello, peanuts, red beans, taro, yogurt/some sort of cream, fruit, and other stuff I can't remember right now. Different stores hold different toppings.
6/28
We took the metro to Beitou and visited the museum of hot spring history. The museum had a lot of rocks in it. Then, we visited the spring itself. The atmosphere there was very hot and there was a lot of steam rising from the stream leading out of the spring, as well as from the spring itself. I heard people would go there and boil eggs. That's probably where the rotten egg smell comes from (just kidding – the smell comes from the sulfur rocks at the spring).
We then walked upwards to the Royal Seasons Hotel to eat lunch with relatives (who used a taxi to get there), which was a 10 course meal. Obviously that made us all very full. The almond jello there was chewy, which was strange.
When we were finished, it was raining outside. Thus, we went to go shop in the metro mall. We saw some pro play a basketball arcade game. He used one hand per ball to shoot and alternated hands continuously.
No random stuff.
6/29
We took the metro to Zhinangong, the temple in the mountains with 1200 stairs. We took the maokong gondola (sky cabin) across the top of the mountains. The aerial view was very nice. Unlike the bare mountains in CA, the mountains in Taiwan are very green and filled with trees. Some gondolas (called crystal cabins) have transparent floors, allowing you to see the trees beneath your feet. We didn't ride in one though because we would've had to wait in line for one to come and it was also more expensive. We visited 2 temples there. The air was filled with the sound of cicadas and bird calls – very different from the sounds I hear in parks in CA. Also, could see intricately colored butterflies fluttering about – some were black and blue while others were just different. In any case, the butterflies here aren't typically seen in CA, except maybe in butterfly exhibits. As for the temples themselves, their architecture reminded me of that in Spirited Away. There were numerous carvings of golden dragons, cranes, phoenices, text, statues, and flowers, even on the floor, ceiling, and columns. Sometime during this I saw a beautiful dark blue or black crow-like bird. The color was like the butterflies I described earlier, but if only it could stand still for a picture, I'd be happy.
After we toured the temples and the surrounding area, we planned to walk down the 1200 steps to the bottom, but we couldn't find them. So instead, we took the bus down the winding road instead of down the mountain. The ride was fun and bumpy. During the ride, a yellow and black striped bug with a distinctive black and white wing pattern flew in and stayed near the window in front of me. I may have taken a picture of it.
We then went to SOGO, a department store, via the metro (we didn't buy anything there because it's really expensive). There, we browsed around and ate curry rice for lunch there. Our uncle called to tell us it was raining hard outside. We told him we were in SOGO, to which he replied there are 3 SOGO buildings in that area. Sure enough, it was pouring and there was another SOGO almost across the street.
Afterwards, we got onto the metro train and went home. Later we went with our uncle to NOVA, a technology/electronics store selling computers, Apple products, cellphones, cameras, USBs, and their respective accessories.
We then met up with our grandparents at a restaurant near our house. The food was delicious but the environment was too loud (there were energetic kids behind us and their dad kept yelling at them to behave), and there were people smoking inside the restaurant. I believe the last time we went here there even was a no smoking sign, yet there were smokers that time too.
At night, we took the metro to Shilin night market. It was sprinkling a tiny bit outside. On the metro ride we were joking about putting little slips of paper with messages in the more exposed parts of our bags and pockets for pickpockets. The messages we came up with were: "unlucky",
"nice try", and "God is watching you" (I don't know what religion most Taiwan people follow).
It's quite interesting to watch the masses of people crossing the street at once (all 4 sides of traffic lights are red). Today, there weren't a lot of people compared to normal days…but there were still a lot. We browsed around the shops and street, where there were a lot of games, clothes, and food. There were some vendors who used carts and parked them in the middle of the street. This is actually illegal because they don't pay rent. Thus, when the police come they hide inside the actual shops. I think at one point someone tried to pickpocket me but I wasn't very sure. I don't put anything in my pockets though. We then took the metro and went home.
Random stuff:
-SOGO, like many buildings is around or over 10 stories high.
-…There tends to be many of the same building or merchandise sold in a small area. Andrew said he found 4 milk tea shops next to each other somewhere in Taiwan. I've seen 2 7-11s on the same street. And then they're basically on every street.
-The last time we went to Shilin night market there was a pet store with adorable little hedgehogs and these black and white-striped rodents which clung to people's shoulders. It wasn't there this time, unfortunately. Apparently the area it was once in was being reconstructed at the time.
6/30
We took the metro to Zhongshan to eat lunch at a popular restaurant (it's so popular you have to wait in line OUTSIDE if it's full). One of their famous dishes which many people (including my family) order is rice with eel. After we ate to our hearts' content, we took the taxi to the bike shop to rent bikes.
We biked for approximately 2 hours from Dadaocheng to Guandu and 2 hours again for the ride back. The bike path is full of pretty scenery. We say many unique birds, which had interesting bird calls. There were also a lot of stray dogs, many of which were along the river. I saw a few tiny crabs on the road as we biked. Halfway through the ride (in Guandu) we drank ching1 chao3 cha2 ("spring(?) grass tea") which was yummy, but its minty flavor seemed to take over. The bike seats were very uncomfortable; when my right leg bumped up against the bike it left black marks. My mom, sister, and I all got some sort of scratch or scrape that bled on our left leg because it bumped against the spiky pedal. Overall the experience was hot, humid, and fun. Our uncle experienced none of these experiences whatsoever. When we returned to the bike shop and told the owner about the hazards on our bikes, he had no reaction (if anything, he was amused).
Later, we walked somewhere to get almond jello, which was delicious. Apparently, the area there was the same location where my mom lived when she was little, but it was remodeled. We then walked to another place nearby to buy peanuts (also very yummy). Then, we walked to yet again another place to buy pound cake (the vendor sliced a large loaf and wrapped it up) which was warm and yummy. Then we went home.
Random stuff:
-Sorry for the lack of variety in describing things. Some things I don't remember in detail (and I didn't write them down) since the events happened a year ago, so I can't really describe them other than with the words "interesting," "unique," etc.
7/1
We went to Taipei Expo today. Only the Qing Ming Shang He Tu tapestry exhibit was open. Nevertheless, it was interesting. Basically, the tapestryis this very long painting (I believe it was done on silk) depicting life during the Qing Ming Festival. The cool part was that this giant "wall" was created to animate a portion of the tapestry (made in China). During the daytime animation, the art styple was relatively the same as that of the tapestry, but at night, the people seem more digitalized and 3D. Apparently, Taiwan holds the longest of the 3 tapestries of Qing Ming Shang He Tu.
We went home and then went to Yanmingshan by bus. The road was a winding path up the mountain. After some point, we got onto a shuttle bus which goes further up the winding road to a mountain trail. We walked on that pebbly path to Erzhiping. There were a lot of butterflies and many different LOUD cicada and other bug sounds. There were quite a few small dogs taking a walk up the mountain too. Somewhere at or near the top we stopped at a beautiful park. There were small fish in the large pond there. In the trees nearby, we saw a striking Formosan Blue Magpie. It's a large blue bird with a black head and white and black speckled feathers. There were no wires, glass, cage or anything. It was just air and a few branches between the tourists and the bird. After taking a short break sightseeing here, we walked down the mountain on the same trail. We saw caterpillars, spiders with >3 in. legs with a < 1cm body, and cicadas (they camouflage so well with tree bark). One of the cicadas very close to us was incredibly loud – maybe as loud as a trumpet playing loudly in your ear, though the actual sound produced isn't remotely the same, of course.
We took the shuttle down and then walked to a mini park near a hotel. We saw a bird nest (it might have been a Magpie's nest) and a spiky/fuzzy caterpillar on a tree (apparently touching it can irritate your skin). Green foliage was everywhere. I couldn't find the other type of bug that made a different sound.
My uncle told a story about the Magpie. Apparently, if a single person stands in front of the hotel stop, he/she will at some point feel a whump (whack/thump) on the back of his/her head. The whump is strange in nature because it is a soft and warm thump. Once, err…many times his friend got whumped and later he watched a bald person and his dad near the stop to see if it happened to them. Well, he saw the blue bird whump the bald guy with its belly. The bald guy thought his dad hit him, but the dad didn't say anything. In any case, the bird does this to protect her babies (when she has them) in the nest nearby.
We took the bus down the mountain and got on the metro. We ate at another restaurant near our home, which served chicken rice. Albeit simple, both the chicken and rice were pretty good. We sat next to the electric bug zapper (on purpose) to hear the loud crackles made by zapping flies. We missed seeing the actual zapping, but the noise produced was pretty loud. It reminded me of this one time in the metro mall where we saw from afar a lady using a handheld bug zapper (it looks like a tennis racket). In one slow swing (more like a wave), there were probably 5 zaps. We could also see blue sparks fly off.
Random stuff:
-Hi. Mountains are green in Taiwan. I can't think of other things to say.
7/2 (last day)
Oh no…I seem to have misplaced my notes or I didn't write this day down So everything here will be from memory and the photos I took.
We went biking today with my uncle's friend. He's nicknamed Liang Er because he looks like a movie star named Liang Er. Also, both of their last names are Liang anyways. We first stopped at 7-11 where he bought iced tea for us. We biked pretty far…I can't say how far but I was pretty tired throughout. We made several stops to hydrate ourselves and sightsee. Bike paths in Taiwan are pretty winding, and they go up and down a lot (sometimes the road is very very steep). We were near the ocean most of the time, which was nice. At the end of our trip near on the opposite side of some cliffs (I heard people used to dive from it?) we saw people in paddle boats. There was also a large bridge over the river (I don't know if it's an actual river). Then we turned around and got ready to go home.
At the airport (we took a minivan-taxi there) there were a lot of funny shaped sculptures dangling from the ceiling. While we waited for our flight after going past the security part, we paced the airport. There are…a lot of things in the airport, including Hello Kitty places, pieces of art, statues, mini houses and dolls, and the typical airport stores. Actually, there were many appearances of Hello Kitty, including a waiting room, store, and clocks in different time zones. The flight itself was relatively boring. I don't remember what I did on it besides pseudo-sleep. I remember when I arrived home the previous trip to Taiwan, I was walking on the balls of my feet because I wore sandals the entire time during the trip, which had slightly raised heels. I don't think it happened this time though.
Random stuff:
-Read my journals from the previous trip (2009)? There's more random stuff there…maybe. It's on deviantart: phoenyxaura.deviantart.com/jou…
-After a year, several days, and many hours, I have finished this journal at 12.2 pages on Microsoft Word.
-Thanks for reading! ^__^
All of my Taiwan photos are on my facebook account. You may only view them if you are a facebook friend.
6/17 CA - 6/18 Taiwan
Well, we got to the airport early, went through the necessary procedures, and had an hour left. In that time, Sarina and I paced terminals 101 to 10-something several times. At some point we heard someone yell "I love Deathnote!" which is a bit strange to do spontaneously. Then I remembered I was wearing a Deathnote shirt today. (I wore it because it's light, and in Taiwan, light clothes are a must.)
Anyways, the plane took flight at 6/17 3:58 PM PST and it landed at 6/18 5:12 AM PST, which is 6/18 8:12 PM Taiwan time. Taiwan uses a 24 hour clock, so it'd be written as 20:12. (looky, it's 2012…) But I'm getting ahead of myself. This is how the plane ride went for me: Ratatouille, dinner 8 PM PST, a few plane videogames, "sleep", wake-up at 4 AM PST and breakfast, nap, arrival. Plane food is gross in general; I think the only thing I can stomach is fruit and bread. The rice thingy was just icky. Some of the other movies on the plane were HP6 and Never Say Never (I don't know what this movie's about). Apparently first class can watch HP7.1. Taiwan has a pretty aerial view. I could see Taipei 101 when we were flying over the ocean. When we finally arrived in Taiwan, the temperature was 28 C (84 F), which is um...ok. Keep in mind Taiwan is humid. Once we stepped outside from the airport, we landed in a sauna reeking of fumes from smokers and vehicles. The moon had a ruddy glow, which is pretty. We got onto a bus with window curtains and went home to our grandparents' house.
At home, we unpacked our stuff, of course. It was then I realized one suitcase was full of food...stuff like oreos, chocolate, ritz crackers, pistachios, and blueberries. They're gifts, but an entire suitcase full of them seems a bit overkill. Well, we went to bed quickly enough...and closed the door to our bedroom. (Because if you don't always close the door behind you, there will be bloodsucking mosquitoes.)
Random stuff:
-Telephone numbers have this format: (##) ####-####
-Motorcycle license plates generally have this format: ABC(dot)123 and cars have this: AB(dot)1234. The letters and numbers are reversible and of course there's sometimes variation between them.
6/19
We all woke up really early -___-
Later, we went to get breakfast at a shop near our house. Soymilk is delicious. Then, we went to the outdoor market near our house. There were flies everywhere. The cicadas were loud. If you've never heard one, you'd be surprised at how loud just one can be (of course, you'd have to find it first). There were white pigeons on the grass and a few dogs. My uncle says once you take a dog out for a motorcycle ride 2-3 times, it'll love it. The market mostly sold food, but there were clothes too. My grandma loves shopping there.
Back at home, we ate pineapple. It tasted as if it were soaked with honey, but the texture was the same as the ones in CA. I also tried this one spicy peanut...it turned my tongue numb for a while. It was 30 C in my room, and we heard thunder outside.
Later, we took a taxi to lunch with our relatives. Taxies are very efficient. But if they were in the US, they'd be…well, nonexistent. That's because they don't exactly obey traffic laws when they're going somewhere (crossing yellow lines, turning whenever, etc.) Well, when we got to the place, we had to crowd into an elevator. I think elevators in Taiwan either have a larger carrying capacity than those in the US, or they are frequently at their carrying capacity. Or both. Here's the relatives family tree I met. My grandma has 3 brothers (my great uncles) and 2 are married. One has 3 daughters (my mom's cousins) and 2 have 2 kids each. The kids are Amanda (5th grade) and Andrew, and Michelle (2nd grade) and Angel. They all have iTouches o.o They also speak a little English, but they're too shy to talk to us. Surprisingly, one of our great uncles can speak English ok.
We ate a lot of food...mostly seafood. The kids made a paper airplane and flew it around...it first landed in someone's wasabi, then landed in another person's beer. They then did 2 dances, of which one was to the song "Nobody Nobody." Apparently it's a popular song or something. Angel, being very very little, was mostly off on the dance steps, but it was really cute. Then people fought over the bill and one person was trying to give money to my uncle. Fighting over who pays for the meal is a tradition. If you don't do it, you're considered rude. Unless you don't have money or you're a kid. Then you're excused. Afterwards though, we left. Sarina and I decided to run down the 8 flights of stairs instead of crowding into the elevator. Good thing we were going to the ground floor because we lost track of which floor we were on while we ran. We got there ahead of them, too.
Then, my uncle took us to visit a childhood friend, who came from a poor family but is now a wealthy investor. He's constantly changing luxury apartments. He gave us a tour of the one he lives in now and the one he'll move to once construction is complete. They're both really clean. And huge. Each has a mini theater, karaoke room, pool, cooking room, and more. The first one has 29 floors plus a B1-B4. The under construction one has 32 floors plus a B1-B4, but it's missing the 2nd to 4th floors 0.o It drizzled a bit today. Later, we went to the metro to get passion fruit popsicles, then went to Hi-Mart and bought clothes. Then, home!
I saw a cat today. And a cockroach.
Random stuff:
-There are convenience stores everywhere, namely 7-11, Family Mart, and OK Mart. I don't remember the other ones right now...
-There are escalator rules: stay to the right if you want to stand, go to the left if you want to walk. 'Tis genius
-My uncle told me once his parents took a friend from Japan to Taiwan. When they rode the metro, 7-8 people stood up to allow them to sit. Their friend was so touched by their kindness his eyes started getting teary. From what I've heard, in Japan it's more crowded so there are people trying to push you in the train and there are no seats available, even if you manage to reach where they are. There's a joke saying that in the metro there, your feet don't touch the ground
-My mom has 1 mosquito bite (near her foot again…I wonder if it's going to swell up this time too…)
6/20
Sarina and I watched the last part of a Powerpuff Girls episode on TV this morning. It's in Mandarin. The episode was about the mayor wanting to save the town or something… Anyways, the weird part is Blossom's name translates to "flower flower." o.O
I had 2 potstickers from this one restaurant near our house for breakfast. It cost 10 NT.
We took a taxi to this one passport ID place my mom needed to go to for some reason. Let's just say taxi drivers there are very…proficient at their job. Even if they break a few rules…;D (Wait, I've explained this already…) I saw a cockroach outside the building as we walked in. Um…we didn't really do anything here. When we walked outside, I saw 2 squished cockroaches. Moving on…
We went back home and saw one of our great uncles. I now remember that he lives in the same neighborhood as us in Seattle. He speaks some English. Apparently he's going back there soon.
Later, we went to our grandma's house (dad's side) and prayed to our grandpa (dad's side) whom I've never met. Then…we went to the Taipei Zoo!
We were lucky there weren't a lot of people there today because well, all the kids are taking finals/tests this week. It's their last week of school. So that means today there's no line for seeing the pandas. When my sister saw the pandas last time, she was stuck in a line where there were people saying "keep moving, keep moving" and so she only saw them for a really short duration. They are very cute but one of the cool features of the exhibit is that they are in an air-conditioned building (no pun intended). After seeing the pandas eat and sleep, we went to the panda souvenir store. There's literally thousands of pandas in there *_* There's shelves of panda stuffed animals in different styles, stationary, pillows, hats, keychains, random stuff, etc. We took pictures of the store and merchandise. When we got out (into the hot hot humid outside Dx ) we quickly ducked into the nocturnal exhibit, which is another air-conditioned building. There were lots of owls, lemurs, monkeys, rodents, and fish, which were all pretty cute. It was hard to take pictures inside though because no flash photography was allowed and um…well…it's dark! Also, I didn't know the effects of adjusting the sensitivity on my camera yet ._. After getting out of the exhibit, we walked around outside in the rainforest-like section of the zoo. It's a bit like the rainforest dome at the Academy of Natural Sciences in San Francisco, only it doesn't need a dome because Taiwan is already so sauna-like. After exiting the zoo, I realized we had skipped a large section of the zoo, like the waterfowl region x_x Oh wells. What we saw was pretty cool, and the animals there were those we can probably see at zoos in CA.
After lunch, we went back to the picture place because the ID place rejected my mom's picture (the top part of her ears didn't show in the picture). We watched a lady edit the picture on her computer by erasing my mom's hair where it covered her ears. Then we went home.
Yesterday was Father's Day. Oops.
Random stuff:
-Sarina has 1 mosquito bite.
-A typhoon is coming soon, yay! ^________^ (Typhoon = natural air conditioner outside)
-In Taiwan, a lot of roads have only 1-2 lanes in each direction, so drivers can cross yellow lines…to get ahead of the car in front if it's slow or stopped or something…but I don't know if that's legal…
-It's illegal to turn right on a red light.
-At the zoo, some signs have the emoticon ^_^ on them
6/21
This morning, we went to Mos Burger for breakfast. It stands for "most delicious burger" and it's from Japan. Instead of using hamburger buns, they use baked rice compressed as hamburger buns. They also put a variety of stuff inside the burgers (they're not your typical hamburger). There was a picture of one with seafood in it. The food was ok…I don't particularly like it, but it's definitely interesting.
After that, we went to 2 different banks. I saw a giant deadmau5 poster on a building. Anyways, in the first bank, we saw the foreign exchange board. It turns out 1 USD = 28 NT, unlike 33 NT from 2 years ago. Gah…inflation. There's also no 2nd – 4th floors here. I'm starting to think it's a conspiracy by the construction companies to keep the 2nd floors to themselves. In the second bank, we saw the stock market stockbrokers place. There's a giant screen of stocks I can't read and people sitting in rows of desks and computers facing it. Sometimes, they receive a phone call, other times, they're chatting with each other or staring at the screen. It's interesting to see…as you might know, the Chinese lucky color is red. So up arrows (increasing value) on stocks are actually red here. Meanwhile, down arrows are green. Blue is neutral, by the way. Oh yea. We went to the banks because my mom needed to get money. She has a stamp seal thingy…it's cool. Sarina and I both stamped our hand with it.
For lunch, we went to a Din Tai Fung, dumpling restaurant. Apparently it was one of the top 10 in the world in 1993. It's also the only restaurant I know which has a souvenir shop (other than amusement parks, I guess). Plus it has a cute mascot ^^ We ate lots of yummy dumplings and potstickers, which were perfectly rectangular and flat on one side. (By the way, there is a Din Tai Fung somewhere in CA, but of course it's not as good as the one in Taipei.
)The restroom is weird though. There's this one 25 second water sound sensor thing there…I waved my hand across it and then there was a really loud toilet flushing sound. 25 seconds is a long time for an awkward moment.Well, now that we gained our energy for walking, we rode on the metro to Wufenpu, the ultimate outdoor market. Well, technically, there's actual buildings and signs and names of stores, but there's no wall or door in the front part. Also, they mostly sell clothes, instead of food. I guarantee you there's something you like over there…seriously. It has a large variety of stuff. I'm glad I didn't pass out from all the secondhand smoke though. The air is noxious. Towards the end of our shopping the sky started sprinkling a bit. Then we got lost, but eventually found our way back to the metro. Part of the reason we got lost is most streets aren't exactly perpendicular
Then we went to a shave ice shop near our house
My mom tells me it's always been the most expensive shave ice she's seen, but it's of very good quality. We each eat a bowl of shave ice…which, combined with the air conditioning makes the air kind of chilly.Well, it's raining harder, and we leave the shop to go to 7-11 (also near our house) to get custard pudding. We happen to run into grandma, and she happens to carry 2 extra umbrellas for us. Talk about prepared.
We go back home. We greet our aunt who was watching TV on the 2nd floor but she doesn't seem to notice us. We go out again to eat noodle soup at a nearby mini cart thingy. It's drizzling. We go back home.
Random stuff:
-Our aunt lives on the 4th floor alone. She doesn't talk to anyone :/ I don't know if she recognizes us either… She was like that 2 years ago when we came then.
-There's a temple in the outdoor market. Apparently you can pray for good grades there.
-There is a "90.5 C Caffe" near our house.
-85 C is a café, not just a bakery here.
-Both the metro trains and the elevator to the metro can carry bikes.
-Motorcycles > cars.
6/22
Well, we went to the outdoor market again, no surprise there. This time we got tofu + peanut soup (I had tapioca in mine too) from a cart there for breakfast. It was very yummy :3 Also, the vender prepared it like a pro. Afterwards, we took the metro with our grandparents to Beitou, famous for its hot springs. We took a bus after the metro to actually get there. Bus rides are so fun…especially if you stand up when there's no seats left. The road isn't smooth, there's lots of bumps, strong, frequent acceleration and braking…all this on a very winding road and going pretty fast too. Well um…Sarina and I stayed in the lobby (because we didn't want to take a bath, plus it saves money) and played with a RC helicopter. It looks like one of those helicopter thingys from Avatar (the blue alien movie, not the TV show). It's also easier to navigate than mine at home, though it can't be adjusted for balance. During this time, a mosquito happened to bite me on my knee when I wasn't paying attention -___- but there's no visible mark at all. A few minutes later it was on the ground so I seized my opportunity and stomped on it ^________^
For lunch, we went to Kent restaurant to eat curry chicken. There's a cute but demented fake grand piano for decoration there. The keys are super huge and um…the curve of the shape of the lid is demented. Then we and our grandma went to a different outdoor market. We found very cute underwear. One design had pedo-bear on it (it's a joke – I'm referring to Rilakkuma).
Back at the metro. This time, in the underground mall. I want to scooter or ride a bike or something across the whole length of the mall because it's super long and straight. We passed by 5 Miki stores and saw sword/rifle umbrellas They even have a strap to let you wear it like the real weapon (airport security might not let it through though…) Meanwhile, Sarina bought a shirt with smileys and legit English gibberish in its background.
For dinner, we all went to Kaiten Sushi (different kinds of sushi on little plates served on a conveyor belt. You take what you want, and they count the number of plates you have at the end). You also get to watch the cooks make the sushi in front of you. They'll even do requests. Sometime during this I realized I had a red mark on my shoulder. I guess it's a mosquito bite, but it doesn't hurt or itch, even if I press on it.
Well, we went home, and I adjusted the singing clock to 8:20. The clock supposedly sings every time the hour passes, but for some reason the hour is always off and its singing schedule has a mind of its own. When the minute hand passed the 8 hour mark, it began singing, as expected. But then it chimes 6 times. --'
Random stuff:
-My mom and her sisters all have "moon" in their Chinese names. My uncle, their brother, has nothing to do with this in his name. It doesn't even have any part of "sun" in his name either.
-All the clocks on the 2nd floor are off…and there are a lot of clocks o.o'
-Sometimes the singing clock sings another song immediately after the 1st song and chime are finished. It then chimes a different hour…
6/23
Apparently my grandma woke up Sarina and my mom to go to the outdoor market to get cheaper stuff (My jet lag is over, now I sleep in a lot). Sarina described the experience as, "ooh this looks nice" -yanks from hanger- Grandma tells salesman we're going to try them on first walk out without paying for them yet. After I woke up I pretty much did the same thing, only without the yanking. I drank almond milk from 85 C Café for breakfast. Sarina hogged the computer like she did for the past 3 days. At 9 AM, the singing clock finally chimes the right number of times.
We took the metro to eat with dad's mom's sister and her husband at Taipei's Hero House, a dining place for war veterans. He is 96(?) and healthy with no tooth decay. They talk a lot, and we wait. Time passes…
Later, we took the bus to near Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall while they go home. When waiting for the bus, we saw 5 other buses consecutively pull up to the single bus stop (they were all going to different locations). Anyway, surrounding the memorial hall is a circular wall. There are different decorative windows in a repeating pattern on the wall. It's very hot outside, so going indoors was a relief. While exploring the Memorial Hall, we saw 2 English speaking tour guides leading several groups around. I think their English was pretty decent. In the exhibits, there were many photos, badges, and writing. The writing is incredibly well done; it looks as if it were typed. I took many photos of photos.
Once again, there is no 2nd floor. We went outside on the building to where the giant bronze statue was. Every hour, there is a ceremony to change the 2 soldiers guarding the statue (yes, out in the sun in full uniform, standing still while the sweat drips down their faces onto the pedestals and some other guy wipes it up). Since it wasn't the hour yet, we walked around outside the place, using umbrellas to block the sun. Well, our umbrellas then were better described as wind-sensitive satellites. At the hour, we watched the ceremony of soldiers switching shifts. I'd describe each action as very precise and strict. I took a ~8 minute video of it.
We then stopped by 7-11 and went home, burning up as we walked. At home Grandma cooked curry rice, and we rewatched I not Stupid, a comedic movie parodying Singlish and Chinese culture. I asked my Singaporean friends at school about the movie, and they replied the culture shown in it is pretty accurate.
Random stuff:
-an inverted umbrella in Chinese translates to "open flower". I found this highly amusing when I learned this.
-turns out I have 5 mosquito bites: red mark on left knee (itchy), 2 on left elbow (itchy), 1 on right shoulder, 1 on knee. Yikes. I'm glad I'm not allergic.
6/24
We took the metro and ate breakfast at a popular breakfast place. Their dan4 bing3 (egg…Chinese pancake? 0.o) was very thick compared to the ones I usually eat at home. The food was yummy, but there was a long line. We went back home via the metro. Of course, this is all cheaper than in the US.
On the walk back, I saw a black cat, which stared at me when I pointed at it. It was very cute.Later, we went to Chen Chin's (our great grandmother) art gallery. She made Japanese style paintings on silk. There's a lot of detail if you look closely. Apparently some of her paintings are of her family, including my grandma and mom.
There is no 2nd floor in the building. We ate with my dad's mom at a hotel buffet, but the food seemed gross (goose liver paste on crackers and sea snails). We went to Q Square (part of the metro mall) and had almond tea. We sat there for a long time. At the mall, we looked at books and bought a manga drawing book. We walked home. It was raining only a little bit because tall buildings block rain. It was also windy outside (le typhoon has arrived).
No random stuff
6/25
The typhoon rain kept us indoors in the morning, so we played games on our DSs.
At noon, there was light rain, and so for lunch we went to a vegetarian place to eat. While we were walking there, we saw our grandma walking past us so fast she didn't notice us, which was funny. We went home to rest a bit, then took the metro to Danshui.
The part of Danshui we visited consists of a single road with an open door market on one side, and the harbor on the other. (There's branches off that road but that's a later part of this journal.) We played ring toss there. Despite being supplied with a full bucket of rings, we failed to get even a single ring on an item. The other difference between Danshui and the market at home is the proportion of items sold there – there are fewer clothing stores, but more games and toys. The food there also resembles amusement park food more than normal food sold at the open door market at home.
We took a boat to Fisherman Wharf. The boat ride itself was like a roller coaster ride. Since the timing is pretty much right after the typhoon, the weather is very, very windy. Much wind = large waves. Since we were standing at the back of the boat (clinging to a pole for balance) we got a nice, first-hand view of the waves behind us. They looked like they were chasing us actually – quite thrilling. We didn't get soaked like some other people on the boat because we were standing towards the front of the back of the boat and they were standing closer to the edge of the boat. At the Wharf, we walked around and went to a "Fishiegoodies Museum" which was an exhibit of Danshui's fishing industry history. Outside the mini museum there were large flowers falling from a tree nearby. We took the boat ride back to Danshui after a while. The waves were calmer this time.
Later, we successfully obtained Turkish ice cream. Turkish ice cream is different from typical ice cream because it sticks to itself very well and doesn't melt very quickly, even in Taiwan. Watching people trying to get ice cream is highly entertaining. You see, the vendor doesn't just hand it to you. You have to fight for it. He scoops the ice cream with a long metal stick and puts it on the cone. The cone and ice cream are still stuck on the rod. When you try to get it, he'll quickly place it out of reach by jerking the rod up, or by flipping the ice cream upside down, or by other shenanigans. For one man, he actually had 2 cones on it, so when the customer grabbed it, he only had the outer cone in his grasp. The customer before us managed to crush his cone while trying to grab his ice cream. He ended up breaking the cone, so the vendor put another cone on the other side and handed it to him, making his ice cream look kind of funny. In my case, he started whacking my extended hand with the ice cream itself. With good timing, I suddenly grabbed it from him, and thus "won" my ice cream. It makes it so much more satisfying
We walked around the shops and got almond/tofu flavored drinks and potatoes covered in crunchy sugar. They were both very yummy. A vendor also gave us these funny suction cup toys.
I saw 3 cats today when going home, including the black one I saw earlier. Their tails are shorter than the cats I usually see in my neighborhood in CA.
Random stuff:
-I don't know much about traffic rules in Taiwan. I also don't see very many signs.
-I haven't encountered a single gas station on this trip. I probably don't recognize them in the first place.
90 km/h is the freeway speed limit, but I don't know about local ones (there aren't any signs).
6/26
We played our DSs until lunch, where we ate with relatives on my mom's dad's side at a restaurant called Artco. One wall was a very odd piece of art itself – it was a scene of a nightclub maybe, but had humanoid creatures in them. We met very loud/chaotic kids and gave them the suction cup toys we obtained earlier. They stuck the toys to the walls of the elevator and windows.
Later, we tried to meet up with the Chius (our neighbors back in CA who were also in Taiwan at the time), but they were elsewhere, so that didn't work. Instead, my mom went to visit a doctor and my uncle, Sarina, and I went to Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. Like CKS Memorial Hall, soldiers guard a giant bronze statue, but this time indoors in an air conditioned place. There were many small photos. Overall I think the Hall was not as interesting as CKS Memorial Hall. Later, we went to the metro mall (the metro is everywhere; thus, the mall too is everywhere) and walked around. We got Coldstone ice cream, which I haven't had in a long time.
When we walked outside, the sky was pouring. We then ran to pick up mom and went to a different mall and some other place and bought cute stationary. We then walked through Zhongshan metro mall to go home.
Random stuff:
-I have now finished the first paper of notes I used to write these journals. There is about a week to go. These have taken up 7.5 pages on MS word so far.
-Zhongshan literally translates to "middle mountain" in English.
-Yamaha is the brand of many musical instruments and motorcycles. I don't know if they're actually the same company, but their font and symbol are identical (the 3 tuning forks). In Taiwan I only saw Yamaha stores for motorcycles.
-There is no hope. The clock times and chimes are independent of each other. The clock is also slow.
6/27
Today, my uncle drove me on his motorcycle to a dim sum restaurant. Motorcycles are the way to go in Taiwan – if I haven't expressed it enough – because it's easy to find parking spaces for them as opposed to cars. We ate and listened to Uncle's stories for a long time at the restaurant.
Two stories were about my grandpa and his encounter with snakes. Once, my grandpa was taking pictures when a green (poisonous) snake slithered near him. Some people luckily shooed it away somehow before something bad happened. Another time, some neighbor's pet snake escaped. It was about to crawl inside the house (I don't know which house) but my grandpa shut the door. As the snake still attempted to get in, my grandpa took pictures of it.
Another story involves my mom and uncle when they lived in Seattle. They had 2 cats. One of the cats had a black patch over its eye, so my uncle called it Pirate, while my mom called it Neko (which means "cat" in Japanese). Both of the cats loved to eat corn. Once, my mom cooked corn, put it on the table and went elsewhere. When she came back, she found parts of the corn missing, and thought it was rude of someone to nibble a few kernels and leave it there. In addition to corn, these cats liked watermelon and sleeping on sleeping people's tummies.
We later walked to an appliance/electronics store (I only remember the kitchen appliances), then took the bus to a temple. We watched part of a ceremony and a ritual where people lined up to get cleansed of their fears. Then we went home.
At night, we went to Longshan temple. It's about 300 years old, I think. There, we prayed to different deities representing different aspects of life. We each held 7 incense sticks, which were then thrown into 7 different pots. (Yes, we had to throw them and aim because the pots were very hot. The sticks often bumped into the container walls when they were thrown in.)
Later, we went to the outdoor market near the temple, which had games, clothes, and lots of food. We then took the metro and went to another outdoor market, where we browsed the shops on the streets near our house. There were also games there. My sister and I played 2 games: BBgun shooting at balloons and spinning a basketfull of balls into holes labeled with numbers to get the highest number of points possible. We got 2 prizes, then browsed around some more and ate shaved ice at the yummy place again.
Random stuff:
-Some bus stops are at the divider in the middle of the road, as opposed to sidewalks.
-One game there you might not see often in the US is goldfish fishing. You use paper "nets" (hoops with a stick for a handle with a stretched piece of thin paper across the hoop) to fish goldfish. It's tricky, considering you can immerse the paper into the water only for so long before the paper disintegrates. There's a virtual version of this game on WiiPlay, I think.
-Shaved ice in Taiwan is amazing. It doesn't use colored syrup. Instead, it uses toppings such as tapioca, jello, peanuts, red beans, taro, yogurt/some sort of cream, fruit, and other stuff I can't remember right now. Different stores hold different toppings.
6/28
We took the metro to Beitou and visited the museum of hot spring history. The museum had a lot of rocks in it. Then, we visited the spring itself. The atmosphere there was very hot and there was a lot of steam rising from the stream leading out of the spring, as well as from the spring itself. I heard people would go there and boil eggs. That's probably where the rotten egg smell comes from (just kidding – the smell comes from the sulfur rocks at the spring).
We then walked upwards to the Royal Seasons Hotel to eat lunch with relatives (who used a taxi to get there), which was a 10 course meal. Obviously that made us all very full. The almond jello there was chewy, which was strange.
When we were finished, it was raining outside. Thus, we went to go shop in the metro mall. We saw some pro play a basketball arcade game. He used one hand per ball to shoot and alternated hands continuously.
No random stuff.
6/29
We took the metro to Zhinangong, the temple in the mountains with 1200 stairs. We took the maokong gondola (sky cabin) across the top of the mountains. The aerial view was very nice. Unlike the bare mountains in CA, the mountains in Taiwan are very green and filled with trees. Some gondolas (called crystal cabins) have transparent floors, allowing you to see the trees beneath your feet. We didn't ride in one though because we would've had to wait in line for one to come and it was also more expensive. We visited 2 temples there. The air was filled with the sound of cicadas and bird calls – very different from the sounds I hear in parks in CA. Also, could see intricately colored butterflies fluttering about – some were black and blue while others were just different. In any case, the butterflies here aren't typically seen in CA, except maybe in butterfly exhibits. As for the temples themselves, their architecture reminded me of that in Spirited Away. There were numerous carvings of golden dragons, cranes, phoenices, text, statues, and flowers, even on the floor, ceiling, and columns. Sometime during this I saw a beautiful dark blue or black crow-like bird. The color was like the butterflies I described earlier, but if only it could stand still for a picture, I'd be happy.
After we toured the temples and the surrounding area, we planned to walk down the 1200 steps to the bottom, but we couldn't find them. So instead, we took the bus down the winding road instead of down the mountain. The ride was fun and bumpy. During the ride, a yellow and black striped bug with a distinctive black and white wing pattern flew in and stayed near the window in front of me. I may have taken a picture of it.
We then went to SOGO, a department store, via the metro (we didn't buy anything there because it's really expensive). There, we browsed around and ate curry rice for lunch there. Our uncle called to tell us it was raining hard outside. We told him we were in SOGO, to which he replied there are 3 SOGO buildings in that area. Sure enough, it was pouring and there was another SOGO almost across the street.
Afterwards, we got onto the metro train and went home. Later we went with our uncle to NOVA, a technology/electronics store selling computers, Apple products, cellphones, cameras, USBs, and their respective accessories.
We then met up with our grandparents at a restaurant near our house. The food was delicious but the environment was too loud (there were energetic kids behind us and their dad kept yelling at them to behave), and there were people smoking inside the restaurant. I believe the last time we went here there even was a no smoking sign, yet there were smokers that time too.
At night, we took the metro to Shilin night market. It was sprinkling a tiny bit outside. On the metro ride we were joking about putting little slips of paper with messages in the more exposed parts of our bags and pockets for pickpockets. The messages we came up with were: "unlucky",
"nice try", and "God is watching you" (I don't know what religion most Taiwan people follow).
It's quite interesting to watch the masses of people crossing the street at once (all 4 sides of traffic lights are red). Today, there weren't a lot of people compared to normal days…but there were still a lot. We browsed around the shops and street, where there were a lot of games, clothes, and food. There were some vendors who used carts and parked them in the middle of the street. This is actually illegal because they don't pay rent. Thus, when the police come they hide inside the actual shops. I think at one point someone tried to pickpocket me but I wasn't very sure. I don't put anything in my pockets though. We then took the metro and went home.
Random stuff:
-SOGO, like many buildings is around or over 10 stories high.
-…There tends to be many of the same building or merchandise sold in a small area. Andrew said he found 4 milk tea shops next to each other somewhere in Taiwan. I've seen 2 7-11s on the same street. And then they're basically on every street.
-The last time we went to Shilin night market there was a pet store with adorable little hedgehogs and these black and white-striped rodents which clung to people's shoulders. It wasn't there this time, unfortunately. Apparently the area it was once in was being reconstructed at the time.
6/30
We took the metro to Zhongshan to eat lunch at a popular restaurant (it's so popular you have to wait in line OUTSIDE if it's full). One of their famous dishes which many people (including my family) order is rice with eel. After we ate to our hearts' content, we took the taxi to the bike shop to rent bikes.
We biked for approximately 2 hours from Dadaocheng to Guandu and 2 hours again for the ride back. The bike path is full of pretty scenery. We say many unique birds, which had interesting bird calls. There were also a lot of stray dogs, many of which were along the river. I saw a few tiny crabs on the road as we biked. Halfway through the ride (in Guandu) we drank ching1 chao3 cha2 ("spring(?) grass tea") which was yummy, but its minty flavor seemed to take over. The bike seats were very uncomfortable; when my right leg bumped up against the bike it left black marks. My mom, sister, and I all got some sort of scratch or scrape that bled on our left leg because it bumped against the spiky pedal. Overall the experience was hot, humid, and fun. Our uncle experienced none of these experiences whatsoever. When we returned to the bike shop and told the owner about the hazards on our bikes, he had no reaction (if anything, he was amused).
Later, we walked somewhere to get almond jello, which was delicious. Apparently, the area there was the same location where my mom lived when she was little, but it was remodeled. We then walked to another place nearby to buy peanuts (also very yummy). Then, we walked to yet again another place to buy pound cake (the vendor sliced a large loaf and wrapped it up) which was warm and yummy. Then we went home.
Random stuff:
-Sorry for the lack of variety in describing things. Some things I don't remember in detail (and I didn't write them down) since the events happened a year ago, so I can't really describe them other than with the words "interesting," "unique," etc.
7/1
We went to Taipei Expo today. Only the Qing Ming Shang He Tu tapestry exhibit was open. Nevertheless, it was interesting. Basically, the tapestryis this very long painting (I believe it was done on silk) depicting life during the Qing Ming Festival. The cool part was that this giant "wall" was created to animate a portion of the tapestry (made in China). During the daytime animation, the art styple was relatively the same as that of the tapestry, but at night, the people seem more digitalized and 3D. Apparently, Taiwan holds the longest of the 3 tapestries of Qing Ming Shang He Tu.
We went home and then went to Yanmingshan by bus. The road was a winding path up the mountain. After some point, we got onto a shuttle bus which goes further up the winding road to a mountain trail. We walked on that pebbly path to Erzhiping. There were a lot of butterflies and many different LOUD cicada and other bug sounds. There were quite a few small dogs taking a walk up the mountain too. Somewhere at or near the top we stopped at a beautiful park. There were small fish in the large pond there. In the trees nearby, we saw a striking Formosan Blue Magpie. It's a large blue bird with a black head and white and black speckled feathers. There were no wires, glass, cage or anything. It was just air and a few branches between the tourists and the bird. After taking a short break sightseeing here, we walked down the mountain on the same trail. We saw caterpillars, spiders with >3 in. legs with a < 1cm body, and cicadas (they camouflage so well with tree bark). One of the cicadas very close to us was incredibly loud – maybe as loud as a trumpet playing loudly in your ear, though the actual sound produced isn't remotely the same, of course.
We took the shuttle down and then walked to a mini park near a hotel. We saw a bird nest (it might have been a Magpie's nest) and a spiky/fuzzy caterpillar on a tree (apparently touching it can irritate your skin). Green foliage was everywhere. I couldn't find the other type of bug that made a different sound.
My uncle told a story about the Magpie. Apparently, if a single person stands in front of the hotel stop, he/she will at some point feel a whump (whack/thump) on the back of his/her head. The whump is strange in nature because it is a soft and warm thump. Once, err…many times his friend got whumped and later he watched a bald person and his dad near the stop to see if it happened to them. Well, he saw the blue bird whump the bald guy with its belly. The bald guy thought his dad hit him, but the dad didn't say anything. In any case, the bird does this to protect her babies (when she has them) in the nest nearby.
We took the bus down the mountain and got on the metro. We ate at another restaurant near our home, which served chicken rice. Albeit simple, both the chicken and rice were pretty good. We sat next to the electric bug zapper (on purpose) to hear the loud crackles made by zapping flies. We missed seeing the actual zapping, but the noise produced was pretty loud. It reminded me of this one time in the metro mall where we saw from afar a lady using a handheld bug zapper (it looks like a tennis racket). In one slow swing (more like a wave), there were probably 5 zaps. We could also see blue sparks fly off.
Random stuff:
-Hi. Mountains are green in Taiwan. I can't think of other things to say.
7/2 (last day)
Oh no…I seem to have misplaced my notes or I didn't write this day down So everything here will be from memory and the photos I took.
We went biking today with my uncle's friend. He's nicknamed Liang Er because he looks like a movie star named Liang Er. Also, both of their last names are Liang anyways. We first stopped at 7-11 where he bought iced tea for us. We biked pretty far…I can't say how far but I was pretty tired throughout. We made several stops to hydrate ourselves and sightsee. Bike paths in Taiwan are pretty winding, and they go up and down a lot (sometimes the road is very very steep). We were near the ocean most of the time, which was nice. At the end of our trip near on the opposite side of some cliffs (I heard people used to dive from it?) we saw people in paddle boats. There was also a large bridge over the river (I don't know if it's an actual river). Then we turned around and got ready to go home.
At the airport (we took a minivan-taxi there) there were a lot of funny shaped sculptures dangling from the ceiling. While we waited for our flight after going past the security part, we paced the airport. There are…a lot of things in the airport, including Hello Kitty places, pieces of art, statues, mini houses and dolls, and the typical airport stores. Actually, there were many appearances of Hello Kitty, including a waiting room, store, and clocks in different time zones. The flight itself was relatively boring. I don't remember what I did on it besides pseudo-sleep. I remember when I arrived home the previous trip to Taiwan, I was walking on the balls of my feet because I wore sandals the entire time during the trip, which had slightly raised heels. I don't think it happened this time though.
Random stuff:
-Read my journals from the previous trip (2009)? There's more random stuff there…maybe. It's on deviantart: phoenyxaura.deviantart.com/jou…
-After a year, several days, and many hours, I have finished this journal at 12.2 pages on Microsoft Word.
-Thanks for reading! ^__^
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Computer broken...
1 min read
Yep. After this one blackout a few weeks ago or so, my computer won't turn on. The green light which is supposed to stay on isn't...it's just blinking. So that means...my work in progress is gone......should have updated it on my USB but didn't see something like that coming. So yea, no more pictures for a while. The scanner doesn't work on this laptop. I'll either get a new computer or something...but I really hope that the hard drive isn't damaged...
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12th-14th days at Taiwan
6 min read
12th Day
Today we went near the ocean. We walked to this one seafood restaurant. There was a lot of food. Today we went to Yeliou Geopark. It's an attraction that's at the beach somewhere. The famous rock there is the Queen's Head Rock. It's called that because the rock is shaped like Queen Elizabeth's head, all by natural weathering. However, I heard that before a walking path was built, people used to demolish rocks around it by carving their names into it and taking chunks off as 'souvenirs.' Also, after a few years, the rock will break and the head will be decapitated because of tides and erosion. Well, so we took pictures. The place was super hot and there were so many stair steps all over the place. So tiring... x_x Anyways, we saw lots of sea cockroaches. Afterwards, my uncle left for home. Later in the evening, we met our grandma again, who took us to a jewelry shop where there were 2 dogs inside. They were so cute! One of them was big and gray and fluffy...I don't know the breed though. The other one was a golden haired pomeranian. IT WAS SO CUTE >w< Later at night I rode on my first motorcycle ride. IT WAS EPIC. It's so fun...I want to drive a motorcycle here instead of a car when I get a permit or w/e. But the motorcycles here are noisy. We went to this one supermarket or something that had a parking floor (the top one) just for motorcycles. It looks pretty cool...because well...there's motorcycle parking rather than car parking in a parking lot floor. Anyways, we bought this one fruit called 'Buddha's head' because it looks like Buddha's head. The skin is inedible, and the fruit is mushy, with a lot of seeds. Basically to eat it, you eat the mushy sweet part and spit out the seeds (and don't eat the skin). It's sweet, but not the type of fruit I would normally eat. Nor the method. We finished Zelda: Twilight Princess today. Yea...well, we skipped a bunch of stuff, like catching fish and golden bugs, some caves, piece of hearts, poe souls, stuff like that. So we're re-playing the game at home now.
13th Day
Today we went to the Manga Fest. It costed $3 USD admission. Compared to Anime Expo, it is more colorful (the booths), smaller, more crowded, less variety, and no cosplay. The things that were similar to AX was the fact that both were expensive and perverted (to a degree). They sold these pillows...nah. Don't get me started. Put simply, they're perverted as well. Later, we went to Taiwan 101 again with our friends/neighbors to eat something like a light meal or snack. It was pretty boring. Later at night, we went by metro to Jiantan. It was pretty much an outdoor/indoor shopping place. There was a petshop that sold really cute puppies, kittens, birds, porcupines, chinchillas, and bunnies. Really cute bunnies. Oh yea, and mice and rodents. Including this one cute squirrel like animal that was black and white (not a skunk) that can attach to your clothes xD There was also an arcade there, lots of shops, and this one strangely dressed person. He seemed to be wearing some sort of gothic girl clothes, but it looked pretty cool...I think. Didn't really look at him, so I don't really know.
14th Day
I watched cartoons the whole morning. They included Spongebob, Keroro Gunso (awesome random show about froggies), Courage the Cowardly Dog (only a little bit), Ben10 (my first time watching that show), lapixiaoxin (or Shin-chan or something like that) and this one end of a drama that had a person with black wings. The wings didn't look attached to the person, but they looked cool anyway. Wonder what that drama's called...Anyways, they are all in Chinese, and/or with Chinese subtitles. Even the Ben10 theme song was in Chinese. That show is so weird...And pretty much most of these shows are on Cartoon Network there. There's also an anime channel, where I saw bits of Full Metal Panic? and Ouran High School Host Club (omg...so weird...). Keroro's an awesome show. These frogs are like, intense...they do supernatural things with futuristic technology. Then, I went back upstairs to see Sarina reading Black Cat, which I'm planning on reading/watching later. Later we went to the airport in a taxi. The airport looks cool and is colorful inside :3 We left Taiwan at around 11:00 maybe. Anyways, that Saturday was the longest Saturday in my life. It was also the longest time I kept my contact lenses on...Dx We arrived back at LAX about an hour early (8:00 PM Saturday). Yes, we 'time-traveled.' Pretty cool really. It was pitch black when we took off from TaoYuan Airport and during the middle of our flight, I opened the windows to find the sky blindingly bright. Then after a while I opened it again to find out it was about sunset. That type of pollution looks pretty. Finally, when we landed, the sky was dark again. When I got home (10:30 ish because of traffic and waiting for my dad to come), I started walking without the heels of my feet 0.o Then I just realized that I had never walked barefoot in Taiwan at all...just in my new sandals that have a bit of a raised heel structure. So...I was walking like I was marching backwards for a while. It was so weird...
This is the end of my 2-week trip. I don't care if anyone really reads this whole account of it, but I found my experience memorable and I wanted to write it down. Thank you if you did, by the way. I don't mean any offense to anyone. Hopefully I can go to Taiwan next year or the following year. Now I'm wondering if it's worth it to go to Seattle on the band trip this year. Maybe I'll be able to see my cousins that I haven't seen in 3 years or so. Otherwise, there's nothing new that I'll be experiencing, really
Today we went near the ocean. We walked to this one seafood restaurant. There was a lot of food. Today we went to Yeliou Geopark. It's an attraction that's at the beach somewhere. The famous rock there is the Queen's Head Rock. It's called that because the rock is shaped like Queen Elizabeth's head, all by natural weathering. However, I heard that before a walking path was built, people used to demolish rocks around it by carving their names into it and taking chunks off as 'souvenirs.' Also, after a few years, the rock will break and the head will be decapitated because of tides and erosion. Well, so we took pictures. The place was super hot and there were so many stair steps all over the place. So tiring... x_x Anyways, we saw lots of sea cockroaches. Afterwards, my uncle left for home. Later in the evening, we met our grandma again, who took us to a jewelry shop where there were 2 dogs inside. They were so cute! One of them was big and gray and fluffy...I don't know the breed though. The other one was a golden haired pomeranian. IT WAS SO CUTE >w< Later at night I rode on my first motorcycle ride. IT WAS EPIC. It's so fun...I want to drive a motorcycle here instead of a car when I get a permit or w/e. But the motorcycles here are noisy. We went to this one supermarket or something that had a parking floor (the top one) just for motorcycles. It looks pretty cool...because well...there's motorcycle parking rather than car parking in a parking lot floor. Anyways, we bought this one fruit called 'Buddha's head' because it looks like Buddha's head. The skin is inedible, and the fruit is mushy, with a lot of seeds. Basically to eat it, you eat the mushy sweet part and spit out the seeds (and don't eat the skin). It's sweet, but not the type of fruit I would normally eat. Nor the method. We finished Zelda: Twilight Princess today. Yea...well, we skipped a bunch of stuff, like catching fish and golden bugs, some caves, piece of hearts, poe souls, stuff like that. So we're re-playing the game at home now.
13th Day
Today we went to the Manga Fest. It costed $3 USD admission. Compared to Anime Expo, it is more colorful (the booths), smaller, more crowded, less variety, and no cosplay. The things that were similar to AX was the fact that both were expensive and perverted (to a degree). They sold these pillows...nah. Don't get me started. Put simply, they're perverted as well. Later, we went to Taiwan 101 again with our friends/neighbors to eat something like a light meal or snack. It was pretty boring. Later at night, we went by metro to Jiantan. It was pretty much an outdoor/indoor shopping place. There was a petshop that sold really cute puppies, kittens, birds, porcupines, chinchillas, and bunnies. Really cute bunnies. Oh yea, and mice and rodents. Including this one cute squirrel like animal that was black and white (not a skunk) that can attach to your clothes xD There was also an arcade there, lots of shops, and this one strangely dressed person. He seemed to be wearing some sort of gothic girl clothes, but it looked pretty cool...I think. Didn't really look at him, so I don't really know.
14th Day
I watched cartoons the whole morning. They included Spongebob, Keroro Gunso (awesome random show about froggies), Courage the Cowardly Dog (only a little bit), Ben10 (my first time watching that show), lapixiaoxin (or Shin-chan or something like that) and this one end of a drama that had a person with black wings. The wings didn't look attached to the person, but they looked cool anyway. Wonder what that drama's called...Anyways, they are all in Chinese, and/or with Chinese subtitles. Even the Ben10 theme song was in Chinese. That show is so weird...And pretty much most of these shows are on Cartoon Network there. There's also an anime channel, where I saw bits of Full Metal Panic? and Ouran High School Host Club (omg...so weird...). Keroro's an awesome show. These frogs are like, intense...they do supernatural things with futuristic technology. Then, I went back upstairs to see Sarina reading Black Cat, which I'm planning on reading/watching later. Later we went to the airport in a taxi. The airport looks cool and is colorful inside :3 We left Taiwan at around 11:00 maybe. Anyways, that Saturday was the longest Saturday in my life. It was also the longest time I kept my contact lenses on...Dx We arrived back at LAX about an hour early (8:00 PM Saturday). Yes, we 'time-traveled.' Pretty cool really. It was pitch black when we took off from TaoYuan Airport and during the middle of our flight, I opened the windows to find the sky blindingly bright. Then after a while I opened it again to find out it was about sunset. That type of pollution looks pretty. Finally, when we landed, the sky was dark again. When I got home (10:30 ish because of traffic and waiting for my dad to come), I started walking without the heels of my feet 0.o Then I just realized that I had never walked barefoot in Taiwan at all...just in my new sandals that have a bit of a raised heel structure. So...I was walking like I was marching backwards for a while. It was so weird...
This is the end of my 2-week trip. I don't care if anyone really reads this whole account of it, but I found my experience memorable and I wanted to write it down. Thank you if you did, by the way. I don't mean any offense to anyone. Hopefully I can go to Taiwan next year or the following year. Now I'm wondering if it's worth it to go to Seattle on the band trip this year. Maybe I'll be able to see my cousins that I haven't seen in 3 years or so. Otherwise, there's nothing new that I'll be experiencing, really
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