Monday, August 15
Flight was soooooooo long. Plus I had an upset stomach, but luckily no one was sitting right next to me. The lady on the other end of my row was really nice. Oh, and I watched Fast Five on the flight, and it was pretty cool.
Tuesday, August 16
I got into Taiwan Tuesday night. Ryan and his girlfran Dora picked me up from the airport. Dora headed home, and after Ryan and I dropped my stuff off at his apartment and went out to get some late night xiaolongbao, luobuogao, and I got some baozi with mystery filling, but it was good. We sat by some random people and they talked to Ryan for a while, and even exchanged contact info. Is this how people normally make friends? Whatever, it was cool and they were really nice.
Wednesday, August 17
Wednesday morning, Ryan and I left for his class a little early to grab some breakfast from McDonald's. McDonald's here is pretty nice, as evidenced by this picture:
After breakfast I went to class with Ryan. His class was pretty interesting and fun since there are only about 7-8 people in each class. After class we grabbed lunch with some of Ryan's friends, who are all from the craziest places. Pat from Indiana, Diego from Rome, some other guy from somewhere, William from Australia, and Sarah and Amos from London. Lunch was good, got some more xiaolongbao, and Ryan ordered me some majiangmian, which was okay.
The rest of the day was kind of random, but Ryan did take me to his old hostel since he had to pick up a letter. The place was so hipster with a hodgepodge of furniture. After that, we walked in park by a river and talked about his girl issues. A while later we headed to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial. This place is so beautiful, especially around sunset, which was when we went. Check it out:
Singing "Reflection" of course.
White Pigeon
We are mature.
Pretty sure I was thinking, "Hurry up and take the picture, Ryan!"
Fish phone
I call this, "Man with Dog"
So after the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial, Ryan, Dora (Ryan's girlfriend), and I headed to Ximen for dinner with Ryan's classmates. Talked to Angelia and Frederick for a while. Frederick is Chinese and from Paris, so when he started speaking French my mind was BLOWN. And after dinner we walked around the surrounding night market. So yeah, cool night.
MAJOR SIDENOTE: Found Shark backpack, but decided not to buy it. It just isn't as cool anymore, but it was about $17.
Thursday, August 18
Went to class in the morning, walked around the city trying to get a sim card, Ryan being very patient, Dora gave me a cookie. That was the morning/early afternoon. Eventually, Ryan had to head back to school to get some hours in, so Dora took me to eat some Taiwanese shaved ice stuff, which was pretty good. Later we went to Dora's store and I played with the store's bunny. I also got to talk to this lady (whose name I didn't quite catch. I think it was Riley or something) who's an English teacher (Taiwanese lady) and got her master's at Kansas and her doctorate in Durham, England.
Friday, August 19
Class in the morning again. After class, we got on a train to Hualien with some of Ryan's friends. The train ride felt a little long, but the ride was really pretty.
Once we got to Hualien, we rented some scooters and rode to our hostel. We got settled in there and played a game of Chinese checkers, which Ryan somehow won. Once we got done with that, we all headed over to the night market for dinner.
Cool bottle light
shrimp and snails
huge shrimp on a stick
tiny crayfish? not really sure...
So after we were done with the night market we took a long scooter ride to a beach that Dora knew about since she went to school in the area. The beach was pretty cool, though instead of sand it had a bunch of rocks, but the rocks were surprisingly comfortable to lay on. And we met some cute kids there.
We also stumbled upon a little night market there, so we tried some of their stuff, like sea urchin...
Saturday, August 20
We spent most of Saturday scootering around Taroko National Park, which is absolutely gorgeous. Look for yourself!
'I am actually Gatorade' water
The most breathtaking areas I wasn't able to snap pictures of, but trust me when I say Taroko is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.
Anyhoo, that night Ryan and Dora left to go to her grandmother's place, so the rest of us checked out a local beach and got dinner at another night market. Most of us got some famous xiaolongbao, which had a more bao-ish skin rather than a more dumpling-like skin. They were delicious. Oh, at the beach some of us got these rice and sausage things, which are like the Chinese hotdog, but the bun is rice, the hotdog is Taiwanese sausage, and the condiments include a cucumber (I think...) and some other stuff. It was really good, though the arm of the guy who was cooking them looked cooked, or roasted.
Stray dogs at the beach.
Man with dancing Spongebob. Kind of weird to watch.
Sunday, August 21
We all woke up early to go rafting, which turned out to be really fun. I couldn't get any pictures, but there were so many people rafting! All 11 of us were able to get in one raft, so it was pretty fun, though a lot of us got sunburned pretty badly. Example:
So rafting took a while, but when we got back we grabbed a quick dinner before hopping on the train back to Taipei. Long day.
Monday, August 22
Went to school with Ryan again, but didn't go to class with him to instead sleep on one of the couches outside. After school, we got lunch with some of his friends. Ryan had to go back to the school for a while, so Angelia took me to Taipei 101, but only after checking out some cool shops like Muji and getting slightly lost in the MRT by going up and down the wrong escalators. But Taipei 101 was really cool. The elevator is super fast, so your ears pop as you go up. The view from the top wasn't the best since it was a little cloudy and foggy, but it was still cool since we got to see the city lights come on as night fell. We even got to go outside and check out the view from there. We also got to see the building's wind damper, which I think keeps the building from swaying in the wind.
Wasn't this sword in some Chinese movie?
Bottom left corner: Deadly.
Tuesday, August 23
School with Ryan again, but since it was the last day of class, we went out to lunch at a Thai restaurant with his classmates afterward. After lunch, Ryan and I went to check out Gugong, which is an awesome museum with a plethora of ancient Chinese valuables, my favorite being the meat-shaped stone:
There were also entire exhibits on jade, brush paintings, and government documents. Basically, when the Kuomingtang fled China, they took a bunch of these ancient Chinese artifacts with them, so today many Chinese even go to Gugong to see these pieces.
Gugong from the outside
AHHH
Pickin' a Fight
Pretty architecture
So yeah that was cool.
Wednesday, August 24
Ryan and I headed over to Dad's hotel in the morning. After hanging out there for a bit while Dad made some phone calls, we got lunch at a dim sum place before heading to Tamsui to see Grandpa's grave. Grandpa is buried in a beautiful cemetery overlooking the city. Hopefully Ryan can go back sometime to clean up around Grandpa's grave and bring some flowers.
After that, we checked out a large Chinese temple complex in the area.
And after the temple we took a bike ride from Tamsui to Guandu(?)
Thursday, August 25
Got lunch with Ryan, and then went to the Botanical Garden, which was mostly trees, but still fun since Ryan made it fun.
Like here. We were amazed by how big these leaves were (this was the beginning of our botanical garden adventure), so Ryan was like, "We should take one." And if a security guard saw us with one, he would say, "What this? I brought this with me."
Stole some aloe for the sunburn.
Ryan found this dungeon
Lady doing exercises
Big fan-like leaf thing that we tried to fan each other with. Found out later that the employees use that to sweep the ground. Oops
Huge-A$$ lilies
Nimbus 3000s
So after the botanical garden we checked out the museum nearby which had a Picasso exhibit. This is our only worthwhile picture:
Friday, August 26
Ryan took me to a sushi restaurant for lunch. The place had conveyor belts toting the food around, and I've always wanted to go to a sushi restaurant with a conveyor belt, so cross that off my bucket list! After lunch I checked into the K Hotel and then Ryan and I headed over to his school to chill with his friends.
So yeah, that's my adventure so far, or at least the Taiwan chapter.
Random:
Ryan and I stumbled across this bike, whose name is practically my Chinese name. So Ryan said that my twin would probably walk out to the bike and, like me, not wearing her glasses, would squint at me, then shake her head like, "Nah, couldn't be," and ride away.
Shoutouts:
Smitty - Blood runs thicker than travel plans.
Caroline - here are some attractive pictures of my sister with Nai Nai's glasses on:
