Day 2- First Full Day in Taipei

Slept in until about 10 oclock and then me and Alison ventured out to find something to eat.
I noticed a sleepy looking fellow who definitely was dressed as I am at home, and decided to follow him to see where he would go. He walked into a fast food (regular food, they just serve it quickly) place and then since we couldn't read anything, followed him again to a second location- a Family Mart. Noting the prices, me and Alison deccided to explore a little more and then saw an open space nook in the corner of a building with some tables and chairs and someone eating there.

I ordered the only thing I knew, "Guo tie" Fried dumplings essentially, or pot stickers, whatever the hell they are, i just know they're delicious. then we used the pictures to pick out something to bring back ot chrystina. I think it was some sandwich with fish? and then a pork hamburger. It was interesting. They have this weird mayonnaise sauce that is very sweet that I try to avoid becasue it'll mess with my stomach. Its tough though since they put that on everythign, salads, sandwiches, .. and i guess that's about it.

After the breakfast place we stop by the Family Mart and buy some drinks- super supau! and a giant bottle of water. I forget bags are 1 dollar? NT? it sucks, but it makes sense.

Afterwards we go back to the apartment and chill, i think i'm watching netflix (i know, its ridiculous to fly across the world to watch arrested development). I also download some Chinese/English apps . They turn out to be pretty nifty- check out

 "Hanping"  for Chinese- English translation, its easy to copy/paste chinese sentences received via chat and the app will break it down for you per phrase

"Pleco" for writing Chinese characters and seeing what they mean in english. they also have a similar chinese>english copy/paste translation, but i think i was more happy with Hanping

"Dictionary" basic English> chinese or vice versa dictionary for figuring out what words to say .

Also a taipei MRT map app.

Copied from http://johomaps.com/as/taiwan/taipei/taipeimetro.html the map is interactive on the site, I recommend it if you're curious

Next up, our cousin comes to pick us up and we travel to this place in Banqiao (west on the blue line) to find an eyebrow store for my mom. She wants to get her eyebrows fixed. she says no one can see her eyebrows, but i never really noticed.

During the trip, it starts to rain, so the owner's daughter takes us to the metro with a bunch of umbrellas and we travel to taipei City Hall Station where Taipei 101 is located- the second tallest building in the world. It held the record until recently when the Burj Dubai (changed to a new name) was created.

But connected to the metro station, there's this giant food court and shopping mall area. Its amazing. all underground too. so we go there and get some food and eat. and since it's still raining and we don't know which MRT stop to get on to get back to our place, we take a taxi. which is surprisingly cheap. like to get from the middle of the city to the SanChong district (west on the yellow line just across the zhong xing bridge from Ximen) its like 400 NT (13ish dollars?) for 4 people.

Anyway we get back and pack , we're going on a 7 day "vacation" to the east coast of taiwan and one of the islands found there. i kept hearing that it was very beautiful. guess you'll find out.

Because of the schedule my mom created, we don't really have much free time to hang out with our friends, because they're working during the week and we're traveling over the weekends, so we'll make the best of it. at least we do have one free weekend to hang out.

everyone passes out by 10 pm, we gotta get up early the next day.

Day 1- May 20/21

On May 20th, I left the United States for a nice visit back to Taiwan, a country/sovereign nation/state/whatever have you, which I hadn't stepped foot in since one of the best experiences of my life (OCAC2006). So naturally I had high expectations to live up to. 

Quick personal history lesson for those of you who will ask: both sides of my grandparents were born in China. Then when the Kuomintang Party (KMT) lost the Chinese Civil War, my grandparents moved with the party to Taiwan. There, my mother and father were born. Then they both moved to America and I was born. 

So ethnically, I'm Chinese. But Taiwan is cooler than China. 

I took notes and pictures on an HTC One. I just got it, so the whole trip was a learning experience. Hopefully I can post pictures and files in a convenient manner on this blog. I was going to make a website, but that would have taken too long for me to figure out and set up and I would have forgotten everything that happened on the trip by then. 

So lets begin:

Save for 45 minutes, I stayed up the entire night before when the thought that I would be so tired I would sleep for the majority of the flight. I was wrong. After taking off at 930, I slept about 3 hours on the entire 13.5 plane ride from DC to Narita, JPN. I took United, nothing to complain about, great movie selection, I watched, Bullet to the Head [Netflix/Redbox movie tier], Trouble with the Curve [Excellent], Hansel and Gretel [Despite Gemma Arteton being in it, I turned it off after 15 minutes], The Hobbit [Not the same as LOTR trilogy, but still decent], Resident Evil Retribution [Online Stream tier].

For some reason my mom told her friend who helped book the flight to give us all special dinners. By special dinners I mean Low Sodium meals, Low Fat meals, and Vegetarian meals. Eating this was below the quality of food I reserved for airline food. Gross.

At Narita, it was awesome. The difference in professionalism and work ethic between the United States' TSA and airport staff and Japan's is amazing. I didn't really notice the difference until my return flight. More on that later on day 21. 

I have never seen an airport/airline worker in the United States run. 

Literally every couple of minutes I would notice a Japanese worker running around the terminal. It was amazing. Everything was clean, everything was orderly, they are so nice and professional. They even had people check up on the bathroom stalls to make sure people were ok (at least tahts' what I THInk they were doing).

btw, of all three airports I visited (Dulles, Narita, Taiwan Taoyuan International), Narita had by far the best looking women. Though Taiwan had the most convenient Wi-Fi access [with Narita a close 2nd].

We took the 3.5 hour connection flight from Narita, Japan, to Taiwan Taoyuan Airport. Our airline was ANA, which has gorgeous airline hostesses. Gorgeous. Taiwan had pretty ones too. I guess Asian airlines are very conscious about their workers. They were all very pretty and put together, even the dudes! And the women all wore heels. Can you imagine wearing those for a 13.5 hour flight? Even the ones running around in the airport too!

On the flight I started watching Wreck-It-Ralph and then passed out right after he got his medal from Hero's Duty and woke up periodically to see him covered in chocolate and fighting with a little girl.

We landed in the airport around 10 pm local time, but had to wait for my sister who had to take another flight. 

While here we observed a cute dog sniffing not for drugs, but for "restricted agricultural items". My mom cautiously kept an eye on it, and after noticing it hanging around a passenger waiting for their bags remarked: "他不走了!" ["He's not moving!"]

We met up with my mom's cousins, who I will refer to as my cousins from this point on. One of them is retired in his 40s after working the 20ish years of military service, another is vice president of a coffee shop chain, and the third is working in software.

After a 30ish minute drive back, at 1 in the morning we arrived in Taipei, went to go eat at many of the quick eat food shops they have. These are so convenient, but so oily, greasy and fried- [I'm foreshadowing my stomach adventures!!!]

These eating places are so convenient, and literally at 1 in the morning on a weekday there are still people walking around and eating food. It was amazing. 

So at around 2 in the morning we arrived at my mom's friend's apartment who was lending it to us for three weeks. In Taiwan, there is no central air, so each room typically has an AC unit. So it's very hot, and the bathrooms generally don't have shower curtains (you're lucky if you have a tub) so when you shower, water gets all over the place. 

Then pass out for the night.

Interesting notes: 

I have yet to see an obese person, and I have not seen a Jeremy Lin jersey/shirt yet. I made a counter for these two occurrences. Any bets on which will be higher when I reveal the counts?

Also, for someone like me coming from the East Coast of America, young asian people dress very asian.

Sorry no pictures today, just words.