A Day Sandwiched With Massages

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Location | Taipei – Tony’s House

Day 2 in Taipei started with a 1-2 hour full body massage that Tony was banned from (ladies only). Phoebe and I went to this place in Zhongsan near the Shinkong Mitsukoshi there. The massage was the full shebang. It was pretty great for NT$999 (about $30US). After the massage I was wrapped up in this heating pad and left to cook for awhile. It was pretty amazing. I really should find a regular massage place in NYC.

Afterwards, Phoebe, Tony and I went to eat at a small Japanese tapas place. We ordered about 6-7 dishes. From sashimi to fried sea urchin to delicious puffer fish (but not the poisonous kind), it was really yummy.

Japanese Tapas!

Japanese Tapas!

Then we went to Shinkong to walk around, but didn’t find anything that I really liked. They took me to Guanghua Electronics Marketplace. It’s amazing now. So shiny and new. I didn’t get to do a lot of serious electronics shopping unfortunately. I wish I had more time to do so, but I didn’t want to drag Tony and Phoebe along with me. I could literally spend hours there.

I got myself a new 8GB SD Card and some new headphones for my iPod.

We hopped over to the Shinkong Mitsukoshi near 101 to buy some cosmetics. They were having an anniversary sale, so it was perfect timing. I got a whole bunch of stuff before we headed to Hot Mala to have Mala Hot Pot with my friend Phil. It was Phoebe, Tony, Tony’s friend and fellow Michigan alum Justin, Phil and myself. After eating ourselves into a fully almost pants-busting state, we went to a foot massage place and got ourselves a 40 minute foot massage.

Drinking tea at the foot massage parlour

Drinking tea at the foot massage parlour

The woman who massaged Tony’s feet was completely brutal but awesome. She was definitely torturing the crap out of Tony. Especially since he’s ticklish.

Oh yes, and today it was pouring rain.

Fast Elevators, (Bad) Donuts, New Friends

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Location | Taipei – Tony’s House

Woke up a little late, had some breakfast and then Zhiyan came to take me to Taipei. Got onto the High Speed Rail (which is awesome by the way) and it took only an hour to get to Taipei. I went to Yuansan to wait for Tony. We went back to his apartment where I dropped my stuff off and then we headed out to Taipei 101. We first went to Page One and I was incredibly sad to find out that they cut the store size in half. It is definitely NOT the largest bookstore in Asia anymore.

Taipei 101 from the ground

Taipei 101 from the ground

I’d never gone up to the top of Taipei 101, so Tony and I went to the top in the world’s fastest elevator. We took a lot of pictures and stared at Taipei from all angles. It’s been cloudy and crappy all day, but there were still some nice pictures. We also went outside, but since it was a very windy day, they wouldn’t let us on all sides of the building. We then went down to see their “Super Big Damper” and through all the souvenirs and back down to the bottom of 101.

View from Taipei 101

View from Taipei 101

We then walked over to New York, New York where we strolled around Muji and some other stores before deciding that we’d like to try Mister Donut.

Almost everyone I know has said they like Mister Donut. So I was really excited to see how good it really was.

Tony and I got 6 donuts. We went outside to try them out.

Well…

The first one was green tea glazed. Um… gross.

Then a chocolate one… even worse…

Ok, the donuts were disgusting. We were hoping that it’d get better. Let me tell you, it doesn’t get better. We were trying to give away our Mister Donut’s Donuts by the end of the night.

Whyyyy did we buy you Mister Donut???

Whyyyy did we buy you Mister Donut???

So we decided to walk back to the subway stop and Tony decided to point east… unfortunately the subway was west and I actually knew where we were. We went to the Sogo area to find Tony’s friend Phoebe. We found her really quickly and strolled around Sogo until she got off work. We met up with her and her cousin (Peggy) and went to a really cute tea shop. We got some sandwiches and tea/coffee. The latte was actually really good, but the tea was the cutest and best part.

Tony, me, Peggy and Phoebe at tea

Tony, me, Peggy and Phoebe at tea

Aftewards we met up with Tony’s friend Sophia and her friend, David. We went to eat Dou Hua (a type of sweet dessert made from soy beans). After eating that we went to Sophia’s to just hang out in her apartment. I really liked the set-up, as it was very loft-like.

Tony, David and I went to Shilin Night Market afterwards. We strolled through the market quite quickly because David wanted to get to this store to get A&F/AE/Hollister stuff that was incredibly cheap. We couldn’t figure out if the stuff was real or fake, but Tony and David spent about an hour to an hour and a half in the store just trying on different things.

Afterwards Tony and I took a cab to MOS Burger. For some reason we had both been craving MOS Burger. In the end I’m not sure why I was craving MOS burger…

MOS Burger

MOS Burger

Remembering Taipei

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Location | New York City

About 4-5 years ago, I spent 2 summers in Taiwan. In 2004, I lived on a mountain near the Qizhang (七張) MRT stop (Mass Rapid Transit) station on the main green line going through Taipei. Everyday I would go outside and wait for a van that would take me down winding roads down near the subway station so I could go to class. Oh right, I forgot to mention that I had gone to Taiwan to spend 4 months studying Mandarin Chinese. I hate to admit it, but I really did not learn much… and I totally regret it.

In 2005, I got an internship with the Taiwan Tech Trek program. They sent me to work for 5 weeks at the National Palace Museum in Taipei. During the program I lived in Danshui, near the northwest coast of Taiwan. If you know the geography of Taipei, I essentially lived on opposite ends of the city.

Taipei is such a mishmash of things. In 2005 I wrote an “award-winning” essay [note: when I saw “award-winning” it means I won an award for it, but it’s nothing special, it was for my internship program] about the contrasts between old and new Taipei. You could find a beautiful modern bridge, but underneath the bridge you’d find a fisherman in an old rickety boat. These contrasts can be found all over Taipei (and the rest of Taiwan for that matter).

Taipei is a tricky city to describe because it’s so different depending on what parts of the city you visit. For instance, if you’re visiting Danshui (where I once lived), you’ll get a tourist’s paradise. Cute little shops selling trinkets, Taiwan foods, restaurant stalls, and a smelly fisherman’s wharf. In Shilin, you get the largest night market in the city, where you have vendors (illegally) selling items in the street, store after store with goods, and food everywhere. For first time visitors to Taipei, it’s good to note that Shilin Night Market isn’t actually located at the Shilin Station, it’s located at the Chientan Station.

We made friends with this guy, he's awesome!

We made friends with this guy, he's awesome!

Or if you go to the Taipei 101 area, you get a posh shopping area where it’s very clean and tidy. Or Hsimending, which is equivalent to Shibuya in Tokyo, an area crowded with young people and a lot of fun things to do. If you go to the Gongguan or Guting areas, you’re in the college districts, where National Taiwan University (aka Tai-Da) and the National Taiwan Normal University¹ (aka Shi-Da) reside.

In 2005, I was working at the National Palace Museum in the Shilin district of Taipei. To get there, you’d want to get off at Shilin station and then walk out the entrance to the end of the street under the subway overpass. There are several buses that will take you to the museum. The Museum completed remodeling in 2006 (boo, a year after I worked there).

Entrance to the National Palace Museum

Entrance to the National Palace Museum

Fact: The exhibits at the museum change 4 times a year, but the museum houses so much stuff in storage that even if you went back 4 times annually, it’d still take you 11 years to see everything they had in the museum.

If you really wanted to know, behind the building there’s a giant vault that leads into the mountain the museum is built on. The doors are about 20-30 feet high and the security there rivals that of the CIA. Very few people have access to the inside of the vault and visitors can’t see the vault door. In reality, you need a special key card to even get back there (heh, which I managed to get my hands on one). Not that anyone probably really cares, but if you look at the picture below, I marked where the vault entrance is… oh wait, that might be a matter of national security… but then again, it’s probably impossible to even get into a vault. Even if someone was crazy enough to attempt it, they’d probably find a way to get the schematics let alone look at a Google Maps image of an red x. :)

Red X marks the spot!

Red X marks the spot!

What other interesting things can I tell you? Oh, the man made famous by the image “Tank Man” aka the “Unknown Rebel” who faced off against a line of tanks during the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests has been rumoured to be working at the National Palace Museum as an advisor to ceramics. Funny thing is, if so, I probably met the guy, but no one would know his history as he has used a pen name in the past and hidden his identity.

The best thing about Taipei is the night markets. Although the MRT stop running at midnight, night life extends far beyond those hours. Night markets stay open until the early hours of morning, KTV (karaoke) places are open 24/7 and you’ll always find food no matter what time you feel hungry.

Taiwan has the largest collection of 7-11 convenience stores versus any other place in the world.  You’ll often find at least a 7-11 and maybe a Family Mart on every corner in Taipei. The best things to buy inside? Tea eggs, snacks and anything from their large assortment of juices.

There are other great things to do in Taipei, but I’ll wait until I get there to document correctly and show you.

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¹The word normal in the university’s name derives from a usage now archaic for most English speakers. A “normal” college trains teachers. In the first decades of the twentieth century the term was still commonly used in reference to teacher training institutions. The word recognizes the leading role such institutions play in establishing educational standards—norms—for their societies. (from Wikipedia.org)

Ilan

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Location | Taipei

I’ve started to notice a trend with my posts: they’re getting lamer and lamer. Anyway, let’s reiterate what’s happened this weekend.

So I went to Ilan with the TTT people. On day one we went to have lunch after arriving at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. After lunch we headed to the Tittot Glass Museum. It was ok, small, and had a lot of nice pieces, but nothing new (I’ve been to the Corning Museum in NY, which is amazing btw). I got 2 glass animal figurines for $100NT though. It was of a monkey and a frog.

After the museum we headed over to Ilan. A long drive, but we made it. We stopped to eat dinner over there, then on to the hotel. Since we had so many people, we were split into 2 hotels, which was ok, they weren’t very far from each other. We went to the night market instead of going to the hot springs (too crowded). The night market turned out to be 5 food stalls and a bunch of people milling around. We went to Family Mart (like 7-11) instead. Then we went around… and we went to another 7-11… and walked back to the hotel. At the hotel we played Mafia for 3 hours. Eric, Angel, Alice, Joey, Doug, Nelson, Andrew and James were all playing. I never got to be the Mafia, but I was the nurse 2 times. I was the narrator once too…

The next day we went to Dongshan River Water Park… Joey, Angel and I went into the water.. we were fine for awhile, cuz we didn’t get anything but our legs wet… but then JOEY wanted to go in this tunnel that sprayed water in all directions… well though I had my bathing suit under all my clothes (halter and skirt), I got soaking wet and my shirt and skirt didn’t dry for hours later. Anyway, we had lots of fun being wet and trying to dry… The water smelled really bad…

Dong Shan Water Park - Angel, Joey and Me

Dong Shan Water Park - Angel, Joey and Me

After Dongshan we went to lunch then to this traditional arts village. We went to the giftshop first, and they had a lot of cute things to buy. I got these two pics that are on little motors and when you seperate them, the pigs come back together and kiss. So cute!! Then I also got 2 keychain things, one boy and one girl. Joey took the boy one -_-;;…

Ok so I started this entry 3 days ago and I never finished it and now I’ve completely forgotten what it was about in the first place… or what I even did over the weekend. Let me think. Oh yeah, I also got geta’s at the traditional arts village.

Joey with giant paintbrush at the Traditional Arts Village

Joey with giant paintbrush at the Traditional Arts Village

After all of that we drove awhile to Lion’s Kingdom Museum. There we saw a bunch of statues of lions and also went down by the ocean to take lots of pictures. It was so much fun!!!

By the water

By the water

Then we had dinner, and drove home. Too bad the way home was a huge traffic jam. It took us 2-3 times as long just to get home… we finally got home and I rode the long ass MRT ride and yay, it was fun!

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]

Deer, Dogs, Fish and Peacocks

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Location | Taipei

Today I fed a swarm of giant goldfish (koi), saw peacocks, rode deer and got attacked by a pack of stray dogs.

Let me go into detail…

So we all went out into the garden to film for our video and so the garden of the NPM has big ponds with giant goldfish (koi), swans, ducks and probably other miscellaneous things. Anyway, we fed swarms of goldfish. It was as if they were starving to death. Then they also have peasants, chickens and peacocks. They looked so cool! So sad though, their cages are small…

Joe-Jay, Joey and myself

Joe-Jay, Joey and myself

Then afterwards, Alan, Angel and I went down to the aborigine park and took pictures around there… including a picture of Angel sliding down a stone slide and scraping all the dirt off the slide to create a much cleaner slide… also, me cupping an aborigine’s private parts =_=;; and also riding deer. Oh yes, the riding deer part was the best. We wanted it on automatic timer, but there’s a pack of stray dogs in there… so me and Angel got on the smaller deer and Alan set the time and ran toward the big deer… this movement threatened the stray dogs and they started growling and barking and moving toward us… oh before we even got to the deer this big dog came by and sat down in the middle of the deer and started to lick its balls.

Riding some deer

Riding some deer

Anyway…………..

We took pictures on the deer and got attacked by those stray dogs… and then we came back to the National Palace Museum and here I am typing this up.

The End.

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]

Legpit.

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Location | Taipei

My legpit has a mosquito bite. Legpit is like armpit, but where your knees are.

I need to buy new clothes. I want a black swishie skirt. I also want other cheap clothes… SO NICE TO HAVE CHEAP CLOTHES!! I LOVE CLOTHESSS!!!

Ok, my clothing spending budget has now been bumped to $4000. I can spend that much… So far: $1000 + 700 + other random things…

Still need: shoes (there’s a pair for $1500 that I want…), bags… (iono yet) and probably fob shorts and fob shirts. :)

Ok!!!! Time to go eat.

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]

Joey Is Staring

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Location | Taipei

I am bored.
I have 1.5 more hours of work.
Is Tony coming?
Today I’m going to Shilin.
I am tired.
I want to nap.
Goodnight.

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]

Lovingly, With Heatstroke

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Location | Taipei

Its getting sweltering out there. *sigh. I’m bored right now. Let me talk about this weekend though…

I went to Bashen Water Park in Bali on Saturday. Dave got us free tickets!! Thank you Dave :). Anyway, it was tons of fun and I hope that all of us can go again soon. I want to go on August 6th or 7th. Clear your calendars everyone!! Let’s go!!!

Doris and I at Shabu-Shabu after the Waterpark

Doris and I at Shabu-Shabu after the Waterpark

Anyway, I’m really hungry right now, so I’m gonna go and die of hunger.

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]

Today

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Location | Taipei

Words to describe today: humid, Danshui, mini turtle, fishball soup, stir fried noodles, beetles, high voices, bubble tea, cute little kids.

What happened today:
So, as usual, work. A bunch of really little kids came to visit the museum today and Doris and I went into the exhibit to take a look. They were so adorable!!! Doris even petted a head… lol! Like they were animals in a petting zoo. Later a lunch, Doris, Joe-Jay, Joey, Jean, Andrew and I were all on the bus going to Burger King. Well Jean was going to Shilin, which is a few stops after the Burger King stop. We get to the BK stop and Andrew and I get off and we look behind us and the bus is driving off, yet Joey, Joe-Jay and Doris are all… STILL ON THE BUS!!! We see the bus driving further… until it stops and the three of them come clamoring off. Other than that, the day was pretty uneventful.

After work, we (Andrew, Joey, Alan, Angel, Doris, Doris’ friend Kingston, and Joe-Jay) went to Danshui. Joey’s cousin, Candice, went with us too. First Andrew, Joey, Angel, Alan, Candice and I went to dinner, since Doris had to go get Kingston and wait for Joe-Jay. Afterwards we did a lot of walking around and sightseeing. We really like playing the claw game!!! The only thing we won was a mini turtle though.

We walked around for a really long time, just checking out things and chillin’. The guys took home huge “Taiwan Beer” blow-up plastic thingies. We all chilled in Starbucks for awhile… without getting anything at all. I guess it saved us money. I really wanted to eat the bird eggs though. They’re so good!! Maybe I will go to Danshui for dinner tomorrow too!

Overall, it was tons of fun and I’m glad that everyone had a good time.

Oh and Joe-Jay sat down and fell backwards into a pile of trash. Joey spent a long time trying to understand what “girl issues” were. “Why would a girl not be able to go into water?” Doris ate a penis chocolate and didn’t understand why we were all giggling like little girls. The condom shop has some really explicit photos… hehehe.

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]

Again

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Location | Taipei

Welcome newest members to my evergrowing family: Angel (a mei mei), Doris (a jie jie) and Joey (a di di!). All I need to do is start collecting husbands. Theresa already collected 2!! I’m jealous. Teehee.

Ok, let’s see, the weather has been pretty bad lately… well just cloudy, humid, rainy, etc. Stinks. At least its supposed to get a lot better this weekend. I think I’m gonna go see F.I.R on Friday, OR I will go to Danshui with a bunch of people. On Saturday I’m probably going to go to this Nokia snowboarding event and then go to this waterpark in Bali wit some umich friends. Sunday is the group 9 reunion. I’m not quite sure what we’re doing, but it looks like we’re going to Dingtaifung again. I’ve already gone 3 times.

Angel and I completed a lot of the scrapbook we made for Stella. Yay. At least that’s done for the most part. Its really cute!! I think I’ll make one for myself eventually.

Oh lately I’ve been listening a lot to the Postal Service. They’re really good!! I need some more music!! Please send me music! :) I’m gonna buy a 60gb iPod soon. I’m going to wait until September to see if they announce the creation of an iPod that plays video.

Other things on my mind: there’s this one person I really like a lot here. I think that I’m doing a really bad job of showing my interest because I must be giving off mixed messages. Its ok though, I guess if nothing happens this summer, then when I go back I can concentrate more on school, but I’d really like to have a relationship again.

Anyway, I should be researching for my paper.

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]