Taiwan Part II

After dinner that night, we went to this lounge/bar somewhere in Taipei. It was really, really nice - very swank, very chic - and I was completely underdressed for it. Matt said it doesn't matter, he goes underdressed all the time, but I told him that it's because he's a boy and very foreign looking, but I'm a girl, and I don't look all that foreign looking. Speaking of which, it was really funny when we went around, because people will look at me and speak Chinese all the time. I'd just kinda look at them...and then look at Matt, and he'd start speaking Chinese to them. Hehehe...it was funny. Matt said he liked that because it was unpredictable.

The second day in Taipei, we went to a whole bunch of places, like 101 (the tallest building in Taipei (I think...)), where we went up to look at the view of the city, we went by the square where the symphony plays and the theater is and the Shilin night market. The most interesting, I think was the night market. There were a whole bunch of people there...like, it was ridiculously crowded, and I was really afraid that I was going to lose Matt, but I didn't. There were lots of food vendors with things on sticks, abnormal animal body parts (such as animal feet, heart, blood sausage) AND THEN....there was something called stinky tofu. And it's exactly what it sounds like - it smells like middle school boys' socks after a week of wearing them during gym. I happened to avoid eating the stuff, despite Matt's persistent efforts to get me to try it.

The last day, Sunday, we didn't go to church (if I go to hell, it's Matt's fault), but we did go to the Keelung to have a seafood feast with some of Matt's co-workers. They were super nice and had very strange names like Seventeen and Sirius. I guess it didn't really surprise me when Matt told me that people choose their English names later in life, because that's basically what happens with people in Korea, but Seventeen? Either way, they were cool people, and Seventeen happens to be the owner of a particularly cute baby. He was soooo cute. I wanted to hug him and squeeze him and kiss him and hold him and love him and take him home with me forever and ever. At one point, he was just sitting there on his dad's lap, and he yawned the cutest yawn ever, and then just fell asleep. It was SO CUTE.

Okay....moving on (I just had to slap myself a couple times there).

Unfortunately, it rained all freakin' day. We were gonna go to this mountain thingie where you can pick calla lilies and eat food (something like that...I love calla lilies), but it was raining so we didn't go. But we did go to the National Palace Museum, which was really cool. On the way there, we met some Korean girls who are students in Taipei. They got super excited that I was Korean, and they wanted us to take a picture with them (that was kinda weird), and one of the girls even wanted to get my email address and stuff (I hope she doesn't pimp me out or something).

The museum itself was pretty neat. Old stuff is always neat to me, but then again, I'm a big fat nerd. I always wonder how people got around to creating some of the stuff that they did. There was this one thing that looked like a large ornament, and the ball in the middle was made of one piece of ivory, and it has at least seventeen layers of carved ivory inside. It was pretty crazy. I wish I could've taken pictures, but I think I might've been tackled by a big scary Taiwanese dude if I had. The last thing that we saw was this bok choi cabbage that was made of jade. We thought it was pretty cool, but when we went down to the gift shop, it was all over the place. Lucky we got to see it. We had limited time, and we didn't get to see everything.

That night we found the jade market, bought jade for my mom, then went to dinner at another night market with Matilda. AND THEN....I learned how to do a Rubics Cube! We had to leave the next morning at 6, and Matt hadn't packed yet, so he stayed up and packed, and I stayed up and did the Rubics Cube. Matt's a pretty good teacher - much more patient that I am - and he used the self guiding method whenever I had a question or wanted to pull my hair out from frustration. Anyways, around 2am, I finished it! YAY~! I should've taken a picture, but I don't think people would've believed it anyway.

So now I'm in Gwangju at my oldest uncle's house. I basically arrived at the airport and was put on a bus for four hours to come here. My ass was not happy at the end of the night. Thank god Matt forced the little pineapple pastries on me, because that's bascially all I had to eat from 1pm to 10pm. I probably would've died if it hadn't been for those delightful little things (don't worry, I didn't eat all 8 of them or whatever, I only had 2). Anyways, I had a good time in Taiwan. I wish I could've seen more outside of Taipei, but time was limited. Maybe...next time?