Rain, Rain, Go Away!

This past week has been... off.

It's been raining all week, for one. Rain just makes everyone lazy and bored. Secondly, I've sort of fallen into a routine these past few weeks in Taipei that got upended this past week which made it all feel sort of... strange. And it makes today, Friday, not really feel like Friday. It feels more like a Wednesday or something.

Usually, Monday is nap day. After class, I come back and nap. This has been my ritual for the past few weeks and I like it that way. However, Monday I watched TV shows and sat in my room huddled up in a blanket because I was feeling slightly under the weather. I think I might have done something as drastic as start homework early after my last blog entry. Crazy, right? My memory fails me for the most part on Monday. Must have been a boring day.

Tuesday was the gym, and then Hooter's for dinner. Yea, they have Hooter's here in Taiwan and I know what you guys are thinking, and yes, the waitresses in Taiwan Hooter's have hooters. Har har. I suck at finding return presents for people but I found a few of you presents at Hooter's though I'm pretty sure the people I'm thinking about right now don't read this anyway, so whatevs. Oh, and the food at Hooter's Taiwan sucks, definitely bad compared to Hooter's America, or any other Taiwanese restaurant I've been to. And by sucks I mean, mediocre, not so great. Afterwards we walked back to Guo Qing and on the way stopped by a few shopping malls. All the malls in Taipei sell really expensive stuff and it made me wonder; how many people actually shop in these malls? I mean, there are a LOT of them, and they are ALL very expensive. And given how low the standard of living in Taiwan is (I mean, food on average costs 3$) how many people can afford a 100$ jacket? Also, similar to my realization that service in Taiwan rocks, when the mall is closing and you start making your way out, ALL the works line the aisles and bow as you pass them. It's really, really creepy. They are all lined up like soldiers and bow in succession, and at the escalators they chant "Thank you come again!" in Chinese in unison while they bow, as you reach their level. And at the end, when you leave the main entrance, there's like 14 people lined up ready to bow, and six cute girls holding the door ready to bow and chant too. It's pretty crazy and a little creepy, to say the least.

Oh yeah, it was raining Tuesday too.

Wednesday is usually the day me and Jenn go out and do something ridiculously awesome but as it was raining, we were limited in the scope of things to do. First, though, my class and I went with our teacher, Weng laoshi, to Shilin to eat mien mien bing. You may remember mien mien bing as clouds in your mouth. The stuff is awesome.

I should introduce Weng laoshi first. She is the teacher for my first and third class, and she's a riot. She's nice, funny and tells the most hilarious stories. She teaches us slang, especially in the third class, because Ted is in my third class. Anyway, we went to eat mien mien bing with her and it was actually pretty fun. It was sad that it was so cold and rainy outside but the mien mien bing was still delicious and welcome in the hot Shilin market.

The beautiful front gate entrance to NTU.

Jeremy, Romin and Weng lao shi walking to Shilin.

Weng laoshi, Romin, Leanne, Jeremy and Casey waiting at Shilin.

Shilin by day. As with most things in Taiwan, Shilin is much prettier at night.

I cut my hair off, this is how it looks now.

Weng laoshi claims her mien mien bing was good, but it looks kinda like puke. It has pinto beans and corn in it. Can you say blargh.

Shilin at night. Told you it was prettier!

The other bad thing about rain in Taipei, besides not being able to do anything, is that everyone takes the MRT instead of walking or scootering or bussing around. That makes the MRT especially crowded; you can barely move in the station, people are so packed in there.

Afterwards, Jenn and I went to Pizza Hut for dinner, since we had both been craving pizza. Little did we know, Pizza Hut in Taiwan is sort of a big deal, and we ended up eating all you can eat pizza. Flavors they need to import to the US immediately: Kimchi BBQ Pizza, Japanese BBQ Pizza, Black Pepper Chicken Pizza. Freakin' DELICIOUS. Afterwards, we went to Wu Fen Pu, which is a huge, HUGE, HUGE outdoor shopping district. When I say huge I mean... like you could walk for three hours straight, get lost, and not see the same thing twice. It's huge, dense, narrow, tight. It's packed and full of clothes and shopping but about 98% of it is for women. The other 2% is either really ugly and fobby guy clothing or really nice and outrageously expensive guy clothing. It was raining, there was hella people, people kept swiping by on scooters, and I couldnt' find anything I liked, so we headed back home early.

Thursday it rained some more, so Chow De Kai, Michelle, Jenn and I first went to go to temple to pray, and then tried to find refuge in Taipei Main Station. Taipei Main Station is a stop on the MRT line but inside there are three separate malls. Outside of Taipei Main Station you'll find a huge, eight story mall and the NOVA electronics superstore I went to near the beginning of my stay in Taipei. After perusing around the Taipei Main Station, we came to this conclusion: all three of the malls within Taipei Main Station suck, but the Breeze Center food court we went to in Taipei Main Station is AWESOME. It has EVERYTHING your hungry, hungry stomach could ever want. But Thursday was also my third day of trying to shop but failing miserably. Someone up there clearly doesn't want me spending money on clothes; everything is either too ugly or too expensive!

Today, Laura, Tiff, Jenn, Ted and I went for a night about the town. First we went to Gong Guan to shop a little; after three days of failed shopping for me, I finally found a few things that I liked. I will return to Gong Guan later to buy them; I didn't want to carry them around with me all night. After a short stay at Gong Guan, we went to eat Din Tai Fung. Din Tai Fung is the same dumpling place as in Arcadia, except this one is way, way larger. The service in Taipei never ceases to amaze me: as soon as your tea cup is less than 3/4 full and hits the table, it's instantly refilled. As soon as you clear a dish, it is taken away. I'm talking instantly. Once, the our tea cups were empty and Ted made a huge, huge fuss about it, messing with the waiter and refusing the tea because we had to wait more than two minutes for it. The waiter knew we were messing with him, so mei guan xi.

Afterwards, we walked around Daan Road, which is a narrow, packed road full of food. I mean, FULL of food. I was sad I didnt' bring my camera because I was afraid it would rain, but it didn't. This place is a food MECCA, cool restaurants everywhere and down every alley. We stopped at this ice place to eat ice with various toppings; mine had boba and taro balls. This place apparently won like a million awards for their stuff; I thought it was just ok. Then, we went to a Haagen-Daz store, which took me for a surprise. Unlike America, Haagen-Daz stores are really fancy, and a very luxurious experience. First of all, this store was three stories tall. Second of all, it was a sit-down experience with a menu full of different types of ridiculous ice cream sundaes and concoctions. It was crazy! We ended up having more dessert than actual food, which is our surefire way of heading towards diabetestown.

It finally stopped raining today, which is a good sign. Hopefully the good weather will keep up. We've got a pretty full weekend on our plates, so until next time, zai jian!

-Justin