第十六日

Well, here I am in my house. In America. No night markets here, no meals under $5, no good transportation infrastructure. No bubble tea. Do I sound like I'm happy to be home?
But I guess that's Day 17.
Here's how Day 16 went.
Woke up after 2 hours of sleep to throw last-minute things into the suitcase in a sleepy haze. Went down to 7-11 to grab a final meat-bun for breakfast and some Hi-Chew for the plane. Loaded up the bus.

Hung out at the TP airport for an hour and a half waiting for the plane to Tokyo.Anti-smoking emotional blackmail!

I was conked out for the plane ride to Tokyo. No flu-inspectors this time because all of the inspectors started getting really sick from being inside those tin cans full of germy people we cal planes. Serves them right for trying to quarantine me! Nah, I hope everyone's ok for real. But serves them a little bit right.
Then it was time for a 13-hour flight to Detroit! They showed two awful dog movies and one good movie (Frost/Nixon). Guess which one I slept through? Hint: not Hotel for Dogs!
But it was better than the flight to Taiwan, so I guess I shouldn't complain so much all the time.
We had a SEVEN hour layover in Detroit, which was spent napping and eating hamburgers. ~How American~

But yeah, so it looks like my trip is all over. It's now two days later and I miss it so much. Yesterday was spent wandering around in a semi-depressed jet lag haze and today is only slightly better. In a week I should be able to leave the house!
Exaggerating, but you better believe I'm going back at the first possible opportunity.

Since I don't think I said a single bad thing about Taiwan this entire blog, here's something I wasn't a fan of.Yeah, that's right, crouch down, put your head right next to the uncovered trash can full of nasty toilet paper that we don't flush. A fine system!

Ok, there, that was negative. Fair and balanced! But really, I love Taiwan and everyone should go.

Thanks for reading!

第十五日

Last full day in Taiwan, but I'm not going to dwell on that. Que sera sera.
Christine - still being the nicest person ever - brought me breakfast! It was something like a wrap with bean sprouts, apples, cranberries, wasabi, and all kinds of other things that I didn't notice because I scarfed it down in about 15 seconds.
Ming Chuan has a ton of campuses in and around Taipei. We're in the Jihe campus, which is actually just a building that's in the best possible location if you like night markets, but today we went to the Taoyuan campus, which is much bigger and college-like.
We got to see an all-girls dorm (where one of the girls I went with is staying right now! So lucky)

Be prepared to put those hands over those hearts and get patriotic y'all because we're visiting the ***American Classroom***
Stop pinching yourself: that really is a HUGE flag behind a podium with the seal of the President on it in a room filled with colonial-style furniture and American historical figures hanging from the ceiling. Felt so at home.

We also visited the Japanese classroom where we promptly passed out.

These classrooms are used for language and cultural instruction in order to make the experience as immersive as possible - cool, right? They have kimono lessons, tea lessons, and all kinds of other Japanese-y things to do in the J-Classroom and I don't know like burger lessons in the American one.

This wouldn't be Taiwan if they didn't give us the most ridiculous meal ever. I actually have problems with eating too much because I forget that, after the initial 4 or 5 dishes set out on the table they bring about 10 more. So I end up gorging myself on the first few and am unable to resist the other dishes too! So full, all the time.The first course.

Back at the hotel it was packing time!!!! The exclamation points are there because packing is actually really boring. I was being facetious. It took forever and I'm sure I forgot things that fell behind the couch.
But! We had dinner at Din Tai Fung again! The day is saved! On the way we saw the taking down of the flag. It took about 20 minutes. To take the flag down. Military efficiency!
Now usually I would have food pics here, but you guys. We ate so much, so fast, there was no time to snap any photos. To give you some idea of how much our table of five (Go Team Godpig!) ate, we spent nearly twice as much as a table of eight and another table of five combined. Ooops. Apologies to whoever was paying for that! It was insanely delicious, though.
After dinner we met up with our People-to-People...people from the first day for some coffee, or in my case hot chocolate.
It was really nice to see them again. Hundreds of pictures were taken and emails were exchanged, it was all very fun and sad at the same time, knowing we probably won't ever meet up in the same group again.
After they left, Christian, Jane and I sang Karaoke with Christine, her sister Fancy and Annie. I can't believe the last night we were in Taiwan was the first we 唱了some KTV, it was so much fun! You get your own private room so you don't have to watch drunk old men gettin' their Queen on, you can just chill with your friends!
Taxi home, stay up till 4 being depressed, go to bed.

第十四日

Back in home sweet home Taipei and down to the last two days. I can't even believe how fast this trip has gone by; the first few days felt like weeks and then it was like they were tripping over each other to go by as fast as possible. I'm not even going to think about leaving, I can't even imagine going back to a place that doesn't have a night market.
But enough about that. Breakfast!
The thing that looks like a plum has the consistency of an apple and the flavor of a peach. 100 NT to anyone who can tell me what it is and where I can get it here. The lady I bought it from sprinkled some red stuff on top that I can only assume is cocaine, given how addicting it is.
We had a class in the morning, the Cosmos lady again. She's ok, but dang are we not on the same wavelength when it comes to thought processes.
She took us to her favorite vegetarian restaurant in Taipei, I got the curry and (woah Susi likes Taiwanese food??) it was awesome!
The rest of the day we hung out with Christine, a girl who works at the hotel we stayed at. She is the nicest person, took us shopping and to Taipei 101 and even to her house for dinner!
I went back to TP101 to search out some quality plane reading material, and boy did I find it.
Then we took the bus to Christine's family's apartment for the most delicious meal of the trip. Behold:
The four of us (Me, Jane, Christian, and Justin) ate until we looked pregnant and were then allowed to take home doggy bags! So awesome. After dinner it was game time! We played a chopsticks game (not to brag or anything, but I beat 2/3 Taiwanese people. And the whities, of course) and some card games. What made these super fun, however, was the punishments that were doled out to the losers.Christine has the deadliest head-flick known to man. They also had a cat. It was shaved because it was too hot out. I want a shaved cat.
Everybody look at the nicest family in Taiwan (and Annie)!
It was really nice seeing a typical family, especially such a welcoming one! We rode an abandoned train back to the hotel and hit the hay.

第十三日

~~FIELD TRIP Day 2~~
An early early morning, a breakfast of french fries and other assorted foods, another bumpy bus ride.
First stop: Yilan Center for Traditional Arts. Mostly a really huge gift shop, but I did see some cool things!

Would I pay to go again? Eehh. But it was interesting to see once. We had Italian (??) for lunch - very good though. My dessert was mango cake!
What we did after all this was probably one of my favorite things we've done the whole trip. We got to bike through the tea plantations in Pinglin! It was so beautiful and hilly - sharp curves meant near-death for me many times. Christian and I went way faster than anyone else and thought we were lost for a while in a jungle full of angry bug sounds. It all ended up fine, though. I love love love bike riding!

See the tea?

This little girl absolutely killed everyone else at playin' hoop: future Olympian, no doubt. A long bus ride later, we were back at home base, reeking of sweat and ready for our spa-quality showers. A dinner at Heineken (what we called the restaurant across from our hotel) and it was time to hit the night market!

第十二日

~~FIELD TRIP!~~
A late night + an early morning + one of the most harrowing bus rides I've ever experienced = headaches and bellyaches galore!
But who cares about all that when you're driving along the coast of Taiwan? Not this girl!It was insanely pretty, but also insanely dangerous because carving a road into a mountain is hard work and they stopped after one lane. This is usually ok, it's not a huge thoroughfare or anything, but sometimes two tour buses play the slowest game of chicken ever in order to establish who will back up and let the other pass. Our noble driver, whoever he may be, didn't lose his cool even once, not even when we bumped into a rival tour bus full of waving Japanese ladies.

After 5 hours of bus-ridin' fun we stopped by an aboriginal (I feel awful but I don't remember which tribe!) restaurant for some of the sweetest views and yummiest food.Where it was.What was eaten. With the exception of the fish head. Old habits die hard.

After the grub, we wandered around the hillside for a bit and came across this little fella, mewing like a cat!

I didn't touch him for fear of starting the monkey flu. Everybody back on the bus! This time: all the way to Taroko Gorge. After sleeping through the introduction video it was time to hit the trail!We did not cross this bridge. But pretty sweet, right?Cave of the Water Curtain! The ponchos helped for a bit, but then mine ripped halfway up my torso. Not very effective.

A pretty place, Taroko Gorge. I wish we would have had more time to explore, but I am not complaining considering we got an amazing dinner for free (or at least I didn't pay for it).
The way dinners are done is often on a huge lazy Susan, so you have to be quick to grab what you want. The next time it comes around it may be gone.
The hotel we stayed at was not as nice as our Jihe one, but it was more than livable. The worst part? The shower.
No shower curtain to speak of, so everything in the whole bathroom got completely soaked every time a shower was taken. Hualien is a pretty city, though!

Since it was raining pretty hard we all piled into a hotel room all night and played cards.