Taipei, Taiwan: Day 1

Hey guys. Today was my first full day in Taiwan... =) It feels great to be here...and strangely very normal. Although I am still incredibly exhausted (still feel like the world is sideways?) I had fun. ^.^ Erin and Rick took me out for dan bing and fried radish cakes this morning. Dan bing is kind of a mixture of scrambled eggs, tortilla, cheese (or whatever filling you want), and sweet soy sauce. It was quite good (and warm... XD) Despite how they sound, the fried radish cakes were not bad. Not my favorite, yet, but they were better than I expected.

After breakfast I followed Erin around for a bit while Rick went to work. Unfortunately this is the end of the school's semester and thus the busiest week for Erin and Rick. Erin took me to a large cell phone corporation's headquarters (entirely by accident...the bus driver didn't stop at our stop and took us to the next one...teehee) so she could pay her phone bill. -Interesting fact: You can pay all your bills at the 7-Eleven...unless you pay it late...then you have to go to one of their offices. - We then stopped by her office and then headed out for lunch. We went to a teppanyaki buffet ~ I got to choose from a table full of yummy-looking asian food and then payed NT58 for all of it. (Roughly $2). It was awesome. =) I have decided to save all of my food adventure videos till later so that I can put them all up in one video...and not bore you all to death. They will be up on AmaDruNinja soon. =)

The weather is...typical Taipei weather. =P In the dramas it seems like it is always raining and the characters are running around with umbrellas or forgetting umbrellas or trying to stay warm... Well, now I understand. I learned that there is a belief here that if you let the rain touch your hair, your hair will fall out. I think this stems from the prevalent acid rain in this region... Every place here has a stand outside of the door for you to leave your wet umbrella while you are eating or shopping. It is pretty nifty! All the of the people are super friendly, too. The nice thing about everyone being so friendly is that when you make a mistake or do not know Chinese...they understand and do everything they can to help you. The sad thing is that some people take advantage of this and do not even try to learn the language or culture. Rick told me about some missionaries who have been here for 9 years who do not know any Chinese. That astounds me.

I am debating on what to do tomorrow...I am thinking either going on a day tour of Daan Park and the Taipei Zoo, or traveling on the MRT to see this place Erin was telling me about. (I forgot the name but I will be going there sometime during my stay here...so I will tell you then!) Apparently the zoo has penguins and pandas and polar bears (oh my...?) so I will take lots of pictures/videos if I feel so inclined and post them up here (and/or Facebook) for your viewing pleasure. ^.^

For those of you who were worried about my challenges with directions, please fear not! Today I made it back to the apartment without getting lost (I took a detour through the back alleys... XP). I know the landmarks I need...Erin has given me her business card so in case I get lost I can give it to a cabbie and stalk Erin. AND....she has also very graciously lent me her phone (which has a google maps feature) so I can see exactly where I am and where my destination is. =)

So, I think I am going to go play with uploading my videos and posting them on YouTube now.

再見!