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Last Friday, I left work in the afternoon and made my way to the high speed rail station. That train is definitely 'high speed'... it went almost 300 km/hr and got me to Taipei in about an hour and a half. I got off at the Main Station in Taipei and made my way to my hostel. It was definitely a strange place... It was in a building called the k-mall and had 25 stories of all types of businesses from language schools to gyms to a guitar lesson studio. Took me a minute to find my hostel and as soon as I saw my room, I decided that I would look for a new hostel in the morning. My room was more like a closet that they shoved a bunk bed into and tried to pass it off as a hostel room. Worst of all it smelled like mold and didn't really have a window. But there was no time to complain at that point... I rushed downstairs to meet 2 of my former students from Kaplan. It was definitely crazy to see them. They took me to a hookah bar that was actually pretty cool. (I think they took
me here because they came down to San Diego one year while I was there for Christmas and since not all of them were 21, I took them to the hookah bar that I used to go to before I was legal). Anyway, we had a good time reminiscing and then it was time for me to head back to my smelly room and pass out.
The next morning I went to check out of my hostel, when they let me know that they had another room available. I checked it out and it was much better than my previous room, so I decided to stay. After changing rooms, I met up with another former student of mine, Emily. She is actually friends with Marco and he sent me an email before she came to Kaplan giving me the heads up that his friend was going to be in town. She's super cute and while she knows enough English for us to have a conversation, there was definitely some confusion from time to time. I met up with her for lunch (or as she would say: lunchy) and we went to this great place that used to just sell
tea, but now it's a restaurant that uses tea in the food recipes. There was a bit of a wait when we first got there, so we went next door to the Chiang Kai-shek Residence Park. Apparently, some ruler and his wife used to live there and they created these beautiful gardens on their property. It was only recently that the garden area became open to the public, although the house is still closed. After a walk around there and a delicious lunch, we tried to decide what we were going to do next. As we hopped on the bus, I thought we were going to Taipei 101 (now world's 2nd tallest building... the one in Dubai has just been completed and is only about 1,000 ft. taller 😉. Anyway, it wasn't until we got off the bus that I realized we weren't going to Taipei 101, but actually, we were going on a hike. At lunch I was talking about how I like to go hiking and she was surprised because the girls in Sex and the City were not the outdoorsy types, so she thought all American girls were like that. Other than that, I have no idea
where she got the idea to go hiking. I'd usually be more down for a hike, but that day was the hottest day in Taipei so far this year (about 100 degrees) and I was wearing a dress. Despite that (and the mosquitoes of course), it was actually really nice. There is the University at the top of the hill and from the campus, you get a great view of the entire city. Emily called it the "poor man's view" because to see the view from Taipei 101, you have to pay. From there, we hiked our way down 3km of stone steps. By the time we got to the bottom, our legs were shaking. We decided to head over to the Shilin Night Market (probably the biggest one in Taipei) where we stopped for a much needed shoulder and foot massage. We spent the rest of the night wandering around the market.
On Sunday, I met up with Emily and another student of mine, Mona. Mona was actually in my very first class, so it was really crazy to see her since it had been almost 2 years. Her English is a lot better than Emily's, so I
was really glad that I hung out with just Emily on Saturday since on Sunday, she pretty much let Mona do all the talking. We met up for lunch and then went to Core Pacific City. This place is crazy because it's in the shape of a huge ball, but it's next to (or should I say inside) of this mall, so you have to take these escalators to get inside of the ball part. It's really hard to explain, so I'll be sure to post pictures soon. Next we went to Taipei 101 to check out the inside. We were too cheap to pay to go to the top (and I hear the night view is better anyway), so we just walked around, got some ice cream and then went into the osim store (a place that sells all sorts of crazy massage chairs). We pretty much stayed there until we were kicked out and then it was time to say goodbye to Emily and Mona.
On Sunday night, I did the most "American" thing I could think of to celebrate the 4th of July and I went to see Usher in concert (or as many of the
Taiwanese people say- Usser 😉 I went with some of Marco's coworkers that came up to Taipei for the show. One of them knows someone who knows someone who got us into to front vip type area. My friends were super excited because there were tons of famous Taiwanese stars there- everyone from musicians to athletes to the "Kim Kardashian" of Taiwan. The show started about 30 minutes late, and I wasn't surprised that the first thing Usher did when he came out on stage was lift up his shirt to show his 6 (or should I say 8) pack. There was loads of audience participation and it was really funny because he would point the mic out to the audience and expect them to sing the lyrics and it was pretty quiet. I was also surprised that no one was really dancing- everyone just stared at the stage and half the people were taking pictures the entire time. It only lasted about an hour and a half, but I have to say that I enjoyed experiencing a concert in Taiwan. After that we went to go and get something to eat. My friend ordered me something vegetarian... when I
asked what it was, he typed it into his translator, and it turns out, it was gruel. I've never had gruel before, but I must say that it's tastier than it sounds. After that, I headed back to the hostel, passed out, and woke up in the morning to catch the train back to Kaohsiung and go to work that afternoon.
Unfortunately, I felt like I was getting a sore throat on Friday and by Sunday night, my voice was gone. I woke up early on Monday to call into work and see if they could find me a sub. When I got home, I went to bed thinking that they heard me talk and there was no way they'd expect me to come in and work. Well, they couldn't find a sub for my first class, so they called me in and then asked me to plan the lessons for the next 2 classes for my sub. Other than a couple of hours of tutoring, I haven't been doing much besides sleeping and drinking water. I still feel pretty shitty, so if parts of this post don't make much sense, that's why. Hopefully I'll get better soon. Overall
it was a great weekend in Taipei (minus the getting sick part), but I must say that I think I made the right choice in moving to Kaohsiung. The people down here are so much friendlier and the lifestyle is a lot more laid back. I will definitely be going back to Taipei, but only to visit😉
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