Our wish came true

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...and we had a wonderful Ikea bed to sleep on and slept till noon. But I'll back up.

We got into the airport a little after midnight and first had to pass through immigration. We had to look up our hostel's name and write it in for the guy to let us pass and as we were going down the escalator to the baggage claim we met Pablo, a guy from Spain. He's been living in Taipei for a while and offered to share a cab with us. The bus that would take us to Taipei Main Station was running, but we didn't know how much a taxi was supposed to be from there to the hostel, and we knew from their website that from the airport to there should be around 1,300 NT so we decided to take the guy's offer of 1,500 for the three of us.

The drive actually took quite a while and by the time we got to our hostel it was 2 in the morning. There had been really thorough and complicated directions on the website on how to get to the hostel, but there was a red sign for it with an arrow, so we just followed that down a darkened alleyway and came across the place. We rang the doorbell and one of the people staying there let us in. The person working wasn't around so we just went into the room where this other guy was staying and snagged two empty bunks.

In the morning I went out several times to try to find someone who worked there and I finally checked my email a little while later and saw that the owner had emailed me back about my reservation...so I went out and found out that he wasn't actually there but that one of his employees was. So I checked us in, they scanned our passports, and I paid 200 for the key deposit before showering. Normally the dorm is 350 but since it's under construction there's a 50 dollar discount. They're remodelling and also building a cheaper room to stay in but it won't be ready for a while. Anyways, the guy who checked us in had just started working there so when he showed me the women's shower he was like, "Oh no, they're drilling...you'll have to use the men's" and proceeded to explain that it was very tricky and was probable that I wouldn't have hot water. I tried and it was like ice so I didn't even bother to get my head wet. When I was leaving I saw the women's shower and decided to try it. Guess what...perfectly warm water with great pressure. So I re-showered.

The day was overcast but we headed out with some others from the hostel...an Italian, a German, and a Asian-American from San Francisco. The latter had eaten at a nearby place the other day, so we all went there for food. It was only 140 for two iced milk teas and two sandwiches...pretty good.

We headed to the Ximen metro station because Mikele, the Italian, had researched a restaurant there that was toilet-themed. The dishes were little ceramic toilets, the cups ceramic urinals, and the chairs were toilets. You could even take home a plastic urinal as a souvenir.

After the poo restaurant, as we were calling it, we just walked around the area before heading to the Longsa Temple. The temple was really colorful and had tons of lights, had music going on, and was just generally full of life. Pretty much the opposite of the stillness and quietness you find in most other places of worship. After seeing the temple we went to the nearby Hue Xi night market and ended on one of its streets called "snake alley". People here sometimes drink the blood or venom.

Click here if the video above doesn't work.

Then we headed back to Houshanpi to the hostel, grabbed some beer, and watched Die Hard.

Anyways, the hostel is really nice and has a great ambiance although there aren't many females staying here...

Technical details
-Driving Side: Right (just to clarify again, the car is on the right side of the road)
-$1.00 is about 29.4 Taiwanese dollars (written on signs using "NT" or their Chinese character)
-Taiwan is not as dirty as China, but still has trash around. The Asian-American from our hostel opened a band-aid while we were walking to the restaurant and threw the wrapper on the ground. I picked it up and said, "Hey, don't litter!" and he said, "Dude, it's Taiwan". Whatever. Don't litter, people.
-people do not speak English
-the Manila airport tax was a whopping 750...each!
-Taipei metro EasyCard: 500 (100 deposit, 400 credit)
-The toilet restaurant is about a 5-10 minute walk from exit 6 at Ximen station.

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Photos

the table next to us
it's a sink!

Longsa Temple
the sticks on the left say something and they throw two little rounded pieces (like a part of an orange) on the ground to ask questions about their future