Advertisement
Published: August 21st 2006
Edit Blog Post
This first blog is parts from an email I just sent out to friends and family!
First off: The Weird things in Taiwan
~ Taiwanese pick their nose in public!! SICK
~ NO flushing toilet paper
~ Laws are suggestions only, no one follows them
~ No chewing gum, drinking, or eating on the subway...we saw 2 foreigners get tickets
~ Cheese is hard to find and very expensive
~ Restaurants are as cheap as buying groceries
~ There is a 7 eleven on almost every corner
~ McDonald's has rice cakes for buns
~ Nobody buys things in stores, just night markets
~ You cannot drink the water, you must find a giant water cooler
~ They like to stare and point at me
~ Everything is sooo cheap here
~ Stray dogs are everywhere, and they are picky when you give them food!
~ You can only buy tampons in Taipei
~ We eat rice and soup for every flippin meal
~ NObody follows traffic laws, and they WILL hit you if you are in the way
~ They eat snakes and drink their blood in snake alley
~ My feet are too big for the shoes, they
rarely have over size 40 (I'm a 42 grrrrrr)
~ The men who cant get girls in the states come here to get girls
~ The foreign men here are mostly weirdos
~ It is very dirty here
Ok I am sure there are more and I will continue to add to the list as time goes on. When I went into this I figured it would be similar to Japan and boy was I wrong. The Japanese are very clean but here things are dirty and I feel filthy after walking in the city. Most days my feet are black from wearing sandals, yeah its gross.
FOOD: (This used to be my favorite thing, now I dread meals)
Some of the smells here are disgusting enough to make you puke on the street. Such as stinky tofu, it smells like dirty feet and trash mixed into one. I puked a little in my mouth when first smelled it. When they kill an animal they keep it entirely intact. So you will see who ducks, pigs or chickens as you walk down the street. I am seriously considering becoming a vegetarian while here cause with meat you never
Waterfall
Waterfall outside of Longshan Temple know what you're gonna get. They dont even cut the bones out of anything and they eat every part of the animal....I let you use your imagination! There is seafood like nothing I've ever seen, the variety and colors are amazing. The fruit I think is some of the best in the world. The mango and pineapple are like candy.
I am sure you are all wondering about Snake Alley....well it is very popular with the local and they go here to watch snakes and turtles die a painful death. For the turtles we saw them shove a screwdriver in their heads then they chop it off the head. Once the turtle has been set down it the head and the body were still moving, I almost lost it here. Then we went on to watch them kill a snake by clipping its head and suffocating it, Then they drain the blood and save it for later. They continue to cut it up to where eventually they will serve it to eat. They save the snake blood and intestines to drink with liquor which is supposed to be a natural Viagra. During all of this the locals seemed to have more fun watching out reactions! We also did run screaming when they were going to feed a huge cobra a guinea pig, that was just too much.
After that fun we were trying to find good food to eat and I suggested we cut through and alley to get back to the main street and low and behold I lead us into the RED LIGHT district. It was full of men and scantily clad women, we were pretty amused since not only is prostitution illegal so is the killing of snakes obviously this is not enforced, we didn't even have to look far to find it.
Those are just some of the crazy things we have seen so far, but overall the people are very nice to us and they love to practice their English and they are more than willing to help us. Yesterday I visited Taipei which is the capital city and has the tallest building in the world and it is modeled after a piece of bamboo. The mall was WAY out of my price range because I was all upscale stores. We did find a McDonald's and a Subway for lunch and we ate at both, haha. I was craving western food already.
Another interesting thing to point out is the temples. We have yet to figure out if there are more temples or 7 Elevens, because they are everywhere! The temples here are amazing. The carvings and paintings are absolutely breathtaking, they are like 3-D masterpieces that have withstood hundreds and thousands of years. Be sure to check out my pictures on webshots to get an idea of what is here.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.777s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 14; qc: 62; dbt: 0.7231s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Debby Weidman
non-member comment
WOW
Your experiences so far are just amazing!!Glad to hear you are settled into an apartment. Your mom told us that you were not living with the family afterall...but I'm not sure why you decided to leave unless it was for the obvious reservations you had before you left USA. Look forward to reading your journal. I will keep you updated on my kids as well although the stories I'm sure will not be as exciting as yours. I have 27 kids so far but we are going to hire a new teacher to make all our classes smaller. I am very grateful for that. School starts Aug 30. Take care and I am praying for you and your safety. Love, Mrs. Weidman