Hot springs, Taipei 101 and dinner on a mountain

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Landy and I went to some hot springs yesterday- it was one of the most interesting things I've ever done. It took about 30 minutes to get there by cab. The service was amazing- there was someone waiting to open the cab door at the street and someone met us outside of the building to walk us in. It looked like a spa.

We got there a bit early so we decided to have a snack. It was 'high tea' time but we were hungry so Landy asked them if they could make us pizza- (pizza was not on the menu.) They said it was going to take about 30 minutes so we were joking that they probably ordered it from Pizza Hut, but when it came it had definitely been made there.

Finally we got to go in. I had brought my bathing suit, since that's what I've worn at every other hot springs I'd been to, but it quickly became apparent that we weren't going to be wearing any clothes at this hot spring. There are separate sides for men and women, and no one else seemed to mind walking around butt naked, so I stripped down and headed in.

There were about ten different springs you could go into- each had a different temperature and PH. In between each 'hot' spring, there were cold springs, which were freezing. Actually they were 25 degrees, which shouldn't have felt as cold as it did. There was one spring that we could only stay in for four minutes due to the acidity. It's supposed to be really good for your skin.

The restaurant we went to afterward had an amazing view of the city and the food was so good. We had sweet potato fries, sweet and sour shrimp, some weird greens that you can only get here (kind of like spinach, but crisper and sweeter), pork buns (which Landy pronounced as "pork bungs"), beef ribs and of course, more Taiwan beer.

It's so hard to eat everything with chop sticks. I couldn't believe we were supposed to eat the beef ribs with chopsticks, they were huge! Landy asked for a fork and knife for me, which was a little bit embarrassing.

Yesterday during the day I went to the National Museum which is supposed to be one of the best and most famous museums in China. There were some really cool things there. I loved the calligraphy. They had some scrolls that were done with ink rubbings that were beautiful. I would put them up in my house (if I had one). There were too many Japanese tourists there though, and all of them wanted to practice their English with me. I escaped after about an hour.

I also went to Taipei 101 which is the tallest building in the world right now. I paid 12 bucks to go to the observation deck. In the elevator they turn the lights off and the ceiling has glowing stars on it . The woman working the elevator said some kind of speech in mandarin like she was in a trance as we went up, it was bizarre. I can't understand one word of Chinese, spoken or written. The word for thank you sounds like "shit shit"... I can't even say that properly because you need to draw out the words. Every time I try landy says it's not right.

Anyway, the observation deck was pretty cool but it's so smoggy here I couldn't see much beyond the city limits.

Tomorrow is Landy's grandfather's funeral. I've been invited to have lunch with the family afterward and I'm a little bit nervous about it. I didn't bring anything nice to wear, so hopefully it isn't a really dressy occasion.

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