taiwan trip

so like you know, i'll never get around to doing this and eventually forget about it, and it IS one of my more memorable events, so here i go, forcing myself to write this crap i'm spouting.

So when I waited for boarding, it seems some people I know who's going back home to Seattle on the same flight as i was met me by accident. To be honest, every time I go to the airport alone to go board the plane somewhere by myself, I always, ALWAYS meet people I know in the Starbucks lounge, even if I'm not actually going to Starbucks. It's weird, it's like an impulse people have to gather at Starbucks, then recognize me even if I don't recognize them since, you know, I don't have any will to go to Starbucks after seeing such a queue.

So anyway, we parted ways in Taipei, and I went to the immigration thing by myself. Filled a form (helped by a kind officer in my very limited Chinese, where I can ask him stuff but can't understand jackshit what he's talking about), and poof. Took my luggage downstairs, and went out. The airport is pretty much the same as I remembered it was. Not that I remembered much, but it looks pretty similar. I got picked up by my dad's partner (or friend, or whatever relation he has to my dad), left the luggage in the airport (not just anywhere, in a particular shop for that), and waited for the bus to go to the high speed train station. Maybe I'll just call it shinkansen since it's really similar to it.

Long story short, got to Tainan in around 1.5 hours (Tainan literally = Tai South) from Taipei (Tai North). Got picked up by the dad's friend's boss (!!!!!!!!!), and dropped off in a nice hotel. Seriously, it was batshit insane. I could not believe I could have stayed in a hotel like that in my age, alone. It was fucking awesome, and I can not stress that more. Free wi-fi internet too! The name of the hotel was so fitting. "Justwin". Just. Win.

Breakfast was actually more decent than the buffet I had in the hotel in Taipei (it's Tainan anyway), but well, to cut to the chase, the boss' son and dad's friend (let's call him R from now on) took me around to places and accompanied me in seeing NCKU. It was like.. I dunno. It was really crowded, the road was really congested (mostly by motorcycles too), and it was hot as hell. Hot as in OH MY GOD IT SCALDED MY SKIN hot, not DAYUUM hot. Wasn't too fond of the place.

Next, we took a shinkansen to Taichung (Tai Middle/Center lol) to see NCHU. It was smaller than NCKU (which is HUUUUUUUUUGE), but by its own standard, NCHU is LARGE. Lots of vegetation, it was pretty nice.

After the tour, we went to the night market early (around 5pm) to apparently a place where R has worked for 4 years. A lot of food they gave; dou hua, pork and egg and bakut and whatever wrapped in a bun, ice thingy, shao mai, and ji pai. I tried chou dou fu at the time, and GOOD GOD IT DOES TASTE BAD. I knew about that particular delicacy from the last time I went to Taiwan, but I didn't actually bother to taste it after seeing a black liquid being poured while making it.. which smelt like the sewers.. now I know. It tastes like crap.

By that time the boss and his daughter has came as well, so after all is said and done we went to the shinkansen station to drop me off as I am going to Taipei. By myself. Alone in the train.

Welp, nothing really happened, so let's skip ahead to the Taipei station where I wandered around trying to find uncle Henry (not really an uncle, but an old friend of my dad) who said he's going to pick me up. I was thinking of picking up a public phone to call him, but he found me at the right time.

He's Taiwanese (or Chinese, idk), born and bred, and he's really, really, really, really kind. I can NOT stress that enough. He really does everything to make sure I'm comfortable, even though I'm only staying there for like 2 days. After he took me around to Ximen Ding (which he explained, is also a huge hangout place for youths), he brought me back to the hotel (which is just beside Ximen Ding) and before leaving, gave me a red packet. "A little gift from uncle", he said. IT'S 10,000 NTD. TEN THOUSAND TAIWANESE DOLLAR. IT'S A $300 BUCKS' EQUIVALENT.

Jesus. I was shocked. I panicked for a while.

The next day, I walked around with no particular place in mind, until I realized that I saw a maid cafe in Ximen Ding. Went to the hotel, used their computer and got onto google (no wifi there, pfffft. cheapos.), and searched around for the best rated maid cafes around taipei. There's one called fatimaid, so I went there by taxi (can't find the place). Checked out my things, kept them in the hotel, and there I go. It was.. meh. Seriously. I would give that place a 6/10. If it was a tad bit cheaper I would've given a 7/10. Not worth it for me. Small place, a really really western environment (which admittedly is quite calm), and only a small selection of comics, Japanese or Mandarin.

After I walked out I found out that the Taipei Underground Mall is nearby, so I walked there. I remembered from google seeing some mentions of it being great to search figures, etc.

It was amazing. Lots of imported stuff from Japan. Too much for my eyes to handle, I daresay so myself. In one store, I caught Vocaloid music 「ワールドイズマイン」 and some Touhou music (I'm not sure, but I'm sure it's one of those doujin music). Cool store, seriously. It has 2 of the figures that actually caught my eye during my short trip to every store I could find. (in a certain radius). KnK Ryogi Shiki PVC fig and F/HA Rin PVC fig. Ended up buying Rin since it was cheaper (less than $50 ffs) and smaller, so I can carry it easily. Not to mention I still favor Rin more than I do Shiki. Pics if I can be bothered.

I bought lots of Jap magazines, and I am delightfully surprised by the posters that are in the magazines. I didn't ask for it, but it's still awesome. Also bought 2 posters for around 10 bucks each, and they're in a shop called "Animate". Google it. It has shops in Japan and Taiwan, but none anywhere else.

It's getting late (2:24am), and I'm getting sleepy. Saving more for tomorrow, I haven't blogged about the other maid cafe. It's too bad there are no pics, since I am too retarded to bring a camera along with me (left it in the US). The other maid cafe was awesome with the gundam model and the figs and the atmosphere and all. Oh well, that's for tomorrow. Hopefully, next time I'll be able to blog on the concert too.

Reminder for next part:
- NTU (this happened before the maid cafe fiasco thing)
- factory
- how TAIWAN IS FUCKING AWESOME AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD IF YOU HAVENT GONE THERE YET
- lol dorms
- etc