Today....2 days before Typhoon....

Journal Entry for... June 29, 2004.

Where to begin...once again sorry for not posting more pics of the food, once again today I ate the food before I could photograph it, and unfortunately I also forgot my camera. Still no work permit :(

I had a job interview with an english teaching skule, and it went great, I killed the english test, my score was amazing :) :) :) Part-time english teaching would be pretty fun, since the school only teaches people 17 or older, and the school is really beautiful. The rooms all look like they came out of designer magazines, with neon lights built into glass floors, and beautiful wooden furniture and plasma screen t.v.'s. The tour I had was great, and the teaching material is all provided for.

I went to Shilin Night Market, and had some great food, BBQ mushrooms, tofu, and eggplant. I also got a mango milkshake and strawberry ice/milkice.

I had some problems with my bank ATM machine by my house, the stupid one by my house doesnt have an english menu, so had to have a friend help me withdraw money.

I should hopefully start working in a few days :-] Didn't do much last week, and a typhoon is coming, might hit Taipei later this week, so work might be cancelled on Friday...its the equivalent of a snow day in Canada I think, although the weather today was just beautiful.

I will try to post again later this week, in the meantime check out my updated pics :)

Updated my pictures

Hey,

Please visit http://www.imagestation.com/member/index.html?name=cutiepieJr&c=201 for updates to my picture gallery, so you can see how my adventures have been progressing. Unfortunately, you may need to make an imagestation account if you have not already made one, sorry :P.

Yu Ming Mountain

Today I went to Yu-Ming Mountain. It was awesome, so beautiful at the top, and the air is soo clean. It was a welcome change from the dirty and smoggy air in Taipei city. The mountain is really close, like 10 mins drive from Taipei city, but going up the mountain takes about 40 minutes, since a lot of steep and rather sharp turns. My friend was really nice to take me there today, as I know driving there must've been quite a hassle. Oh, before I continue, I had Dambi for breakfast, it was delicious, check the picture Food section for a picture of it. Its like egg wrapped in flour tortilla, very delicious.

The top of the mountain was quite cold, extremely windy. It was not like Canada cold, as although it was windy, the temperature next really went below room temperature. I couldnt get too many clear photos as it was quite foggy. Yet, the plants there were very beautiful. I was told there are a lot of wild cows there, and I saw a sign stating how we should not beat the cows, but I did not actually see any of them. Apparently they hide on the weekends from all the people that flock there. Walking around the mountain, I came across a jungle that had a waterfall and a very hot jungle. I sweat a lot about than, because the sun had come out from under the clouds. It got quite hot around than so we decided to call it a day, as my friend had a previous engagement later in the afternoon. Yet, even though it was hot, it was still quite nice to be able to smell and breathe good air.

I got a virus~!

Yesterday(Monday) was interesting. I did my laundry and had planned to go to the CKS Memorial Hall, which is dedicated to the founder of China. Its supposedly a very beautiful monument filled with all sorts of things, like the two cadillacs he was driven around in and such. Unfortunately, I went outside and it was really really hot so had to go back home :( But later at night I went out to play basketball and badminton at a high school with my company.

The high schools in Taiwan (at least some of them) are gigantic! Its kind of like a prison in that they are heavily gated and the exits are closely monitored. I first thought it was so there wouldn't be any trespassers, but my friend told me its so the students can't escape. The high school really was quite large, on a daily basis probably was host to at least several thousand, maybe even 5,000 students. The basketball court was on the top floor of the high school, and below it was another gym (ping-pong) and below that the badminton gym. First time I had seen so many gyms in one school. There was also a very large track and field athletic area in the back of the school. I will take my camera next week and take pictures, otherwise very tough to describe the size of the school. Their atrium was gigantic, must've had over 20-30 trees in it. Granted their foyer didn't have a roof, but living in a tropical country it doesnt really need one.

Basketball and badminton was really awesome, but extremely tiring. Afterwards I was beat, literally soo tired. When I got home around 10 I was really really tired. I changed my clothes and went back out for some food. Unfortunately, unlike Canada there really are not many late night stores like Tim Hortons (or any donuts stores) or Wendys or Burger King that is open late. Only 7-11 and other convenience stores are open except in the specialty pub/nightclub areas.

Tuesday

Tuesday my body hurt sooo much from the previous night, I pretty much didn't do anything. This just goes to show how out of shape engineers get from all the studying we have to do :P For dinner I had pizza with David, at some Pizza Hut knockoff, I think the place was called Napoli or something. The pizza was not good, it was similar to pizza hut quality, but really weird toppings like corn and peas... Their mediterranean pizza is weird too, it has like fish and mayonaise on it. OMG, the next time I get back to Canada, I am gonna eat sooo much Pizza Pizza pizza its not funny. Seriously, i miss Pizza Pizza so much, their pizza was soo good. David didn't know what I was talking about because Pizza Pizza is a Ontario only chain, none in B.C. where he is from. There was some pizza left over that I put in the fridge. The first time I ever brought food home after the roach incident, but i figured since I was storing it in the fridge it should be ok.

Wednesday

Today(wed) I went to help out at the YWCA and had the left over pizza from the previous day for lunch. After the YWCA I came home and slept as my body still hurt from Monday. I went out around midnight for a snack, I was able to get an egg sandwich, a caramel pudding milkshake and 2 chocolate bars. Wow, what a snack LOL. Unfortunately, besides 7-11 and other convenience stores, not much else is open.

This week so far has been quite...relaxing. Lets hope it stays that way :) Sure am beginning to miss the food back home, been so long since I had a burger, decent pizza or some Indian food. I can get pretty decent pasta here, although its definetely not like Olive Garden quality.

Oh, I got a computer virus and my computer seems to be rebooting lately due to the heat here. I will be buying some more fans for it soon. The virus seems to have been cleaned out, I guess it was just a worm or something. For all those concerned, it was just a computer virus, and my personal health is fine :)

ATM Ate My Bank Card!

Ok, yesterday (Friday) was kind of a bad day. In the morning, I went to the ATM and tried to check my bank balance, but instead of giving me my balance, it just spit my card out and flashed some message in chinese. Ya, like thats very helpful. I was quite hungry, so I went to the bakery and bought this loaf of bread for like 85NT cause it was supposedly delicious Onion bread, but when I got to the YWCA office I opened it and found they had put ham inside. Apparently, the baked ham inside of it, which sucks. Anyways, I gave the bread to the staff at the YWCA and they loved it. I than did some work there from like 1:30 p.m. to approximately 3 p.m. David than met up with me and we (I) got some food. Stinky tofu and cold noodles, it was really delicious, the place we went to made really good stinky tofu, I was quite surprised. Cheap too, like $85NT as well LOL. Magic number of the day? We than checked out this giant computer mall, as he wanted a special fan and I was thinking about getting a t.v. tuner to watch some english t.v. The t.v. tuners there were quite cheap, about $40 Canadian and some had built in FM tuners and others even came with a remote control. I didn't have enough cash so post-phoned the investment. We went back to the YWCA at around 5 p.m. and I did some work for another hour or so. We than went to this underground mall shopping for more price comparisons of computer hardware.

I than suggested we go to the Ximen area, about a 10 minute walk to get dinner. Unfortunately, we got lost and instead of going West we went East and our 10 minute walk turned into 30. One the way to the Ximen Shopping district (near Ximen MRT station), I stopped at a bank to withdraw some money but this time instead of giving me money or even an error message, the machine ate my card. Stupid machine, apparently it thought my PIN code I entered was incorrect, and I had done it once already that day, and twice a few days earlier. So, the machine ate it, and I was left with no ATM card :( Anyways, we still made it to Ximen, where we had dinner at Pasta Bar, a fairly decent pasta restaurant. Shopped some more and than went home.

Later that night, around 10 p.m., I was asked out to some Italian restaurant/pub because they had a live band. So I went, got there around 10:40 p.m. and found it was somewhat smokey there, so wasn't that good but I really liked the music, it was really good albeit somewhat loud. I think around 12:45 I left there, and naturally the MRT closes at 12, so I walked home. It was a great night for a walk, the weather was marvelous. Taipei weather really is quite nice at night, although the smog still remains.

So in hindsight, Friday was not that good. Today was better. I woke up, played a computer game all day and went to a pub at night. This pub was really good, the music was great, really good english dance and R&B that you might not even get at a Canadian or American Dance Club. Best of all, I was driven there and back home :) Not by the club management though, but my friend.

Oh, I got a phone call about an english job, I may check it out later for getting some extra dough. Nothing really to report, I have updated my images on imagestation so you can see more pics of Taipei, especially at night and such. Please check it out, as a picture is worth .... words.

Shilin Shopping and YWCA Volunteering

Today I met a new friend and went to the Shilin night market. Amazing, I got 4 shirts for $650NT! If I looked any better in them, it would be a crime. Dang....just amazing. I also got some kewl strawberry on a stick thingy, it was coated in some sort of hard transparent crunchy candy. Too bad the MRT closes at midnight, so I had to wrap up my shopping spree somewhat early today. Will be volunteering tomorrow at the YWCA, as I had also volunteered there yesterday. Basically, I help them respond to letters that they get over there. I also went to a really great pasta restaurant yesterday called Eurostar. Afterwards, went to ice monster, where I got like strawberries on top of a bed of ice. It was amazingly delicious. Next time I will remember to take pictures of the pasta, but did get some of the strawberry ice dish.

No dinner today, $2 wasted :(

Today was ok. I slept most of the day because I went to bed at like 5 a.m. from the previous day. I went to taipei101 today and had a late lunch with a friend around 5. The freaky thing happened around 12 p.m. (midnight).

I had bought some cold peanut noodles and a tea egg for like $2. When I went back to my apartment, I saw a roach, but before I could kill it, it ran under the bed. I sprayed around da bed and hoped it would die. Well, I put my food on the table and started unwrapping the boiled egg. Than I heard a noise and saw the GIANT roach crawling up the wall and onto the ceiling from the other side of the room. It than jumped and flew towards me. I leaped out of my chair grabbed da raid and sprayed it, dang it was huge. Than I had a roommate throw it in the garbage for me. Unfortunately, I completely lost my appetite, and with all the raid floating around in the room, figured it wouldn't be safe to eat the food. Dang, :( I threw it out and emptied my garbage can. Dang. The bugs here are insane, they are totally not afraid of people. In my opinion, once you remove the bugs, Taiwan is a really great place :)

End of my 2nd week in Taiwan

Today was officially the end of the 2nd week I was in Taiwan. I went to the National Palace Museum and the Shilin Night Market. I ate quite a few dumplings today, and am drinking some great almond milk bubble tea while I write this. I must say, right now, life is good :) The weather started out raining in the morning, it was boiling hot in the afternoon and beautiful and cool in the evening. Today was quite nice :)