I went to the Zoo and Shilin Night Market :)

Thursday.

Well, I woke up around 11 and chatted till like 1 p.m. getting my University letter and stuff in order. I than thought, why not go to the Zoo? So off I went to the Zoo :O) and in somewhat of a hurry as they closed at 5. I put in a fresh 64 meg xD card into the Digital Camera and headed for the MRT station. On the way there, I picked up a egg burger for breakfast/lunch. Delicious :) and only $1.20? bout 30NT I believe. I got lucky the place was still open, I think they were about ready to close, as most of their business was about done for the day. There are 2 types of stores in Taiwan it seems, those that open in the morning and close in the afternoon, and those that OPEN in the afternoon and close at night.

Anyways, on the train ride there I started talking to someone on the MRT because they seemed to be going to the Taipei Zoo station as well (they were white so I knew they knew english :O ). Apparently they had also come recently and were trying to land a job as an english teacher. Interesting....

Well I got to the Zoo and started taking pictures. IT was HOT there! As soon as I got there I grabbed a drink from a vending machine. Now this is weird, a 600ml Nestea Ice Tea was only 80 cents, whereas a coke bottle was $1...shouldn't ice tea cost more than coke? Well it was good for me cause I prefered Ice Tea over coke. That was a good price, I thought since I was at an amusement park they would charge an arm and a leg for food but it was actually normal street prices inside there. Even admission was decent 30NT for student ($1.20) and 60NT ($2.40) for adult. Well than after paying and getting a drink I headed for the animal cages, after all thats what I did pay my $2 for :) Now I get to the first area and the stupid animals are inside their little mud homes. I think they were some sort of kangaroo/deer hybrid. Not sure, I will post pictures next week of all the animals at the zoo, but unfortunately it was really tough getting pictures for the animals who were living out doors. The lazy animals, including the koala bears were inside some shelter cause it was too hot to be outside. They probably were laughing at the humans who were sweltering in the 30+ heat trying to grab a peak at them. I must say, it was dumb that the zoo was not open till later in the evening when its cooler, since otherwise half the animals would never come out and just stay asleep. Than there was the monkeys, they loved making faces, but the minute I took out my camera, they would turn their back at me. It was soo annoying, and they pretended like they weren't doing it on purpose. Granted I did not pay a HUGE admission fee, but I WANTED pictures. argh. Well after the monkeys I headed over to the elephants which were much more accomodating. The hippos were also quite good about showing themselves, although they were sooo large they didn't have much choice. Surprisingly, I also saw several indians there, more than I had seen anywhere else since I had been in Taipei. I will leave it at that, lest ma friends start making jokez of finding so many Indians at the Zoo. I than went to the reptilian section, but than ran out of storage space on my Camera :( Hopefully, by next week I will fix this issue. The turtles were quite pretty, there was a lot of them, but it was weird how the other visitors were eyeing them, not like animals to be studied, but almost like they were pointing at which ones they wanted for dinner. Very weird. I also saw a lizard that I was 90% sure was dead. I also saw some Brown Bears, you know, the ones that are like everywhere in the Canadian wilderness? Well as someone from Canada, I can tell you their Brown Bears were not normal. First of all, they were really really thin, what do they feed these guys? They looked soo sad and skinny, it was really sad to watch too. Secondly, their fur was soo short, it looked like it had been cut or shaved, it was really thined out. In summary, the bears didn't look like bears, but hairy monkeys. This is what happens when you take a bear used to forests and cold weather and high protein diets and ship them 20,000 km to a tropical country where they are subjegated to 30+ degree temperatures and chinese food.

I than headed back to the exit cause I was getting bored. It was still very hot outside so I grabbed another drink, yes only 80 cents for 600ml Ice Tea bottle :) It than started raining :( Stupid weather network said it wouldnt rain, like 30% chance, bahh...luckily it only rained for like 10 mins, so I wasn't too wet. Basically, morale of the story is to ALWAYS carry an umbrella with you. Once I got back on the MRT, I decided to go to the Shilin Night Market, as it was about 4:30 p.m. and I could get dinner/snacks from there. It was still a bit early for the night markets, as they weren't really open yet, so I walked around the neighborhood to kill time.

I passed by Sea World, the Taiwanese version of an aquarium, guess what, $400NT approx for admission, screw that, wayyy to much. So I just killed more time by walking around. I than walked through the Shilin night markets as it was about 5 and they were open. Wow, once again I was astounded by the variety of foods, although most of it was meat. The deserts were quite impressive as well. Truly good food here. I bought a tofu on a stick, it was BBQ'd, it didn't taste that good, but it was decent. I also grabbed some cold noodles for dinner later that night, once again my broken mandarin came in handy :) (I am vegetarian), hehe. Ya, so the lady than just gave me noodles with some shredded cucumber I think. She asked me whether I wanted the sauce hot, I was like definitely, since everyone knows how bland chinese food is. I than headed to the MRT station, but passed one of these clothing stores with nice dress shirts. I bought one, cause it looked good and I would be starting work soon so needed some shirts. I got a blue one, it was like $200NT ($8) so I figure I couldnt go wrong :) Anyways, on the way home I also picked up some bubble tea to have with my cold noodles (in hindsight, very good move!). I also asked the bubble tea lady where I could get some egg fried rice (but in chinese, I had written down the chinese words for it) I think its Dong Fang Chow or something. Anyways, she didn't know english so drew me a map to the restraurant, which was quite nice.

Well, I got home and started to eat my noodles and type on the computer. Woa, the noodles were sooo hot after I put the spicy sauce on. Dang, it was soo hot, I was in tears, I used like half a box of tissue and most of my drink trying to eat the noodles. I definitely learned my lesson, from now on I will respect Chinese noodle sauce :) Anyways, after I finished I was too lazy to move my box from the desk, which was a BIG mistake, because it fell over right onto me, covered my t-shirt, shorts even my socks and leg and made a huge mess on the floor. I had to work fast, because I knew the roaches probably hear my shriek and would come for da food. Luckily I had bought the paper towels and mop earlier in the week. I cleaned up the mess and put my clothes in a plastic bag and tightened it. Now I really had to find a place where I could have my clothes washed...crap. I than typed up this journal entry and its now 8:30 p.m. I should take out the garbage, cause the ants and roaches might be attracted by the smell of the sauce...um...I kinda feel sick from the noodles now, they were soo hot. Perhaps the bakery is still open, could TOTALLY use some sweet buns, maybe a coconut one or something.

p.s. I opened the blue shirt, its nice, a bit of a tight fit, next time I will go with large instead of medium. Its half-sleeve, not long sleeve as I originally thought. Quite good, I will definitely buy some more of different colours next week. At $8/each these are great, I may even haggle them lower when I buy several.