Day 31 - "Freeeedooommmmm"

Day 31 - 18/1/10

• FINAL Weight Change: 70kg -> 75kg (+3.55kg in Tainan, +0.45kg in Japan, +1.00kg in Taipei)

Before I start this entry I should say "NO MORE FOOD PHOTOS!!" I think that is a relief too all my readers :P

The plane lands and all the passengers pile out. We wait behind due to our excessive amounts of carry-on luggage which they fortunately don't pull us over for. Back in Australia again, although in a tired state I feel like I have regained my life and my sanity. Everything will be back to normal again soon, 3 more weeks. For now I still have all my friends :)

Last day of my diary, marking the completion of a one month project. Again I have completed and published a massive piece of writing during another 'boring' trip back to Taiwan.

Stepping out of the plane was like WOW... boarding the plane at night in Taiwan was around 14 degrees and getting off it was 28 degrees, double temperature is a huge difference and you instantly see everyone stripping off layers of clothing it was so hot.

You gotta love how cheap alcohol is at duty free stores inside the airport. It's a shame the limit is 2.25L per person. Dad used mum's quota and took out 4.5L while I got myself Midori, Sambuca x 2 and Kahlua :D Time for some fun times when a certain someone gets back ;)

Still gotta love the racial discrimination, all getting off the same plane from the same country, yet all those with blonde hairs, look Australian can walk through customs fine, while all the asian looking people get pulled over and the luggage flipped inside out. Australian's are carrying the same food items we are carrying as we just came from the same country! But nooo... must detain the asians! Furthermore, the more asian you are the more you luggage gets inspected. Therefore 3 aisles beside us going though the checking process and they were getting all their clothes and stuff taken out. While we only got a boxes opened up with a brief look and he looked briefly at the plastic bag of lollies I held up to his face without even opening it. The reason for this difference was again, race, race, race. I did the speaking and from my accent and my ability to speak English normally the guy was very friendly and didn't seem to care much, the other tables however had people speaking asian-english, the people going through their stuff looked pissed and also had a bad attitude and had to go through everything. It makes a big difference the way people treat you just by the accent you speak, it's kinda unfair. The worse case scenario that I saw on table 4 was the inspector opening up a suitcase, opening a plastic bag, finding a value bundle of 5 instant-noodles and opened that up, took one packed out and opened it up, pulled out the flavouring packet inside it and inspected that. In the end he says there might be seafood or meat in this packet therefore it's not allowed so he threw them all away :S I mean holy crap that was a very indepth search compared to us, and what's more those exact noodles are sold in asian groceries all over Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Even if Australians deny it, it's true that there are a portion of them that still do discriminate against foreigners in just the way they talk and interact with us, sometime I think they do it unintentionally or subconsciously, either way it's not very nice. In the airport one of the ladies directing us out the gate was very rude. We were travelling together as a family of course and she checked dad's passport and I handed the other 3 passports to her and said "We're all together" and she replied in a very rude and impatient tone "YOU can wait a bit". Coming from Taiwan & Japan where you would NEVER see this kind of attitude in an International Airport (or the staff would be fired on the spot), I was pretty pissed. Why can't Australian's just be more polite when they talk. "That's ok sir, would you mind waiting a bit, thank you" would have been sufficient, as I'm sure if I were a foreign tourist travelling to the country for the first time my impression of Australia would be terrible!

We then went to go board the AirTrain which is basically the same normal Brisbane train but runs into the airport. The stupid thing is they charge an extra $20 on all tickets per person just because the train is inside the airport. In other words if I boarded the train at the airport I pay roughly $24, however if I board it at the next stop away from the airport I pay only $4. That is a huge price difference for barely any physical distance. For the 4 of us it cost us over $100 for the trip! Bloody rip-off country - sorry I'm having a rage cause everything is suddenly so expensive after coming from Taiwan. Fortunately they are not smart enough to have a staff on the platform that speaks Chinese so the large population of asians coming in and out don't get lost! (took them long enough to figure out that Chinese is the most widely spoken language 2nd to English). I hate the places that have a sign in English with translations below in Spanish, Portugese, German, Dutch, Brazilian, Romanian and other far-fetched places but no CHINESE WTF... might as well have Antartican as a listed language.

The train took a painfully long 2 hours to get to Robina, as it slowly travels at somewhere between 60~80km/hr, stopping for ages on platforms, accelerating at a snail's pace as well. Again in Taiwan & Japan you're looking at 20 second stopping times and the normal subway travels somewhere around 200km/hr (bullet train is even faster!) and you can actually feel the accelerating G-forces on your body. Still haven't slept yet and it's been over 24 hours :( I'm gonna crash hard when I get home. Dad fell asleep on the train and is disturbing other passengers with his loud snoring lol.

Airtrain

I really want internet and kept trying to find wireless, then realising and getting annoyed yet again that this is Australia and there is no wireless anywhere, let alone free wireless or unlimited wireless. I told VV that I'd arrive around 11am although that was a terrible underestimation as I forgot how slow people service you through the Airport in Australia, how slow the train is, how irregular the train comes, how far you have to walk just to get anywhere and ... omg I'm just gonna stop bitching cause I can go on all day. I swear going from Taiwan & Japan back to Australia must be one of the most fustrating things I've experienced. The country is beautiful and all with it's nice environment and hot sunny days but it is seriously behind in technology and growth. I'd say the country is about 5 to 10 years behind Asia (which is even evident in the toys and entertainment they play/enjoy). Anyway I just want to tell her I'll be late, cause I'm not sure if she will end up waiting online for me to get back or anything and I don't like making people wait, especially her of course; but I can't! STUPID COUNTRY ARGHHHHH~~~~

Arriving in Robina at 12:50 after lunch, we are all hungry but yet I don't feel like eating cause I feel like shit due to the lack of sleep and just want to go home. Auntie picks us all up and takes us to Maccas then home. Luckily I emailed her yesterday telling her to turn on the electricity + hot water supply so we can have a nice shower at home then go to sleep properly for the first time in 31 days - I'm currently still on the train at this point.

Getting home was a great feeling, the first thing I did was turn on my computer! And voila, Vivien :) talking with her was a problem. I wanted to just fall asleep for once and not have to think about her for an hour in bed, but now I don't have the choice... zzzz soo tired. After eating, my bed was soo dusty and room was dirty from being untouched so I took out a camping airbed and went to sleep in my parents floor cause it had aircon. Australia is sooo freaking hot compared to asia OMFG. It's like nearly as hot as Vivien amount of hot, I can barely survive. Am now walking around the house in underwear with fans and aircon cause I'm dying of heat!

While eating Maccas I split dad's beer. So I went to the kitchen and wet a towel thingy and spun it on one finger then threw it (overhand) across the kitchen bench, half way across room, over the couch and hit sister's hand dead on as she tried to block it. It looked like I just did a perfect throw and a perfect catch. She got annoyed but I was like "WOW I can't believe how accurate that was!". So I tried again against her protests did the same thing but this time I did a forehand throw and to my suprise it would have landed splat onto her face if she didn't dodge out of the way. (Such luck today, must be the 29.5 hours of no sleep). Best thing was she was sitting down and I was standing so it flew it a beautiful arch! (Yes this is my random paragraph for today).

I had a dream that I went to that restaurant with insane business that I talked about one of the first few days in Taiwan. Except the owner wanted to go to sleep and people were still lining up outside his store at midnight trying to buy food, I was there as well and he was closing shop and rejecting customers as he had made too much money already. I was getting really annoyed that he wouldn't sell me food cause I was hungry and I was leaving Taiwan! I was like "Give me food damn it, it's my last chance to have good food! Please feed me" but I got turned away :(

Woke up around 6 or 7, lost track of time due to jet-lag. But mum and dad went out and bought alot of groceries while I was asleep and she cooked us dinner except I felt a bit groggy inside still so didn't each much (forced myself to finish the meal though as it was the last day of my diary and weight gain!). Spent the rest of the night unpacking our 'freight-trains' worth of stuff!

Cousins came over and asked me about laptops. Then another cousin come and asked me about uni stuff so was pretty occupied. Talked to Vivien in between, then she disappeared for a bit and I absolutely rolled 2 games of HoN after not playing for a month I was soo impressed with myself!

Afterwards stayed up late into the night skyping, something I haven't done for seemingly ever. Feels so refreshing!

Oh and while I was unpacking I broke my chair's footrest. I was sitting on it normally and putting my foot on it and I snapped the METAL BAR! Must be all the fat I gained. I have successfully gained 5kg in 1 month! Thanks to all the awesome food :D

Chair

Broken Footrest

Also there is a $900 limit on items being brought in from overseas. If you exceed that they will tax your arse off. Therefore techinically, my laptop would get taxed but to get around that all you have to say it "I bought this along time ago and I just brought it back for business purposes". For my PC that I bought, I took all the pieces out of it and stored it separately. Therefore when they asked what was inside the giant PC box, I said it was just a PC case only (which I wasn't lying) and opening it up, it was full of gifts and toys inside, easily under $900 :) I spent the night trying to upack my PC case which I have packed full very well so that nothing moved at all.

Packed PC

Unpacked PC

Open PC - Lots of Goodies inside!

Getting back on my normal PC gave me a shock. Both sis and I upon opening our monitor were like "WHOA when did the screen get so large!" after being used to seeing the 14" laptop screen for a month.

Oh well this is the last day for this diary. I have successfully completed my 31-day diary overseas as of today :)

Night, Shaun

Day 30 - "Goodbye Taiwan"

Day 30 - 17/1/10


One thing I find that humanity lacks. Remote controlled lights. This place has it and it sure makes life a lot easier not to mention makes you more lazy. Being able to lie in bed and turn off and on the lights its just brilliant :P

She's killing me, but I can't blame her. It's not like she had a choice and it's not like she wanted to put me in this much pain either. But still it just hurts... and I have no one to blame, no way out...

Grandpa is leaving today so I decided to suck it up and wake up early to go see him off as I'm not sure when I will ever see him again. When we got there the adults talked forever and I sat on the bed taking photos of the roof and walls (that's how bored I was). After the roof and walls became celebrities on my camera, I started on the blankets and the palm of my hand.

On the way out spotted this balloon art piece.

Happy Couple under a Tree

After that boring part of the morning was over, we walked home and on the way past a large flower market. The entire market was held underneath the highway! Lots of pretty flowers to be seen here and take photos of. Although we were short on time so rushed through it all.

Flower Market - The ceiling above in the photo is the highway!

Further on the way honme we walked through a park. It was the largest park I've ever seen, I can't see the exit anywhere :S There was a giant flower exhibition being held here with scultures/displays and events going on all made of flowers. Was the prettiest park I've ever seen and was decorated amazingly. Wish vivien was here to see it with me, she'd like it :)

Flowers, Flowers, Flowers

Flowers, Flowers, Flowers

Also in the parks were alot of street-performers. I was rather impressed with this guy who was playing music using a saw-blade. (Alot of the performers are blind/deaf/mute but are really good musicians - think Beethoven).

(video)

Old man playing the Saw-Blade

Other then that there were also a group of people practicing Fan-Martial Arts.

Fan-Martial Arts

Mr. Rich wanted to have lunch with us one last time before we left so invited 20 guests including us to lunch. As there were much more distinguished guests present, I was demoted to the 'kids-table'. So I got to see lots of kids and the cute baby who is scared of me :( Problem with the kids-table is that kids don't eat seafood much, thus the food on the table is less exotic/expensive then the adult table which had the usual abalone/crab/shark-fin etc... We had substituted in spring rolls and noodles lol. Who cares, I was victorious in eating despite being the only man at the table (so was expected to eat alot to respect the chef and also the person who ordered all the food - our host) since it was all mum's with children at the table. Here's what I had for lunch anyway (yes I photograph alot of food... I know):

ENTREES:

 Ginger and Egg (left) and Asparagus (right)

 

Potato (left) and Sweetened Nuts (right)

 

Soy Sauce, Chilli Sauce, Toothpicks, Floss Sticks, Serviettes

MAINS:

Crispy Skin Chicken with Salt & Peppery dip on the side

 

Oodles Noodles

 

Spinach?

 

Assorted Dumplings (2 x 3 Different Flavours)

 

Spicy Duck Intestine and Blood

 

Rwo-Bwyo-Gao

 

Give up on naming this one

 

Not Spring-Rolls

Sour and Spicy Soup

 

Garlic Beef Mix

 

Rice with Sausage Bits

DESSERTS:

Refreshment Towel and 2 Cute Flower Marshmellows :)

Not Red-Bean Soup

 

Egg-Tarts

DRINKS:

T

Water

I realised I lack a knowledge for naming food >_<

After lunch we went home. Being kinda desperate for no other reason then 'love' I guess? I asked my host to use his internet. So he unplugged his network cable and gave it to me and I sat in his living room and used the internet. His internet was very fast, I downloaded Vivien's 4mb song in <4 seconds. So here I was again connected to the world, chatting away with VV who has internet again and read and replying emails, slowly updating my blog as well. Until dad came up and asked me to go downstairs to start packing our bags. I put it off for about an hour, being distracted by talking to VV until sis came up and made me go down to pack.

We ended up with these 5 items to go onto the plane as well as 9 pieces of carry-on luggage + 5 (max size) boxes we sent off at the post office!

Our Luggage for the Plane (1 bag for each of your clothes, and 1 computer for me hehe...)

After packing and spending alot of time weighing and reweighing then redistributing our luggage to not exceed the 20kg per person baggage limit, I went back up stairs and interneted till dinner time. Dinner was home cooked! (That's like a first in 30 days lol) nothing too fancy to photograph although it tasted pretty good, meat and noodles.

We left for the airport, luggage miraclously packed into a small 4WD. After the 1 hour drive we entered the airport and the first thing I did was go get the little stamp that lets me out of the country without being detained for military training. (learnt my lesson the first time :) ). We then went to get the tax refund for my laptop but learnt a valuable lesson.

[To get a tax refund on a product, you must enter the country with a foreign passport] As we possessed both Taiwan and Australian passports, we used our Taiwan one to get in as it was faster, therefore I lose my $40 refund :(

Check is was screwed up, with the automatic check-in kiosks failing to read our passports. Alot of other passengers using Australian passports were also having similar problems. Ended up having to wait in a long queue, where I took advantage of the free wi-fi internet.

Security went through swiftly for all of us and so did the sign-in. We were 1 hour early so waiting around in the terminal for a while why I tried so hard to connect to the wireless but it didn't work for some stupid reason. Arghhh so desperate to send one last message before I left the country! (photography is not allowed in alot of areas of the airport thus the lack of photos)

Boarding the plane, found my seat and got annoyed being seated next to a person with broad shoulders as they take up alot of space. Althought maybe I can't complain either since I've grown fatter! The entertainment list still hadn't changed since Japan so watched 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' - Light/Kids humour, I didn't mind it at all although it was one of those 'where's my Vivi...' movies :P then watched an episode of 'House' for the first time - don't quite understand people's addiction with it, the diagnosis is too 'convenient' and too fast paced while the drama in it is so artificial. Finally the last movie I choose was 'Zombieland', Pure comedy despite it's horror-suggesting name. I think it was a combination of sitting in the seat for hours/eating air-plane food/turbulence/lack of sleep that made me dizzy and was unusual as I don't get travel sickness of any sort. Either way the dizzyness made it hard to enjoy the movie - wasn't too bad although nothing to amazing and it just made me wonder why the main character in romantic comedies is always the socially inept teenage boy who fails at courting girls and in the end due to some heroic or bold manoveur wins the girl and they live happily ever after. The End!

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

House - The Itch

Zombieland

After watching stuff I felt sorta sick inside so just listened to music, which happened to be Britney Spears and Marieh Carey as they were the only 2 artists that I knew well in the list. I tried to sleep but just felt so cramped I couldn't sleep on the plane, didn't finish breakfast either. The plane trip just seemed to drag on forever, never ending and they took back the headphones 20 minutes to landing which made it boring :(

Oh flight time was delayed for departure to 2230 (17/1/10) and we arrived 0925 (18/1/10) the following day, and since I didn't get any sleep the day never ended and Monday never started for me either.

Anyway onto Day 31 then since it kind of continues on...

Shaun

P.S. Goodbye Taiwan, you will be dearly missed. You and all your yummy foods and cheap everything and awesome nightlife. Furthermore goodbye family, I hope I will still get the chance to see you all someday.

Day 29 - "Shi-Men-Ding"

Day 29 - 16/1/10


Hurtling through the cloudy night sky, through the storm-clouds that trap us in on all sides. The roar, the violent tremors reveberate throughout the plane's cockpit. With a front row seat behind the pilot, I witness the darkness before us and a sudden flash of lightning erupts meter ahead of the plane. When the blinding light fades a small fragment of meteor appears before us, and as fast as it appears it disappears again colliding with the scalp of the cockpit sending pulses of lights throughout the enclosed space. Alarms go off and panic kicks in. One of the plane's control systems has just been hit! Without this to guide us, we'd be flying blind in a thunderstorm - suicidal.

Moments later we've made an emergency landing somewhere in Russia. Nearby are large hangars which house the training facilities used for the elephants of Cirque Du Soleil. The plane is evacuated and a wave of panic-struck passengers hurry across the debris filled landscape. Scampering to keep up with the captain as he heads towards to city center to look for supplies. Blackness - Fade out... "Shaun get up!", sister appears in the doorway... the morning starts, another day to survive, I don't want to get out of bed. Sleeping is the fastest way to past the time between us - why not anyway, it's miserable and raining outside.

Breakfast is served, the asian style - congee with sides and fruits to finish. Reminded of the huge lunch and dinner that await me and heeding mum's warnings I decided to eat very little. There's gonna be a very long marathon for my stomach to run today and I'm not going to like it. I'm actually starting to hate good food. (Too much of a good thing!)

Mum and dad are out, leaving us alone. They've gone to the gigantic park across the road that sprawls out next to the National University of Taipei. Here there are exhibitions going on, and on of mum's personal favourites; The flower exhibit where lots of pretty art pieces are constructed out of flowers. I wish I had gone, it's a holiday after all and things are only as good as you make them, and seems like sleeping was in order this morning.

Waking up around midday, we left on a taxi and travelled to the hotel grandpa was at. Here we met up with some of grandma's family (who were the ones that managed to get me on a flight that was sold out as they have connections). We all went to lunch:

ENTREES

Red and Green Chilli with Mini Sardines

Red and Green Chilli with Dried Prawns

MAINS

Sashimi, Fish Roe, Veges, Some unknown White Meat, Octopus, Beans

Chicken (un-EMC style)

Shark Fin Soup (mushrooms, coriander and other seafood in it as well)

Prawns circled with cucumber and tomato

Crabs (female with yummy eggs - females are illegal to eat in Australia due to their reproductive ability to keep the food chain going, but THIS...IS...ASIA!!!)

Scallops cooked with assorted veges

Pork (I think) sitting on top of lots of cut shallots

Hot Pot (all the standard hot pot stuff with prawns and pipis)

Fish

DESSERT

Fruit

DRINKS

(No Photos)
1 Litre of Orange Juice
1 Litre of Guava Juice
1 Bottle of 2008 Merlot Red Wine (privately fermented)
2 Bottles of random Red Wine

Again there was too much food! On the way out I visited the men's room. Here I saw what looked like an odd looking toilet. Any guess as to what it is? Try guess the thing on the right!

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Guess the square thing on the right!

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..
...
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It's actually a spew tub. It's designed for people to throw up in after they've drunk too much alcohol! Equipped with a flush to wash it down and a hose and mop for those who miss the target. I think College can use one of them and so can most clubs/pubs.

After lunch we went to a very popular shopping district called 'Shi-Men-Ding'. There was a maze of shops here with seemingly unlimited streets full of shops. Amongst them all were crowds and crowds of people mostly high-school/university aged and alot of street performers.

(video)
2 Performers doing a Robot Dance

Across the street there were two cool restaurants. One was park-themed and the tables were like park benches and all the chairs were swings. Pretty fun it seemed swinging around during lunch. (couldn't go inside without ordering to get a good photo). The other one was bathroom-themed! All the chairs were seated toilets (sealed closed of course or that would be very...nnnnnnn) and all the tables were bathtubs! (sealed). Nicely decorated with lots of of bathroom items and the lighting was generated from shower-heads fitted with light bulbs. Meals were served in mini-bathtubs and desert was served in a mini-squat toilet. The drinks were served in those things that hospitals use for patients who are bed ridden, the ones which patients pee in while lying down (pretty sure they are unused or at least I'd hope so!). Very interesting...

There was a fat guy in the middle standing on top of a platform listening to his MP3 and singing and dancing. Imitating the kind of moves that singers do on stage and he was really into it but he was really bad. He either had a mental disorder or he was on drugs, everyone just walked past and ignored him as he looked like a homeless bum anyway. Poor guy... he really wants to be a star!

Singing/Dancing Fat Guy - The sign in front of him says "I don't have money to get home and mum is sick, please help me"

We walked around but most of the shops were female orientated as usual. I wasn't in the mood to shop, I just no longer felt like shopping, I don't want to shop with anyone but her right now. So ended up following my family around until we all got bored and didn't end up buying anything. So caught at taxi and headed home.

Dad took sis to go get a hair cut while mum and I went home. Me being in a 'totally not wanting to do anything but pass time mood', fell asleep in an awkward position on my bed which led to pain later on. Random dream about shopping and mum told me to try on a shirt and I said it looked good and she had good taste and tried to unbutton the shirt to put it on but it took forever and I had 3 buttons left before I woke up to dad coming home. It was dark outside, I went to see sis' hair cut but being male, I am unable to tell the difference when females get a haircut (unless it is a huge/significant difference or someone I see alot - like VV :P ).

We were meant to go to dinner with grandpa but our parents decided to spare us the boredom and make arrangements to go to the night-street markets instead. These were different to normal night markets which are all stalls, street ones are actually store-fronts along a few streets. Mum's legs were sore so we took a taxi down the street and around a corner where we started to go shopping. Didn't buy anything except eat lots of good Taiwanese food which I'm going to miss alot for a few years that I don't come back :(

We tried to find somewhere to eat but it's amazing how every store is packed full with people lining up outside and there is always 1 store on every street in the middle of all the booming business that has 0 customers. Poor store owner, it must be very depressing to see everyone making a fortune on every side of you and you have no customers. I was standing watching one lady stand at the front of her empty store and a group of teenagers approached her store. I was thinking, "yay, she gets some business", but then saw they were asking her directions to go to another restaurant! Wow... that must have been terribly hard on her.

We wanted to buy some food for our maid as a present but by the time we were leaving the store we wanted had run on out food. So off home we went. On the way home I saw in operation a 2-storey bike rack. Due to the very-high population density here, there is no where to even park your bike. They have a huge 50 meter long bike rack on the side of the road and another level above it. It has a manual lifting system which allows you to mount your bike onto a steel platform and move it up onto the 2nd level. Talk about no parking space... Anyway we took a taxi home and sat at home and watched TV while I did my usual typing.

My typing spot

Dad needed to send an email but since we didn't have internet that was a problem. So time to abuse the fact that everyone has unlimited wireless internet in Taiwan and soo many aren't locked. Dad and I travelled up in the elevator and checked 12 and 11 floors where my host was living. They had wireless I knew but when I got there it was locked :( (would have looked funny on their surveilance cameras to see someone standing at their front door in the middle of the night with a laptop in a totally dark hallway). So that wasn't a problem of course, we just went down to ground floor, walked out onto the sidewalk and I instantly got 14 different wireless connections! Take your pick :P So got connected to the 'Real World' again and while opening dad's email I opened 7 tabs of Vivien's emails to read when I got back hehe and sent my dad's email at the same time. Yay for 1 minute of internet connection giving me access to all her emails :) Time to read and reply and hopefully send tommorow at the airport's wireless :)

Read and replied emails (which I might add took forever although I enjoyed it alot), ate some more food and drink, showered and went to bed. 1 day to go... my release... return to sanity...

Shaun

P.S. I love the feeling of singing in an enclosed space (toilet) really loudly and listening to your echo. Makes it sound like I can actually sing :P

Day 28 - "Julie"

Day 28 - 15/1/10


So tired each morning. Not used to dad's snoring. Last night I had enough trouble getting her out of my head, dad's snoring became secondary. When I did get to sleep, I got up half way through the night scratching and realised I had 2 giant bites on my head and neck. I had no idea what they were and was afraid it could be an ant in my bed. Years ago mum got an ant crawl into her ear and she said is was one of the most painful things you can experience from such a little animal, you'll want to claw your ear off. So I was scared and in the darkness I shook off my clothes, hair, pillow and my side of the bed. Dad being the super sleeper, didn't away through wall the noise and movement, I gotta admit that's impressive. So I got back to bed, convincing myself it was probably a mosquito and hit underneath my blankest and pillows which is really hard to breath and fall asleep. Eventually I gave up and slept normally, and then I heard it... the one sound my dad said can keep a human up all night. The buzz of a mosquito beside your ear. On one hand it was a relief as no ANTS! but that meant I'd have to put up with the mozzie which I couldn't find/kill in total darkness. I eventually managed to get to sleep only to wake up scratching again with a 3rd mosquito bite on my hand which is very easy to scratch and thus really annoying. Had soo much trouble getting to sleep, I ended up biting the bite on my hand hard with my teeth so the pain would overriding the itchy sensation.

Still, it would be selfish of me to sleep in as I'm stopping the whole family from going anywhere and enjoying Taipei. "Suck it up, fuck it up"... random new phrase I thought up for the situation. Grandpa was coming to Taipei today but that was scheduled for this afternoon. So for the morning we went out for a walk to the 7-eleven to post some items. (7-elevens here do everything from paying your electricity bills to posting items, it really is an all-in-one convenience store!). After that sis was hungry so we went found a subway while walking around the area which we are completely unfamiliar with.

Artistic short of the inside of Subway, taken with a 'Pastel Filter'

Photo I took while walking around. The photo focus on the the nearby tree to give the impression I'm hiding behind it. In the distance, a large pair of eyes glare back at me, but they are out of focus - symbolising that I am hidden and cannot be seen.

The path has been uprooted by the roots of the trees growing along the path. Public health and safety = non-existant :(

We decided that we wanted to visit a 'Science and Technology Museum', the ones that are hands on and you get to play with alot of cool contraptions while learning science at the same time. The only problem is we had no idea where to find one and no one we asked knew either. We were directed to go to a bookstore and look up tourist brochure and find something to do, which we did. I wonderered around in a bookstore where they didn't have ANY english books despite being next door to the National Taiwan University (leading uni here) and they also didn't have any books on music either :S Quite boring for me and in the end we found nothing to do. So we decided to walk about some more, at this point dad got a phone call which to me was from God himself!

It was from dad's friend who's daughter (Julie) I was 'acquainted' with. She was one of the only 2 friends I had in the country. For someone who has been deprived of any meaningful social interaction for 4 weeks, this was a god send. I finally had the chance to talk to someone my age in English! I had an umm embarrassing? past with her and hadn't spoken to her in 5 years so wasn't sure how this meeting was going to turn out. I was quite excited and at the same time nervous but it didn't matter as this was just simply relieving for me. She was to me as a balloon is to a drowning man. They saying goes "A drowning man will clutch at straws" and she was more like a temporary life bouy who gave me a chance to breath again until the balloon deflated and I plunged back into the sea.

So dad wanted to go see his friend which I agreed to hiding my 'want' as I didn't want to seem over excited about this as I'm sure they wouldn't understand. To me, any friend right now meant the world to me... anyone at all, I just needed someone in these desperate times. We took the MRT again, efficient/fast/packed we got off a 'Chi Zhang' where my dad's friend lived. It turns out he lives in the high-rise that is build directly on top of the metro-station (rich people!).

We were invited to their beautiful home on the 27th floor which had amazing views of the city and mountains, spying Taipei 101 over the mountain tops. Here we were served tea and the parents started talking, Julie walked out and I nearly didn't recognise her after so long. 5 years in your youth makes a huge growth difference in terms of appearance. More so, her 2 younger sisters were completely different, as they were basically little kid and infant the last time I saw them and now they had grown so much. It's just amazing how much people change I was semi-shocked. Their house had a karaoke room, I was soo jealous I want one soo much. And as usual, I'm surpised at how clean girls' rooms can be after seeing how messy emmanuel boys were and living with them :P As a formality we all went out to dinner.

Lunch was at a Thai restaurant next door. Fortunately it seemed that 5 years had wiped away the past and we got along well. Great to be having meaningful conversation again, although the stuff we talked about did leave the younger girls a bit out of the conversation unfortunately (I still gotta work on involving everyone at the table). I forgot how little girls do eat [except Vivien :P !!! ] and we ended up with too much food, despite me being a pig, but I think I was too engrossed in chatting and forgot to eat more food so, so much was left over.

Lunch dishes - nothing too fancy :)

After lunch, Julie was kind enough to offer to take the family around Taipei. So back on the MRT again and we headed to 'Bi Tan' where there was a famous suspension cable bridge with pretty views, lots of little stores in the area and a lot of those paddle boats to ride below. We took some photos here and then headed off pretty quickly since we didn't want to go into the water.

Bi Tan Bridge

View from middle of the Bridge - Paddle Boats seen below

Back on the train, it was the last stop and we were early on the train so I took a photo of the MRT from the inside. It is very very long and also doesn't have any door separating the carriages which means if you take a photo from one end to the other, it looks like an endless tunnel that goes onto infinity.

Optical Illusion? - Taipei MRT

Here she took us to Taipei Central Station where there is and underground arcade of markets. The area is designed for adolesents with the shops all relecting that. Most of the shops are for girls though. Even so, we decided to visit. We ended up in 1 store that sold alot of random little things for ages which my sister loved so she stayed there for a while. Julie had to leave us at this point as she had to go meet friends elsewhere. Back on our own we browsed the shop for seemingly forever. While this was happening I went next door to the arcade to attempt to beat my basketball again.

Underground Shopping Street

I managed to get 441, but I don't think it counted as this machine gave me 5 rounds instead of the usual 3. This arcade also had new games I've never seen which I tried. One was a large touch screen and it was pressing the buttons that appear to the beat of the music. Basically like 'Elite Beat Agents' (Nintendo DS) but large scale and much harder and I failed very hard on it. The other game (Jubeat) was like the kids game where you had to whack a button when it lights up, but this one had 16 buttons and it was all done to the music. Both were in a way, variants of DDR although I could do the 16 button game better, probably cause of my reaction time. My sister tried to play the claw thing where you pick up squishy dolls but she failed after 4 tries and left annoyed.

Jubeat - 16 Squares are Buttons

Not much else happened besides did some more shopping and left the area. (Mum and dad had pretty much nothing to do as all the stuff there was for adolescents). Back off on the MRT and after a long walk home we met up with Grandpa and headed off to dinner.

Speeding down the highway towards dinner!

We stopped at a grand restaurant and were greeted by many staff. This venue has signs bearing 2 different large corporate functions that were to take place.

Entrance

Amongst all the other huge events (we found out there were at least 4 being held at this venue). Grandpa's friend had booked out the entire middle section of the main showroom where the stage was and walled it off for us. I "think" he booked a bit too large an area for just our 1 table!

Huge Room (for 1 table) that was prepared for us!

And now time for my favourite part! Dinner, and this time there was too much food I failed to finish that stomach-marathon.
Every dish except entrees were served one plate to each person as seen in the photos.

ENTREES

Chilli Cucumber soaked in salty stuff with garlic

Tomatoes with Plums - I hate whole round tomatoes... uhh YUCK!

Mini Sardines (fish things) with nuts and chilli

MAINS

Pipis, Eels, Shallot, White Carrot, Fish Roe, Lettuce, Cucumber

$100+/per serve Shark-Fin soup. 1 Serve of a very large piece deriving from the softest and most valuable part of the shark's fin. Only one of these per shark.

Crab :)

Abalone, Mushroom, Broccoli

Vege, Egg-Ommelete, Fish

More Crab and Veges (slightly bitter type)

DESSERTS

Bun with Yellow sweet stuff in it and another sweet thing that is crispy on the outside and has red bean I think on the inside

Fruits (Honeydew, Watermelon, Dragonfruit, Orange)

DRINKS

(No photo)

Bottle of Red Wine priced at $700/bottle!

Bottle of Macallan Whisky 25 Years priced at $600/bottle! (Taiwan) - Although online sells for $1000+/bottle

On my defeated exit, I took one final photo of this expensive place. I give up, I've eaten soo much expensive food on this trip and soo much food in general that my stomach wants to stop eating for a week. But I am told that there are more distinguished guests that wish to treat us to a massive lunch, followed by an even bigger farewell dinner. Poor poor stomach, it didn't want to eat the abalone when it came out and food just kept coming out and out!

Chandelier

Came back home and watched funny Taiwan game shows featuring 'Taboo' but played across 2 languages. Hilarity ensured as they spoke Mandarin and Engrish (bad Asian-English) :D

Night, Shaun...

Julie and Myself - Thanks Julie for giving up your afternoon for my family :)

P.S. It was a good thing we had Julie to take us around as we didn't want what happened in Japan again and end up going to a place and not knowing where all the fun stuff was or where to go and spend hours being lost since we don't have much time to spare. Feel like I should do something to thank her now, she delayed her friends for us :S