Journey through Taiwan

Day 31 - "Freeeedooommmmm"

2010-01-28T17:11:00.000+10:00

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"

2010-01-28T16:38:00.000+10:00

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

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:

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"

2010-01-28T02:23:00.000+10:00

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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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"

2010-01-24T16:50:00.000+10:00

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

Day 27 - "Dan Shui"

2010-01-22T01:23:00.000+10:00

Day 27 - 14/1/10

I'm growing tired of writing this. It stems from my mood which just drops the longer I am overseas. I feel like giving up on more then just writing soon, it is just too much for me to handle and I'm breaking down. Melllltttiinnggg

Had a terrible morning. To be exact the worst in my life probably. Still my problems are my own and I shall not bore you with them. Woke up around 12-midday and headed off to lunch. We went to Yi Pin Restaurant where we ate a lot of expensive food. It never ceases to surprise me how well know Mr. Billionaire is and how much respect he has garnered. It's like he literally owns the city and every inhabitant. Oh well, not my business really and can't complain with the food I'm getting fed:

Lunch Menu (photos)

Very Spicy Duck Blood with Duck Intestines

Entrees - Pig Ears, Green Stuff, Black Egg + Ginger

mmm Chicken

Really unusual coloured dumplings

Regular coloured dumplings - Prawns inside I think

More Healthy Greens

Something colourful inside the white Dumpling - dunno what...

Raw (pronounced Luo) - Bwor - Gaou [I hate chinese english!]

Meat something

White squishy outside thing with other things inside it (great description I know)

Dessert - Not even gonna attempt to describe this as I fail

More Dessert - The outside is very 'Chwei' and it's quite Hot (temperature) inside

Something

Edible Soup that is slightly viscous and sweet

Bun with sweet, hot oozy yellow stuff inside - Very nice, I like :)

Egg Tarts - Taiwan's Egg Tarts are 100000001x > Australian Egg Tarts

After lunch, we boarded the subway (acronym is MRT - Mass Rapid Transit) and headed for Dan Shui. The MRT in Taipei looks nearly identical to the underground subway system in Japan that I'm dead sure it was designed by the Japanese here in Taiwan. It was the last stop for the subway line we were on so it took us over an hour to get there which I fell asleep on the way. Here we went to visit "Old Main Street" which was a very popular destination these days for the youth and couples. This street was lined with shops selling all sorts of stuff that would attract any age group of youth from primary to university age.

Old Main Street in Dan Shui - Holding a Bubble Tea which can be found almost everywhere in Taiwan for around $1

(video)

The moment we got into the first store, there was a whole street blackout, so all the shopping suddenly went on pause. Very interesting to see in a busy street although I'd imagine things got stolen while all the shops were dark with people inside them. (there are a lot of girly stores, think DIVA which has little items that would be easy to steal). Shop keepers are very cynical here and with good reason too. In such a high population area with large amounts of students coming through, theft for these easy to pocket items is high and shop owners will keep a watchful eye on everyone entering to the point where some will stick to you shoulder to shoulder to make your you don't take anything (it happened to my sister). Still, that said they are very nice and helpful on a average basis and keen to make a sale. Walking down the street I bought lots of random stuff I though I could use. I bought a chicken that shrieks when you squeeze it like it's about to die and it sounds soo painfully horrible I had to get it hehe...a wine bottle that actually opens up to be an umbrella... and some other miscellaneous small items. I picked out a bandanna on the way to look at it and asked my dad how to tie it not realising what was on it. It was a store with lots of normal things but out of the 50 bandannas there I chose the one with sexual positions (skeleton drawings) all over it hahaha, no intention either of picking this one. I really don't know what mum and dad thought when I showed it to them and asked them how to tie it. To be honest I was kinda embarrassed cause I only realised what it was when dad put it on his head, and so I said "it's too small" so I took it and put it back. After leaving the store I could not help but want it cause it was kinda cool and also really cheap ($2) so I told my parents I wanted it cause it was cheap and went back to get it (which it not entirely untrue). When I picked it out and gave it to the girl to pay for it, she looked at me kinda embarrassed as well then laughed at bit and ran off. I went up to the counter and took my change and she gave me the item without looking at me... haha I dunno what my parents think of my buying this. A more useful purchase I made was a new backpack for ~$40 as mine broke on this trip :( As the afternoon progressed, the street just got more and more packed, and there ended up being soo many people there. Most of the people there were about grade 8~10, and after 4pm, classes of students led by teachers started turning up. Soo popular this street is with the kids I was amazed.

Needed to go to the toilet at one point so we asked around and found the toilet. For a such a busy street, this place has a terribly tiny and secluded toilet. Located in a random alley way that leads past people's houses is this building. Notice how the ground is dug up and there is rubble all over the place, randomly tesalated with pot holes for you to fall in and sprain an ankle. You can even see the excavator abandoned and parked in the back. Have fun climbing over the loose rubble and walking through the slippery mud to get to the toilet. (If there is one thing Taiwan fails to improve in after all these years is their toilets. They are still dirty and badly managed/built/designed). Occupational Health and Safety catastrophe if this was Australia, very normal in Taiwan.

Toilet anyone?

At the end of the street was 'Condom Kingdom', a store selling more explicit items. The amount of young students going into this store (nearly all boys) was scary. You're talking about 15/16 year olds walking in and out of a sex store pretty much. I don't know why this store is located on a 'kids' shopping street, althought it did make me very curious and I wanted to see what weird and wonderful things they sold. Except I can't justify walking in there while I'm with my family, let alone buying anything!

The end of the street was the subway stop and it is pretty pretty. Large expansive park-ish area surrounded with views of the city and the mountains and out to sea and the river-side walkways. I can see why people come here on dates, it is very nice and a lot you can buy here. In the photo below you can also see a street-singer (his voice was quite good).

Train Station - Choo Choo ~ (like HQ)

Panoramic View - Dan Shui riverside (video)

Next we rushed home to have dinner with dad's friend again in his home. We ate lots more food:

Family at the Dinner Table

Dinner Photos

Crab

Prawns, Intestines, Chicken

Beef

Very large prawns opened and seasoned

Salmon

Fruit - Apple, Something-Berry and ... I don't have a clue I don't like fruit much so don't know what most of them are called :P (someone wanna tell me?)

The DIY meal!

The main dish of the meal was this DIY (it was pretty hand's on and dirty) meal. You have to make it yourself as the photos show. Noted I don't know the actual contents of DIYing.

Start with a White Patty + Add Peanut Mix (insulates the surface of the wrap against the moisture from the rest of the contents)

Add some Sweet Red Veges

Add a Few Strips of Egg

Add a Few Bean Sprouts

Season it with Green and White Stuff

Add some Invisible Stuff??? (I can't tell/remember the difference between this photo and the previous!)

Add a Few Pieces of Chicken

Finally add this Reddish Mix of Food on top

Roll it up, and eat it. Serve with the following soup :)

I have to say, the reddish mix added at the end didn't taste that good and the whole conglomeration looked really messy and drippy. There is actually skill involved in this; namely having to spread the contents out evenly and arrange them in a particular fashion as well as the order is important as well. You have to do it fairly quickly or the wrap becomes soggy and will break when you try to roll it.

After finishing eating I was bored as I sat around and listen to the adults talk so I took a photo of the crystal chandelier above me. It had the expensive 'blue' crystals in it, really sparkly as well.

Blue Crystal Chandelier

Listing to this important man speak of his history with my grandfather, I learnt alot about my roots I never knew. I learnt the real man my great grandfather was and the life they used to live as well as who my grandfather was as well, stuff that even my own father didn't know. Quite interesting and it has opened my eyes up to ancestry. Grandpa is coming tomorrow to meet this man who is his best and oldest friend so it will be interesting to hear their stories reveal the past.

There was a very tiny earthquake during dinner. No one else could feel it but we could tell because up on the 13th floor the slightest moment in the earth's crust is amplified. Additionally, the symmetrically arranged crystals in the chandeliers shimmered in unison from the tinyiest movement.

Found out there is wireless internet but the floor we are living on is too far away to receive the signal :( Wish they'd install wireless in the guest room hehe... I have 'important' things to do!

Kinda not used to the maid doing such simple tasks for me such as pouring a glass of water and even pulling out my laptop charger out of the wall! I mean come on, it's really not that hard to unplug my own laptop lol...

Skasian (who just needs to survive a few more days)

Day 26 - "Lost"

2010-01-21T20:14:00.000+10:00

Day 26 - 13/1/10

Total Weight Change: 70kg -> 74kg (+3.55kg in Tainan, +0.45kg in Japan)

I just received an email about chess coaching. It appear that I have been accepted, and I will be able to coach local Brisbane primary schools! That makes 3 jobs simultaneously now :) Seems like I can get casual work no problem, but I fail to get Engineering Vaction work :(

Today is my last day in Japan and the tour has nothing scheduled on for today so we get to roam freely until 4:30pm which we need to be at the airport by 6pm then fly off at 8pm. Therefore late morning start as there is no rush to go anywhere as most of the shopping areas don't open their eyes until 10am. 7:30 the morning call came but slept in till 8 and then went up for breakfast. Served at the to of the hotel on Level 25, the views were slightly disappointing as Tokyo is surrounded by many high-rises which dwarf the 25 story hotel, kinda like an asian going to a concert full of western people - you can't see! hehe...

Breakfast was again buffet style although food wasn't as much or as great (despite being in a more populated district), which I was suprised because there are alot of other people besides tours that live in this hotel. Maybe it's one of the cheaper ones that's why. The poles running throughout the restaurant which also acted as dividers were pretty unique. Made of wine glasses stacked on top of each other and then sealed into an plastic tube.

Buffet Breakfast

Wine Glass Poles

It must rain a lot in Taiwan and Japan as I see outside hotels and stores automatic umbrella wrapping devices that cover your wet umbrella with a plastic bag to stop it dripped everywhere. At breakfast, this was an umbrella holder (note I have never seen an umbrella thing of any sort before, maybe cause it doesn't rain enough in Australia)

Rows of Umbrella Holders

Finished breakfast early so got to come back and use the internet a bit. Our first destination for today was off to Shinjuku Subway Interchange. This was one of the larger train/subway stops in Tokyo. Thanks to dad's ability to speak the language we were able to navigate around and find our train. We travelled to Ginza, one of the more busier districts and when we got there we were lost again and had no idea where we were. So more asking strangers for directions and walking through all the streets and subways looking somewhere interesting to visit. To our disappointment we found nothing and we didn't know what we were looking for either. So with very sore feet we left Ginza empty handed and eyed and boarded the subway back to Shinjuku. Ginza probably would have been better if we had someone to show us where to go, but for us it was about as boring and uneventful as this paragraph :(

Streets of Ginza

Reaching Shinjuku, we found ourselves lost again as this morning was a train and now we got off at the subway stop. Luckily a very nice service lady decided to walk us all the way to the exit which took about 5 mins. Before we exited we looked hrough a nearby department store's ('Mitsukoshi' which is the same huge high class store located next to where I lived in Tainan) B1 floor which is food-level, except the concept of sitting down to eat a meal doesn't exist here and it's all packed bento and other take away snacks. Up to the surface we went and looked for somewhere to eat. We ended up eating a noodle store that seemed very popular with the queue extending out onto the street despite it being after lunch time. The store did have a very good idea though, due to the Japanese tradition of saying 'welcome/thanks/goodbye' to every customer and generally greeting everyone constantly; the atmosphere is very noisy and busy in a good way. What they did was they installed a wide-range microphone in their kitchen/serving area so every all the cooking sounds as well as all the greetings were recorded which were played out through a speaker located outside at the entrance of the store. This not only attracted attention to people walking past, but also make the restaurant look really lively. The food in there was great and cheap despite it looking so plain :S (it was literally udon + egg and soup) but the noodles were very 'Q' (chinese expression). We had no idea how to order as it was like a semi-self serve conveyor setup so staff and a customer behind us kept trying to help us with bad english which still left us confused. We're meant to add stuff to our noodles and soup I think, but we couldn't figure out what they were telling us to add to which one so I just ended up grabbing 3 bottles of stuff and chucking it in and fortunately it tasted really good. I'd definitely go back for more!

My Y550 Noodles

After filling up, we dropped back down underground and browsed some stores, and then headed into a department store known is Keio where we went shopping for more food. Going around trying alot of free samples of everything then buying alot of gift foods for dad's friend who was accomodating us back in Taipei. I was really tired, my legs were sore from walking all day, which is another thing I don't like about Japan; there are a lack of seats around to rest on. We tried to go to a coffee store but all the ones we found were full, the population here is just too high.

After shopping we ran out of money, so we headed back to our hotel where the only seats we saw were located. Knowing that we wouldn't get dinner till 9pm due to the flight we went back out and ate a Japanese Beef-Rice restaurant which has more chains then MacDonalds in the country! It seems like the Japanese really like raw egg in their meals.

Regrouping back at the hotel, I pick up a free hairbrush from the counter and started brushing my hair randomly for the next 2 hours (I never brush my hair) cause i was soo freaking bored. The day had turtled for me and nothing interesting was happening and I didn't look forward to writing up today cause there was nothing to write about and I was in a terrible mood and tired.

Boarded the bus, headed to the airport and fell asleep again. Wireless in this airport costs money :( made my dad even more sucky, oh well that's life. Anyway airport security likes to check girl's shoes because they are thick and big (due to fashion and it being cold) so they make girls take off their shoes to go through the x-ray and as you know so girls has freaking complicated shoes and take forever to take them off so the queue got pretty long.

Last photo in Japan - Narita Airport (family photo)

While waiting for the plane I pulled out Dan Brown again only to find I'd damage the outside of Kev's book! oh dear :( Back on the plane, it was unusually noisy - maybe cause I sat in the last seat in the back of the plane - so was hard hearing my movies. I finished watching Inglourious Basterds that I didn't finish last flight, and then finished watching Surrogates as well. Was gonna start watching 'Cloudy with a chance of meatballs' but I only had just enough time left on the flight and most likely the service announcments in 4 languages were gonna eat up the time I needed and also though I might leave something to watch with Vivien when she gets back :) The plane had so many empty seats, I ended up moving to a different row and am now taking up the entire back 3 seats in the last row of the plane :) Decided to spend my last hour of flight listening to the latest mandarin music and trying to write (the ones I liked) them down in my terrible handwriting while in between typing up this day's boring diary as it will be too late when I arrive home in Taipei and if I stay up another night (dad already caught me skyping with VV in Japan 2 nights in a row till 1 or 2am), my parents are gonna go ape on me.

Well that ends my Japan trip. A few important things I've learnt today. I noticed the lack of people and cars on the roads and it seemed like the city was deserted. Today I found my answer. Lying underground is a sprawling network of tunnels, reaching out in a huge labaryinth that covers the entire undercity of Tokyo. Through walking around underground today, I got shivers up (actually my shivers travels downwards I realised) my spine when I the place. Sometime you can't even tell your underground, it's like someone moved all the shops in the city 10 meters in the negative y-axis. You can walk everywhere underground and all the big stores have built downwards as well as upwards so you can find yourself exiting the underground through a shopping center and walk between department stores through these underground passages. There are just SOOO many people down here. The best analogy I can make for the Japanese people is they are VERY like ANTS! Their homes are underground with sooo many tunnels that lead everywhere. The Japanese people are also time-reliant and will always be on time (unlike Australia where ppl turn up over an hour late for lunchs) and they are always in a hurry, off to do their work, like busy ants. I see people walking very fast and people running to make up for lost time, it's like the entire city doesn't stop for 1 second and would explain why they don't have seats around as people are constantly on the move. On the topic of no seats, there are noodle bars where you stand up at the counter and eat noodles and then leave. It's like noodles-on-the-go, they are soo busy they don't have time to sit down and eat. Similar sushi stalls like that with no seats. Back to my ant's analogy, they are smaller in size physically then other races just like ants are smaller in comparison to most other animals. Japanese business men and women all dress in black, where the men wear suits and the people in Japan are all so tidily dressed (which is what I also like). There are so many business class that all the busy people walking around are nearly all black which is the colour of ants. The non-business class girls all dress up in the most trendiest fashion clothing unlike anything I've seen anywhere else with such a diverse range of clothes being shown off, and soo many heels. I closed my ears in the middle of the busy path and all I could hear is people walking and the clatter of heels on the tiled floor. And the most obvious similarity to ants is that they are EVERYWHERE and there are soo many of them. If you can't speak the language you'd definitely get lost underground, but it is definitely a place to experience, much unlike anything else. They are all so polite and well mannered people, always willing to help out a lost tourist and point them in the right direction, patient with you when you don't understand the language and are flailing around with your hands trying to get your message across.

The train and subway system is soo efficient I can see why people don't bother with cars as cars are slower. There are all many transport lines running under the city and soo many stops it is so convenient. Plus they have minimised the waiting time at each station where trains stop for barely 1 minute and take off again. They even have a track staff at each door who pushes people in as they trains are packed and they need to keep the train moving so they literally squish people into the overpacked train. Amount of people on these trains standing so close to each other made my finally understand why girls get sexually abused, there are just so many people it is hard to move away or figure out who it is and it wouldn't be hard for someone to get away with it and just claim it wasn't them. Still I don't see why girls insist on wearing mini-skirts, that's just asking for trouble - like putting a priest in a playground :P

Still I will miss this country, the food is fantastic. Due to the limited time with the tour group travelling all over the place, I never got to eat my favourite 'Okonomiyaki' and 'Takoyaki' in Japan, which means I must come back to taste these authentic foods in their country of origin. Next time I come though, it will be more fun if I was able to go wandering around freely instead of being tied to the tour group or leashed to my parents. Also would like to find out where all the eye-candy went, 95% of the people I saw on this trip were adult aged :( Must learn the language as well, I mean while it is fun making hand gestures, it does get a bit tedious and slow.

Would have posted more photos but sis forgot to charge her camera last night so didn't manage to take much. And besides I'm being a bit dunno, wouldn't exactly call me emo, but a weird feeling I can't explain I just wanna go to sleep now.

Since this entry has been so long I'm gonna briefly round it up. Landing the plane we checked out of the airport and went back to dad's friends home and went to sleep...

I miss Vivien... more then I care to admit to myself~

Shaun

P.S. Still feeling really guilty about Esther. Kinda like I've betrayed her, but it's not like I wanted to - I really didn't have much choice. I get the feeling she's mad at me and ignoring me... or maybe I'm just thinking too much.

Day 25 - "Adventures in Japan"

2010-01-21T03:25:00.000+10:00

Day 25 - 12/1/10

Slighty annoyed at the early mornings and not being able to utilise the free internet before I left. Still much to catch up on in terms of uploading. Breakfast was again a buffet, not too used to eating the side dishes for Japanese congee meals, must prefer the chinese side dishes although the orange juice taste very nice and the mandarins (I'm not a big fruit fan btw) taste amazing and it's like the first time in maybe 3 or 4 months where I voluntarily took un-processed fruit and ate it, let alone alot of it.

Driving off, we said our goodbyes to my love, 'Mt Fuji' as it peeked at us behind the low cloud line. On the way out of the area, we passed the Fuji theme park which boast pant-wetting roller coasters. It used to be home to the longest roller coaster (over 30 seconds) until it was recently beaten. Standing huge and can be seem from quite far away is the steepest and longest rollercoaster drop I've seen. Easily the most intense coaster I've seen as well. The guide said quite alot of people end up dizzy/sick after it and if you can stand still without your legs shaking for 5 seconds after getting off you get awarded a certificate. There are alot of other coasters as well it looks like a fun park for those a bit more daring... maybe next time when I'm here hehe... and hopefully the fear scares off the queues.

First stop was at a rest stop, and again love the free hot tea and my inability to figure out what 80% of the stuff being sold in the stores are. I found one of my favourite sweets except in Japan they have it massively upsized :)

Lollies going BIG

Driving for another hour, we arrived at Emperor Meiji's Shrine. This is a huge templey like area with many many visitors. It is located in what seemed like a small developed forest. On the way in we got another wiff of the strange concept of Japanese design placing the smoking area on the main path so it's like walking through a 'Gauntlet of Cancer' before you can enter an area :( Other things we saw on the way in included walls of sake barrels fermenting as well as lots of ice sculptures melting away and falling apart.

Soo much alcohol~

Ice Scupltures mellltttiiinnggggg.... :S

Entering the shrine, photography is forbidden in the main altar area. Took alot of photos in the other area and then went to the main altar and made another wish using the same clapping in bowing proceedure described yeterday. After that there was a sacred tree under which people hung their wooden wish plates and a large box you can write wishes on paper, envelope them and put it in. I wrote one in english (although no one writes english as far as I can see).

I wish upon a star...I wish upon an altar... (in the background you can see the wooden plates for wishing - obviously many Asians visit here due to all the Chinese text)

An hour later we arrived in the big city. High rises surrounded us on all sides, but what suprised me was the lack of traffic on the roads. Japan must have a very efficient public transport system, such as their famous subway lines that snake out in all directions under the city. The building we visited here was the main government high-rise. This building consisted for 2 joined towers that grew up 45 stories high and offered a free viewing area on the 45th level. Atop the viewing area, we could see the entire city sprawling out on all sides. It was a rainy day so sightlines were impaired, still we could see most of the unusually designed buildings in the Tokyo region (television stations) and other famous landmarks such as the 'Tokyo Tower'. In the far distance standing tall and proud above everything else was my favourite mountain, Mt Fuji - boasting its snowy white peak. Amoungst the highly developed metropolitan, was a humongous patch of green, like a giant forest/parkland. This was the preserved grounds of the emperors shine we visited before and the land around it has been untouched with its lushy green trees.

View from Level 45 of the Government Building

Lunch was underground somewhere, sitting on the floor Japanese style :) Mum and sis ended up not eating much again so I over-ate to increase my fatness!

Lunch

Lunch Food

Next we went to the 'Thunder Gate' which I will describe using this next photo:

Thunder Gate Description

In the Thunder Gate

Tradition is to walk under the giant lantern thing for good luck and proceed all the way to the temple at the end. The path to the temple is filled with shops on either side which we went shopping in, except didn't have much time as we're following a tour and time is limited.

Shops lining either side for quite a long distance

At the temple, there were a group of priests praying in a different room while everyone lined up behind them and did the coin-toss and prayer-wish. As the founder of Scientology once said "If you want to make money, start a religion". Whoever started this Japanese faith would make alot of money as every temple we have been to has 4 or 5 long lines of people waiting to toss money in one after another. Additionally all these temples have shops selling the wooden wishing plates and paper as well as alot of lucky charms and other religious items. I took a photo of one of these shops and the shop keeping starting yelling at me and pointing at my camera so I took it I'm not allowed to take photos here but oh well here is my illegal photo:

Shop in the Temple (the shop keeper pointing at me and about to yell at me)

It's been raining all day so it's been wet, slow and not-as-fun shopping as it could have been. We're the only family on this tour that decided not to buy and umbrella and just brave the rain. Kind of irrelevant to anything but I saw a black taxi (never seen one before) and then saw this cool disabled toilet which is basically a sliding circular door so that disabled people don't need to open anything and just press a button. It's like one of those secret doors how the bookcase revolves when you pull out a book. I thought it was cool :)

High-Tech Disabled Toilet

Moving on we visited a duty free store. I keep falling asleep on the bus cause I stayed up late talking to Vivien and then have to wake up to these stupid early morning calls. Now I feel kinda sick, I can only blame myself as well cause this is gonna be the 2nd time I'm going to get sick from staying up late talking to her, dad knows that as well and his not happy about it. Wonder where all my self-control went :s

When we went to the Duty Free Store I figured out the one thing I didn't like about Japan. Too many people smoke and it's terribly annoying having to cough your way down the street. Due to my previous experience working in a Duty Free Store they'd be nearly no way I'd buy anything in there as I know how overpriced things are in those stores. The tour guide will always persuade you otherwise, that is their job and some of them like the one I have right now is a very good talker and he can convince you that you won't find a better price anywhere else. But that's far from the truth, taking the mirror I bought earlier today for Y340, at this store it was Y700! (over double price!). Pretty much know how the tourism industry works as well and then things that go on under the table and my parents have been involved in the tourism side before so we walked in and looked around and walked out not buying anything. A bit of info for those who know nothing about the tourism industry. The tour guide gets money from selling duty free products to your directly that's why they will advertise on the tour bus, but that's not the only reason why. They do this because they know you will try and find a better price for the item. So that's when they take you to a Duty Free store where you will go "OMG it's cheaper here, quick buy it" which is the goal of the tour guide. As the tour guide gets a % commission based on how much his group spends there. Sometimes the tour guide may tell you "You don't have to buy anything just come in and look", the reason behind this is not cause you may be tempted inside, but rather the guide also gets a cash bonus for every tourist he brings into the store! I could tell you alot more but that would take up the entire blog, haha industry experience :P Ask me if you feel like knowing more... Anyway boarded the bus and fell asleep again. (of course no photos can be taken inside duty free stores)

When I woke up, the sky was dark and we walked out into the rain and we were sent off on our own to explore the 2 shopping buildings and find dinner on our own. Exploring through the department store I found a Japan Wall decoration that I bought earlier for Y800 was only Y700 here and also was Y700 at another store... -.-" I had buying an item only to find out later you overpayed for it. In the end we went to the Ramen restaurant the tour guide suggested, and the ordering system was a vending machine! You order it here and the chef cooks it inside, luckily the waitress spoke chinese so things went smoothly.

Vending Machine used for ordering

We all ordered some noodly meals but non of them were too impressive and costed roughly Y900.

My Noodles

After eating we wandered around looking for shops to buy stuff but found nothing. Even if I did we have no space to take anything more back :( Noticed that Japan has some western music but mostly their own unlike Taiwan which has been very Americanised in Music (Lady Gaga, Avril, Akon etc...) So after we all got tired of walking around we returned to the bus. Next to the bus was a outdoor escalator! And since it was raining it must be waterproof! First of the kind I've seen and was really long as well.

Outdoor Long Waterproof Escalator

Bus drove us to Shinjuku Washington Hotel. The hotel rooms just seem to get smaller and smaller, but they all have bidets and cool toilets at least :) Since we're living on the 19th floor the windows are sealed shut as the air temperature out here is <0 degrees. And thank god that Shinjuku is sort of business district to the hotel has free wired internet! VV here I come...

Bedroom

Bathroom

I called Mayumi since she said she might be free tommorow, but no luck, she has class so I won't get to meet up with her after all :( Back in the hotel room - so logged on and started to talk to VV until she had to go to dinner so I left with the family at the same time to go exploring the night time Shinjuku area. On the way out we saw a really drunk Japanese man being carried by his collegues except his was soo gone it took 3 men to move him and he was throwing up everywhere! Outside - Soo many high-rises and lots of lights everywhere. We walked around for ages trying to find a coffee shop but all we could find were bars and pachinko parlours as well as lots of 'FamilyMarts' (convenience store). In the end we found one but they were closing in 2 minutes so we ended up walking home :( Which is not actually that bad cause I couldn't wait to get back to talk with VV.

Nothing much happened for the rest of the night except I tried to upload photos but I think the hotel blocked uploads cause it won't work. So chatted and wrote this diary till 1am. Dad getting angry at me for not sleeping again so I better go!!

Night!~ Oh wait.. I made instant noodles but then realised I dun have any utensils to eat them with. Luckily (in my desperation) the hotel provides 2 free toothbrushes for everyroom, so I used them as chopsticks!! HEHEEHEEE... I'm rofling and so is VV as this connection is good enough to support Skype (only video, no sound though):D

Shaun

P.S. I'm peeved at the fact that Japanese wireless is all locked in the city :( No on unlocks their wireless even though it's unlimited??? Gees people should think of the poor deprived people like me! I also discovered on Windows 7, when you try to connect to a protected wireless connection, if you type a password with the wrong number of characters as the real password it will instantly come up with 'Wrong Password', however if you guess a password with the same number of characters as the real password, it will attempt to connect and then get rejected. So I guess, gives you a hint at guessing the password :)

Here are some random photos of my trying to imitate the temple guardian statues in the background. Sorry the grates kinda blur what they look like, but just imagine me as the statue :P

Shaun - Statue 1

Shaun - Statue 2

Day 24 - "I Love Mt. Fuji"

2010-01-17T18:44:00.000+10:00

Day 24 - 11/1/10

There's honestly no sign of the end of this. Day after day it feels like I'm trudging through snow deep inside me. At least the old lord up there had the decency to give me a good night's sleep. Mum's gotta a bit ill, such a shame on this holiday in this country. Still she will persevere - like me and see to it that life goes on.

Today is a public holiday for Japan. It is their coming-of-age festival, really important for people who turn 20. So a lot of people wear their traditional costumes today - called 'Yukata'. I want one but they are expensive :(

Bright and ealier again at 6:20am, again the cold can be felt radiating through the window. The morning chill fails to penetrate the hotel walls at least. Were heading over to a remote location near Mt. Fuji says the guide. Breakfast follows the same buffet menu as yesterday.

Leaving the hotel for good at 8am we set off on our 2:30 hour bus trip during which I have to say the tour guide has an impressive amount to talk about in regards to Japan culture and history. He kept on talking non-stop and only stopped when the whole bus fell asleep :P Kinda reminds me of sitting through a 2 hour lecture and everyone is falling asleep if you look around class.

I actually don't mind being a complete tourist here and not speaking the language. I'm having a hell of a fun time flailing around with my many arm/hand gestures to say what I need to combine with my single word Japanese vocab and the 'asian-ised' english that I use to talk to people in Taiwan. "I've lost my glove" = "I lose glove" (I have to say it slowly as well). I made a very successful hand conversation with someone at Disneyland yesterday. I'll see if I can make a video of it cause I was impressed at what happened.

We stopped halfway on the trip to take a toilet break at a highway rest-stop. Walked in there and had no idea what anything was. Store there sold soo much different food and I didn't recongnise anything I had no idea what to buy :S Ended up walking into the bakery and had no idea what was in any of the bread, wanted to ask but it's kinda hard to make the hand gesture "Chocolate"! Ended up buying the only thing I knew, bread coated with sugar. mmmm :P In the travel center they have free hot tea which is a WIN for the freezing temperature outside. Additionally they have 4 large monitors showing the traffic conditions on the main roads of the city so you can see where there has been an accident or where the traffic is bogged up to a crawl, I like this idea, I wish we had stuff like this at home so I wouldn't get stuck on Coronation Drive for 30min or longer while trying to get to the city when there is a car crash on the ICB ramp area for example.

Driving for another 45 mins we closed in on the famous Mt. Fuji which we could now see towering into the clouds. By far it was the prettiest mountain I have ever seen and I have never liked a mountain before but I fell in love at fight sight! Its snowy white peak seems so pristine and pure I just wanted to touch it, but it was still miles away.

We stopped off at a lake near the base of the mountain. Here was a popular tourist destination and I saw many expensive souveniers as I expected. Amongst them was a special box my dad had given to my since I was a kid. On the outside, the box looks like a beautiful art decorated box, however that are hidden panels that move. To open the box, you have to go through a series of 21 moves pushing panels and lids backwards and forwards in a sequence until the wooden box will unlock. It's really cool and I wanted to buy one but they as so expensive (cause of the difficult woodwork to make it) and wood products are a pain to bring into Australia due to customs. In the end I bought my new love, the mountain!

Mt. Fuji!!! :) :) :) - Expensive at Y1050 :(

From this point we boarded an artificial pirate-ship to cross the lake. From the lake we got a really good view of the surrounding mountains and other natural scenery.

Arrrggghhhh... it's a Pirate Ship~

After landing, we walked up into the penisula, into the more tree area. Along the path were alot of stall selling yummy yummy Japanese foods. Bought some ebi-yaka (type of prawn food) for Y500 and it taked amazing and pretty much the rest of the tour following behind us bought some as well. It was soo good I om nom nomed it before I could take a picture :)

Stalls on the side of the walkway - reminds me of Taiwan

On this peninsula is a Japanese shrine dedicated to the 9-headed dragon. TaKing part in Japanese culture, we watched our hands in the sacred basin before entering as we needed to be 'clean' before we appeared before the gods. The water is all from mountain springs so it is very fresh and clean. We were advised that we were allowed to drink from the fountain.

Washing of the Hands (photo)

Next was the 70 steps that led to the shrine at the top. [Mankind's ascension to god]

Lots of Stairs (photo)

At the top is these stairs was the 9-Headed Dragon Shrine.

9-Headed Dragon Shrine (photo)

Here many locals visit to pay tribute and it alot of people come here to make a wish. The most common method is to pray at the main shrine. The process involves walking up to the one of the bells and tossing a 5 Yen coin (the one with a hole in the middle) into the box, ringing the bell briefly to notify the gods of your presence, follow by the bowing twice and then steadily clapping your hands together twice. Ask your wish and finish with a bow. Despite not being an overly religous man myself, I payed homage to this shrine since I was visiting the country so might as well experience this culture. I made my wish :)

Making a Wish (photo/video)

Other methods of wishing/praying include purchasing a wooden board and writting your wish on it and hanging it by the temple. Otherwise you can buy a piece of special paper on which your write your wish and tie it to the wall of ropes. I'm sure there is more to the tradition then meets the eye and forgive me if I miss interpret anything, but it's kinda hard to read a language you briefly learnt 5 years ago (i.e. I've forgotten how to read :( ).

Ropes with wishes tied to them

Other smaller side temples and shrines surround the area but I'm not sure of their purpose. After we finished, we decended down the long flight of stairs and back onto the bus where I once again flip open my laptop at every spot we stop at in hopes of it having wireless internet for me to quickly email with. No luck so far. I spend my time on the bus writing this diary so I don't have to stay up till 2am like I did last night writing it and have to wake up at 6:20am.

The next place we stopped at was for lunch. Again no internet here either. We had Japanese food which I love and since sis didn't like half the food presented and mum was feeling sick so didn't eat anything, I ended up with 2.5 portions and ate about 2 portions of food before the entire tour group left so I had to abandon food. (Such a waste!). The meal also included 1 shot of a Japanese alcohol I've never tasted by it's sort of sweet and really nice. Alot of people around me didn't wanna drink so I ended up with free alcohol and guess where that went :) From the smell and taste I'm guessing it was some sort of spirit. I wanted to buy a bottle to take back to Australia but then remembered tour luggage is completely full (weight-wise) so no 'fun times' for me :( There was a large store underneath the restaurant we ate at and I saw more from the Mt. Fuji collection which I love, except Japan is expensive so I refrained from emptying my wallet. I guess I'll be content with 1 item as a souvenier of Japan, afterall I have a lifetime of memories backed with photos and videos to remember it with :)

1 Portion of Lunch - Rice and Tea were absent from this photograph

Yes, alcohol~ (good tasting one as well)

Me eying that alcohol and food! Mmmmm

Back onto the bus, and we headed deep into and up the mountain. we stopped at 'The Mount praying for World Peace' where is is a giant white monument with buddha. The path leading up to this monument is lined with hemisphere shaped trees. I like hemisphere shaped trees :) If I get rich one days that's what I'm gonna get myself! Behind these cool trees are sakura trees except they aren't blossoming cause it is not April, so not as pretty as this site is meant to be. Still there is a huge bell which looks like it would take 3 or 4 men to ring and a small one which I struck for fun. Here there was also another hand-wash fountain to use before approaching the monument. Other then that there were a few more historical things here and there. Oh and I discovered where I am (from the map here), 'Hamaguchiko' which is north of Mt. Fuji.

Hemisphere shaped trees everywhere! (video)

Bell and Monument (video)

This place is indeed cold. Up in the mountains even more so and my body is fine but no matter where I am it seems like my ears are going to freeze off. I can feel the blood rushing to them when I get back on the bus, all my clothes are cold as well. Wind chill in this country is serious business (srs bsns). Despite the temperature here, I am quite impressed with the Japanese girls who seem to find it compulsory to wear short skirts everythere. There are always girls wearing short skirts and when the tempertaure is constantly <10 degrees celcius I don't exactly know how they do it. Either way I don't think any straight guy can complain about girls wearing short skirts :P

Back down the mountain we went to the otherside of Lake Hamaguchiko where our hotel was. We're warned on the bus that the hotel was gonna be small, I wonder just how small. Tour guide also enlightened us on how things worked in hot springs. Japanese people don't do private hot springs much but are more into the community feeling. Also the hot springs were seperated into men and women as they are naked springs! I have to say I'm not really comfortable taking my clothes off in front of strangers, let alone other men. Children under the age of 7 are allowed to bath with the parents of either gender.

Before we hit the hotel, we stopped at a convenience store nearby. The 2 ladies were quite shocked when a whole tour piled in and filled up the enter store. Legal drinking age here is 20 so I bought myself some 'Plum Sake' to see what it tastes like (only 4% alcohol).

Lawson Convenience Store

Arriving at a hotel room, it was pretty much the same layout as yesterday and only slightly smaller. The view yesterday was dead frozen trees, however the view here is amazing. We have a clear view of the lake and can see Mt. Fuji off in the distance hiding behind some clouds (it's a shy mountain - always clothes itself in clouds) as well as the whole mountain line. Basically think of a U shape and in the middle is the lake and we are at the bottom of the U on the edge of the lake. Right now we can see the sun setting over the ridge line at the top of the U. Gonna be a cold morning I presume! I think the girls can really appreciate the heated toilet seats. It makes me wanna sit on the toilet forever.

Hotel Room - Excuse our stuff everywhere

Hotel Bathroom - With Bidet and Derriere, it's a pretty small bathroom.

View from Window (Lake and setting Sun) - Captured at the very last second as the sun disappeared under the mountain line.

View from Window (Fuji) - Bit shy, clouds and bad weather hides her.

After taking some photos, dad found out that the internet here was FREE. (Looks like I'm not getting to sleep tonight!) Also the connection was wired so I can upload my photos and videos yay and possible Skype. Sis jumped on before I got to it so I let her use it as I changed into my Japanese Hotel Robes and went upstairs to level 6 and used the Hot Springs. I was a bit nervous at first about the whole naked thing. Fortunately when I got there, the springs were empty, no doubt as we were the only tour group living in this Hotel and all the guests were probably still unpacking and exploring outside at the amazing view we have. So I stripped off and went marching into the springs. Lined on both sides are little chairs and basins with showers for you to wash off as well as all the soaps and shampoos. I ended up jumping into the hot spring and staying there for quite a while (20 mins) until it just go soo hot I was sweating all over and ended up taking a shower and leaving. While I was in there, I discovered the acoustics/echo of the room was quite good so I started singing, except I was halfway through 'Colours of the Wind' when another man came in so I had to stop :( The view is also great, it's the same view from my hotel room but up 4 stories. I figured the trick to the whole 'everyone is nude' thing is to just not think about it and not care. (I can't photograph the sauna cause there is soo much moisture in the air it would be camera-cide).

Returning to my room I kicked my sister off the computer and realised I had just missed VV. So I left for dinner (at which point VV came back and missed me). Dinner was scrumptuous with a large array of food, buffet style! So I ate myself silly again for more weight gain and since we were the only tour group here, there was more then enough food to go around.

FOOD VIDEO:

Unfortunately, mum is really sick and hasn't eaten all day and has all the dihorrea/vomiting/fever symptoms. We don't really know what to do, but wait till tommorow as there are no doctors during the night here in the mountains. After dinner I walked past the reception and they had a whole selection of the Mt. Fuji toy collection!!! And I saw an even bigger Mt Fuji plushie and I wanted it, but I had already bought one :( The huge one is Y2800 and it's like a pillow. Buy it for me someone lol. I'm in love with Mt Fuji, the real thing is so pretty.

Mt Fuji toy collection on sale! 5% off

Back in the room I kicked my sister off again, I feel bad but I really wanna talk to her and again I missed her cause she has to go to dinner/shower. So I decide to make use of my time and revisit the hot springs to rejuvenate my muscles from walking 6+ kilometers at DisneySea. This time there were more people there, but I just layback and relaxed and looked out at the scenery and tried to let my mind go blank, but the 42.1 degree spring was boiling my blood and I could hear my heart thumping so loud when I put my head underwater so I couldn't relax. Eventually I gave up again and I doused myself several times with cold water and took a shower there in the public bath. After that I headed back into my room and this time I was finally blessed with a connection with VV. Before we started talking I made 2 phone calls to Saori and Mayumi, but both of them were busy working and studying respectively. Seems that God wants to torture me more by depriving me of a chance to see my friends. Kinda saddening as I don't know when I will ever get to see them again!

VV and I tried to Skype but the connection kept dropping out but at least I manged to show her the view from my room and was the first time I saw her in 24 days now. Still didn't really get to speak to her vocally and am still dying to make real-life social interaction with someone my age. We talked until 2am here and I spent my time replying emails and blogging, taking advantage of the free wired unlimited internet to upload photos and pictures. Still the chance to talk to her tonight has truly been a blessing and will ease some of this deathly pain. Time is short, and an early morning awaits me tomorrow where I will travel towards the city. Time to go to bed!

Shaun

P.S. On my journey today I saw colourful cabbage and I don't think they are edible :S

Colourful Cabbage!

Day 23 - "DisneySea"

2010-01-13T00:00:00.000+10:00

Day 23 - 10/1/10

DISNEYLAND DISNEYLAND DISNEYLAND

Little sleep. Had a tiresome dream where I got lost in a Japanese mall and tried to find my way home with my terrible Japanese and hand jestures (actually interesting and fun in a way) and a nightmare about her that woke me up.

Still 6:20am in the morning there started this smallest annoying buzzing noise, which I put off till 6:25 cause I thought it was from outside until I realised that was the phone. Its sound is so small dad didn't even hear it, and I wonder how older guets can hear it either. That's the wake up call and we waited for a while for the ladies to do whatever it is they do for 30 mins. Sitting here with the window open, I can pretty much say the temperature 'is cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'. For me, this means I get to employ some gloves and my new scarf. Unfortunately my outfit is incomplete as I forgot to bring a beanie for my ears which are freezing and are only shelted by the hood on the back of my ski jacket.

The terrible view from my hotel room window. Port Hotel - Narita, Japan

Breakfast is served as a buffet with both the asian style congee foods served with side dishes as well as more western choices such as the all-so-fattening bacon and cereal choices. There is a really healthy Japanese beans item which tastes really weird. A bit like mustard that has expired. It is apparently very health and it is extremely sticky and you can drag it from the table to your mouth and it will still have a long sticky strand attached. Messy to eat!

Japanese Healthy Extra-Sticky Beans

Each breath I take sends a cloud of mist towards heaven, it's beautiful. I'm not quite sure what it is about it here, but already I love this country. It is my favourite country probably and no doubt I will return in my future life.

I don't know where to start as I am overjoyed just by the very fact that I have the privilege to be in Japan. Well how about a fact I learnt today: "It not uncommon for Japanese girls to start using makeup in high school. This is used more out of politeness then for cosmetic effect". Would explain why I never saw the Japanese exchange girls at Emmanuel without makeup on, day in - day out.

The Disney enterprise owned by Oriental Lands Pty. Ltd. is a multi-billion dollar corporation and when you visit one of their venues you can visually verify their own success instantly. The sheer amount of guests flocking to their theme parks each day, combined with their park tickets (Y5800) and average guest expenditure (Y10000) the company makes a killing.

The Disney World attraction is split into 2 theme parks in Tokyo, that being 'DisneyLand' and 'DisneySea' with the former being the older traditional park. The tour group were booked into visit DisneyLand for the day starting 9am to 9pm. However as dad has already been to this park in his youth we requested that our family visit DisneySea (the newer themepark which friends and family suggest going to). This deviation is actually much more expensive for the tour agency as the other 26 people get a group price while the agency must pay full admission price for our family. Additionaly, DisneySea is accessed via a monorail and thus our travel expenses were also payed for (Y2000 return). So for a total price of Y24400 our family left the tour group and spent our day in DisneySea. This of course did have the main advantage of not being slowed down by the stragglers in the group. Also DisneyLand accomodates a large number of tour groups while DisneySea is nearly all local Japanese visitors (this is what we saw ourselves).

One thing we noticed about the layout of Disney is the designation of 'Smoking Areas' which seem to be always along the sides of main walkways. Therefore you can't go anywhere without tasting a choking amount of secondhand smoke. Personally I don't see why they can't just make it a no-smoking theme park, considering the amount of young children visiting.

No Smoking

Monorail arrives every 4 minutes on a continuous loop betweent the 2 parks and the various hotels scattered around. The monorail has much needed heaters under each seat as well as Mickey Mouse shaped windows and Hand-holds.

Sis - Inside the Monorail (photo) - Mickey Mouse hand rails

After disembarking, we purchased our tickets and joined one of 5 queues that stretched longer then the eye could see. We couldn't actually take a photo of more then 1 queue because it was so long, some even bent around for double the length later on. The park didn't open until 10am so people were waiting outside early to be first in to rush to the rides from the get go. Standing here waiting I produced another fact: "Standing in the shadows and then standing in the sun feels like going from 12pm to 12am in Australia, there must be at least a 10 degree temperature difference!".

Queueing up to go in, the queues are massive, definitely the longest I've seen

One thing I really like about their theme park ride system is the 'FastPASS'. This system ensures that all guests get a chance to get to go on at least 2 or 3 of the major rides without having to wait ridiculous times. Essentially, every 2 hours you are allowed to make a booking for any of the big rides and when your booking time arrives you can skip pretty much the entire queue and board the ride. We only got to make 2 bookings through the day as the booking slots were filled up by Skipping the queue makes the world of difference here at DisneySea. The queue for popcorn and other food products stretch to up to 40 mins while the longest ride wait time we saw was 110 mins! (We waited nearly 90 mins for one ride, after we gave up on riding cause even 90 mins is a ridiculous time to stand in a queue). Pretty much everything from rides to MALE toilets you have to queue for it's ridiculous and you really can't blame the park. The Japanese population around the Tokyo region was quoted to be over 30 million :S The parks are also so large you can't finish them within a day or 2 and thus people revisit them. (Good business!)

Upon entering the park, I was amazed at what I saw. DisneySea dwarfed Australian theme parks and made Dreamworld look like a children's playground. The rides may not be as intense but the sheer land space it covered, the immense amount of construction work that went into all the rides and the attention to detail for every bit of park, decorating it with weird and wonderful things made this place just unbelievable. There was just so much to take photos of and much of the park is just admiring how the place has been dressed up. Each section of DisneySea is set in a different era and different culture and is lavished with shops, restaurants and rides to suit the theme. These ranged from Aztec, Mexican, Italian, Venice-Renassiance, England, Arabic, 1900's America, Futuristic, Fantasy and of course Disney as well as much much more! Defintely a park where everyone can find something they enjoy. Night-time transforms the entire park into a lighting spectacle and makes photos and the visual sensation completely different from the park you were at hours ago.

This place is HUGE! (video-main area)

Taking photos along the way and getting swamped by the Japanese horde rushing everywhere we made our way to 'StormRider' where we made a FastPASS booking and headed off to find another ride to queue for. Mum dropped one of her gloves at some point here and the thing was I distinctly recall stepping on her glove, not knowing it was hers and walked on. Backtracking we never found it, and it by the end of the day it wasn't at 'Lost & Found' either. Ah well hand in pocket does the same job!

First ride we jumped on was these buggy looking things that floated on water driving on what appears to be no tracks but they don't collide! After riding it, 2 things were evident: It was either running on tracks underneath the ground and followed them using sensors, or the spinning thing on the antennae was a receiver and they were driving them all on a set route using a GPS system. Since most of the big rides were sponsored by large coporations, it leads me to believe that most likely (I love the Japanes how they make research into a money-making ride) the ride acts as a testing ground for future automated vechiles which can be controlled remotely. It's like a constant trial test to see if anything will collide (as there would be no harm to the guests with the speed it's travelling at and shin-deep water) or malfunction so they can implement it in the future in real life applications such as cars!

The water-buggy ride. This was a video during night-time just to show the pretty lights :)

We ended up queuing up in a 1 hour queue (as told by the assistant there) for what we thought was the ride 'Indiana Jones: The Kingdom of the crystal Skull'. After 20 mins of waiting I decided to see how much farther the queue extended inside. I returned 1 minute later with the biggest 'OMG' look on my face. We had actually been queueing up to take a photo with Mickey Mouse! WTF... after walking on a bit further and seeing similar huge lines for Goofy and Donald Duck I came to one conclusion. Japanese people are obsessed with taking photos with Disney characters to the extent where they are happy to queue over and hour for it. Way to reinforce their stereotype ("ooo photo photo") lol. I actually thought it might be a photo queue line as I overheard a from people saying the word 'Shashin = Photo' which I understood and the queue staff dad was talking to also mentioned that word. I thought since dad is decently fluent in Japanese and my sister has surpassed my Japanese education, they'd know if it wasn't the right line so I kept quiet. Turns out the worst Japanese speaker understood the most important point hehe :)

So after our abysmal fail, we headed into a grill to eat lunch. The food prices here are nearly double priced compared to Taiwan but actually pretty standard for Australian currency. I started to recall some of my Japanese education here, using the obvious words like 'hai = yes' and 'arigatoo = thankyou' for ordering. Hehe, I'm surprised I can still say something!

Lunch for ~Y1500

We then walked around spotted a ride that didn't have a stupidly long queue. So we boarded the boat that takes you around the park, only to find out they force you to get out after one stop :S weird system, oh well I couldn't understand a phrasethe voice-recorded guide was saying. As we got off we saw in the distance all the Disney characters doing a choreographed dance which we reached as they were just parading off. All the classics were there, namely Mickey/Minnie and friends as well as some unexpected ones such as Lilo & Stitch.

Around the park are the most expensive popcorn you will ever face in your life. At Y1400 or $17.50, you can buy a bucket of flavoured popcorn! I wouldn't by 3 buckets for that price let alone 1... but business is booming for these popcorn stands who always have a huge queue. Each stand sells different flavours of popcorns ranging from common caramel to exotic curry flavour and unique strawberry/chocolate/black pepper and others. Almost tempted to waste money on this 'money laundering' food but resisted the temptation of the wifting smell.

Y1400 Popcorn Stand - Warning: "Smell is detrimental to Wallet"

Our next main stop was the park's main attraction which can be seen from every corner. Rising high into the sky in the very center of the park is the huge man-built volcano. This volcano hosts the ride "Journey to the Center of the Earth", and being 2 hours later we made another FastPASS booking after spending 10 mins to convince mum to do it as well. Mum didn't want to do any rides :( but we made her get a ticket for this :) We then looked the ride advertised as some kind of submarine attraction, '20000 Leagues under the Sea'. The queue was 80 mins so we buggered off to back to Stormrider to use our FastPASS.

Stormride in a nutshell without spoilers is a motion ride where you are riding in a weatherplane which flys into the heart of storms carrying a weapon which fires a projectile and dissapates the energy of the storm, thus ending it. Lots of wind and water and LOUD sounds to make it fun. Unfortunately the entire thing is in Japanese so I am clueless about the content of the storyline apart from what I could make out on screen.

Outside Stormrider's Weather Control Center - Huge thing behind dad's head spins and is cool.

With no real plan after this we went for more walking and ended up in Arab-land which we didn't go into since all the rides were story based and no point since no one can understand it (the narration speaks too fast for dad to keep up). Nearby was the 'Raging Spirits' ride which is one of the more intense roller-coasters in the park incorporating a 360-loop. I nearly made my sister go on it cause she didn't know about the loop, but I didn't wanna be mean so in the end I told her as we walked to queue for it and she doens't wanna loop in her life ever so we backed out of that one. Mum obviously wasn't doing that ride and she insists on us going on the rides and she just wants to sit outside and wait there. Boring mum :( Anyway here is a photo of the ride from one of the more interesting angles. There is a waterfall in this picture and fire burning on top of the water.

Fire and Water waterfall for the 'Raging Spirits' rollercoaster - Dad

Off to the otherside of the park in Jazz-America land. On the way an impressive boat has been actually parked here (the park is built on the sea-side so the ocean breeze is very chilling).

Huge Ocean Liner, converted to 2 restaurants and a theatre - Sis

Nearby was one of the more popular rides, the 'Tower of Terror'. This struction is so impressive from an achritectural perspective as it looks amazing and towers soo high. Additionally it accomodates a rollercoater WITHIN the building!! It's meant to be the most intense/scary ride, so we didn't go on it since I was the only one who wanted to try. Also this building as well as many others are designed in such a fantasy Disney style it almost feels like I've walked into the Disney game 'Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2' brought to life it was so cool.

Tower of Terror! Rawr ~ The building in front is like a small cathedral, look at the size of the Tower of Terror (odd-shaped building behind it). It's massive, about 25 stories I'd estimate.

We lined up for about 70 mins or so outside this broadway theatre to watch 'Big Band Beat' which was a music production about Jazz and Swing music dominating America at one period. Pretty impressive, and shows that 'black' people are naturals at dancing and the lead could really sing (thus I was impressed :) ). Copyright prevented any photos inside or and video footage sorry :( Fortunately the entire production was in english so this was the only attraction we understood the story! Kinda sad though cause the host was like "Round of applause for the sax solo"... I was the only one who clapped! No one in the theatre understood when he asked for applauses. Poor performers~

Broadway Theatre Entrance (photo)

With time to spare before we could use our next FastPASS, we went and queued around 90 mins to board '2000 Leagues under the Sea'. I hate how you queue forever for a 30 second rollercoaster ride, well at least this was about 5 mins long. The concept was pretty impressive. Utilizing a layer of water trapped between 2 planes of glass surrounding the rider's vessel, they were able use bubble effects and pumping water to simulate diving underwater and travelling underwater through the underground passages which were actually completely dry! It fooled my sister at least.

After this huge time consuming ordeal of queueing for a ride we wanted to sit down so had dinner nearby at the only asian restaurant in the entire park which had a non-asian name I can't even recall :S It was semi-self serve and we were being directed but I couldn't understand so the staff ended up pointing to stuff and saying "Choose 1" (in a Japanese accent) and "Choose 2". I later came back and ordered more rice and learnt from dad the fail-proof phrase in ordering. "KoRe, ee-go" which mean "1 of this" when you point to something. ('KoRe' = this | 'ee-go' = 1 (sounds exactly the same as the mandarin pronounciation of the saying it)). My Japanese is improving hehe!!!

While eating the little girl on the next table split her glass of water and a bit of it hit my bag and foot. Instantly her mum got up and starting saying alot of stuff to me non-stop for about 5 mins. I only understood 'Gomenasai = Sorry', and by her attitude she was bowing and she acted like it was a catastrophe I understood she was trying really hard to apologise for her daughter's mistake and really meant it. In fact she instantly pulled out a towel from her bag and started cleaning my bag and bent down and started wiping my shoe! Furthermore the elderly grandmother came along and started bowing and apologsing profusely and offered her own towel to me! My thought process went like this:

Me: WHOA.. ladies, it's a splash of water, doesn't kill me. Please don't disrepect yourselves and get down like that!
Lady: "Ching Chong Ching Chong Ching Chong - Gomenasai - Ching Chong - Gomenasai, Gomenasai etc.."
Me: OMG It's not the end of the world for god-sakes stop apologizing... Oh wait I remember what I learnt in grade 10! When something bad happens you can use 'Gomenasai = Sorry' oh wait, I'm not a fault, damn, next word is 'Sumimasen = Excuse me', hmm wrong context... what is it... oh 'Daijyobu = It's alight/OK or No worries'. "Daijyobu"
Lady: "Gomenasai"
Me: "Daijyobu"
Lady: "Ching-Chong" + "Gomenasai"
Me: "Daijyobu"
Lady: "Gomenasai"
Me: "Daijyobu"
Lady: "Ching-Chong" + "Gomenasai"
Me: "Daijyobu"
Lady: "Gomenasai"
Me: "Daijyobu"
Lady: "Ching-Chong" + "Gomenasai"
Me: "Daijyobu"
.
.
.
Continuing in repetition for 5 mins till she felt she had repayed her huge sin to me!

This is what I love about Japanese people, they are SOOO polite, always bowing and greeting you, apologizing for even the smallest things. They respect you no matter what your age is comapared to them and they are really welcoming and patient. I love this country. After like 8 years I finally put what I learnt in Japanese class to use! And it worked XD

Dinner for Y1500

Finally the moment of truth arrived where the family braved the big ride with a full stomach. I thought I was gonna throw up and was quiet worried about it to be honest. More Japanese lesson: "Yon-me" means "Four-people" when asked how many people are riding etc... The ride wasn't that scary at all except for one drop at the very end which was short. Thankfully to our FastPASS it was only a 10 min wait for the 30 second ride instead of 110 min! Sis had the time of her life on the ride, screaming like lol and couldn't stop talking about it. Mum... well lets just say mum didn't see anything during the ride lol.

FastPASSes and Park Admission Tickets

To end the night we watched 'Bravisi'mo' a pretty performance in the giant lake with lots of smoke, lighting, fireworks, fire and water effects and alot of big mechanical objects including an impressive giant phoenix. Most impressed by how the boats seem to materialise out of nowhere onto the lake and launche fire/water/fireworks.

The Giant Phoenix (Fire Spirit) equipped with about 40 flamethrowers on it and lots of lights and fireworks. The entire performance was done on the lake (water)! That phoenix is the size of about the size of an apartment block. The fountain looking thing is it's Girlfriend the 'Water Spirit'.

After this spectacle was over, the sky was ignited with pretty fireworks to romantic tracks of Disney songs. I quite enjoyed this of course :) I think this holidays I've seen enough fireworks to last me a lifetime!

Fireworks! (video)

We rushed off quickly and boarded the monorail and headed back to join the rest of the tour group at the DisneyLand, regrouping at 9pm and heading home.

Was so tired when I got to the hotel that I sat in a bathtub of hot water and just thought ... "This is the life..." and by the time I got out it was 11pm. Once again too late to call Saori or Mayumi at this hour, hmm I really need to figure out how to meet them while I'm here as I'm not sure when will be the next time I see either of them again and it could be a very long time :(

WOW what a day, I love Japan and this has been a memorable day in the sense of what I saw and experienced today to the point where it has taken me 2 hours and 20 mins to recall and write all this. Terribly tired now and again 6:20am wake up call, oh dear!

Hope I can get some sleep tonight... Shaun-kun

Random Disneyland Photo - "I'm lost! where do I go, this map is huge and falling apart~"

P.S. I also found out (in our hotel room) and used the bidet and derriere in the toilet for the first time ever. Felt funny :S

Toilet with Heated Seat, Bidet and Derriere

Day 22 - "Flying to my Dream"

2010-01-12T00:15:00.001+10:00

Day 22 - 9/1/10

1AUD : 86 JPY
1TWD : 2.9 JPY

I should start by apologising to the reader about the lack of written detail missing in day 21 and 22. Rich people tend to like to keep to themselves and don't like the outside world knowing so much about them, especially the modest man that I have met. So respecting his privacy I shall not discuss my life here except it has been a more then just interesting experience.

Morning breakfast and then off to the airport we go. We arrived there 4 hours before take off just in case of traffic and having to group up with our tour. We'll be travelling with 'Cola Tours' for 5 days in Japan and staying around the Tokyo region.

Since we had time, we went and grabbed lunch at no other then Burger King and sat around for a while. For the main international airport this one was pretty small. One my way to the toilet I found this sign which adds to my pesonal 'Engrish' collection hehe...

I suppose when you get down to the bottom you have to "Undo the belt and rape?"

After meeting the tour group (30 people). There was a couple there, the girl was 19 and the guy was 38... (wow double age difference :S ) although the girl did look like she could be in her mid-twenties. The only other youth on the tour was a 11 year old asian boy also from Australia. The rest were all over 30. (I snuck a peak at the tour list).

So regrouping went fine, security was fine and then came the stamp gate. I was the last to go through out of our family and I got detained :( They wouldn't let me leave the country because of compulsory conscription and I was of age! Bah... it seems like in addition to the council stuff I went through to avoid being contained I had to also fill out another form in immigration area of the airport to leave the country.

So I was directed back out through security and into the main check-in foyer again. Mum being mum had a nice little freak out again as no one could follow me as they has already been stamped into the departure area. So here I was on my own, they told me to go to a place near counter A7 so that I found and I had to do something to do with 4 words I didn't understand what it even meant but I memorised those 4 words as it was the only thing I knew I was meant to do. When I got to the counter I recited the 4 words and the lady handed me a form and a pen. I looked at her and the following progressed:

[Spoken in Chinese-Mandarin]
Lady: "Fill in the the form please"
Me: "Umm, there is a slight problem"
Lady: "And what might that be?"
Me: "I can't read chinese -.-" ... "
Lady: "Ohhh" (wait 5 sec) "umm ok I'll read it for you"
Me: "Umm, I can't write either"
Lady: "Ahh, I see - that is a problem"
(looks up and down at me, checking if I was retarded or not)
Lady: "Nevermind, can you at least write you name?"
Me: (Happily) "Oh yes! yes! I can write those 3 words in chinese :) "
(I scribble down my name, the handwriting looks like a preschooler :( )
Me: "Done! What else do now?"
Lady: "Ok write you birthday here"
(she points to 3 empty boxes, the layout is for a chinese style birthday)
Me: "Umm I dunno how to..."
(she cuts me off and looks through my passport)
Lady: "Nevermind just write, 98 here, 12 here and 10 here"
(20th March 1989 translates to 98/12/10 apparently in the chinese calendar)
Lady: "Ok next country you are from"
Me: "Umm like where I live originally?"
Lady: "Yes, just write it in English"
(I write down 'Australia', me english looks just as bad as my chinese lol)
Lady: "Ok, nearly done. Write here your address you are residing at while in Taiwan"
Me: (without bothering to umm anymore) "Don't know my address!" (I said it with a cheekish smile)
Lady: "??? Ummm ok, how about putting down your phone number then?"
Me: (again with a cheeky smile) "Don't have one!"
Lady: OMG what is this? A 20 year old guy who doesn't know anything about himself? "Oh dear... just... just pass me the form. I'll complete it for you"
(she gives up with me)
Me: "I'm sorry, I'm here with my parents and just following them around so I dunno anything :D And I left the country when I was 3 so can't am illiterate"
(the lady doesn't bother to look up anymore, not knowing how to respond she walks to the photocopier, copies my passport, stamps it and then signs the document)
Lady: "Ok you can go now, do you know where to go?"
Me: OMG she thinks I'm an idiot... "Oh cool I'm done, yes I'll be going now, thank you!"
(exit)

All that trouble for this one little stamp :)

Well, looks like I avoided being in the army for now and can leave for vacation :) When I got back to the gate I got stopped at before, there were already 2 staff there awaiting my arrival as well as my family. No doubt panicked mum went and told everyone "My poor little boy can't read and write and his chinese isn't good either, his going to get lost and doesn't know how to find us again blah blah blah... ". Hehe, I can so imagine mum doing that. So after successfully getting into the place, we found our terminal C6 and went down into the waiting room.

On one of the seats was this model which I thought suited what I was doing (laptopping everywhere) so I took a photo. Someone had vandalised the laptop lid though :(

I love Taiwan('s free wireless internet)

Here I snapped open my laptop again (I did at ever chance I got while in the airport), hoping VV would be online. Unfortunately the wireless didn't reach :( After we entered the plane we were told that there were 25 seats free on this flight and the computer had sorted all the seating based on sirnames so mum wasn't seated with us. Nevertheless we took up a whole 4 row seat since there was enough free seats for people to move. At this point I found out that this tour group was basically all couples (hooray for me again -.-"). I found out cause all the couples were seated apart due to different surnames and they were all swapping seats. During the flight the girls are all sleeping in the guy's lap or on their shoulder, oh god why me... why don't you remind me more hey...

The entire flight was 2:30 hours and as soon as we took off I looked at the array of movies available on the personal entertainment unit and was delighted at nearly the entire list were recent movies I wanted to see but didn't. I'd only have time for one, so I started watching 'Inglourious basterds' from the get go. Dinner was served on the plane and was the only meal we'd have as there were no food outlets near our first hotel and no dinner there. During flight the stupid service announcements kept interuptting my movie! Grrr... and to make it worse, they had to repeat each message 4 times (Mandarin, Hokkien, English and Japanese). Since I could understand 3 of those languages the messages got REALLY annoying to listen to. When we landed in Narita Airport-Japan, I had reached the very climax of the movie and they took away my headphones.. NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooo. I was devestated that I didn't get to see what happen! It's like... mmm ok can't say that here, not appropriate :P

Inglourious Basterds

I feel like a sheep. The tour guide waves a flag about as he walks and we all follow him in a big line... hahaha the thought it is funny. We also wear our little badges, "I'm a tourist lol!". My japanese failed me at the first counter where they took my passport and wanted to scan my fingerprints. I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me until he held his two index fingers up and 'danced' about with them and pointed at the machine. I did that, next he said some more gibberish which I figured to be "I want to take a photo of you" by the way he was making photograph gestures at me like a tourist.

Little Tourist Badge

We got offered facemasks to wear cause that's what you do in asia. Except it's like trying to breathe with your shirt pulled tightly over your nose and mouth. The air feels warm and regurgitated and I couldn't get used to it. Not to mention it makes it hard to hear what people are saying (as if trying to understand Japanese wasn't hard enough already). Sis and I managed to wear it until we got to the hotel then just gave up.

Annoying Face Mask - this is when we first landed in JAPAN!

Walking through customs, nearly the whole tour got through fine without being checked, but when they saw our family they pulled us up and went through our luggage. Luckily for us dad can speak a 'useable' amount of Japanese to answer the questions he was asking cause the rest of the family just sat there nodding in unison. While we waited for the tour bus, I did another quick laptop check but was just logging on when we had to leave. Damn again (I do like free wireless in airports though!).

Japan is cold, feels like New Zealand all over again. 4 degrees out here apparently, but my snow jacket solves that. The tour guide explained a few things about Japan; amongst them I found the fact that they use insta-biodegradable toilet paper in public places (which dissolves pretty much as you flush it down but it feels more coarse) and the tap water is safe to drink (yay!)

Arriving at the hotel, we found out it was small in both physical size and room size. Oh well, make do with what we have. I'm not complaining as I'M IN JAPAN! The one country which I have always dreamed of visiting and promised I would visit in my lifetime. No wireless in this hotel (it isn't high class) and the internet in the rooms here is Y1050/day (While I'm in Japan Y is now Japanese Yen instead of Taiwan Yen) which translates to roughly $13/day umm expensive much! Everything else is pretty expensive as well compared to Taiwan, compared to Australia things are not too bad. Not paying that much just for internet despite how much it is worth to me.

Downstairs there is 1 restaurant and 1 convenience store which I bet makes a killing cause there is no where else to buy food at this hour. So we made do with instant noodles and drinks.

Instant noodles with a dry/soup option by utlising the pouring holes to remove soup after cooking.

Entering our rooms, not much to say, the pictures say it all (reflections used in both photos to capture the entire room):

Bathroom

Bedroom

And yes we did have 2 of these rooms, so no we didn't try to squeeze the 4 of us into 2 single beds.

Made use of the disposable underwear that I bought and have to say, it's pretty thin you can pretty much see through it and the quality is obviously... rubbish and had a liquid rentention of 0.01 pretty much. On top of that, they border the limit of what lingerie looks like :S (I'm slightly disturbed by the thought as well cause I'm wearing it). Also got given kimono looking things to wear as robes. Cool I like, cause personally I've always been a fan of the female kimonos (they look so pretty and elegant).

Cheap Japan Hotel Robes

TV is free at least, except for 3 PAY channels which not suprisingly 2 are Adult and the other is Movie. In the drawers are more advertisements to purchase 'Adult Material' and other souveniers.

Not much else worth mentioning apart from the morning wake up call is at 6:20am and those who know me would know that Skasian does not exist at that hour! Waaaa.. fun day ahead tommorow at least, DISNEYLAND till 9pm woot!

Shaun-kun

P.S. The hotel doesn't list in any of its reading material the phone costs of the room phone, but I bet it's extortionate like the internet. Still I'm gonna find out as I have to figure out how to call my Japanese friends at some point.

Day 21 - "A Billion Ways to enjoy Life"

2010-01-12T00:09:00.000+10:00

Day 21 - 8/1/10

Total Weight Gain: 70kg -> 73.55kg (+ 3.55kg-Tainan)

This day marks 3 weeks in this god-forsaken hell hole. Those fascist bastards are putting up a fight alright. The air, plagued with smoke and debris irritates the lungs of every solider - man, woman and child that passes through these lands. Reminding us of the raw death that surrounds us, lurking around every corner, waiting to pounce on that unsuspecting victim. Winter creeps in and takes one of old Donny's toes down to the morgue, wonder what's next. It only takes a second to die, but a lifetime to live...

<8:30am. No, it's not really that bad, but it might as well be, if I were to draw a metaphor of my current mental/emotional status it would be somewhere along those lines. 3 weeks has been a long time to live in these conditions. It's comparible to solitary confinement in a futuristic prison. Sometimes I wonder if my parents have forgotten what it's like to live at our age, what it takes, what we require and how we function. They seem to fail to comprehend the importance or rather the necessity of a social life and our connections with the outside (or home-world) in which we grew up in. To them, the internet is a mere tool of entertainment. But for someone who has been surviving on the bare-roots of sanity, the internet is much more. It becomes a lifeline, that breath of air in a suffocating environment similar to how that dose of cocaine can cure the addict the internet also provides a mean for extending life in a realm of nothing. Friends become so much more, mean so much more and is it as with all things, they matter most after 'you say goodbye'...

8:30am. the early morning wake up call, the lack of sleep and the feeling of wanting to lie in bed just that second longer prolonging the inevitable. Boxes, bags and backpacks pile the corridor waiting to be weighed. The scale shows 28kg, 8kg over the baggage limit. Father has sacrificed many purchases in anticipation of my heavy items, thus I will borrow on his allowance. Still, even with the excessive amount of carry-on luggage and our baggage, 5 boxes manage to build up which will be shipped slowly for 2 months in the sea until it reaches Australia. Many purchased luxuries will have to be sacrificed and left to this slow mode of transport. Most of it are mother and sister's miscellaneous small items; my only real items of value being shipped are my 'Queensland - State of Origin Shirt' and my 'University of Queensland Shirt'. For some uncomprehendable reason, clothes have slowly become to mean more to me as I age.

9:30am. the last goodbyes are said, hugs all round. Won't be seeing house or area for a very long time. It's time to drive to the other grandparents to bid our farewells. On the way I bought another pair of inner pants to provide much needed warmth for the winter of Japan. Additionally I spent the travel time finishing off emails and a last check of MSN hoping to see my missing-wishing star once more, however luck was not on my side.

10:15am. arriving at mum's side for another round of goodbyes. Picking up the remaining luggage there we headed off to Tainan High-Speed Rail Station to board to bullet train. On the way, breakfast - a last remant of Tainan food. The scale before I left gave me its last reading to remind me of all the wonderous food I've experienced.

11:15am. Pulling into the train station my sister spots a very interesting sign neither of us can read as the english transalation is misleading to say the least. After parking and moving into to purchase tickets, I ran all the way back to the entrance to take this photograph:

Motorcycle Kiss and Ride?

I am led to believe that if you give the motorcycle guy a kiss, he will taxi you for free. Although I doubt I have the womanly charms to do so...

11:53am. The roar of the bullet train rushing through the tunnel. The land passing swiftly outside reinforced windows remind me of the sheer velocity this train reaches (300+km/h). The 1:43 hour train ride will provide me with the time needed to write up this diary. Pulling into a train stop makes me wonder why this multi-billion dollar project didn't incoporate free wireless internet at each station considering wireless is so prevalent all throughout the city and even in the more suburban areas (driving through the countryside I still pick up random wireless signals).

1:36pm. The screech of the breaks can barely be heard through the sound-proof passenger cabin as the train comes to a halt. We are in the heart of the country now, Taipei. First impressions of this new city was poor. Father blames it on the different government. Tainan is governed by the Pro-Taiwan party while Taipei is ruled by the Pro-China party. This ends up reflected on infrastructure. The exact same train station project looks a grand spectacle in Tainan. Here in Taipei, the supposed million dollar train station looks tacky. Walls are cracked and chipped, the quality looks poor, design is terrible, 1 tiny elevator for a huge amount of passengers arrive on trains and toilets are located down a stairwell meaning passengers with luggage are unable to access it. My stomach was giving me noises so I decided to release my bowels. Going into the toilets did not improve this place's reputation at all. No toilet paper in each cubicle but 1 huge roll that dispenses toilet paper on the way in. Asking the nearby cleaner where the toilet paper was, was only replied with a rude "Can't you see it's over there, look with your eyes". The cleaner spent his time cleaning the flooding water out of one of the basins that was poorly maintenenced. As I entered the toilet, the ground was covered with footprints of mud and dirt mixed with liquid that was no doubt urine. The toilet was no other then a squat toilet, with the immediate surrounding area covered with brown stains and other pieces of material that I care not to describe. To go to the toilet you can't exactly avoid stepping in it either. I have yet to use one of these toilets while in Taiwan as Tainan has nearly converted all it's toilet to more modern designs. Squatting down I strained my muscles just to maintain my balance and not fall over onto the dirty ground. It hard to aim as well at the small toilet and furthermore I can see why faeces has been desposited all over the region as from the height you are when you squat down there is still a fair distance to the floor and for all those who have experienced a 'runny output', you will know it can sometimes squirt outwards a bit. After about 30 seconds I gave up as there is no way to release myself while in such an awkward position. It was then I realised how hard it was for girls. Having to go to the toilet like this all the time especially if it was on these types of toilets. Guys have it so much easier. I ended up waiting till the cubicle with the normal toilet was empty and used that instead. I had a 'shitty' experience.

Furthermore, the taxi rank outside is poorly designed in that the taxi queue line intersects with the taxi drop-off area. Thus taxis spend their time trying to honk their way through and cut each other off to try and drop off or pick up passengers, building the queue in an awkward mess that backs up onto the road and blocks the rest of the tracfic. The taxi driver we got was incredibly rude; nudging me to put my seat belt on and speaking in a very impolite manner with poor language and barely opening his mouth. Back in Tainan the taxi drivers would step out and help you load luggage, here he just sat there and watched his TV mounted on the front panel. I could understand TV's for personal vehicles, but surely you shouldn't be risking the passenger's/client's safety by watching a TV while driving! The entire way he kept honking his horn, driving really aggressively through the Taipei traffic. Needless to say, the first 30 mins in the capital really didn't impress me.

2:30pm. We've been offered a place to stay while in Taipei by my grandpa's childhood friend whose daughter is close friends with my father. I am truely in shock and awe. Right now I can't believe where I am. The man that my grandfather is friends with is rich beyond comparison. Words do not do me any justice right now, I fail to even express in any way the wealth, power,respect and influence this man possess. Simply put it ... (wow x 10000000). One word, 'billionaire'.

3:00pm+. There was originally about 10+ extra paragraphs detailing the experience I had living with a billionaire but due to privacy issues I am not permitted to post anything regarding this man. Thus this next section has been greatly censored sorry and all the related photos I cannot post either.

Basically in short we went to live with a billionaire and the things I saw were out of this world. A social status I didn't believe existed in real life, like nothing I have ever seen.

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7:00pm+. For dinner, the infamous Taipei 101 which was a few months ago still the tallest building in the world. There we visited the highest restaurant on the 85th level around cloud level. The building's fabled elevator is said to be soo stable that "You can stand a coin on it's edge and it won't topple over at it travels". I have yet to test this but I will once when there is no one around. But it felt very stable and travelled soo fast that it hurts my ears and my blood feels funny.

The interior of the restaurant was simply astounding. Live classical-jazz playing through the ambient environment. One of our family friends that joined us for dinner brought a little baby girl along. The little baby was soo cute and did the cutest things. Kept trying to drink wine as well which was incredibly funny. I see it and I'm reminded of my desire to be a parent and have such a happy loving family and live happily and peacefully... sighz* I wish I could 'hire' a temporary baby to play with :P

Views from the Restaurant: Sorry about the bad weather

The toilets in the restaurant had views of the city. Unfortunately the rest of the windows that provided a panaramic views were clouded white by the bad weather so we couldn't see much. Food here was beyond extortionate in terms of pricing but it was indeed very high class and located in the best location you can find in Taiwan. I saw some couples dating here and was thinking, wow such a lucky girl... this is such an amazing place, I wish I could offer the same thing, but I'm a few million dollars short :(

Next came the food which again I photographed:

Good things come in small portions! The whisky was $200+ a bottle, and the wine was smooth as silk. I drank so much I bordered tipsy. The cow tounge was soo tender as well. And the sharkfin soup was priced on the menu to be $110 per serve (that's in the country where food is 5 times cheaper)! It tasted like nothing I've ever eaten, the texture was indeed unique beyond description. So this is the life of a billionaire...

They say the small earthquake which is felt like a shake on the ground, sways like giant about to topple over when your up in the 85th level restaurant. That would be an interesting experience. People scream for help and are begging for their lives up there while on the ground nothing much is happening at all! mmm... just an interesting thought.

11:25pm. Goodnight world as I look out the window at the glimmering lights all below me.

Shaun

Day 20 - "The Last Night"

2010-01-11T23:57:00.000+10:00

Day 20 - 7/1/10

Wow what a night, never gives me a break it seems. At least it was one continuous dream although I can't recall how they were all connected. Would be very interesting if I was still writing my 'Requiem of Dreams' and analysed this dream as it seems to have many many roots! Describing the dream would take forever but it contained: Vivien, Eugenie, Dwarves, Voldemort, Wands, Magic, (Old Friend) Dylan, Swirls, 2 Story House, Wooden walkways, Waterfalls, Dragon-age, A storyline that seems soo familiar I'm sure I've seen somewhere, Moon, Sea, Workers, BMX biking, Trick Jumping and grinding, lottery, (Old Friend) Mattison, Signing my name down, My real life address, crowds, an architectural design made into life-size I created in ENGG1000 (2nd year), mobile phones, text messages, spikes and fences arghh the list goes on forever, it was sooo random yet some of it seemed so real and alot of it confused me like crazy. Even after I woke up I was like 'WTF was that all about'.

Mum and dad left us alone this morning again so slept in till 11:30am again where we waited until grandma bought us some food. (It really does feel more and more like a prison and writing a diary just amplifies that!). So here goes another day satisfying my addiction to 'Scribblenauts' and Settlers 5 and more MSN chatting while I still have internet. Mum and Dad came back in the afternoon for a sec and then dashed out the door to some more unknown business to attend to.

Late in the afternoon dad came back first and took me to get that much needed deforestation on my head. Went around to one of the 3 hairdressers within a 2 min walk away (there seem to be alot of hairdressers in Taiwan). She seemed like a nice lady and it turned out to be the main stylist + store manager who did my hair. Gave me about a 10~15 min shampoo which was pretty much a head massage at the same time and by the time she was done my head hurt from all the pressing. It actually hurt during it and I wanted to ask her to stop but then I'd look like a pussy if I cried out in pain when someone was washing my hair lol! But whoa, man this girl has strong fingers! After a 1 hour long hair session I came out with an intersting haircut. Again I leave myself to the mercy of the stylist and just let them design whatever they like. I'm not sure if I like this style or not, mum hates it but sis thinks it's ok. Longer hair throughout the middle while short on the sides. Every hairdresser I've been to have said one thing in common about my hair; "You have ALOT of hair". They spend ages trying to thin it. Anyway here's my photos (forgot to take 'before' photos for comparison):

Side

Front

45 Degrees

There is one problem with being someone visiting from a foreign country, especially these kinds of services. During conversation they will often ask about where you live where your from and what you do. If your a local, alot of the time you get better prices as the price of services is usually just quoted as you exit and is up to the owner's discretion. Seeing that dad and I were overseas and knowing we probably wouldn't come back, the lady charged out a pretty hefty amount for the haircuts. It's kinda unfair how this sort of thing happens :(

Dinner time! Again, my grandfather only eats at high class restaurants with the best food as his accustomed to it and he will not risk losing face going to anywhere unworthy. So tonight we went to a Japanese Restaurant called 'Fou Tian'. The place was nicely decorated with a very good japanese feel. Interior designed with Japanese style eating rooms. It was just the 6 of us (family + grandparents).

Row of private dining rooms

Our dining room with the table indented into the ground

We weren't Japanese enough to sit the way your meant to sit on the little mat (I'm not 100% familiar with Japanese eating traditions anyway, will learn when I go there!). So we ordered food, and this time we ordered a good amount and managed to finish it all. I do have to say, out of all the sashimi/raw fish places we've been to (went to alot in Taiwan), this place took it hands down. I was utterly impressed with pretty much all their food served here I would definitely come again.

FOOD!

I think it's worth the time to mention toilets in Taiwan about now. No matter where you go, you will most likely see a toilet like this, designed for squatting. All the toilets used to be like this but the country is becoming more westernised now and using the standard toilets we are familar with.

Squat Toilet (hope you got good balance)

Another thing with amenties here is there are soo many situations where from the girl's toilets you can see into the guy's toilets so as the girls walk past they can see a bunch of guys lined up against the wall. I've noticed this at soo many places that we've visited, some places worse then others. At the worse end of the scale there are shared toilets. Meaning guys and girls are in the same 'room area'. I can tolerate randomness in toileting but this one pushed the extreme, now I didn't take a photo of any toilets or people nearby would think I'm weird of perverted but there are a few designs of shared toilets some worse then others but most reducing privacy by a far amount. The one I encountered was the guys and girls walk in via different doors but it leads to the same area where there are guy's urinals against the walls and girl's toilets against the other wall and sinks scattered about the sides. Now just being in this toilet was funny enough to watch as the girls walk in, they see the guys urinals and walk back out the way they came and check... "yep it is female alright" so they walk back in, get confused again and walk out the other door and see "WTF it's a guy's toilet" and walk a loop around the block and walk back in through the girl's door just to see it's the same place. Soo many people walking in and out looking confused. It is actually quite funny to experience but at the same time awkward trying to pee as the girls are just walking in and out and washing there hands staring at you. In conclusion, shared toilets is... nnnnnnnnnnnnnnn (Oh and alot of toilets are quite dirty)

Night time I came home and scribbled (Scribblenauts) some more while everyone else went out to pick up my sister's shoes. They came home with a box of egg tarts then I ate them all like a piggy :D Then spent the entire night packing up my entire room into my big travel bag and backpack and laptop bag and my computer box. Spent an hour trying to arrange everything perfectly so nothing would move, into my computer case as it is a big hollow box with alot of space in it (I took all the computer parts out and into my backpack so they don't get damaged by the cargo handlers). So now there is a very heavy computer box/case packed full of my goodies. Therefore I have soo much to carry! Computer case + contents in one hand (somehow), suitcase bag in other, backpack, and laptop bag on shoulder :(

Chatted on msn till people went to sleep and spent my time blogging and uploading photos at the same time. While packing I realised I had taken contraban onto the airplane! I has taken my swiss army knife that dad gave me last year onto the plane in my carry-on bag accidently! Haha stupid Australian airport security! and lucky me :S or I could have been questioned as a terrorist!

Finally I would just like to say goodbye to Tainan. This will be the last time I see the place for a few years as I'm unlikely to come back to Taiwan for a long while now (work/relationships and personal will). I may never see my grandparents again which is the sad part about leaving, they are getting quite old after all. I'm going to miss dearly my relatives and the food and all the cheap everythings in this country. Most of all I hope this is not the last time I see the man I honour/respect the most in my life - my grandfather (dad's side) who gave up his entire career for me, long story.

Me and Grandpa

Furthermore leaving now I will have to return my USB wireless to my auntie who has so kindly saved me alot of boredom these past few days. I am going to enter a internet-land again until I am reunited with Australia back on the 18th Jan. So blog updates will be delayed unless I can find free wireless during my travels. What sucks is Vivien had no internet these past few days while I did and when I leave for Japan she goes home to Indonesia and will have internet again but I won't. So it's like timing is against us :(

Goodbye Internet, Shaun

P.S. I think my favourite type of food would have to be Japanese Food :)

Day 19 - "Am I suffocating?"

2010-01-11T23:55:00.000+10:00

Day 19 - 6/1/10

Am I suffocating?

It has been over a month since I've seen her in person now. Many people have said the same words to me... "Distance makes the heart grow fond" and over this past month I would more of less agree with that. But I've learnt my lesson and experienced a pain I have never felt before in my life. Experienced then want and the need and realised how important she is. Also gave me time to reflect on the things I've done, we've done and not to take things for granted. So in a way I'm glad we had to split away from each other for a while as it gave me a chance to learn important things and experience things I would have never learnt any other way. Still, after all this I feel the days that are dragging on are pointless as I cannot learn anything more from this distance and it feels like God is just torturing me for fun now. There is still another month to go, I must persevere.

My parents dislike me sleeping in till ridiculous hours (11am and onwards) and they blame it on me not going to bed earlier. What they don't know is that isn't really the reason why, more so I can't get a good night's sleep in. Aside from all the noise disturbances and the fact that I'm not used to sleeping on such a hard bed; there is the frequent getting up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep.

My mind enters a seemingly endless overdrive and creates a myriad of thoughts about her. Everything somehow relates to her and it will never end until my brain mentally shuts down completely out of exhaustion which causes me to be tired again the next morning after waking up. The nights have brought about a new found pain, it is one that I fail to describe, one that I have yet to understand and most of all one that I am unable to deal with. When it strikes, it does so with such great precision and timing it renders me incapcitated, lying in an empty bed to fend for myself. I don't see God's purpose in keeping us apart for so long, but if there is one (and faith is all I have left now) then it better be good. Some nights I just want to curl up and disappear or just die and wake up a month later to be reunited again, other times the pain overwhelms me and I want to cry and let it all out but I cannot. Something physically in my body it seems prevents me from crying no matter how much I want to or how much I try, the emotions just build up in a giant snowball that becomes a heavy and heavier burden on me to try and slow that non-stop roll down the slope. But it never stops I don't have a way of stopping it and eventually that snowball becomes an avalanche and buries me beneath it all. I blank out and forget it all until I wake up again the next morning. Before this relationship started I had only ever asked to be able to hold her in my arms, but it seems that God has blessed me with more then that. Whether it was out of sheer pity after 20 years of watching my struggle on in life, or whether fate intervened and decided to give me some breathing space. Either way I feel I got more then I bargained for and I am very thankful for that. She tells me at times she doesn't know what she did to deserve me, but to me I've always thought of it as the other way around. When she is by my side I don't dream of her, very rarely, in fact I don't dream at all. My mind is just so at peace that it enters a tranquil state without all the lucid dreaming. Why lucid you may ask? Now-a-days every night that engulfs me plunges me into a plethora of dreams, non-stop and when I dream of her it seems so real, so coherent. If feels like as if I've been drowning in the sea and the dream has pulled me up to the surface for a breath of air before the new dream starts again and drops me back into the depth again. These dreams will wake me up randomly and prevent me from sleeping peacefully and thus I never get my good night's sleep, always tired everyday. It's become an endless cycle and I wonder when it will end and let me go...

The loneliness is only amplified by my lack of meaniful social interaction with people my age in real-life. I have my sister but it is not family that I want, but friends right now. Friends who have always been there to support me. Discounting my sister, my youngest cousin is 8 years younger then me and at this age, 8 years shows a huge interlectual as well a maturity difference and I fail to talk to them in a way that is intelligible to them which also may be due to my lack of chinese vocabulary that I possess. I'm not sure anyone would understand how this feels but to go from somewhere you have all your friends around you constantly, to a place where you know absolutely no one besides my relatives. The feeling is very unnerving and prolonged exposure to it is driving me insane. It feels like a prison's solitary confinemet cell and I am constantly reminded that I don't have a single friend in a 1000km radius of me so even if I really wanted to and tried I couldn't find anyone to talk to. In fact I only know 2 people in this whole country who I might be able to call friends and both of them I haven't seen in 3+ years. The first week without internet was torturous, only it was slightly alleviated by the wireless internet I now possess. At least for now I can have some sort of contact with the outside world. And the relief I get from talking to my friends on MSN makes all the difference, and is why I made such a big deal out of it at times. It is my only sanctuary from this hell hole.

To add to the amount of things that already constantly remind me of her, is my mind playing tricks on me. From behind or from a distance that are alot of instances where I will mistake someone for her and I'd always look even though I know it's impossible but my soul holds onto that slither of hope. I should also mention that I live next door to an all girls high school meaning hair, height, physique is easily confused with her when my mind is creating these illusions at 1000's of girls that past me by. Why... oh why... why me.... the pain is unfathomable at times...

Yesterday mum stayed with her parents while we came home to dad's side. Mum is going up to Taichung today to go see the specialist doctor as her body isn't in the best of shape. There is nothing I can do but hope for the best. Age brings about terrible things in people, it is sad to see and is inevitable I guess.

The morning started at 1130 and dad had left us to do his own thing. So sis and I starved lunch as we didn't know how to get food without leaving the safety of the house. So we sat around and bummed in our rooms all day playing Settlers 5 and Scribblenauts until grandma bought us some sushi at 1pm and then later at 5pm bought us some tempura.

Dinner we went back to the 'All You Can Eat Hot Pot' place. Where I again shoved myself with an abundance of food. I also took notice and made use of the chocolate fountain there (first time using one)... yum!

After dinner sis wanted to go shoe shopping so the entire family went with her while she looked for her white pair of 'horse boots' I think they are called. I played Scribblenauts on her DS while walking around with her cause girls and shoe shopping could take anywhere between 5 mins to 1 hour per store. Eventually when she did find one that she wanted, the usual happens and the store doesn't have her size. Fortunately we can order them in for tommorow.

Came back and continued my addiction with Scribblenauts (it's amazing how addictive this game can get). I want to say this game is such a creative piece of work and really allows you to get creative with how you finish some levels. Play it!

Now it's bed time and time to face whatever this night decides to throw at me. Sometimes I wonder if she shares the same pain that I do, or has her past experiences rendered her immune.

The lack of photos describes the mood this day was...

For now...(attempt) zzzzzz Shaun

P.S. Am I suffocating?

Day 18 - "I'm a Snake!"

2010-01-08T03:50:00.000+10:00

Day 18 - 5/1/10

Late morning 11am. Didn't sleep well last night. Was bombarded with a plethora of dreams, it was like a novel of short stories. I can't recall any of them except the one where I cuddling VV (yes that was the entire dream ... so eventless yet memorable cause it felt good inside). Then earlier in the morning was stirred by the jet planes flying overhead and grandad's cigarette smoke filling up the whole house from downstairs.

So deprived of meaningful social interaction. I'm dying to talk to someone in real-life in english and that's roughly my age. Even if it was a stranger... it just feels so lonely like this.

Walked around the street and had lunch on a side-store selling noodles. Sis is obsessed with the neighbour's little white dog. It is very cute and nice to feel. Except it has a bad habit of peeing everywhere/all the time, even when my sister is patting it!

Cute White Dog next door

After lunch, took a thick wad of 1000 yen bills went to pick up my computer. Nothing interesting happened here, just went there and they will still testing my comp so they took it apart and packed it in front of me and I paid and left. We had to make sure it was taken apart in pieces and got rid of the original packaging so the stuff doesn't look brand new or customs in Australia is gonna slap me in the face with a huge electronics tax.

On the way out of the area I walked past an 18+ store. Curiosity wants me to go inside and see the difference between the stores in Australia and here, except I can justify walking in with my parents :P

Spent the whole afternoon packing stuff and getting ready to send it back to Australia. Only allowed to take 20kg onto the plane and I've already hit that and I haven't even been to Taipei or Japan yet :( Also have a backpack and laptop to take as carry on luggage (hope it's not too much). So many things appeared that I had forgotten I've even bought :S Could say I'm significantly poorer now after purchasing 2 computers on this trip.

As we closed into dinner we drove to mum's side and packed all the stuff my mum and sister bought (they arrived in Taiwan 2 weeks before dad and I did). Ate dinner there and spent most of the night packing boxes. Managed to fit 4 boxes so far:

An all so interesting picture of our 4 boxes

Downloaded an amazing game. It's called 'Scribblenauts' and it's on Nintendo DS. At E3 (huge gaming convention) it won 'Overall Best Game of the Year' (out of PS3,Xbox360,PSP,PC etc...), 'Best Puzzle Game of the Year', 'Best Nintendo DS Game of the Year' taking home the most awards. And wow, this game deserves it! Looks very childish at first glance with cartoon graphics and kid-friendly themes but it is suprisingly addictive and original. In one sentence (which doesn't do it justice to the things it can do), "anything you write on the screen will appear in the game world!". So if you scribble the word 'gun' you get a gun, 'car' you get a car etc... Aim is to solve many puzzles and get to the end of the levels. Much much fun and I would highly recommend everyone to try it!

Scribblenauts! Play it, you WON'T regret it~

Seems that God has mercy on my sanity as he decided to bless me with huge luck. As I was about to leave mum's side and go home, I decided to log on just for a few seconds to check if VV was online, and in those few seconds she actually was there! Had she not been on for those few seconds I would have closed my computer for the rest of the night. So talked to her on the go hehe thanks to my (flaunting again!) 24/7 wireless internet :D

On the way home, we stopped off at a market which used to be one of the biggest in Tainan. Located next to a huge shopping mall (it had a mini roller-coaster on the roof!) which is now a pile of rubble as it went bankrupt, the market sprawled seemingly forever. Now-a-days business in the area died so the market has been demolished into half it's original size. Still the old store is still the selling the exotic SNAKE!

Everytrip to Taiwan is not complete without trying snake. Despite being slightly on the expensive side due to the rare nature as a food, the snake's meat and accompaning soup are both very good for your skin complexion as well as helping to reduce acne. I, of course treated myself to a meal of snake and here is a video for your entertainment. I present SNAKE!

Snake... LIVE FOOTAGE! (Video yet to Come)

At this small store, the old lady here (she's got balls of steel) pulls the snake out of it's cage and then strings it by it's head on the noose and hangs it there while she skins it alive. The snake will writhe in pain as it is skinned and then gutted and the meat taken off it's body while it's alive. This is done to ensure the 'fresh' taste of the meat as you are essentially eating 'near live' animal meat. The snake shown above has not been skinned yet. A customer asked to buy what we call 'dan' (not the clarie type) or in chinese 'Courage' which is an actual organ in snakes and humans too but I'm not sure what the literal english name for it is. So in the video if you look closely the snake has it's guts cut open about half-way down where this small organ is extracted and sold for a high price as it is very healthy. The owner feels down the snakes body and with careful and precise cuts, locates the organ and cuts it out without spilling too much of the snakes blood and keeping it alive for as long as possible. After the snake meat is extracted, it is then cooked with a high-hot fire and then served in a soup also created from the snake meat. Snake meat tastes slighty chewy and the soup smells very nice like chinese fish soup and tastes like it. (Didn't stay around long enough to wait for more customers so she would skin the snake, as she enough meat already to cook for us from the snake hanging behind the one writhing around. Therefore no 'cruel' animal skinning video)

Snake Meat with Snake Soup

After eating this we decided to hunt for more food. The old man selling the white-sugar-treats had gone home to bed so we kept driving around looking for intersting good. Eventually we stopped in a side street and ordered a large bowl of noodles. After that we were all too tired and full so we drove home and went to bed :)

Shaun

P.S. For once I am very happy tonight, as knowing Vivien finally got my present has been a great relief to me :D

Day 17 - "Game On!"

2010-01-05T16:58:00.000+10:00

Day 17 - 4/1/10

What a 'relaxing' day...

Compared to every other day since I've been in Taiwan where I have gone somewhere or done something everyday. Today nothing was planned. Mum told me to sleep in the night before and that I did till 11am.

Woke up, did the usual cleaning-myself-wake-up routine. Then went for a walk with mum and sis down the street and found a Chinese Fast-Food. Quite an interesting concept. Think Maccas but selling asian lunch boxes. Like really fast serving times and lots of people in and out with takeaway. As we ate in the store, copyright issues prevented any photos.

Parents went out for the day and left me and sis at home. I gave sis the USB wireless to use which she exploited the unlimited quota and youtubed episodes of drama series. While I on the other hand, had been summoned with a mission. Mum wakes up earlier then us all and while we are sleeping she's been playing 'The Settlers 5: Heritage of Kings' on the laptop which we bought for $10. The version we purchased was in chinese and so was the manual, but I found an english manual hidden in the CD which I read and used my general knowledge of RTS gaming to decode how to play this game as mum was having trouble getting her farmer to farm food and understanding how the game worked. So basically (my mission) spent the entire afternoon playing Settlers 5 and learning how to play the game so I can teach mum and dad. Obviously this will lead to me vs. Mum + Dad on LAN when we get home! So better start training while I got nothing to do here :P

The Settlers 5: Heritage of Kings

In between getting tired of gaming constantly I read more 'The Lost Symbol' and nearly finished it now. Just got the huge plot twist at the end and DAMN he got me again. 5th time now I know there is a huge twist always but I can NEVER guess anywhere near it, Dan Brown does it so well it amazes me. I love his books... I'm gonna be bored when I finish it soon :(

Today is actually Grandpa's 79th birthday. In our culture, the 80th birthday of a family member, especially grandpa is very important as it is no easy feat to live to 80. Thus traditionally we do not announce the 79th birthday as it is bad luck and it is usually celebrated at an 80th birthday and the following year the proper 80th birthday is celebrated (again). This birthday usually involves a huge amount of guests and all the family will travel back from wherever they are around the world just to attend! Grandpa did not want to make an event out of his 79th birthday as a man as influential and well-known as him would need a large restaurant to accomodate all his guests, so he will save it for one big occasion on his actual 80th. His fame largely comes from his wealth that he used to possess as he owned the huge factory in his suburb as well as a big house, he later won a citizen award for saving the lives of 7 people in a flood due to his exceptional swimming ability.

So tonight, as the oldest son and grandson were here, grandad decided to have a small dinner gathering as he knows we most likely won't be able to make it back new year for his big birthday (which is quite a shame as would really wanna be there to honour him as the oldest male chain). Dinner was just our family (4) and grandparents (2) and dad's best friend and wife (2). So the 8 of us went to a high class restaurant and ordered too much food. Throughout the dinner of course, mentioning 79th birthday and subsequent birthday wishes was taboo for reasons mentioned before.

Now here are the photos of most of the food ordered:

I have crabs!

Sashi-MEEEE

"Quick a ball of Green-Tea icecream!" - Wasabi

Meat

Veges

Sweet! (literally) Prawns with Pineapples

Gotta love how easy Congee goes down the throat

Dead Fish (looks zombied)

Duck + Lettuce + lots of stuff in between

Watermelon Juice yum yum... there was a green one made of Honeymelon but we already drank it all before I could photo it

Chicken in soup

Free dish because my grandparents are old customers/well-known (not sure what this was)

Fruit Platter

Another free dish, this was a desert made of Taro

Kodak moment happened when we were discussing food. Grandad said if your want good food you should ask him as he has seen the most good food out of anyone at the table in his lifetime. Dad's friend's wife replied, "Grandpa's also seen the most amount of naked people as well". Took grandpa a few seconds to process that but his expression and reaction was priceless. He spat out his food all over his shirt and burst out in an outrageous laugh and his expression was one of utter disbelief and not knowing what to say! Everyone had a long laugh at the joke and the state of his clothes.

After dinner when we got home, we cut a cake. Sis wanted to put the 1 candle in and she put the candle in the cake upside down. It took us all a few seconds to realise and we were all wondering why the candle looks so weird like it had a hat on top until we realised her silly mistake. Another round of laughter ensured.

The Cake

I should also mention that Taiwan makes amazing cakes with really cool flavours and designs and of course at low prices. Cake shops usually are bakeries as well and Taiwan makes even better breads (I'm not much of a cake/desert person). Out of 10 I'd give Australian breads 3/10 while the breads here are 7 or 8/10 . They are just soo rich in bready-goodness and soooo soft like sponge. You bite into in and it feels like it's melting in your mouth. Everytime you drive past you can smell the sweet aroma drifting through the air, permeating into your nostrils and arousing your senses. I will miss the bread!

It's unfortunate to see grandpa age. He used to be the most formidable drinker I've seen. Now-a-days his liver is giving in and there are certain foods he can't take on top of copious amounts of alcohol. I remember a few years back on his birthdays where all the guests would be over. He would sit on the end of the table and drink beer non-stop for a whole night. The beer was too much to be carried it and was wheeled in a shopping trolley into the dining room by our maid and the next morning you can see trollies of empty beer bottles being wheeled out! Grandpa would out-drink anyone at the table to the extent where people went to sleep in the guest rooms/went home in forfeit of drinking and the next people sat down and grandpa would continue to drink and beat them as well. His a man who doesn't seem to be able to get drunk. Now dinner has slowed down to a single bottle or 2 of wine. :(

I also received another bombardment of emails from VV today, and was devastated to find out my parcel never arrived! Now I have to backtrack to Australia and make some long distance phone calls to find my present wherever it is currently :S

Shaun

Day 16 - "Journey to the South"

2010-01-05T01:33:00.001+10:00

Day 16 - 3/1/10

Preparations for Japan are being made with things being boxed up ready to be sent on a boat. Boats seem to paddle to Australia or something because it takes 2 months for things to arrive!

My impression of a delivery boat to Australia...

Still no word from VV yet, damn, guess she really can't get internet afterall :(

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Today I tried a little social experiment

Objective: I wore my new hat EVERYWHERE

Results: Ok for the middle of the day it was justifiable why I was wearing my hat as I was up on a mountain and there was a sun out. During the nighttime while I was wearing it indoors was obviously weird. Either way no matter where I went, people stared at me and kept looking at me. People would go out of their way just to take a look as they walked by and to the extent when I was sitting down eating dinner people tried to sneak a peak at me when I was wearing my hat lower to see the face under the hat. I was the center of attention everywhere I went. I felt like a star! It turns out according to my family that in Taiwan, people who wear the kinda hat that I wore were celebrities and usually singers, so thus people wanted to see if I was some famous person only to be disappointed it was me. Had I been walking alone down the street I would have either been mugged because people though I was rich and famous or attacked me just cause they don't like people who stand out like that. Still, it goes to show a cheap $10 hat can go a long way in changing your external appearance and the way everybody interacts with you and also how you feel about yourself.
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Early morning and we are off to a driving start where breakfast is served on the go. We meet up with my auntie and head off for a road trip down south. After a sleepful amount of drive we arrive at our first stop, the BEER FACTORY!

Outside the Beer Factory

The factory produced none other then 2 of the few asian words Robin knows how to say and that is TsingTao. Which is the most widely known brand of beer in China and has been imported to Taiwan where a factory has been constructed. Immediately off the bat I got rid of some cash and then went to try out the free beer :)

Upstairs in the TsingTao factory was a terracotta solider exhibit along with diagrams and models of how the beer factory worked. The english translations in nearly all the places I've been to are pretty bad but nothing bad enough to make me lol and take a photo of it (and most places don't let you photograph anyway). So I didn't really learn anything.

Terracotta Solider Models

I decided to explore the area which was pretty derserted at the time and wandered through the factory and found all the machinery viewing areas. Except due to the new year's period the factory was currently on holiday and thus non of the machines were running. So I couldn't see anything cool just lots of crazy contraptions ... still. Amazing the entire system of machinery that takes up like 2 warehouses worth of size produces 10 cans of beer a second! Mmmmm that's alot of 'fun times' :D

On the way out, I saw this christmas tree which really captured the 'celebrative' theme of christmas :)

Beer Tree!

Another long car trip and we ended up in the mountains in the Sandimen Township where there is the famous Dragonfly Beads Art Studio. Here the locals have pefected the art of making pretty glass beads with different symbolic meanings. So we learnt to make one and we all made one each with the use of what I think is glass and a bunsen burner.

Me making a dragonfly bead

While we waited for our beads to cool from there molding temperature of 800~1000 degrees celcius, we went upstairs and had lunch. Here we ate 'Paiwan Food' (spelt with a P as it is the name of the aboriginal food in the area). The prices here were absolutely extortionate and it took them forever just to bring us water. The meal took FOREVER to arrive we were all falling asleep waiting and I lost track of time how long we waited but at least 30 mins for the first meal. They must have been up in the mountains trying to catch the mountain boar I ordered and out harvesting the grain and planting the veges with the time it took them! Everyone was outraged and when the food arrived, out of the 6 meals ordered only 1 of them tasted ok. All the other dishes were soo bland and lacked anything worth the amount of money we paid. We ended up asking for a bowl of salt which we 'a-salted' our food with multiple times to make it edible. We left the place very unsatisfied and I would say you'd have to PAY ME 200% the cost of the food to get me to come back and eat here, waste of time on top of terrible food.

The 'Mountain Boar with Rice' meal I ordered

So extracting ourselves from the area we drove to another township which was famous for its wooden fans and umbrellas (chinese style) that they made. I do admit the stuff they made was quite pretty and decorative and due to interlectual property or whatever artistic design copyright is called, I couldn't photograph anything except the front entrance to show I've been here. Being a wood crafting area, they had a souvenier shop but since nearly everything was made of wood (customs hates importing wooden things), I couldn't buy much :( nor could I even by a pretty fan for myself to take home. Either way mum is the superstitious kinda woman and she won't let me to give certain presents to people as they symbolise bad things such as clocks (which I forgot why) and fans/umbrellas as they symbolize breaking up (ending friendships). Personally I don't believe in such things, but to avoid arguments and conflicts I just follow mum's rules.Entrance of the Fan/Umbrella making place

It was getting late by this point (around 5:30pm) but we still had one more location to visit. So we headed over there, further into the mountains where night fell upon us. When we arrived at the massive front gates they were locked and the entire place was dark and spooky looking but at the same time the magnificent structures could be seen towering over the walls that protected them. Standing several 10's of stories tall was a huge temple and surrounding side temples. I have never seen such a big temple in my life and the roofs and carvings of all these temples were made of Gold, evident as the car's headlights would refect off the Gold on the way in and make everything sparkle. These buildings were stunning from the outside and I tried to take a photo but it was very dark already and I could only just make out the outlines rising over the walls while the camera's flash photography failed to produce anything of value, ending with just a blank black photo.

Seemed like the historical tourist attractions were closing for the night so we headed back home on another long sleepy car trip. Dinner we ate sushi at a place called 'Sushi Express' whose business was amazing to the point where customers gave up waiting cause the queue to get in was too long. All plates of sushi were $1 each (unlike the falsely named 'One Dollar Sushi' in Australia) and about 50% of these were expensive seafood dishes that cost $4 or $5 in Aust. I ate my money's worth with 12 plates for $12 and boy was it good and made me very full.

My victorious 12 plates and side dishes

Went shopping nearby and saw an interesting item I've never heard of before. 'Disposable Underwear'. I have no idea what the true purpose of this is, but we bought some anyway just so on our short visit to Japan we can save washing some clothes and trying to dry them in their winter climate. On the way out of the shopping center I saw this unusual bin:

All the usual things you need to dispose of, such as Garbage - Recyclables and Light Tubes!

Nothing left to report for the day ... good night!

Shaun

Oh, asian being the land of 'cheapness' has a unique fly-trap which I saw at a restaurant. See below:

Piece of paper with very sticky sweet stuff on it so the flies get stuck and starve to death

Day 15 - "Shopping Spree!"

2010-01-05T01:16:00.000+10:00

Day 15 - 2/1/10

Exchange Rate:

1 AUD -> 28.7 TWD
1 AUD -> 83.4 JPY
1 TWD -> 2.9 JPY

~~~

Basketball Score: 250 (Top: 274)
Total Weight Gain: same as before

I want to start this one by thanking Kev for letting me borrow his book 'The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown', it is good and has kept me not bored alot of the time. Although I'm about to finish it and I wish I had Twilight here as I started reading it and didn't get to finish :(

'The Lost Symbol' - Dan Brown

Woke up late this morning cause I was sick last night and still felt drowsy this morning. Went and had a yummy cheap brunch at a store along the side of the road again. I realised that every since I've been here (15 days and 4 or 5 meals a day) we haven't had a single home cooked meal. The price/variety/availability of food makes it pointless for us or relatives to cook thus we have always eaten out!

Went to mum's side again where my auntie gave me a USB modem that had pre-paid internet in it. So now I have internet wherever I go! Yay! Still it feels like half the purpose is defeated cause VV doesn't have internet. Then my uncle took me on a scooter ride to a secret location through the backstreets to a secret place where I am making something for a select few special people :P

Riding back home I was informed to place my baggage in between myself and the driver as hanging it on my back would result in a drive-by mugging. A process where the victim is brutally dragged to the ground, scraping across the road at the speed the motor vehicle is travelling at while the culprit yanks the handbag/backpack from the victim and drives off.

Back at mum's side's home I sat around and chatted with HQ and watched alot of youtube on my new global wireless (which is also unlimited). Here my grandparents asked about my life and girls in Australia so by my 'code of practice' (that is: don't brag unless asked) I showed then photos of her as well as the video/song she made for me. The comments ranged from "You 2 look like a married couple/you look alike" to "She's short :P" to "Her voice sounds like a professional singer" and the usual grandparent question of "When can we expect great-grandchildren?!"

Since a few days have been dedicated to my computer 'shenanigans', this night was my sister's and thus we went to 'Fashion-street', no doubt you can guess this street is full of fashion outlets and per usual the girls' stores greatly outnumber the guys. At first I thought I was gonna die of boredom from shopping but 'life is what you make of it' and 'You can't enjoy things unless you try to enjoy it' so I gave it a go, and suprisingly the night turned out quite well.

After walking the first quarter of the street and no one buying anything, we stopped and ate dinner. Next door was a large arcade and upon entering, i discovered that this place was half price compared to everywhere else in Taiwan. Thus all the games here were about 20 cents each. I played DDR and alot of Basketball, trying new throwing techniques in an effort to improve my score but failed again at 250.

Back onto fashion street we went and the girls seperated from the boys to go look at their things. (personally I don't want to walk into a lingerie shop by myself unless I'm accompanied by someone and or a specific purpose :P ). When we were done and heading off, Dad and I had someone spent ALL our money between the both of us (mostly of my stuff)! We out bought the girls. I decided to talk a bold step into unknown territory and dive into the fashion world and try my hand at a different style of clothing all together, hoping that I wouldn't do too badly. I literally bought a bit of everything, from hats, scarfs, underwear, shirts, jackets to pieces of clothing I'm not sure how to even name. I don't even know how to wear this stuff, add in partial colour blindness and hooray for fashion :D Since I had no other photos to show I'll show picture of all my items I spent a fortune on...

My shopping spree!

I'm thinking hats and scarf for dance routines, getting my dance on...dressing up, feel like experimenting and having fun!

I hope my fashion isn't too bad and I dun get crucified for it as my wallet is already crying and my ego waiting to get crushed. Anyway after we finished shopping we tried to look for mum and sis except the street is sooo long and as usual, when you need to use your mobile it runs out of batteries. So we walked up and down the street 3 times looking for them. Now the had part is, they could have turned into any of the side streets, be hiding in a change room, be in the toilet, be upstairs or god knows what. So it was literally impossible to find them. Add in the factor that Taiwan has a population density of 'packed' and all the girls are asian with black hair and short-ish with similar clothing it really doesn't help you when you looked around and also makes it redundant to ask the store owners if they have seen "2 female asians walk into this store". In then end after nearly 30 mins of walking we bumped into them. The total shopping trip took 4.5 hours.

On the way back we passed a bakery and I bought bread and ate it. Then we passed my favourite duck restaurant and I ate another dinner there. While I was there I showed off my patriotism to the store. I have carried the store's business card for years now, it is ALWAYS in my wallet and I carry it everyday of my life (even though the store is overseas!), that's what I call a dedicated customer!

Now back at home ... having troubling dilemmas to people I owe presents to.

Shaun

P.S. Oh while I was in one of the fashion stores I was chatting to one of the clerks and she said the average working wage for university students was about Y80~100/hour. She asked what I did/earned and I said I tutored at uni and I made about Y1000/hour, the shocked/stunned expression of disbelief on her face was priceless :D

Day 14 - "2010"

2010-01-05T00:27:00.000+10:00

Day 14 - 1/1/10

Total Weight Change: 70 -> 73.15kg (+3.15kg)

Happy New Year everyone!

Quick shoutout to the 3 people who affected me the most this year:
- VV for making my year!
- Esther for being such an influential friend is so many ways
- Jacky for her unwavering constant support :)

There are soo many people I want to thank that it simply wouldn't be feasible to start doing it. I listed these 3 people because I know I wouldn't be the person I am today with them in 2009, in saying that, so many other people influenced me I don't know where to start listing them to be fair. I kinda feel guilty singling out 3 friends but I just really wanted to thank you

Gonna be another lonely 10 days since VV no longer has internet for this period of time. I feel like starting another countdown of days till I get to talk to her again. But I feel that is a bit over obsessive :P Ah well, I guess I'll keep myself occupied as best I can... getting through one second at a time, "Every second that passes is a moment closer to seeing you again". Everytime I'm bored I think of that quote and time feels like it is no longer wasted.

Went next door where there is a small store that sells all sorts of things (sorta like Priceline but larger and more stuff). Learnt that my taste in ties is pretty bad and I need help :P Bought alot of random stuff here and found out later that I got over-priced again after seeing other stores.

Then near lunch time my parents decided that since nothing bad has happened to me it was probably safe (considering it was new years) to let me go shopping on my own so that I did. Spent an hour going through a stationery store and an art store. A little bit of time in a few other stores but the first 2 I managed to spend nearly 3 hours total somehow :S All the while fireworks were going off every 20 mins starting from noon. It seems 1st Jan is more festive then 31st Dec. I also discovered I was sick and getting quite bad no doubt from sitting outside in the cold stealing the neighbour's wireless and writing my blog till 2am+. I was over-generating heat (sick) so I ended up walking around in a Sports T-Shirt (the ones with air holes) where I got looks from nearly everyone I saw as it was a pretty cold day. Missed lunch cause was too busy shopping so just ate random food I saw on the sides of the streets (remembering there is food all along streets).

Bit of nerd talk, but I finally purchased my computer parts (after a bit of haggling).
For $815 I bought:

Motherboard - ASUS P7P55D LE
CPU - Intel i5-750
Graphics Card - ASUS Nvidia GTS250 1GB
Hard Drive - Western Digital 800GB
Power Supply - Snake 550W
RAM - 2 x 2GB 1333 DDR3
Case - A case with alot of holes at a huge side fan
Extras - 12mm Fan, Transcend 4GB USB Stick

Also they agreed to assemble it and test run it for 3 days, then dismantle it and pack it all for me :) So I'll get my compy in 3 days!

Admist the fireworks that were still going off at seemingly regular intervals, we left for dinner riding off with just dad and I on a scooter. We ate a famous eel-noodle dish and some teeth shaped meat buns. All the roads are hectic at night, and especially so tonight, as usual, there are traffic officers at every major intersection as traffic lights just don't cut it when things start getting grid locked. Scooters are the only efficient way of travelling. Tonight (1st Jan) is a special day for alot of the buddist temples and I'd say at least 50% of the country is of that religion so there were alot of supporters. The buddist gods come out and parade today and there are alot of them. As part of the parade ALOT of people follow along with instruments and banners and all sorts of decorative arrangements and march down the streets bringing traffic to an absolute stand-still. Another part of the tradition is to light fireworks along the path the gods are walking so we're talking about 30 mins of straight fireworks. That's ALOT of fireworks and you we drove up and followed right behind it so you can see them set up very close up. It's very very loud and very very pretty when you have front row seats and they explode right about you. Although the air pollution (from fireworks) makes you me wanna cry (literally cause the smoke hurts your eyes). We saw at least 3 of these parades on the ride home, so you can imagine the amount of money going into there parades as fireworks are really expensive.

On the way home we also bought fried white-sugar twist things that are a really yummy treat. The same old man has been selling it from his little-push cart for 46 years now! The amazing thing about Taiwan that dad was telling me about is the simple lifestyles of some of the poorer people. They spend so little and little businesses like this old-man make an absolute killing. While the store he pushes around might look like it's worth only $50, he could be driving a mercedes at home! Dad showed me a new report about a lady in Taiwan who owned nothing but basic clothes and a big cart she pushed around. She managed to collect cardboard people threw onto the sides of the road for decades and now she lives in a multi-story house she purchased by herself. It goes to show if you work hard you can save bit by bit for even the most expensive things and you shouldn't underestimate those on the streets as the there is more depth in that book then just the cover.

Should apologies now for the lack of photos as my sister is the camera person and she wasn't with me today.

Continuing on the scooter ride, we stopped off at the petrol station where dad asked for $2 of petrol. I instantly burst out in outrage questioning dad's joke. He asked the lady for $2 of fuel!!! Dad simply smiled and payed then started the engine and showed me the dial. For $2 of fuel (fuel prices is the same as Aust), you can fill a scooter from empty to full! These 50cc motorbikes can run for over a week on $2 of fuel! No wonder nearly EVERYONE in Taiwan drives one around! They are soo fuel efficient it makes me want to buy one in Australia to save on that $50 refueling trips I currently make. Except it would be dangerous to do so as Australian's lack the 'bike-awareness' on the roads as bikes are not common on roads as they are here and you'd probably get hit by a driver who doesn't shoulder-check properly and people in Australia don't understand 'dodging traffic' very well. Here in Taiwan when you want to turn or change lanes there is 90% chance you have a scooter driving in your blind-spot so factoring navigating in heavy-traffic with narrow roads and crazy drivers. The common statement "Asian's are bad drivers" definetely DOES NOT apply in Taiwan, I can garentee you the average Taiwan driver is more skilled then the average Australian driver. Should also point out here that scooters are free to park anywhere while cars cost Y20+/hour.

Night time I watched a TV show called "Breaking the Magician's Code". It was a masked man who performed and then revealed alot of the BIG magic tricks you see on stage and in theatres. Chopping a girl into pieces, displacing body parts, escaping underwater, impalement, mind-reading, teleportation etc... The list goes on, he reveals all the secrets behind it. It's clearly a breach of the Magicians code this program will put alot of magicians out of business. No wonder he wears a mask or he will get shot the moment he walks onto the street for ruining an entire industry! It's amazing to watch how these tricks are really done and if you get the chance you should Youtube this show! (Although it will spoil magic for you).

We also tried to go to the night markets but being New Years, the place was beyond packed. We walked to the entrance and gave up within a minute. You can't even walk in! There are too many people that the entrance isn't even moving! It's hard to appreciate alot of the things in Taiwan until you actually see and experience them yourself but there is nothing in Australia that comes close to the amount of people in Taiwan that try to fit into one area. We went home anyway and ran into 2 more parades on the way which stopped traffic again.

So here I am, gonna take an early night cause I'm sick. Just ate the famous KFC egg-tarts that I was meant to take a photo of (silly me cause I was hungry), sorry no photo.

Goodnight, Shaun

P.S. I realised I'm allergic to something in the air here, I keep sneezing (on top of my sickness) when I move around. Especially when I just walk into the house.

Oh since I don't like this photo-less post I will show you a picture of my uncle's car and the car we are driving around in, both which have TV's installed.

Uncle's Car, equipped with 3 TV's screens that are usable as: (DVD/VCD/GPS/TV/Rear-view Camera)

Other uncle's car we are borrowing with a fold up style larger TV screen in the middle. (DVD/VCD only). Sorry rotate your head!

Day 13 - "New Year's"

2010-01-03T11:12:00.000+10:00

Day 13 - 31/12/2009

On my own laptop from now on! Yay, don't have to share dad's with sister :) And it's nearly 2010 woot!

Woke up, had breakfast and a lazy morning so went back to sleep until noon. My little nap took me on a short dream where I went shoe shopping (how man-ly lol) except the entire dream I was standing outside the store and inspecting the walls of the shoe shop for some reason. When I tried to go in, the dream ended.

Went to the really expensive department store nearby (the one with elevator staff and other excessive service). It's called Shing-Kong and its actually the largest department store/shopping mall whatever you want to call it in Tainan. Found out Tainan is the 3rd largest city in Taiwan after Taipei and Kaohshong. Looked at alot of over priced items but couldn't photograph any due to copyright blah blah blah. We downstairs to eat lunch and was again bombarded by every shop keeping trying to pull you in, great service from every store just trying to get you to eat their food. The attitude of all the shop staff around Taiwan is soo different to Australia, they are overly helpful and polite sometimes. Anyway here is my lunch which I bought for $5, and my sister's lunch (her favourite fish) which she got for $7. Keep in mind that the same fish dish if you buy it at any chinese restaurant in Australia will cost between $50~$55!!

Okonomiyaki Lunch

Steamed Fish

Should have got a picture of this one but forgot but the parking is cool. Each parking spot fits 2 cars! One of top of the other in an lift system kinda like the ones you see at Mechanics and Car-Service centers where they raise your car up. Great idea, effectively doubling the parking capacity in a much needed high density asian country. I'm not too sure how you get your car down the the person below you is still inside shopping. I'm guessing it's like a conveyor belt which moves cars left and right as well as up and down. Still technology... ooo...

After lunch, went back to computer-street and did alot of shopping. Decided to buy COD6 for $60 despite it having no dedicated servers, but it's cheaper then Aust so I'm gonna regret not buying on of my favourite series if I leave without it. Also purchased some better-quality headphones for music playing (the ones with bass) so I can listen to good iPod music and also use it to play my Piano without stabbing Amanda's ears out. Dad also bought a few games as well (my whole family games :P ). Applied for a tax-rebate my laptop and then went to look at some laptop skins which cost about $50 each and were all girly-flower designs. Later I found DIY skins for $5 so bought them instead. Eventually looked around soo much that I didn't manage to do what I originally went there for, and that was to order my computer parts for the new desktop I am building. Enough boring nerd talk...

Dinner was back with my grandparents at the 'fish testicles' restaurant except this time I told my grandfather not to order anything exotic cause I don't want to eat it so in the end the most exotic food was merely pig liver. Drank another 2 bottles of Heinekens over dinner and the one person who I will not refuse to skoll (my grandfather) asked me to so I did :) By this time the new years fire works had started at different temples. Sounded like a war was breaking out every 10 minutes.

Something slithery the restaurant sold/cooked

After dinner went back home and stole more wireless from the neighbours where dad slept off his entire bottle of wine he drank. During this time, grandma showed me the basement which I hadn't yet visited and found it was converted into my grandad's very own driving range! The entire basement had a artifical green put in and a giant net against the back wall which he demonstrated you can whack as hard as you want at the net and you will be fine (as long as you don't suck to the point where you hit backwards :P ). This is pretty awesome, I didn't have time to play today but will definetely visit the basement for some stress and boredom relief soon. When dad awoke around 11pm (still over the limit), he drove us to Tainan City Hall where the council buildings reside and where the massive celebration gathering was.

Tainan City Hall - you can see the scooters that nearly everyone rides in this country

Traffic wasn't terrible due to the vast majority of transport being scooters which weave in and out of traffic. Finding a parking spot was a pain though. As we walked up towards the event, the speakers could be heard from miles away and people were all flocking towards the city center. The sheer amount of people there was amazing. There was a night market setup there and you literally could not move or rather you can't even get in cause it is over-crowded so we went around to see the stage. This is where I saw what we call in Mandarin "People Mountain People Sea" (i.e. The people make up the mountains and the seas).

Everywhere between where I am standing and the stage is a massive 'sea' of people, not to mention the night markets behind me and the areas off the side of the camera and also a 2nd floor balcony.

There was a long wait for the countdown while celebrities got up on stage and sang and danced as well as various speeches from the mayor. I not asian enough to know who the celebrities are so to me they are just other people lol, while my sister was going crazy about them. The countdown ended in a big display of fireworks (not as impressive as Brisbane's Riverfire in my opinion) and more celebrities appearing to sing and dance. There were 3 oversized beach balls surfing the crowd as well which was cool.

Fireworks! (Video yet to be cut)

One of the celebrities was a TV model turned singer. This girl was wearing next to nothing and its about 10 degrees at this point in time with a wind blowing across! The poor girl must be freezing! When she started to sing I could see why she was wearing the tutu. She CAN'T sing omg... full stop (yes I know a bit critical of me). For a celebrity singer she really has nothing in that department and the only reason I can see that she is famous is cause she is cute, has a nice rack and a 'curvy' body, thus the need to wear sexy/cute clothing. Since like 5 years ago I started to realise that all you need to get into the music industry is looks. Tonight solidified my opinion, but her lack of voice was definetely made up for by her looks. To be honest I'd prefer it if she traded in her sexiness for singing. It was like watching a concert, but there were different celebrities coming on and off and it was paid for by the government :)

Cute Taiwan Model-Singer (Video yet to come)

Tonight also taught me another thing. Being tall has it's advantages! Poor girls who came her to see their idols/celebrities. In the sea of people they can't see anything, I felt lucky to be averaged height so could see over the crowd while my sister spent alot of time on tippy-toes. If Ryan was here he'd have a very nice view :P

The 7-Eleven store nearby must have made a killing and also probably had the dirtiest toilet in the world by the end of the night! Speaking of 7-Eleven, I made up a joke. It's pretty bad :P and you need to understand Mandarin. Anyway, "Why did they choose the name 7-11?", "Because if they used 7-10 then they die on anger and 7-12 would have died as anger as well (say the numbers in mandarin)... hahaha sorry for my terrible joke, there is just soo many 7-11's around I am constantly reminded of it. Another thing I'm constantly reminded of is the korean pop song 'Nobody But You' which I really want cause it is played everywhere and is stuck in my head everyday.

Anyway, enough randomness, we got home at 1:30am and now finished writing this at 2:41am so bed time!

Shaun

P.S. VV returns to her 'home-home' today so she will finally receive my Christmas present! I hope she likes it although I'm disappointed I couldn't suprise her for Christmas and that I had to spoil the surpise when I thought the gift was lost in the mail.

Day 12 - "Re-writing History"

2010-01-02T17:18:00.000+10:00

Day 12 - 30/12/2009

Total Weight Gain: 70kg -> 73.15kg (+3.15kg)

Awoke this morning early-ish as had to check out before 11am. Unfortunately we were only visiting the place for 1 night. So I logged onto the free internet while I could before I left and quickly emailed VV before I got disconnected from the world again.

We are still the only guests here, but we have purchased this trip so they have to accomodate everything for us as agreed. Therefore they opened up the entire restaurant (different location this time) just for us. Way too many options for breakfast that I couldn't photograph it all from one angle. Soo empty lol (the place). If college breakfast was anything like what we had, I'd wake up every morning for sure. It was very asian styled though (so maybe not suitable to the college population) with congee and soup and lots of asian vegetable and meat side dishes to go with, meat buns and other buns or various varieties. Teas, coffees milks, fruits, salads, toasts + the emmanuel favourite BACON AND EGGS every morning.

Empty restaurant with some of the food choices lined along the walls

After breakfast, we went around revisiting some of the activities and then took alot more photos, dunno what to show so here... random lol

Pathway with pretty flowers growing on the sides

You know the saying, "History seems to repeat itself", well it did as we went to visit alot more historical sites. Alot which seemed repetitive as it was either "Oh look another rock!" or "Person XXX died here at XXX" (no disrespect meant to those deceased or 'rocked'). The first site we visited was 'Wu Feng Temple' (but Feng is pronounced Fong meaning 'Wind' so I'll address it as Fong despite the signs saying Feng).

Quick history lesson: The aboriginies of Mount 'Ali' had always prided themselves on their religious traditions. Every year they would sacrifice a human head to please the gods in order to gain favour to grow their crops and avoid natural disasters. As the early founders of Taiwan (the Chinese) moved across, their influence started to spread into the local area where they established villages. The aboriginies did not like these intruders on their lands and the 2 sides were therefore always hostile towards each other. Over time, one man by the name of Wu Fong became the ambassador and in charge of aboriginal-taiwanese relations. He went amongst the tribes and taught them his culture, educated the aboriginal people and tried to create peace and was greatly loved by the aboriginals. His ultimate goal was however, to rid the primal traditions of killing a human for their religious ceremonies and he tried to teach them this was the wrong this to do but they would not listen. In the end he told them, "if you insist on beheading someone, tommorow along this will ride a man dressed in red riding on a white horse. He will be the one worthy of your sacrifice to the gods". The aboroginals agreed to this and sure enough the next day the man came riding along. Lying in the bushes, awaiting ambush, the aboriginals cocked their bows and let lose a flurry of arrows, striking the man and bringing him to the ground where they charged at him. As they got closer and removed his hood to prepare to behead him, they were shocked to discover that the man they had just shot was non-other then Wu Fong himself. From that point onwards, they realised there mistake and changed their ways of living and praying. Wu Fong performed the greatest act of selflessness a man can do. He gave up his life to prove to them that killing is not the correct way of praying to the gods.

Since then the temple was built to honour his memory and commitment to his cause and his temple has been expanded over the years. Inside are photos of his house and models of him and various aboriginals as well as weapons used and books left behind by Wu Fong. His family tree can be seen on the wall which shows he still has decendents today. Inside is also a shrine to pray to him as well as alot of paintings and artwork.

Outside Wu Fong Temple

Inside Wu Fong Temple (the shrine)

Me in the archways of the Temple (lighting on the left failed me :( )

Due to the lack of time we had in Chia-Yi and also the unstable state of Mount Ali because of the earthquakes and landslides in the area, we didn't go visit. Therefore we went to visit the Scenic Exhibition dedicated to the mountain which is well know for it's train as well as it peak which is the highest point in Taiwan where you can first see the sun-rise on a romantic morning. From the top of the mountain you can see a beautiful sea of clouds, clearly the place was not designed for me to want to go alone lol.

Mum and I at the entrance of the Scenic Exhibition (Mount Ali)

Main walkway for the Scenic Exhibition with the water effects simulating the early morning mists of Mount Ali

Unlike Australia, one of the things about Taiwan again relating to food is that each city or town that you visit will have a food that the place is well known for. For example, Tainan is known for a certain type of dish of Egg-Noodles, while Chia-Yi (the place we are visiting) is well know for a dish of Turkey-Rice. This is what we had for lunch and the store we went to was expensive Y450 for the 4 of us, but it was well worth it as it tasted amazing and it was the very first store to sell the famed Turkey-Rice in this region.

Oldest Turkey-Rice Store (first one ever!)

While we were inside eating, we sat at a table with another group of people as there were insufficient tables due to the booming business. Here dad taught me a lesson:
"You will notice on a general basis an easy way to distinguish northern Taiwanese and southern Taiwanese. The people from the north dress in a more tidy and elegant fashion, often seen with designer branded items and clothing while the southerners have a more casual dress approach and can often be seen wearing thongs". When I thought about it, this is pretty much true in most cases, as the captial of the country is in the north there is a richer population there, while traditionally the south consisted of more farmers and working class which despite the urbanisation and rapid growth of the south, many of the older poor folk still live here in the south and thus the the general population is still poorer and dress to reflect that.

Oh and as we were driving into the carpark in the area, there was wireless internet access near the ramp. So I had about 60 seconds to type and send my email to VV. I finished it and was about to press send when we got too far into the parking complex and lost the signal and subsequently the email :( The good thing about Taiwan is there is not such thing as 'Internet Quota' or 'Download Limit' here. All connections are fully unlimited, fast, accessable all over the country and cheap. Because of this many people have wireless internet at home and do not bother locking it. So as we were driving around the large town, I noticed I kept picking up wireless signals here and there. Soon the all the cities will become one big wireless hot-spot!! :D

Next we went to the museum which was 5 stories although we only visited 2 cause we (sis and I) got bored quickly. Again due to the lack of english signs and descriptions and also since we were looking at alot of rocks and fossils the place got boring fast. You could say that it was 'hard' to be interested at looking at rocks you don't understand hehe...

Hand-carved rock monkeys which would have taken forever to make

The only thing we found interesting was this 'Earthquake Simulation Chair' which just shakes unpredictable left and right. Like an out of control massage chair more like it.

Sis on the earthquake-chair (she thought it was an electric chair or something when I told her to sit on it lol)

Outside the museum there were alot of old men and women carving more stong figures from rocks. It was a very slow process like most artistic things are. We watched them for a while, while dad videoed them. Here there were fences lined with windmills things for decoration, it was interesting so I took a photo.

Hmmm I wonder what the rotational torque generated from each windmill is (clearly a function of the windspeed)... [this is where vivien would say 'adui' :P ]

As we were leaving, there was a really odd shaped handle on the exit ramp. So sis and I decided to make this extremely random video. I really dunno... dun ask...

What are we doing... following the railing design
~~~~~

The last place we went to as we were leaving the area was the Monument of the Tropic of Cancer. This building marks the area where the Tropic of Cancer passes in Taiwan. For those of you that don't know, the Tropic of Cancer "is one of five major degree measures or major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. It is the northmost latitude at which the sun can appear directly overhead at noon. This event occurs at the June solstice, when the northern hemisphere is tilted towards the sun to its maximum extent." (Wikipedia)

Monument for the Tropic of Cancer

The Tropic of Cancer moves at about ~14.4m per year so the actual marker is reconstructed every few years at the Tropic's new location. Below, the big, tall marker is the the current location of the Tropic, while the 4 smaller markers are the older lines of crossing dating back to 1908. As you can see they have been moved and are evenly spaced to symbolise to constant movement (the furtherest marker is the oldest). The small markers there are all replicas as they originals have been destroyed by severe weather conditions and earthquakes. The first 2 were constructed of wood while the 3rd is of brick (reminds me of 'The 3 Little Pigs') and the 4th and 5th ones have concrete and other modern building materials introduced into them.

5th and Current Marker of the Tropic of Cancer

Sis and I are standing at the 5th (Current) marker while the other 4 older markers can be seen with in the background, with the furtherest one being the oldest marker.

Around the area were also largest models of our solar system (when Pluto was still a planet!) for the kids to play and see and it's usually flooded with water fountains and stuff but due to it being freezing in winter and the water shortage there is no pretty water to take photos of so this was skipped. On the ground nearby I found this:

Sis standing on an Analemme Dial

Analemme Dial Desciption

Basically it was an old clock. There is a pattern in the middle of the dial with dates on it. You stand on today's date and your shadow will point towards one of the edges of the dial where the numbers are written. This number shows you the current time of day! Unfortunately due to the overcast weather (or could be the smog layer), we had no shadows :(

That was it for our little get-away so we headed home (I slept in the car again). We went to pick up my laptop from the service center which has been changed to English HOORAY! The reception lady thought I was crazy (like alot of people in Taiwan do) since I was wearing a T-shirt while everyone here is freezing with longsleeves and jackets. I took my laptop with me into the shopping center for dinner and found there were 3 unlocked wireless there so made use of that; further reinforcing my point that there is wireless everywhere and it seems to be unlocked alot of the time.

When we got home I started setting up my laptop and as I was sitting up stairs on the 3rd floor, I got a brief 3 second wireless connection. Which sparked an idea. I took the laptop for a walk around the house and realised there was a neighbour close by with an unlocked wireless connection. I figured out I can connect from the 2nd and 1st floor but the connection is terrible through the walls so if I go outside I can get a good connection. Previously my dad's old laptop had been unable to find this connection due to the old laptop having a weaker wireless adapter. So put on some long socks and a jacket and braved the mosquitoes trying to attack me and went outside and sat there so I could talk to Vivien and HQ. People walked past in the streets and were all looking at me... "What is this guy doing out here in the middle of the night with his laptop, smiling to himself". It was worth it as VV was not going to have internet for the next 10 days so this was my last chance to talk to her. I'm gonna miss her :( Time to die again! (At least I have wireless at home now! But damn she has to leave when I finally get it zzz...)

Anyway, talked till midnight, then wrote up my diary till 2:15am... good-night(morning)!

Shaun

Day 11 - "Going into Childhood"

2009-12-31T14:22:00.000+10:00

Day 11 - 29/12/2009

Total Weight Gain: 70kg -> 73kg (+3kg)

Today is a fun day.

Went this morning to pick up my laptop. On the way I noted a very important thing. Taiwan is full of big clocks/time so wherever you drive to you can see what the current time is and update your watch/phone. This has created a very 'time-efficient' and 'punctual' population as dad has pointed out. Unlike Australia, when you say meet here at 10am people actually arrive at 10am and not the Australian way of being 'fashionably late' 30 mins later (very annoying).

So I got my laptop and all the freebies promised to me, and took it to the ACER Center where they are going to change the OS to english for me for free :) I'm very happy as I have a new baby!

From here we went to mum's GP (grandparents) side to pick up some food before we left for our trip. Everytime I'm there I rush upstairs to the computer and get online. Clicking 'Inbox' has never been more exciting in my life. I feel like a kid about to open my Christmas present when I check my email. Made me very happy to see 5 emails from her :) Although I didn't have time to read it, I was happy knowing my 'presents' (her emails) were there!

We then headed off on a long car trip to Chia-Yi north of Tainan. Sis and I ate lunch in the car which was a huge challenge trying to to spill food as the car stop-start-turns. It's like trying to eat a bowl of curry on a rollercoaster. Had icecream in tea, which was an unusual combination but tasted alright. It was a huge drink and I really really need to pee. I had to hold it in for some excrutiating long amount of time while I tried not to think about it as there was no petrol stations or fast-food anywhere in sight. (I bet you know that feeling). As soon as we found the place I jumped out of the car and asked the first stranger for a toilet and ran at it. It's feels better then 'ejaculation' (lol) ... being about to relieve yourself after that period of time!

The 'fat/huge' bladder breaking drink!

The place we went to was called 'Childhood Resort' and looking at the brochure I had my doubts if I'd even enjoy the place. It was like a holiday-retreat for kids around 12 years old. We went to our residence which was a little wooden cottage. 2 floors, 2 bedrooms (one up-stairs is a Japanese style sleeping quarters (where you sleep on the ground).

Japanese Style Bedroom Upstairs

Balcony off Stairs

Downstairs Loungeroom

Entry, Row of Cottages

The place is clearly designed for kids as can be seen from the next few photos.

Wooden Castle thing

Kid's Playground (Entry only for <12)

In the afternoon we decided to go on their activites tour. When we got there we realised after talking to the tour guide that the ENTIRE resort was empty except us. We were the ONLY guests in the whole place hahaha... (We came during the low season as the school semester here has yet to end, therefore tickets are cheap). So it was like a private tour of everything.

First place we went to was grass-sleding. The sleds are awefully heavy (in order to gain momentum down the hill) so it's a pain to pull back up the hill. Still 5 seconds of excitement :) If you're 'fat' like me you can make it over the bottom hump at the bottom of the hill. I felt instantly 5 years younger after doing this ~

Grass Sleding down the hill

Next was a bit of a walk through some semi-botanic gardens and other pretty things girls + mum will appreciate (shame VV's not here). I liked the giant catapillar :)

Me on the Giant Catapillar!

We then walked to a dirty pond that has flowers growing in it. The water is all green and mossy I dunno how these pretty flowers survive or even want to grow here!

Flowers in the Green Pond (Purple one in the middle and White one further away)

Continuing our walk we passed through a canopy of leaves. These leaves are eaten by caterpillars and then when they grow into butterflies they eat the fruits that grow off these trees.

Canopy tunnel with leaves eaten by caterpillars (if you look closely)

The fruit butterflies eat, some still closed and some open (open ones are eaten)

The next tour location took us past a vegetable/fruit patch. Except it is winter here so things are kinda grey and DEAD!

The all-so-luscious fruit/vege patch...

Just beyond this was a little pond where the fire-bugs (glow-bugs) live. They only come out after 7pm and as we later found out, they are only active in summer :(

Fire-bugs pond during the day, the night photo is the same but completely dark thanks to the bugs being dormant in winter.

Next to this was the butterfly enclosure. Soo pretty, the butterflies and other things flying or crawling in the area. Most colourful caterpillars and butterflies I've seen. There was also a breeding enclosure where they breed cacoons.

Pretty White Butterfly

Breeding Enclosure. Caterpillars put in here will automatically crawl up to the roof or side-struts and start cacooning and hang from the ceiling. Then they fly out of the hole in the roof once they evolve!

The building next to this was like a museum with all sorts of other insect and bug models and also a caterpillar breeding area where we saw a variety of caterpillars. Here's a photo of one just for fun :)

Random Caterpillar!

The tour was meant to include an activity where we go catch crikets by flushing them out of their holes in the ground with water. Except it is winter and the insects are all hiding so it was canceled :( So we went to the frog-pond where you can fish for frogs! Frogs are curious creatures and will bite anything that moves near them. So if you dangle a hook with some tied-leaves they will think it's an insect and bite onto it. If you are skilled enough you can pull the frogs out of the pond. Unfortunately being winter, the frogs weren't interested in feeding and most of the were hiding away so didn't get a photo of a frog.

Sis and I trying to fish for a frog.

The next activity was a game played in the old days before the time where we had DoTA and HoN. Kids played with these rings and rod. The challenge is to roll the ring around while keeping balance and speed so it doesn't fall over. Turning is also hard as you need to control it perfectly or it falls over or runs away. The overall challenge of the activity made it actually quite fun and addicting. I only just got to the part where my turns were slowly working when we had to leave :(

Roll the metal hoop! Video 1

Roll the metal hoop! Video 2 - Me learning how to turn but the hoops runs away!

Oh in between the activites there were lots of plants and flowers we got introduced to as well as olden day items. No pictures of these cause it wasn't that facinating for me. Finally the last activity was mental puzzles. These were those little metal toys where you had to get a ring or rope out of a seemingly impossible contraption. Except these ones were lifesized, 5 times the size of the original toys at least. I managed to solve all but 2 of these, and trust me they get soo fustrating when you can't work out how to do it.

Trying to solve an 'impossibly hard' puzzle

That night we went to have dinner. They opened the entire coal-cooking restaurant for just our family! 2 chefs and 1 waiter just to serve us! The place could fit nearly 200 people for a meal yet they opened it just for 4 people lol. We felt so bad. Cooking was fun, you had to heat up the coal slowly and fan the fire. Cooking took a while as well and there was an abundance of food which we somehow finished I have no idea how! There was a karaoke machine for Y10 a song (part of the Taiwanese singing culture).

Preparing the fire

The dining area was literally empty!

Cooking Dinner - view of the empty restaurant that seems to extend into oblivion and eternal darkness~

During dinner we kept running out to see the people that arrived. There was a grade 9 (Junior-High) graduation being held here. The kids look soo young (despite being 13/14 years old). I couldn't imagine myself that small! (I've always been 'big' ;) ) There were people leading the dance and song and herding them like little sheep. It looked like so much fun, there was singing and dancing and they were all shouting and the whistle and a bonfire and speakers and disco-lighting and it was outdoor and loud ~ OMG soo lively and fun. I wanted to go join the kids but I was way to old so I was gonna go join the teachers (mum encouraged me to go :P ). I kept dancing around crazily on the side cause I was getting so into it! Hahaha... hard to imagine (or is it) me dancing around like a little kid but I was really into it, I miss childhood. It also gave me a chance to see the difference in education-culture of my 2 countries which were very, VERY different. It's like army boot camp, but with music.

Kids partying, Taiwanese school style - woooo! Video 1

Kids partying, Taiwanese school style - woooo! Video 2

The place has wireless internet which was a god-send. So I spent the whole night waiting for VV then talking to her all night till 1:15am and emailing and blogging (slowly uploading photos and videos through wireless). First time in 11 days I've managed to MSN with her, kinda relieving in a weird way. Had to share my laptop with my sister so I used her iPhone's wireless except it was weaker and the connection kept cutting out due to fluctuations and it's hard and slow to type one letter at a time with my fat fingers!

That night as we were preparing to use the showers, sis was looking through all the free items provided by the resort. Amongst them were toothbrushes, shampoo, soap and a condom! She didn't know what it was cause of the wrapping (2 layers). So she unfolded the cardboard outside layer before she saw the word 'Condom' written on the inside layer of plastic wrapping. She freaked out and started screaming and then told mum and then started sanitising her hand with the hand gel, THREE times! Cause according to her, it is 'naughty' to touch that sort of thing. oh dear... :P

That's all for the today... until tommorow ciao!

Shaun

Day 10 - "Sit on my Lap(py)!"

2009-12-30T10:34:00.000+10:00

Day 10 - 28/12/2009

Basketball Score: 266 (Top: 274)
Currency Exchange: 1 AUD -> 28.5 TWD

Left early this morning to go to sort out the 'Military-Conscription' letter I recieved which would prevent me from leaving the country. People are still scared of H1N1 here. To enter the building they have to take your temperature first.

The conclusion was that as I bore an Australian and Taiwanese citizenship and passport, I was therefore subject to both laws. Therefore I could not be excluded outright for military service, however I can be exempt under certain conditions. Basically as I have reached conscription age, I can no longer stay in Taiwan over 183 days (half a year) in the period of any one year. Which will be annoying as it will prevent me on taking a long holiday here/working here or living here in the future without having to go through military service.

We headed to Kaohshong again today. First we visited dad's oldest sister (big-auntie) who owned a restaurant. So basically went there to drop off some gifts and then picked up a free meal while we were there. Why are there are table of girls looking at me? Do I look funny?

Next went to Tower 85 which has another name i forgot. I think it's 85 stories cause it can be seen from miles away and has a funny shape.

85-Tower Photo from a nearby Park

We couldn't find a parking spot so we drove ages away to an half-abandoned parking lot where we had a clear view to film the building. So I decided to try and make an introduction video which turned out pretty bad :P (I still need to polish my 'hosting' skills).

Preparing to enter the 85-Tower (Documentary Practice)

Crossing the road, we saw a different animation to the usual green-walking person at road crossings. It was a bicycle! Look, hehe:

Bicycle Light in Action!

Anyway inside the building was a computer/technology exhibition that spanned across 3 floors of the building. I wish Australia had similar exhibitions, they are always exciting and full of people are really good bargains and lots of things to see and buy. (Simply put Australia lacks the money/population density to host such events :( ). My goal here today was to buy my Laptop as this would be the optimal (due to prices) time to purchase it. I went through ASUS, ACER, HP, SONY and skipped Toshiba cause I didn't like them and heard negative references. Salesmen/women are soo aggressive here! They come running are you and herd you into there little areas trying to make a sale and literally follow you and fence you off!
Some of them are annoying/bad/untrustworthy like the first guy we ran into who dropped the price from (Y = yen), Y28900 to Y25000 and later on to Y22800. Didn't wanna bother with him and his bullshit after saying 25000 was the lowest he can go, when later on he went lower, what a load of lies. Anyway we eventually found a HP salesmen who after talking to him about what I wanted suggested I buy an Acer and took us upstairs where we found out he was working for 2 companies so he had to change location before he can start bad-mouthing HP lol.

So conclusion is, thanks to my dad's use of Taiwanese 'local' approach and the Taiwanese tradition of haggle/bartering we got my laptop from Y28900 down to Y22400 (different Laptop to the prices quoted in the paragraph before). Additionally we managed to convince him to give us more stuff with the laptop. Originally (aside from Laptop and Bag) it came with bonus 'Cooling Ball' and 'Keyboard Protector'. But we ended up getting 2 Cooling Balls, a Keyboard Protector, Anti-Shock Carry Bag, Headphones + Mic, Mouse and while I was writing down stuff my Pen broke so I asked for him to throw in his 'Intel Pen' :P With that, we purchased it and found we can also get a tax rebate of Y1120. Unfotunately the laptop only comes in one colour (I dunno what that is cause of my colour deficiency, all I know is that it is a blue-type of colour). And ACER also offers a free service to change the language of the operating system! So yay english! Oh I know it's not the most amazing laptop but this one is mostly for uni-work purposes so this is all I needed :D

So YAY FOR ME I HAVE A NEW LAPTOP: HERE IT IS! OMFG OMFG OMFG

Photo from: notebook.pconline.com.cn/.../0912/1948976.html

Y21280 = $746
ACER Aspire 4736ZG-442G50Mn
Operating System - Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit (English)
CPU - Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4400 (2.2GHz)
Monitor - LED 14" (1366x768)
Video Card - NVIDIA G105M 512Mb
RAM - 1 x 2GB DDR3
Hard Drive - 500GB SATA
CD/DVD Drive - DVD-Super Mult DL(SATA)
Wireless - 802.11bg/Draft-N
Weight - 2.3kg
Bluetooth - Yes
HDMI - Yes
Warranty - 1 Year International, 2 Years Taiwan

Accesories:
- Laptop + Cables
- Original Laptop Bag
- Anti-Shock Bag
- 2 x Cooling Ball
- Keyboard Protector
- Headphones + Mic
- Mouse
- 'Intel' - Pen :P
- Lots of advertisment-papers

I've very happy with what I got for the price. I can't imagine finding this laptop for anywhere under $1000 in Australia so it's a huge saving and I'm gonna find the exact price when I next get internet.

Went around looking at the other stores quickly as I spent all my time laptop shopping and the exhibitionw as closing. Things are already really cheap here and they held and auction at the end of the day, which made me cry how cheap laptops and other stuff got sold at! ($450 notebooks...). Except I already had what I needed and nothing else was really of desperate need for me to justify buying it after spending so much already.

Walked past a TC-Star store (it's a Taiwan brand) and bought 2 Keyboards + Mice sets and a pair of Headphones. Dad didn't want to bother arguing over the price of such small items so I took the liberty and used it as practice. It was my first successful haggle attempt and I managed to get 30% of on the 3rd item I bought. I don't know anywhere else you will be able to find a $7.30 Keyboard + Mouse! (not interesting enough to earn a photo)

Didn't managed to get any photos or videos in the exhibition cause I was too busy shopping. Did however managed to get a photo with this giant warcraft 'Grunt' at the entrance which has an ugly face.

Me and a Warcraft Grunt giant blow-up doll!

As we left, we noticed another ingenious invention on the road. The road names at night light up so you can see the street names and actually know where you are turning into, and which way is to the city etc... Oh and another electronic display was kinda depressing but scary when you think about it. It showed Deaths/Injuries this month due to road accidents. During the middle of the day it showed 7/2400+ and by the time we left at night it showed 11 deaths. I mourn for the 4 people that died in the few hours I was there :( The display discourages dangerous driving in a way as people don't want to become a part of those stats and it's also pretty scary seeing how many people get injured on the road. Imagine the numbers in a country like America!

Night time we went back to Dream-Mall the huge as shopping mall, except it was quite christmas themed due to the festive season and for the 7 days surrounding christmas celebrities were performing concerts there but we came at a bad time and missed them. Its hard to grasp the size of this place unless your actually there. "is the largest shopping mall in Taiwan and the second largest in Southeast Asia" (Wikipedia).

Photo of Dream-Mall, not mine, from
www.shute.kh.edu.tw/~n09709a04/1/01.html

Ate dinner there and had Taiwan's Number 1 Beef Noodles (2009 Beef Noodle Competition), and they did taste good and well worth my $4.50. Bought random stuff again, and then went to attempt basketball but failed at 266. With our last coin sis and I did a joint effort and managed to get 565 (teamwork does pay off), but 3 people fails cause you knock-each other's balls out of the hoop.

Combined Effort by Sis and I in basketball... yay!

Then we drove home. I sleep in the car most of the time as the seat lies back to 160 degrees and makes a decent bed. I must sleep close to 12 hours every day cause of it; everytime the car trip is >30mins I'm falling asleep to iPod. Someone is gonna call me a pig :P

Glass Piggys we saw in the Mall

Now am home...

Shaun

Day 9 - "Learning to Document(ary)"

2009-12-30T02:22:00.000+10:00

Day 9 - 27/12/2009

Today was a very long day...

Awoke early this morning to head over the granny (mum's) area to find breakfast then went there to group up with the family. Together (being Snday), we headed off on a trip to visit granny's birth-home/area. However after 30 mins drive we realised they (grandma's relatives) weren't home so we turned the car around and headed back the other way. During the car trip, my cousin seemed to be facinated by my iPod as she had never used such a thing. It made me realise that things we perceive as commonplace at our age were mystical and magical to the younger generation.

So instead of driving home and ending the day-trip, we drove up a mountain and ate at a restaurant located in the middle of nowhere on the side of a mountain over-looking a beautiful valley. The store was located on the side of the road that was winding up the mountain so literally as you're driving around the corner you see food in the weirdest spot. However it suprises me how it's always there random businesses that do so well. Business here was booming with a full house of customers and more stopping in. Lunch there consisted of Chicken + Soup made of chicken fat and oil. Such a simple meal attracts soo many customers and tastes so good. You put on gloves and you tear at the chicken with your hands, fun for the kids (and me :P ). Each chicken is sold for about $17 which is expensive considering you'd struggle to find single food items here that are over $10. Comparatively it's like trying to find a single dish in Australia costing >$50, possible but not easy, yet business was just amazing.

Expensive yummy Chicken mentioned before, yes it has been eaten obviously does not come like this -.-"

Soup that comes with the Chicken made from the fat and oils

Next we headed up further into the moutain past all the hot-spring resorts to the place which science is visually defied. The tourist attraction we visited was called the 'Fire and Water Cave'. It was here I decided to make use of my trip and started to film my own documentary type travel guide (my first attempt so cut me some slack!).

Documentary of the Fire and Water Cave by me! - I only did this one take and was also my first time

Essentially there is an oppening in the rocks where water is gushing out from the mountain. There is dissolved methane (CH4) gas in the water stream and as the water rushes out into the open the pressure drops and thus gas bubbles off. Once ignited, the fire will burn on top of the water forever as long as the water continues to flow. What you see is a fusion of water and fire where at the exit is a jet a water and fire burning off it. It is a pretty amazing sight and according to mum, the fire had been burning since she was a child so no doubt this fire has been burning for 100's of years.

Fire + Water Cave

Fire + Water Cave (Close-up)

We past a sausage-tree with desciption. Basically it bears sausage-fruits which are highly poisonous if consumed. However the seed can be extracted and dried to be eaten. This is what the tree and fruit looked like:

Poisionous Sausage Fruit growing on the tree

Nearby there was a guy selling types of honey. Here we got a taste of all the different types of honey as well as tasted raw pollen! He also taught us how to differentiate between artifical and natural honey. Basically when mixed visgorously with water, natural honey will leave a layer of bubbles on the surface which are very slow to dissapate whereas artifical honey bought from most supermarkets will pop all the bubbles in a matter of seconds. So we ended up buying some of his expensive natural honey which admittedly did taste alot better. Unfortunately due to custom laws, honey products cannot be imported :( Here I decided to make my 2nd attempt at filming...

Documentary of the Honey Bees

Documentary of the Pollen

The bees are friendly creature who don't harm you unless provoke so you can let them land on you. They collect pollen-particles from flowers and it takes them roughly 20 flowers to make 1 grain of pollen which they carry one on each leg. They then fly back to the artifical box-hive where they walk along the grate and the pollen is scraped off their feet into the collection compartment below. And off to work they go again. So long as I stand to the side of the hive, they will not come near me as I am no threat. They have a 'safety' area in front of their hive which they congregate, if you wander in that area they may attack you in self-defense. The owner also showed us the pollen close up by going up to a bee and picking it up by it's wings (it's pretty cool, I dunno anyone who dares to pull a bee by the wing). All the tourists the area were staring at me cause I was speaking fluent english loudly at the camera ... hehe ... I felt 'special'!

Bees busy at work near their arificial hive

Anyway so we headed down the mountain, and my auntie who loves to take photos decided to take up to other places despite us all being dead tired and just wanting to go home.

First stop was the Tainan Dam. What can I say ... it was 'damn' boring :P There isn't much to say or see except there was water and the city is reaching drought but doesn't have the same water conservation plans in place like Australia.

Pretty 'dam' boring picture hey...

Next we went to see a very old historical train station. I'm not 'trained' in the history of Taiwan so that was 'damn' boring as well :P (Yes it was that boring I thought of those puns while I was there). More photos these locations then moving onto...

Family outside the Bao-An train station

A field of flowers (edible, cooking types) which we took more photoes. It stunk cause it was next to an animal farm and there was a strong wind to carry the smell of days and days of manure.

My attempted artisitc shot in a field of slowers (probably look gay I know)

Next we went to a sugar-mill which was converted to a drum performance tourist attraction. We didn't go in cause it costed money so we took more free photos outside and bought too much icecream.

Sis and I with too much icecream :S

Outside the drum village (ex-sugar mill)

Finally granny called and wanted us to go home for dinner so we made the drive home (1 hour+ at least cause I was so tired and bored I lost track of time).

I should mention my uncle's car. It's entertainment orientated. Located behind the headrests are TV screens, one behind each seat. It's the personal type you see during long distance overseas flights on the more expensive airlines. These have reception of 15 TV channels as well as DVD/VCD player and headphones for not distrubing others. The GPS module next to the driver also acts as a TV/DVD/VCD/GPS/Rear-view low-angle camera. So yea it's basically a pretty cool car! Hehe.. sorry no photo of this

When we got back I used the internet for a bit, disappointed that there was no reply from VV who hasn't seem to be able to get online for 3 days now. So I logged off and dozzed off on the bed and woke up later to find out the family dinner had been canceled.

Instead the the 4 of us went to 'Flower-Garden' which was the name of the largest night-market in Tainan. We only managed to get through less then half of it in one whole night. We're talking about food-stalls all full with people and even more shopping stalls topped off with more people then you can poke a stick at. The entire place was like a conveyor belt of people in a train formation just moving along, shoulder to shoulder it was soo packed. Learnt from a vendor how to distinguish real leather belts from fakes or semi-fakes. Bought lots of food and other random crap. My sister felt like something stung her on her lower leg and it area felt hard after a while. Thanks to mum's paranoia and the recent news reports of people going around at night-markets injecting people with AIDS contaminated needles. Mum was freaked out that my sister got needled. Mum was visibly worried for the rest of the night, refusing to eat anything (non of the 2 or 3 dinners we had). And we ended up leaving the markets early cause mum wanted to leave saying it was too dangerous. That's mum for you, paranoia to the max no doubt fueled by Taiwan's constant crime-infested news channels. I mean I understand 'Better safe then sorry', but out of 10000 people at the market, what's the chance you are targetted (if there is even an attack at all). I'd had taken a photo of the market but I dun wanna risked getting beaten up by the local mafia.

You can tell most of the local populace dislike China now. This didn't happen 2 years ago, but now nearly every shop's selling point or something they will always say is 'Item XXX is made in Taiwan/not in China' even if that's a blatant lie cause of the 'Made in China' tag. No one here wants to buy China stuff anymore. The quality is visible worse (sometime by alot), and the workmanship is dodgy. Right now civil-unrest is peaking. There are riots at the nation's capital where a representative from China has come to sign a contract with the Taiwanese President. The contents of this contract are unknown and due to the current president's positive attitude towards China; the people fear that he will sell Taiwan, if not it's secrets as well to the Chinese. Which will mean we will lose our independance and we will no longer be a country of our own. Clearly no one wants to give up their own freedom and name so riots are breaking up trying to disrupt the meeting.

The are 4 layers of security perimeters around the meeting building/area, the first 3 have been broken through with many civilians and police injured. People can be seen flying kites during the day with anti-chinese slogans and firing off fireworks at night which explode into words of the same effect. The main push that crumbled the 3rd layer's security came suprisingly from underground. Citizens hid in the sewers underlining the city for days before the meeting was scheduled just to ambush the perimeters being setup! Talk about dedication, it must have stunk like shit... literally!

Because of this hate for China, when you shop you can usually get a better price if you speak the native Mandarin-dialect known as Taiwanese or Hokkien. People like you better immediately (it's noticable) one you speak the native language (it's not the aboriginal language btw). Sucks for me though cause I can't speak it fluently as I only hear my parent's speak to each other thus is understand it but can't say anything due to lack of practice. My general mandarin leave much to be desired for as I have come to realise.

Back to the night, after we left we had another dinner. Taiwan is lined with food. People live in multiple story housing where the bottom-floor is usually dedicated to a store-front. Thus nearly every street there is food to be found and eaten. So we drove along and had a late-dinner (noodles). I found a bug in my soup but it tasted good (the soup!) so I took the bug out and finished it anyway.

The water quality here is pretty poor and not tap-drinkable. That is why you either buy bottle water of you go fill up your water at water-stations. Yes it's what it looks like, it's like a petrol station but instead of fuel they dispense water very much in the same fashion. The look of the little people-like dispensers along the side of the road makes these things pass into the 'cool' category.

Water Dispenser in Taiwan. These can be found on the sides of the road.

So now I'm home writing this epically long diary entry... more book reading and bed time!

Shaun

Day 8 - "Getting down to Business"

2009-12-30T02:16:00.000+10:00

Day 8 - 26/12/2009

Can't believe god did that to me. Gave me the whole emotional rollercoaster of a Christmas, making it the worst Christmas ever. I tried to go to bed at 10:30pm last night but writhed around in bed forever eventually getting to sleep around 3am. Got up at 9:30am so my parents wouldn't know anything is wrong/different. Had some nice hot breakfast (stores wake up here at 4am just to start cooking breakfast for customers!).

Now let me tell you about the restaurant beyond belief. This had to be the most successful business I have ever seen in my life. The store is about half the size of a small Macdonalds and they sell fish-congee (rice in water). When we drove there in the morning, the store was packed to the rafters with a queue that extended onto the road, so we decided to go elsewhere and come back 45mins later. When we came back, the store was still packed full and the line huge. After we managed to get a seat an ordered it took us 20 mins just to get our bowl of food. Now the thing is, the cook takes less then 20 seconds to complete a meal! The fact that it took us over 20 mins just to get the meal shows how backed up they are because of the sheer amount of orders they get. Customers are nearly fighting because they can't wait and you can constantly hear them shouting... need 12 more bowls here ... 15 here ... Except they can't go any faster! For the 1 hour I was there the cook did NOT stop preparing meals. His actions are soo defined because he is doing the same thing over and over again it's scary. He moves literally like a machine that serves a bowl every 20 seconds or less. Each bowl is priced at $3.50 however compared to food prices in Taiwan, these meals are around $11+ in Australia. Think about it, this small store which is located on the first floor of someone's house (not overly clean either) is making MINIMUM $33/min (that's not even accounting for the other side dishes coming out)! For a store that size they have a constant queue that extends onto the road, more customers then you can poke a stick at from 6am till when we left at 11:30am and still at full capacity! They employ 10 people just to maintain business and the poor chef doens't get a break at all. The cashier doensn't even look like she is counting money anymore, there are too many customers that she is literally raking the money into one big drawer just counting the big notes because they are making an absolute killing! I'm just in awe how one business can be so successful and make such a ridiculous amount of money. You really have to see it to believe it (if I had a camera on me I'd have taken a photo).

So we headed off after breakfast to granparent's (mum's) house where we left mum and sis (as they'd be bored going computer shopping) and me and dad borrowed grandma's scooter and went for a ride there. I was once again reminded of the lack of rules that people follow when on the road. Red lights seem to mean very little to motorists, same with pedestrian crossings which basically are there just for show and you'd be suicidal to try walk across them without looking.

Being saturday computer-street was packed full of people. Time to do a 2nd round of intelligence gathering for my parts so went and got a second opinion. Seems the current 'metagame' for computers is that SLI/Cross-fire setups are not worth the money despite benchmarking results scoring quite highly. So after more shopping around for part-prices we also looked at keyboards/mice/headphones and games etc... I think I might end up buying a razer mouse-pad and I found COD6 for about $60 today...although we're going to wait till Monday where we will go to Kaohshong to buy stuff as they are having a computer/technology-exhibition.

Dinner we went to a buffet-hot-pot restaurant. Costing $11 per person, the food there was pretty good and the variety was just amazing. I know I go on about the food in Taiwan alot but it really is a country defined by it's food and you really have to see/taste it to believe it. I got my money's worth for sure, I reakon I ate nearly $80 worth of food :D

After dinner I hung around and used the internet at granny's home and managed to get on MSN for the first time in 7 days (no one loved me enough to email me :( ). It felt soo lonely being isolated from the outside world like this and being able to talk to Esther and Izzy made me really greatful for the friends that I have. VV hasn't been online for 2 days now as evident from the lack of replies :( and it seems she has yet to recieve my suprise christmas gift, which makes me hope it hasn't got lost in the mail.

I defined a quote which is what keeps me persevering... "Every second spent apart is a moment closer to seeing you again". I think of it and remember that it will all be worth it in the end. I must wait...wait...wait...

Watched Gladiator (the movie) with dad till 12:30 at night on TV, wrote this, read my book, then time to go to bed!

Sis the photographer didn't take much pictures today so nothing to show :( Maybe dad the video-man has videos I can upload when I get back to Australia!

Night, Shaun

P.S. VV emailed me a joke and I liked it alot despite it being a bit racist. So I thought I'd share it anyway:
"An asian with a boner walked into a wall. He broke his nose."