Asia. Is. So. Weird.

First of all. Thank god for air conditioning. Dad’s apartment is really well conditioned, it feels awesome in here compared to outside. Today we adventured out to the store where we had to buy our own chopsticks, indoor slipper shoes, and other things. Dad’s apartment is on the 5th or 6th floor, I cant remember. All I know is it’s a pain to walk up the stairs and there is no elevator. His apartment is right above a ramen shop that dad says is pretty good. Believe me, I’ll be stopping by there later on in the week. Taipei is a tropical island, so its pretty muggy, humid, and hot. It was about 90 degrees today. Dad says it was a “cool” day. We went to a donut shop called Mister Donut and they had cold coffees and all sorts of weird donuts. I picked out this one weird looking thing that apparently wasn’t a donut. It was like a hotpocket but with just pizza sauce in it. It was pretty good, actually. Like donut breadness that was crispy. The coffee was awesome too. Theres also a Starbucks down the street, and a Crocs store. Yes. Crocs.
We learned how the money works here. Basically, you have to divide everything by 30 to find out how much you are really spending. So, 300 Taiwan dollars is 10 US dollars.
While walking to the store, we found a lot of…interesting shops. We passed at least 4 7-11’s, which apparently is where the cool kids go, and we passed by 2 wig shops. FULL OF WIGS! Asians and their wigs. The weirdest shop we passed was a shop that only sold fire extinguishers. That was weird…Also, they have those “walk” and “don’t walk” signals, but when the walk sign comes on, the little walking icon actually walks. And the closer it gets to it turning to “don’t walk,” it walks faster and faster and faster. ITS SO CUTE! I was taking pictures of it and felt like a tourist….oh wait.
Also, there were a few parks on the way to the store. The parks were odd. Every park we went to had something in common: they all had exercise equipment in them. Like…yeah. It was bizzar. Also, their playground equipment were cement, but highly polished. So we went down the slides that were cement, but really slippery. It was awesome.
So we get to the shop, which is really just a big shop with mini shops in it. We get chopsticks cause apparently they bleach their sticks and we don’t want to be eating bleach. They also reuse some sticks, so…yeah. Ew. I got some awesome metal ones that fit in their own little case that shoot out like the light sabers back home with a push of a button. They’re pretty spiffy. I tried to pick up some indoor shoes but all the ones there were weird and either HUGE or too small…or ugly. Or had bears on them. We picked up some more necessities like hand wipes and tissue for…you know. Things. After that we got some sushi. They had the conveyer belt sushi like they do at home, but it was pretty different. Like, I recognized nothing. It was all bizzaro stuff. I ate a few that I felt safe eating, but hopefully I don’t get worms or anything like that. Also, they don’t give you cold water. We had to like convince them to get us some. Kinda weird. We got like 25 plates or so between 4 of us and it was about $10. CHEAP! We took a cab back home and are now resting. It started raining with some thunder and that only lasted for about 10 minutes. Now its sunny again. Bizarre.
We set off yet again and hit a few shoe shops to find some indoor shoes. We picked up some (mine are rainbow!), and hit the Crocs store. Its really small. Like, I’ve been in bigger bathrooms. That’s what a lot of the stores here are like, real small. The Crocs are pretty much the same price…but they had this awesome glass door that you pressed this little silver box thingy on the door itself and it slid open! So cool. We got money out of an ATM shortly after and I learned all about withdrawing moneys. I withdrew 3,000 Taiwan dollars, which is about 100 US dollars. They have pure 1,000 dollar bills and they are pretty! They’re blue with a silver strip on them. We also saw a gecko! It was so cute. =3
So we took a taxi to the MRT, which is the train station here in Taiwan. Its like a monorail subway thing that goes SUPER FAST!!!!!11111 ZOOM! We went to the night market, which was insane. First we went to the food court part of the market, which was pretty awesome. It was sooo crazy! You have NO idea. Its actually really hard to explain how it is, because I wouldn’t be doing it justice. It reminded me of some parts of Pike Place Market where it gets really tight with all sorts of food places and insaneness. Lots of flashing lights and lighted signs in Chinese, people waving menus in your face to get you to come to their little “restaurant,” which really is just an area they shoved some really poorly built metal tables and horrible metal stools. The food is all cooked on gigantic woks in the open so you…sorta know what you’re buying. Most dishes are around $1-2 USD so between 30-50 TD. We were waved to a table and we picked out something that looked like an elephant ear. But, its not…it was some sort of shrimp, oyster pastry with some sauce on it. It was fabulous! I loved it to death. Also, I have never seen so many bubble tea stands in my LIFE. I think I passed 12 or so, just walking to where we got some food. I really wanted some, but I didn’t really know how to order some…being as how everything is in fricken Chinese. =/ ugh. But usually at least one person at the stands speaks a little English so you can get by. Eventually we went to this ice cream stand to order some sweet goodness. Their idea of ice cream is shaved ice, basically. They have ice cream like normal, but they are really into their shaved ice. Leighanne and Sarah had a chocolate banana bowl thing and my dad and I had a strawberry and mango thing. Their fruit is to die for! Usually I really hate strawberry ice cream and orange juice, but I had both yesterday and they were awesome! They taste really different. Sooooo we went down some streets where there were some shops and it was insane, yet again. I was starting to freak out because I was so overwhelmed so we eventually headed back. Before we did that, the family got some Chinese McDonalds (lawl). What is different? They put salt and pepper on their burgers. As if the burger wasn’t salty enough, right? They also have a chicken sandwich here that has a rice patty bun. I was curious, maybe I’ll have it next time we go. Apparently we didn’t even make it into the market! We wont go back until maybe Monday, because this weekend will be insanely crowded. On the way back we stopped by this small stand and got…guess what! Eel on a stick! What does eel taste like? Amazing. Anyone who has had unagi knows. Leighanne didn’t like it because of how squishy it was, but I got over it. It was awesome. Good day.