Taiwan, Day 2

Taiwan
August 13-18, 2013


Day 2 Day 2 started out in Taichung, where we had delicious hotpot for lunch and cakes from a cafe for dessert, before taking the 2.5-hour bus back to Taipei and moving our luggage to our new hostel. Then we went to a bar/lounge called Brass Monkey, owned by an Aussie expat. It turned out to be Ladies' Night, so we bought a few drinks at first, then settled for the free screwdriver-type drinks they offered for free to all the ladies.




The hotpot restaurant, called 輕井澤, which is pronounced "Qīng jǐngzé", but for
some reason it's called Karuisawa (Japanese pronunciation of the characters, maybe?).
Anyway, for $50, 4 of us got huge plates of veggies and meat and noodles/rice to cook.



There was an outdoor cafe next door called 85*C. So many cakes.
And each slice was only ~$1.50. The same cake is at least $4 in Korea.^^



The bus ride back was uneventful. And though it was 3x the price,
the new hostel was >3x nicer than the first place... :)



The service was a little lacking at the bar, and my chocolate martini
was made using bitter cocoa powder... but somehow things improved
when we discovered the free Ladies' Night screwdrivers (vodka & oj).^^

Days 3-5 will be coming eventually....^^

Taiwan, Days 0-1

Taiwan
August 13-18, 2013




Day 0
My roomie, Mary, was planning to go to Taiwan by herself, but then I said I wanted to go too. She'd bought tickets via a Korean travel agency, and she helped me to reserve the same flights. I booked on Saturday, though, and couldn't pay (via bank transfer) til Monday, and somehow they ended up not actually booking my flights (though I paid). We didn't find this out til the night before, when Mary was able to check in, and all I had was a confirmation number for my payment (no actual airline ticket number). The travel agency didn't open til 9am, and our flight (well, Mary's) was at 10:30am, so after she spent quite a while talking to airline staff and the travel agency, they ended up booking me a seat on the 4pm flight, and switching Mary's flight to match (which was good, because by that point, it was after 10). So we had to kill 5 hours at the airport. The adjoining building has a movie theater, but we were too tired from waking up at 6, so we ended up napping in a cafe with big cushions on their seats, then walking around for a while, and finally sitting at the gate for a couple hours. Sucks we had to arrive in Taipei 5 hours later than planned, but... at least we both made it there. And somehow my hostel reservation was also not actually booked, either. I emailed them myself and received a confirmation email... but, apparently, my luck that day was not very good, heh. Anyway, they had a spare bed, so I had a place to sleep, but the hostel ended up being kind of dirty, so we only booked two nights (of the 4 we'd be in Taiwan), hoping to find a better place in the meantime.



A view from the plane, and the (dirty) $12/night hostel.


We ate noodles (and drank what we guess was plum tea) at a nearby noodle
shop, then had beer and snacks at a 7 Eleven. The green fruit is guava.

Day 1
We woke up about 9 and had breakfast at McDonalds. (Though, they didn't actually serve breakfast foods.. so it was more like an early lunch.) At about noon, Mary's high school friend and her sister met us at our hostel. They helped us book a different, much nicer hostel a couple subway stops away. They took us to Tamsui (formerly Danshui), a seaside tourist area in the NW corner of New Taipei City (conveniently located at the last stop on the Red subway line). Unfortunately, it was a hazy/rainy day, so the view wasn't that great, but it was still a nice atmosphere. We ate lots of cheap street foods. After that, they invited us back to their house in Taichung with them (Taichung literally means "Central Taiwan"). We rode a bus for about 3 hours, then headed to a night market, where we had more street food, including stinky tofu.



A view of Taipei 101 and a mass of motorbikes from/at our subway stop;
our first hostel's alleyway; the new hostel intersection.


We bought bubble tea before our hourlong subway trip to Tamsui.



Tamsui streets and street food (flavored quail eggs and pastries filled with cream).



A view of the mountain across the water, and a "deep water" sign.
There was a man fishing next to it, but I didn't take a picture.


Pens!!! So many pens at a store in Taichung.



The night market in Taichung, where we ate dough balls filled with
radish, an egg omelet, and stinky tofu. Man, that is an accurate name.
It smelled so bad...and didn't taste all that great either.^^

Days 2-5 to follow.

Goodbye, level 3!

This post is a little late in coming (a recurring theme, it seems), but... better late than never?

On 8/3, Hera and I went to Junsu's concert at COEX Hall D in Gangnam. We bought Standing VIP tickets, and ended up 2 rows back from the main stage. However, he spent a large portion of his time dancing on the stage in the middle and behind us, and it was awkward to turn around... so next time, I think standing further back would be better (at least you'd only ever have to look forward). He sang a number of his songs, and had some fan interaction time in the middle, but he didn't sing my favorite song (of his), You Are So Beautiful, from Scent of a Woman's OST (from Aug/Sept 2011). :( It was the background music to a slideshow during a costume change, so I guess I'll have to settle with that, heh.



Top: A building near the mall. Bottom: Concert logo.

The rainy season here hasn't been too bad (the "humid season," i.e. summer, is far worse), but there have been a few days where it's just poured. Luckily, my $3 Daiso umbrella I bought in the spring has continued to serve me well. I have to wear flip-flops most days, though, because sneakers just end up soggy.


Heavy rains at SNU.

Class ended on 8/9. I did well, but I wasn't the top level 3 student (as I was for level 2). Ah well. :)


Rows: Reading (of 20), Writing (30), Listening (20), Speaking (30).

After the final class, six of us went to see the Busan Lotte Giants play the Seoul LG Twins at Jamsil Stadium. My friends bought $13 tickets for the Giants (the away team), located right behind third base. We ended up losing pretty badly, but it was still a lot of fun. :)



Top: It's BYOB/F, so everyone brought something to share. My contribution
was two Pizza School pizzas. Bottom: A view of the outfield and infield.

Baseball in Korea thankfully follows the same rules as in the US. They don't have baseball in China, so the Chinese kids had no idea what was going on. They speak English well, and I tried explaining it, but... it's kind of hard to explain because the vocab isn't something most people would know, unless you know baseball. (How do you explain a "double play" or an "RBI" without using other baseball terms?)

One thing that is different is that Korean teams have cheerleaders. Ours were located just above and behind us (about 20 rows back from the field). Unfortunately for us (and fortunately for the guys in front of us), this provided a nice up-skirt view of all the girls while they were dancing. Some boys filmed every time they danced... as high schoolers will. Still...ugh.


Me watching the guys watching the cheerleaderz.

Also, they're big on things to help with cheering/team spirit. They sold these inflated...sticks (that you beat together to make noise) for $2 outside the gate. And at about the midpoint, they passed around these orange bags (our colors are orange and black). Most people inflated them and tied them off, and hooked the handles around their ears (me included... but I was super-sweaty, so I'll spare you from the photos heh), but a few girls instead made pretty bows.



Top: Noise sticks. Bottom: Bags on our heads for team support...

On the three hottest days of summer (sambok or boknal), people eat hot foods to cool down. 8/12 was malbok, the final "hottest" day. Previously, people ate dog meat stew (bosintang), but these days, most (younger) people eat chicken ginseng soup (samgyetang). Iza and I went to the same restaurant in February (when I had a cold and wanted something like chicken soup). It was practically empty then, but we went the day before malbok and the place was still packed.


Samgyetang (chicken gingseng soup).

I'll have another post soon about my trip to Taiwan. Hopefully it doesn't take a long to finish as the Japan ones...^^

머리 (Hair)

Yesterday, I finally managed to tick one item off my non-existent bucket list: blue hair! I remember talking about dyeing my hair blue back in high school.... though, at that time, I meant 100% dyed. This time, I just added some streaks. My American classmate (who coincidentally has purple highlights) was kind enough to take me to her hairstylist in Hongdae, and in 3 hours or so, I went from medium-brown to medium-brown + blue (plus gradient)! Because my hair was medium brown and I wanted blue streaks, he first had to bleach my hair. It was a little surreal to see my hair anything other than brown! After that, he washed the bleach out, then dyed everything "peppermint blue." Sadly, the bleach didn't fully take on all parts of my hair, so I actually have a nice gradient, from greenish-blue to teal to bright blue (the color I originally desired). Because it didn't turn out as anyone intended, he offered to remove the color, and rebleach and redye my hair for free it at my earliest convenience. Unfortunately, I have finals coming up midweek, so Monday and Tuesday were out, he's closed on Wednesday, this Thursday is a vacation day for him, Friday I'm going to a baseball game (which I hear is INSANE in Korea), then we're approaching packing time for Taiwan... so, basically, I decided on Sunday... only 3 days after the first dye attempts. I read you're supposed to wait 10-14 days between bleach attempts, so I'm a little nervous to do it again so soon.... but my hair ended up in pretty good condition (seriously, it's softer than it was before, I think). So it could probably withstand the second bleaching, but... I dunno. The (unintentional) gradient is kind of growing on me. So maybe I'll just take him up on his free deep conditioning offer instead, and consider re-bleaching in 2 months when the color fades and I need to get it redone anyway. Thoughts? :)