Day 7- Taipei 101

This morning we slept in then took the train over to some place that I can't remember the name of and we walked around the shops and bought a few things. Jon has made sure that our food choices have been more American since the other day, so for lunch we stopped by starbucks and got a roast beef and cheese croissant. We saw a movie theater and Jon has wanted to see Iron Man 2, so we looked at the movie times then walked around more shops to kill time until the movie started. It was a pretty good movie- lots of action and fighting type stuff, but it was a great excuse to sit down for a while and do nothing. After the movie we took the train over to Taipei 101. Taipei 101 was the tallest building in the world for a little bit, until another taller building was built. It is called 101 because it has 101 floors. They still do have the world's fastest and most high tech elevators though. The elevators were pretty impressive and the building was cool too. Just kidding.

The building was cool because it was very clear weather today and we could see a whole bunch of stuff in all directions from the top.

Besides having some cool elevator technology they had this really big heavy ball thing that helps absorb the wind and any earthquake shaking so the building doesn't feel like it is swaying in the wind. I remember watching some thing on tall building in one of my science classes (probably in junior high) and they talked about these things, but I had forgotten all about that until I saw this one today. It was pretty crazy and big and expensive according to the free audio guide we got.
Our ticket to go up 101 included the observatory floor 89 which had the audio guide and windows that could look out in all directions, floor 88 which was another place you could see the big ball thing, and floor 91 which was where you could go outside and look off the building and feel the wind blowing.

After checking out the view from the top we went back down the fancy elevators with their pressurized cabins and speeds of 1010 meters per minute. We then had dinner in the bottom of 101 at the Subway (this Subway wasn't really any different than the ones in the US no corn or anything like that).

It was good and my tummy is feeling good. After that we went back to Lloyd's and went to play badminton with him and some friends. I'm really bad at badminton, but Jon is pretty good and I don't give up easily. Luckily we were just messing around and weren't playing for real or keeping score or anything.

After this we scootered over to a night market to grab some food for some people. This was the first time since Monday that I have been in a place like that and it wasn't too bad. I caught a whiff of stinky tofu but it was pretty far off and I was able to hold my breath so I didn't hurl instantly. Its been a pretty good day, but I realized this morning that my bum is sore from the bike seat yesterday. I can't believe I have been here for a week and I'm still going to be here for about 6 more days.

Day 6- Danshui

This morning when we left we stopped by the Mos burger for breakfast. I was a little worried about eating because I didn't know how my stomach would deal with having food in it again, but it was ok. At Mos burger I got a breakfast sandwich that was similar to an egg and cheese mcmuffin except that it had lettuce on it. It was pretty good but I wasn't feeling quite hungry enough to finish it so I made Jon eat the rest of it. After that we got on the train to go all the way up to Danshui. Danshui is the northern-most stop on the train and where Lloyd lives is one of the farthest south so it was a train ride of almost an hour to get up there. I took a picture of the trains. They remind me a lot of the tube in London. We have little cards that we beep to get through a little gate and then we go down to the train and we beep again when we leave the train station. The train wasn't too full when we left this morning. It hasn't been too busy most of the time when we have been riding it. There was one day when we were going home at around the time lots of people were getting off work so there were lots of people standing, but we weren't really packed in too bad.

When we got to Danshui we walked around some of the shops and bought some stuff and then we went to McDonald's for lunch. I think Jon wanted me to have some food that wasn't like the stuff I had thrown up the day before. I was pretty grateful for this and I had chicken nuggets and fries and Jon had a Big Mac. The next thing we did was my favorite thing we did all day- We rented a tandem bike for two hours and rode around on some boardwalks and bike trails next to the ocean (they call it river, but really it is just like an inlet because hardly anything is flowing into it and going to the ocean).

We rode the bike down to this bridge and then back up. Luckily there were only a few hills that we had to go up. I had never ridden a tandem bike before so that was really fun and I got to sit in the back and relax while Jon did most of the work.

After our bike ride of approximately 20 km we got some tall ice cream. It wasn't amazingly tasty but it was pretty good and it was cold.

We then took a boat ride up to the fisherman's warf. This is us on the boat ride up there.

The main reason we went up to the fisherman's warf is because there is this cool bridge that is called lovers bridge so we took a few pictures. I think Jon felt really awkward taking a picture while kissing because Taiwanese people rarely kiss in public.

We got some giant smashed out breaded chicken things for dinner. They were pretty good and I didn't feel bad that I wasn't able to finish the whole thing because no one was watching me eat it. Also because we didn't eat all of it we tossed a few little pieces of chicken to a little dog that came up to us while we were eating. (In this picture you can seen some of the cool new earrings that I got earlier today)

Here is another shot of us by the bridge when it was lit up. You can't really tell in this picture but the lights on the tall part of the bridge were mostly green and there were also some pinkish ones.

After we were done up at the bridge we got back on the boat and went back down to the main part of the city. We walked around a few more shops and looked to see if this place that Jon went on his mission that had amazing mango ice things was still open because we walked by the one in Taipei and it was closed. Sadly this one was gone too, so I will probably not get to have one of those. We got back on the train and rode the train back to Lloyd's. We decided to stop and get a mango bingsha because we didn't get to have the other mango thing. Bingshas are kind of like a slushy/icy drink and they are pretty tasty. We are now home hanging out in our room and waiting for Lloyd to get home so we can show him the stuff we bought today. Oh that reminds me of an interesting Taiwan fact: They don't have the same work-type laws that we have in the US so they can ask you to work crazy hours and not pay you overtime and if you won't work the crazy hours then they will probably just fire you. That is why it is almost 11 pm and Lloyd isn't back from work yet.

Day 5- Reader Discretion is advised

Monday morning we got up and had some breakfast. I had a sandwich thing that was pretty much like a spicy chicken sandwich with a fried egg on it. Breakfast foods here are so weird to me. After breakfast we drove with Lloyd (he was able to get the day off) and the twins to Neihu where his brother lives now. We met Lloyd's brother, his wife, and the other two kids at a breakfast place and waited while they finished eating. After that we drove to the hotel that his brother had stayed at the previous night and met one of the uncles and aunts and waited while his brother packed up their stuff. When we left we had all of the boys with us, and the car was very full. Lloyd has a toyota sedan and we had Lloyd, me, Jon, the twins, and another cousin in the car. Jon got to be the lucky one in the back seat with the three boys. We drove up to the northern coast of Taiwan to what used to be a gold mining city and walked around the shops and bought a few things. When I talked to my mom she told me to take lots of pictures so I held the camera today and took some pictures. Here were some of the places we went in the gold mining city.

I just had to put this one first. I have had to use a couple toilets like this- luckily I'm really good a squatting.

This is me and the boys and Lloyd at lunch. You can tell a lot about the kids personalities from this picture- the older one next to me was more mature and well behaved, but you can tell that the twins are a bit less so because the one couldn't even pay attention long enough to take a picture and then the other one is laying all over Lloyd and just being crazy. It made for an interesting day having them along with us.

Look at my amazing chopstick skills. This is probably how i look before I eat most things- slightly worried. Luckily this was pretty good it was a ball of pork from my soup.

Now this place was just freaky. As we were walking along we came to this little mask museum. All the walls in three rooms were just covered with freaky-looking masks. We are trying to make faces like the two masks in between us.

Next to the freaky mask place there was a little museum type place that had a bunch of old stuff. They also had a place where you could put on clothes and take a picture, so we did.

We didn't just take one picture we took two.

We took this picture in the same museum type place and that dragon smelled old and gross. That reminds me- I have not yet mentioned how very fragrant Taiwan is. I don't know if it is just because of the humidity that it makes smells more powerful or what, but smells seem more intense and they are constantly changing. As you are walking down the street you will smell good smelling food, sewage, flowers, and nasty smelling food all in about 30 seconds.

This is the view out to the ocean from the city we were in. It was up on the mountain so there were a lot of stairs. This was taken out the window of a place where we ate some blocks of white and orange flavorless goo with red beans and green beans and ice in it. I hope my description accurately captured the weird and sliminess of it, but despite its appearance and texture it wasn't too bad.

After we had walked around the shops and weird museum type place we drove to the gold mining museum. Sadly the museum is closed on Mondays and we didn't know this. We still walked around and took pictures.

Because the museums were closed we hiked up the mountain. It was pretty steep and the fatter twin was practically yelling sounds of exhaustion the whole way up. Lloyd shut him up for a few minutes by saying that I wasn't having any problems climbing and I was a girl.

We stopped at this place because we were tired of climbing and we could feel like we accomplished something because we made it somewhere rather than just turning around in the middle of the stairs.

This is us in front of a big rock thing at the top of our climb before we started back down. Jon and I are looking a bit tired.

After we hiked down we got back in the car and the little boys were so worn out from hiking that they fell asleep in the car. A few minutes peace. Oh that reminds me on the way from Neihu at the beginning of the day Jon was saying he didn't think that they could be quiet for 5 minutes; they tried but even in their being quiet they weren't very quiet. It was funny because he pointed out to them that I hadn't said anything for probably 20 minutes, which was true. I had just been looking out the windows and listening to them ramble away in Chinese that I didn't understand. From the gold mining city we drove back to the Taipei area and stopped at a night market to grab some food. Jon got some fried chicken, so I ate some of that, and Lloyd got a bunch of stuff and had me try some of it too. We then stopped and got some ice cream and walked through some more of the market. One of the most foul smelling things in Taiwan is what they call stinky tofu. They know it is stinky, it is called stinky tofu, but they still eat it and they think it is good. I don't understand how something that smells so nasty could possibly taste good. The reason I thought of stinky tofu was because two of the boys got some to eat. Gross. We walked back to the car and drove back to Lloyd's house. We sat in the living room for a little bit with his family and then went to our room because the one family member that Jon really doesn't like because she is really loud and really rude got here. We were laying on floor and I started feeling kind of queasy, so I decided to try to sleep and see if that would help. I fell asleep for a bit until Lloyd came in and started talking to Jon. ***WARNING*** READERS WITH WEAK STOMACHS SHOULD NOT CONTINUE. I realized that this was not just going to go away on its own so I quickly left the room and headed for the bathroom. Lucky for me, and everyone else, it was unoccupied. I sat on the toilet because I wasn't sure what end was going to be the lucky exit of whatever was making me feel so gross. I was just thinking about how I know how to say exit in chinese and the second part of the word means mouth and it just so happens that everything in my stomach made an exit through my mouth. As I was sitting on the toilet shaking (pre-vomiting) I prayed that I could just get this over with and then the thought of stinky tofu entered my mind and everything was quickly removed from my stomach into the garbage can. Besides the nasty taste in my mouth, the burning in my nose, and the tears streaming down my face I felt much better after throwing up. I tried to wash my mouth out a little in the sink without drinking any of the water (I didn't want to get a parasite and have this joy continue). I then went to our room and told Jon what had happened and he asked me if I had told anyone... Of course I didn't tell any one how was I going to do that sign language? He was very sweet and went and took care of it for me. I brushed my teeth and went to bed because I didn't feel too great. Now I feel much better. We'll see how I feel after breakfast. While I was sleeping Lloyd helped Jon plan out the rest of our week, so today we will be going to Danshui and doing stuff up there. I'll try to take lots of pictures.