The entire flight from San Francisco to Taipei was 13.5 hours and I slept for a whole 11 hours of it ….thanks to a sleeping pill and lack of sleep the entire week before…..I woke up while flying over Korea. I was sitting next to a Taiwanese woman on the plane. The Taiwanese people are extremely friendly and very courteous. She and I talked for a while about our families etc and when we landed and started picking up our stuff she frantically started searching for something….She then got a piece of paper and started writing a bunch of stuff on on it and handed it to me. It was a little note from her with her name, phone number, e-mail, along with her husband’s contact information and she asked that I call her if I needed anything while I was in Taiwan and that she would love to have me come stay at her house (I guess this is pretty typical of Taiwanese people, they’re very generous even if they don’t know you very well. It is also expected that you follow up with them so I will be calling her in a couple of weeks when we go back to visit Taipei). It was very touching. Also later on when we passed her in the airport she found me to introduce me to her sister and acted like she knew me for years. I wish people were a little more like that in the U.S. This picture is of Gloria and I!
Once we got off the plane we exchanged our money. And 1 American dollar is $30 in Taiwan! …..so lets just say we have lots and lots of money. We then took a bus to the high speed rail station. At the station we began our Taiwanese adventures. We ate at Mos Burger (a popular Taiwanese burger joint) and the burgers were nooooothing like the ones in the U.S. This is where I had my first experience of trying to order when NOTHING was in English and NONE of the workers spoke English. It was hilarious and ALL of the workers were laughing at me. I ended up just pointing at everything and handed over my wallet to the worker so he could find the right amount of money (the whole money process is different too). It was quite the experience. This picture is with the Mos Burger worker.
My burger ended up being something I had never seen before. The buns were rice patties and I don’t even know what the meat was. It was delicious nonetheless! We then walked over to a 7-11 in the station and it was once again noooothing like the ones in the U.S. It was full of all different kinds of weird food and you have no idea what any of it is because you can’t read any of it! They had a little snack bar of foods so Sophia, Hayley and I got a bunch and tried them. We tried rice in pork blood on a stick, tea boiled eggs, fishballs, and some other crazy things. And none of it was too good but worth trying…I guess….
This pic is the leftovers....obviously no one liked the pork blood too much....
It was then time for us to get on the high speed rail and we were running pretty late. It was a scary/hilarious experience for Sophia and I. When we were trying to board rail I couldn’t find my ticket. So Sophia stopped with me and everyone just went on and into an elevator and left us. I finally found my ticket and handed it to the attendant. He saw that the elevator had already left and wasn’t going to get to Sophia and I in time. We were going to miss the rail (everyone else was already on). He started yelling and he grabbed all of our bags (there were 4 of them and they were huge) and yelled for us to follow him and he took off running. When I say running I mean literally running at full speed shoving people out of the way yelling. So Sophia and I booked it after him. We had to run through the station and down some stairs and we barely made it to the train! Everyone was cracking up at us because we just about missed the train and we would have had no contact with the group and we don’t speak very much mandarin….but luckily we made it. It was so impressive how helpful the Taiwanese people are. If that had happened in the U.S. the attendant would have just let us miss the rail. But this guy literally picked up all our bags and booked it so we could make it. It was sooooooo nice of him.
The high speed rail is a train that runs across the island of Taiwan and we had about a hour and a half ride on it. The island is absolutely beautiful! Everything is green, tropical and surrounded by mountains. It’s not what I expected at all. Even the cities are green and very well kept. I can’t even describe how gorgeous it is here. I love it. The little villages are just like ones in the movie. The old women wear the traditional Chinese hats and you see them all over working in the rice fields throughout the island. The cities are just like the movies too. Colors and people everywhere. The drivers are crazy….we almost died a couple of times not even kidding. There’s no sense of safety. Intersections are a free for all. You will see cars coming straight at you and they swerve and miss you at the last second. It’s so crazy.
Once we got to Tainan we were introduced to the nurses at the hospital. (Pic of us at the hospital)
Then we were taken to our apartments that we will be staying at. We’re right in the middle of the city surrounded by everything. Our apartments are on the 8th floor looking over the city. It’s gorgeous and so nice. I keep thinking of all the girls in Ghana right now with no communication, hot and sweaty, and in lock down at 6pm….and we’re here in nice apartments with internet, workout rooms, tv lounges, and we get to go out all night long every night! I love it. Anyways, afterwards we went and got some Chuabiang. Taiwan is known for this. It’s shaved ice topped with fruit and sweetened condensed milk and it’s soooo delicious (Jeremy would absolutely love it ha ha).
And it’s cheap! Everything is cheap here. It’s ridiculous You can get a huge thing of Chuabiang for $1.50. Buffets are like $2.00, you can get a full combo meal for about $3. Amenities are waaaay cheaper than in the U.S, and activities are too….like I said everything. The Taiwanese people also LOVE Americans. Everyone wanted to stop and talk to us. People would be sitting in restaurants or shops and see us out the window and they would get up and come outside just to say hi to us. It’s so much fun! Overall it’s been such a great experience. I could come home right now and be satisfied because we’ve already experienced so much….and we have 6 weeks left….ha ha
It’s now about 3pm and we still have the whole night ahead of us. We’re planning on going out on the town and possibly a night market…so I’m sure there will be plenty more to come.
