Dreaming of Taiwan

Took my time getting to Taipei on Sunday, and didn't have many plans other than exploring the MRT and visiting a few different stores.  Riding the bus was actually really easy.  It cost 18NT, and the driver was pretty helpful, although he didn't seem to know English (I asked and pointed to the map we have in the back of our student handbooks that shows the way to the train station).  Turns out that we have to get off at the bus station itself, the absolute last stop.  There was a Taiwanese couple who were extremely helpful because they walked us to the train station even though the tour bus they were getting on was waiting for them pretty much right where the city bus stopped.  It made me realize just how nice everyone here really is, something I've been very grateful for, more than once.

Getting a train ticket was simple (and only cost 58NT to go to Taipei), and I think if I use it again, I will have no problem just using the automatic machine on my own rather than needing help from the attendant in the Taipei station (haha).  It was kind of confusing at first because there were a billion (exagg) stops in Taipei, but we figured we would get to the main station at some point, and we did!  After that, getting onto the MRT was pretty straight-forward.  When we visited the MRT station and traffic control center on the first Wednesday (13th), I hadn't really been able to appreciate the work that has gone into the planning of the city's transportation, but once I started using it, I realized just how nice it is.  I've never used the NYC subways or anything like that (even when I was in Chicago, we took taxis, so I really didn't know anything about public transportation there, either), so it has all been a new experience to me.

Rebekka was on a hunt for Japanese books (to help study) so we visited Eslite, the big store near the city hall.  We also bought some Taiwanese pop music.  I bought a Jay Chou CD, but there were so many different artists and it was difficult to tell what to get.  If I get the chance, I want to go to another music store to get some more music before we leave, since I love listening to all different types and languages in music.

After that, we had dinner in the Eslite building, which had different types of stores to choose from in a style similar to the MRT dining area and like we have in malls in the USA.  I don't know what kind of food we got, but it looked and tasted good, and that's enough for me. :)  We didn't have much time to do anything else, so we just walked around the underground mall for a bit and then took the train home.  We ran into Alison, Jumanah, and Michael on the platform, crazily enough!  So we all rode home together.  Although we took the bus to the train station when we were leaving school, we decided to just take a taxi back.  Made me realize that having the school planner with us was a good idea after all because I sucked at pronouncing the school name and the driver couldn't understand me at all.  He was really nice, though, and kept saying "USA! USA!" after asking us where we were from.  It only cost 100NT, which definitely isn't bad by US standards, but the bus is by far cheaper, even if you have to walk a little longer to get there.