August 21: …
August 22: After doing pretty much nothing the day before, I spent most of the day shopping.
I started off by attempting to go to Fu Hang Soy Milk for breakfast, but gave up after discovering its hour long line (for the second day in a row). I ended up skipping breakfast and going to Sushi Express for lunch (yes, despite my imminent trip to Japan).
From there I traversed to Guang Digital Plaza – a six floor shopping mall for computers and computer parts. Here I learned how little I know about computer parts. I also saw the graphics card I bought a year ago for about $600 being sold for $300. So that was… Something. Apparently I was so entranced by the mall that I forgot to take any pictures…
After getting overwhelmed several times I left to go to another big mall called Pacific Sogo. It was A LOT larger than I was expecting.
Including the basement, it was 17 floors total.
All the restaurants were about triple my budget so I ended up going to the food court downstairs for dinner. I got pork and egg on rice for dinner for 170NTD.
I also got FANTASTIC french garlic bread from a bakery (no, I didn’t take a picture).
August 23: For breakfast I had
Through the magic of modern technology and the Internet, I met up with a Taiwanese local who showed me around.
To start, we went to Daan Forest Park. A short amount of walking brought us to a stream (river?) where a bunch of different birds and several (non-Canadian) geese were hanging out. There was also a turtle sunbathing with its child on a log.
I also learned about this extremely painful exercise where you walk on sharp stones for what seems like a short distance. While I don’t really remember what it’s purpose was, I do appreciate normal walking that much more now. Here’s a short video of me walking it then complaining.
Using her local knowledge, my new friend showed me the hourly(?) water show ay Daan Park Station that I otherwise would have easily missed.
I also learned about the 2017 Summer Universiade (a large sports event) taking place from August 19 to 30. Apparently I was completely oblivious to this happening. Though, in hingsight, I saw a lot of signs for it everywhere (it’s times like this that I wonder how I’m a journalist). Anywho, after proving that I did in fact know what the Taiwan flag looks like I won a deck of cards with the Universiade logo on it.
Next stop was the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. Here I experienced myriad of great photo ops (and I’m actually IN some of the pictures for once) and was educated in fun facts and some local history by my Taiwanese friend.
I also witnessed the changing of the guards (or more like the “ending of the guards” since it was the last shift).
A quick bubble tea detour later we headed to Raohe Night Market, which is famous for its excellent food selection. Being at this market alone would have been amazing in and of itself; having a local friend to show me around made it ten times better.
Photos and videos of me by Jennifer Wang
FoodOut 