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We over to eat at my host's father's house today. The aunt was also there for lunch because she works closeby. Had some egg with preserved white carrot, beef and veggies, and this odd red fruit where the flesh was white with little black seeds that you can eat.

Later on we finished Robots (my third time watching the film) and Miss Congeniality 2 (which I thought was decent but not as good as the first). After the movie, my hosts went online to look for places to stay for our travelling trip to the South and decided on this place for the first day. We're gonna wing it for the second day in terms of where to stay. The trip is going to take 4 hours to get there and I'll be back by Wednesday.

Hotel Hopping

It was check out day for us at the Ambassador as Dee-Dub only had the hotel for two days. He needed to travel around Taiwan for work but we somehow convinced him to come along with us to Taichung where his friend booked a room for him at the Splendor hotel.

We took the 1-1.5 hour drive from Hsinchu to Taichung by what I call a mini-limo. It's not quite as lavish as a limosine (it looked like a regular black car) but it's definitely better than the average taxi. The bill was quite as expensive too, running about $100+ USD for a one-way trip.


Blurry picture from Splendor Hotel in Taichung


View from the hotel down below

We got to the hotel in the afternoon and decided to check out the mall next door called Sogo. It's a nice place if you want to do some shopping. Later in the afternoon we met up with Arr at a teahouse "nearby". Jay-Dub and I thought she meant across the street from Sogo but it was more like 3-4 blocks away and we were taking alot of turns in the process (what better way to get acquainted with a new place huh?).


Sogo department store, an upscale shopping destination

This would be my first of many teahouses on the trip. At first I thought it was some fancy place with religious symbols, historical landmarks, and a tea ceremony to follow. Turns out it was just a really nice place to drink tea and have some food... kind of like a restaurant. =]

Another thing about Taiwan that's different from the states is that drinks are absolutely huge here. If the average pearl milk tea drink in the US is 16 oz, I'm guessing the same drink in Taiwan is 32 oz. And it only costs $2 USD. Sometimes even cheaper.

Jay-Dub and I walked back to our hotel where we watched some movie on HBO for about 2-3 hours. We got hungry again so we went to get dinner. I had sour soup and some bad dim sum from a street vendor with this funky rice triangle thing from 7-11. I've seen them in Japanese shows and in Japan but I don't know it's name but here's a picture of it:


Rice ball.. thing... from 7-11


They come in a variety of flavors like tuna, chicken, and pork fu. This one happened to be ham with corn and a little bit of mayo. Mmm.. yummy

After our meal Jay-Dub wanted to see the nightlife in Taichung. We headed off to club Seduce which was recommended by the hotel staff. It seemed like a hip place to be as there was a crowd mulling around when we got there. Jay-Dub tried his best to get us in but the bouncer kept asking the same question over and over again. Too bad we didn't know what the word meant.

It took awhile but we found that you needed to reserve tables to get into the club before a certain time. After that time they'll let in the general public. That kind of explained why there were so many people waiting around. The odd thing was, they weren't in a line of any sort, just scattered around.

Ok, so we got rejected. On the way to Seduce we passed by some other bars and clubs so we decided to try them out. Strike two. No chance there either. They also wanted reservations.

In a desparate move to have *some* kind of fun we went to the Catwalk club located in the hotel. Success! We got in with no problems. Except no one else was there and there was a live band playing. Strike three! We got bored really quick and decided to turn in for the night.

First Day

We got up by around brunch time and we were hungry. One of the first orders of the day was to find some grub. We decided to eat at a local shop that was 2 blocks away from the hotel. The restaurant was just opening up and we were their first customers. Jay-Dub had the noodles with pork and fat (not sure what it's called) and I got some fried rice. Not bad, not bad. The total cost of the entire meal (with two drinks) was less than $4 USD with most of the expenses being the drinks, which were $1 each.

We both really liked the meal so we decided to get some take-out for Dee-Dub who was still at the hotel doing work.

After the meal, we got a taxi to bring us to one of the newest malls in Taiwan. Unfortunately I don't remember the name. I think it's suppose to be one of the tallest ones too, as well. We hit upon the arcade section where we enjoyed playing a tako-drum video game, something you definitely won't be seeing in the states anytime soon. We spent a few hours there before walking back to the hotel.

It seems like Hsinchu isn't the hotbed for tourist activities because we asked a bunch of hotel workers what there was to do in this city and everyone replied "There's nothing to do here" or "Go to Taipei". That's when Jay-Dub and I decided utilize the hotel's swimming and spa facilities.

A word of note here: The spas are a little different then what you would think of back in the states. In Taiwan, spas are to be enjoyed totally naked. No swimming trunks. Not even a towel to enter the spa room. So yeah, if you're comfortable enough, try it out. Don't worry though, there are separate spa facilities for men and women.

For dinner, we went to some local restaurant again. I don't remember what I ordered but it was probably noodles. Dee-Dub joined us later in the evening so we decided to head out for drinks around the hotel area. We came upon the Pig & Whistle which was a cross between a TGI Friday and a british pub. It looked decent and it was packed with foreigners and ex-pats. We were about to order when Dee-Dub and I felt extremely sleepy. After debating it for awhile, we cancelled our order and went back to the hotel to get some sleep.

12 hours of misery

I hate flying. On one of my past international flights I got really nauseous and almost threw up. I read somewhere that is helps to sit by the wings of the aircraft because that's the most stable part of the plane. I guess it's true because I didn't get air sick at all and the toughest part of the flight was deciding if I should stay up the whole time (because I would be arriving at 11pm in Taiwan) or try to take a nap.

In the end, I stayed up the whole flight. The movies they played were Madagascar (didn't watch it), 5 Children and It (saw the end), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (saw it), and A Lot Like Love (didn't watch it). My friend Jay-Dub also got to see Sahara on the same flight but a week earlier.

I arrived at the airport and found out that we were going to stay in Hsinshu (or "Xinzhu") at the Ambassador Hotel with Jay-Dub's brother. I didn't really mind as it was a very nice and clean air-conditioned place and would serve as a good transition period for me, weather-wise. The humidity really hits you once you step out of the airport.

Airport scamble

There were some things I wanted to do before leaving for Taiwan. The first was to pick up one of my favorite jackets. I had accidentally left it at a guy's house and managed to be lazy about arranging a time to go grab it for a month (mostly because I had summer classes). The second was to return a video card that I had bought a few weeks earlier but decided that I no longer wanted it. The third was to make a run to Rite-Aid for some funky bug repellent in the form of a bracelet. They use some citrus aroma to repel mosquitos instead of the chemical DEET. They generally got positive reviews online so I wanted them for the trip.

Of course, nothing really panned out. I had to be at SFO airport by 5pm but I couldn't sleep the night before (too excited?). I woke up at noon and I waited for the jacket guy for about 3-4 hours before he showed up, which basically killed any time to do anything else. I was able to return the video card because the store was close to my house but I had to forget about getting the bracelet.

On top of that, I received a phone call at about 2pm about my laptop. I was trying to sell it the week before but the meetings kept falling through. To my surprise, the guy wanted to meet me at the airport for the exchange so that was something else I had to worry about.

I got to the airport in a jiffy, sold my laptop (yes! extra spending cash), and I was well on my 12 hour flight to Taipei airport.

Ups N Downs

Up: Found out I got an A in both of my summer classes! Yes! Feeling good especially when one of the teachers was being a hard-ass. In that class, we had a 3rd exam on Monday and our Final on a Wednesday of the same week! I always thought it was weird that she didn't allow us to keep our test. I found out why, because she reused the same questions on the final! If you made a mistake on 3rd exam, it was really easy to make the same mistake on the final as we never got to see our 3rd exam results until AFTER the final.

Down: I just spent an 2 hours looking for something that I had apparently sold 6 months ago. Ugh.