Words of Advice...

If you ever plan a trip to Taiwan, I have a few words of wisdom for you:

1. Carry tissue with you everywhere--public bathrooms often don't have TP

2. Learn to squat, because the toilets look like this:

Sometimes the public bathrooms there will be one regular toilet and the rest "squatters"--totally worth it to wait for the one regular one in my book.

3. Don't care that you sweat. The hospital and our rooms both had AC, but most places don't. You are constantly sweaty. All the time.

4. Expect a bad hair day every day.  Along with the heat is humidity, which for me means frizz.  So if you were wondering why I have a ponytail in all my pictures, it's because that's all I could do.

5. Learn to love firm mattresses.  The people believe that firm mattresses are better for your back-- which may be true, but I'm a soft mattress girl.

 These are the beds in the dorm we stayed in most of the time--and the thickest mattress I slept on the whole time.

6. If you hear something that sounds like an ice-cream truck.  It's not.  It's probably a garbage truck.  No joke--they play music.  Although I haven't figured out why.  I haven't seen anybody come running, garbage in hand, when they hear it!

7. Beware the red bean.  The Chinese love red beans and think that it's sweet.  They put it in desserts.  I've seen it in cakes.  I've even come across a red bean popsicle.

8.  Wear slip-on shoes.  It's polite to take your shoes off whenever you enter someone's home. I got really tired of un- and re- tying my white nursing shoes ten times a day.

9.  If you want to go to the 4th floor, look for the 'f'' button.  The number 4 is similar to the word for death in Chinese, so they think it's bad luck.

10. Practice your chopstick skills.  I only saw one fork the whole time I was there.

Finally... an important phrase: Shay shay boo yah--it means no thank you.  I was glad I knew it when offered a few foods I wasn't ambitious enough to try.

Taipei all the way!

We were planning on flying out of Taipei, so we decided we might as well spend a few days there and explore the city.

We went to the National Palace Museum.  It is a very famous museum and it's huge!  The most famous thing in the museum? A jade cabbage.  That's right, a cabbage.  It's not even very big, but we waited our turn to see it.  It was a very accurate representation of a cabbage, but I'm still not sure what the big fuss was about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadeite_Cabbage 
One of my favorite exhibits were some ivory miniatures.  The were impressive, some you even needed a microscope to see.  We also saw some beautiful calligraphy, bronze work, jade carvings, and some religious.  We didn't even make it through half of the museum.

We also went to the top of Taipei 101.  It's the second highest building in the world.  The viewing platform is on the 89th floor.  (There are 101 floors--I felt silly when I asked how many stories it is--it IS called Taipei 101).  The elevators inside are the fastest in the world.  It goes 1,010 m/min.  It took 37 seconds to go from the 5th floor to the 89th.  It was pretty cloudy so the view wasn't that great, but we were there in time to watch the sunset. If you're ever there, I'd recommend going around 6 pm--this way you get to see the view in the daytime, the sunset, and the lights at night.

I looked over the side of the stairwell and took a picture looking down.  Crazy!  You can't even see the bottom!


We visited the Chiang Kai-sheck Memorial, a monument dedicated to a former president of the president of the Republic of China.

We also got to do a session in the Taipei temple.

Saturday morning we left to head home.  30 hours later here I am.  Although I had tons of fun and learned a lot, there's no place like home :)

Time to hit the Beach!

We spent our third weekend in Kenting--a national park in the Southern tip of Taiwan.  It is known for it's gorgeous beaches and permanently sunny weather.  Unfortunately for us it rained.  The whole time.  I came here knowing full well that I would be here for the rainy season, but we thought that if we drove down to Kenting we could leave it behind.

We got there in the afternoon on Thursday and hit the beach anyway.

Friday we woke up  full of excitement, because the weather was supposed to be better.  Nope--rain, rain, rain.  We had plans to snorkel and went ahead with them anyway.  We decided to rent scooters too, to get around.  Our hostel was right on the beach, which was nice, but it was a little way from the main part of town.  I was a little nervous because the people here are crazy drivers, but we had so much fun, it was worth it.

Snorkeling was a blast.  The rain let up a little, so it was only sprinkling when we went.  We did a beach entry and swam above a coral reef.  I saw so many fish--I'm no good at naming them, but I can tell you it was just about everything from Finding Nemo.  The price was right too.  It was about 10 bucks to rent wet suits, snorkeling stuff, and have a guide take us out for the day.  Not bad.

Saturday we had to leave pretty early, but we decided to get up and take a scooter ride through the national park.   It was beautiful and the sun was shining.  At least our last few hours were sunny :)