Apr 4, 2011 Taiwan felt like a vacation. I know what youre all thinking Ive been on vacation for 4 months. But it hasnt felt like it. When we get to ports its almost like were crazy people. Since we only have a few days to explore an entire country we try to cram everything in, which equals very few combined hours to sleep. As you know we were originally scheduled to go to Japan, and many people had done tons of research about the best things to do there. When we found out we were going to Taiwan instead, even the most prepared SASers were thrown off because its impossible to plan for something when the internet crawls and you have to pay for every minute. So we decided to do something weve never done in a port- relax. We booked a nice looking hostel and decided to just wing it. We tried to leave at around 9 but it ended up being later because people kept forgetting things. Wed seriously be off the boat and up the road towards the bus station and someone would be like oh wait! and have to run back on. It would have been hilarious if it hadnt been raining. We made it to the bus station to catch a bus to Taipei, the capital, right as it was leaving which was nice that we didnt have to wait. The bus was about 40 minutes and the first thing we saw when we got there was a Dunkin Donuts. I dont ever remember liking Dunkin Donuts, but Cassie is obsessed with it so we had to make a pit stop. As soon as everyone got their fix of coffee and donuts we hopped into two taxis and set off for our hostel. After the last hostel disaster I was a little hesitant about this one, but my worries turned out to have no basis. From the outside door (in an alleyway right next to a tattoo shop) we were a little nervous, but once we got inside we were thrilled. It was a cute little 4-story hostel called JVs Home, run by a woman who couldnt have been more than 40. Our rooms werent ready yet but she showed us where we could store our bags and told us there was free WIFI throughout the place. We fell on that like fiends, everyone got out their computers and there we were- 7 girls on 7 Macbooks sitting in the family room of the hostel. There were 2 guys already staying there, both from England and both backpacking alone throughout Southeast Asia. We started talking to them and joking around about our internet addiction. We were trying to get everyone ready to leave for lunch, but no one could be pulled away from facebook. They were really friendly and we invited them to come to lunch with us. There we were divided. Some of the gals wanted dumplings, and some of us wanted Mexican. Jenna, Kelly, Molly and I, along with the two English boys, decided to go to Mexican food while the other girls went and got dumplings, and we agreed to meet at the Taipei zoo after we ate. The owner of the hostel, Vanessa, gave us a sheet of paper that said please take me to Tequila Sunrise in Chinese so that we could show it to the taxi driver. Jenna and I cracked up at this because we imagined it to be similar to a dog tag that says please take me home with a sad face next to it. Anyway we got our fix of Mexican food, and a good one at that. Good Mexican food in Asia? Yep. Jenna ordered a shot of tequila, which Chris (an English boy) thought was hilarious. Im pretty sure we embodied every part of the obnoxious American sorority girls he had pictured in his mind because we were laughing really loud and telling funny stories and having margaritas at 11 am but whatever- we were just having a great day. We split up with the boys after lunch and took the metro to the zoo. Almost a miracle, the other girls were actually right at the front when we got there! Reunited, we made our way to the panda exhibition. Pandas are so adorable! They are so much bigger than I was expecting and much fluffier. I bought panda playing cards and a cute little stuffed animal to commemorate our 15 minutes at the zoo and then we headed to the gondola up into the tea-producing region of the countryside. We had an awful time figuring out how to buy tickets, though, so we ended up asking a nice man who spoke English to ask a cab driver to take us up there. We had to take two taxis so we were just hoping we ended up in the same place. Our driver was hilarious, he barely spoke English but he desperately wanted to talk to us. He kept saying American? Ya! over and over again. When we got there, he told us the price with a huge grin on his face and said BYE BYE! with a big thumbs up. As he drove away he rolled down his window in the rain to wave until he was out of sight, it was so cute. We made our way to a teahouse to try some local tea but it ended up being a disaster. The woman just gave us a tea set and let us make it on our own with poorly translated English instructions. We totally messed up the instructions and the tea was so bitter we could barely drink it. We wandered around a little throughout the streets and we came upon this little meat stand on the side of the road. We were wondering aloud what type of meat it was when Cass goes guys its rabbit! We were all horrified thinking that when a man waiting in line turns to us and says its pork. After that we couldnt stop laughing because of the huge idiots we were. It was about dinnertime and we all wanted to go out that night so we took the gondola down. It was about 20 minutes in the gondola and during that time I tried to learn how to thizz. For all you old folks, thizz is a dance done by rappers where you make a terrible constipated face and wave your hands in front of your eyes. Apparently Im terrible at it, guess Im missing a few life skills my pinkies are way too refined and elegant to do the appropriate hand movements and my face couldnt ever be as ugly as required. I kid, I kid- Im a little bitter about the amount of flak I took for not being able to do it. Moving on, we decided to get McDonalds for dinner. Then we got on the subway and got off in town to head to a 7 Eleven and get some liquor. We managed to find our way back to the hostel with drinks in hand and immediately everyone was on their computer again. After a couple of hours of internet and talking to the other people in the hostel we were all ready to head out. We went to a place called Roxy Rocker, which would have been really cool if there had been people there. It was this old school American-style dive bar where they had hundreds of records you could choose from and the DJ would play your requests. It was soon pretty full of SASers and we decided to move on to a more upbeat dance club called Luxy. We got there and found out that they wouldnt let us in without IDs. That has not been a problem in any other country and we were unprepared, plus it was already 2 am, so we went to McDonalds and then went home for the night.
