TAIPEI CITY

December 2010

Since I was planning on coming back to Taiwan in January, I decided to stay only in Taipei this visit and actually got to see lots of new things I'd never seen before! Usually, our trips to Taiwan include only family visits, eating, chatting for hours, etc so I've never actually seen most of the sights in Taiwan or known where I was/ever got oriented. So this time, I grabbed a map from a hotel and learned to find my way around Taipei.

I stayed with the Chen family, my parents' former roommates when they started their first jobs in Taipei and came during an exciting time because their daughter, Ruby, was just about to get married in January. We did lots of wedding preparation, including stuffing the very fancy invitations and then delivering them along with wedding cookies, a Taiwanese tradition. Everyone at the wedding gets a box of cookies (in Ruby's case, 2 big boxes), and you deliver cookies to the "big bosses" when you give them the invitation so that just in case they can't make the wedding, at least they will have cookies to eat! Ruby (or moreso her mom) had invited over 400 guests, and her mother insisted that the 12 courses were not enough and bumped it up to 14. I guess wedding planning is stressful no matter where you have it in the world!

I also made a trip to Taiwan Costco to see what all the fuss was about (seriously, almost every conversation involved Costco)...it was pretty much the same except there was amazing Asian food in bulk (like pre-made bulgogi that you just had to sautee and GIANT things of POCKI!)

The Chen family with Harald, Ruby's very tall German fiance, eating some cake before Mr. Chen headed off to Beijing for a 6 month work assignment.

Ruby and I at the night market, eating some Taiwanese desserts--red bean, rice balls, bean curd, peanut soup...my favorite! I had about 3 servings of these every day.

I also went to Taipei 101 for the first time and got some spectacular views of the city!

Photo shoot where you could pretend you're flying over Taipei 101...

Fountain show at the Sun Yatsen Memorial Hall and view of Taipei 101

I also met up with Jess Liu from CMU and we made a visit to the International Flora Expo! The shuttle bus there was the best ever...it was free, had wifi, and the driver dressed like Santa.

Sweetest bus ever.

Jess participating a couple's wedding photoshoot at the Flora Expo ;)

I also finally got to meet up with my old vendor Emily and her precious daughter Aliyah! We went had had some Mos Burger (since I'd really wanted to try it) and then hit up the Longshan temple and a night market. Emily took me on a ride on her scooter--it was the best way to see Taipei!

Emily and Aliyah at Longshan Temple

Me and Aliyah--this girl is too cute!

People in Taipei have the cutest dogs...like this one. I really wanted to take him home with me!

Getting a perm with this crazy contraption!

Overall, it was so nice to finally be able to navigate Taipei on my own and eat delicious food every day (out of all the countries I've ever been to, Taiwan food is still the best!)