4 Days in Taipei

*Sorry about the picture formatting, if I only do one at a time I can make it pretty, but doing it with multiples doesn't turn out so well. But pictures with crummy formats are better then no pictures at all, right?*

Initially I was counting the Friday that I flew into Taipei as a whole day. I figured that I would have time to do somethings, at least check out one museum or one memorial hall. Oh boy was I wrong. I waited with two guys from the Thailand group so that we could ride the bus to Taipei Main Station together. Um, by the time they gathered all their luggage and figured out where the bus stop was, I could have been a third of the way back already. But waiting for them would have been okay if they would have been willing to make conversation with me. But.... they didn't speak English really well and they weren't willing to practice on me. Oh well. The guy that I ended up sitting next to on the bus was really friendly. He grew up in Taipei but lives in LA he had a business meeting in Vietnam and on the way back he was stopping in Taipei to visit his mom. He has me pull out my map of Taiwan and my traveler's guide and he told me all the things I absolutely have to do/see in Taiwan before I go back to America. When that guy got off at his stop, the two boys I was technically riding the bus with decided that it would be okay to talk to me. I even tried to say a few things in Chinese. But it turns out that my Chinese is terrible and only people in Hualien are willing to try to figure out what I'm saying. Because in Hualien I can speak Chinese and people know what I say. On the trip to Thailand and on the bus with these guys, if I would say something, they wouldn't have the slightest idea of what I said. I guess they didn't have the patients to try to figure it out. I think I like country folks better, they appreciate my efforts and don't just make me feel absolutely stupid for trying.

Not to rag on the boys, they were actually really nice and quite entertaining on the trip to Thailand. Once we got to the main station, Click (that's one of the guy's English name, the other one was Rain) was really worried that I didn't know how to take the MRT. I told him not to worry about it, that I would be okay, and that it was really nice to meet him. I got on the MRT without a problem and made it to the hostel alright too. I made it to the hostel alright, but I didn't check in alright. It turns out that check in is at 1pm. They waited 4 hours, but then gave my room away. So I had to spend one night in a near by hostel that belonged to a friend of theirs. It turned out okay though because I roomed with two girls from Malaysia who were really nice. After getting my stuff unpacked I had to head out to the electronic market and they were really great about helping me figure out exactly where it was (remember, last time Nancy and I wandered forever).

The reason I went to the electronic market was because I needed to buy a new camera. I bought a shady memory card for my old camera in Thailand and it zapped my camera and it's now dead. I didn't know at the time that it was a shady memory card... but that will be explained in the post about Thailand, not here. The important part is that I was in desperate need of a camera Friday night. I had it in my head that I would just buy a super cheap one so that when I came back to America I could still buy the Olympus stylus 770 that I had my heart set on. So I found the actual market, but there was only one camera booth and the cheapest camera was not cheap. I decided to wander around and try to find the place that Nancy and I had found last time that we thought was the market, but apparently wasn't. After enough walking (always keeping track of where I was going, no worries) I found it. I went to one store and saw a camera like one of the ladies on the trip had. I was pretty much enthralled with it just because it was had a touch screen. I thought to myself- I'm not going to be able to find a super cheap camera here, and I really need a camera tonight, so I might as well suck it up and pick out a good camera and just pay the money. I had the guy pull out the camera so that I could look at it and he tried to explain some things to me. The price on it was 9200 NT$ and that's about $300 in America. I didn't know if I really wanted to fork out that much money, especially since the camera I really want back home is only$25o. I told the guy that I was going to check out another store but I might be back. At the next store the price on the same camera was 8500 NT$. I was still struggling trying to decide if I should get a cheaper one or not, but this one was small, I could get it in a fun color, not just regular silver, it had a touch screen, and it was here and now. I finally told the guy I wanted it and I picked out green as my color. He threw in a cleaning cloth and a cleaning kit for free, so that made me feel a little bit better. But, as he was ringing it up, I got this sickening feeling that I was going to go back to Hualien, look up the price of this camera in America and find that I could get it for half as much. I had that sickening feeling the whole trip... But don't worry about it, I just looked it up and because I got the whole package (the camera, the touch pen, the wires, the carrying case, the cleaning things) and because I didn't have to pay for shipping, I actually saved money. I looked up on Amazon and for the whole package, it's $409 or something and I just looked at my credit card statement and my camera cost $280 plus a $9 fee because it was a foreign currency transaction. Yes, I love that I didn't just throw money away.

Okay, so that was my Friday. Saturday I woke up early to go to the Temple to do an 8am session. They of course did not start on time, but I was out of there before ten. I think it was even

before 9:30am. I needed to go switch my stuff from the one hostel to the other one, but I had told the lady that I wouldn't do it until noon-ishand so I decided to go walk around the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial because that's the MRT station I had to exit at to go to the Temple, so I was already there. I walked around and then went back to change rooms and to call Yuling (a lady I met from the Thailand trip, not

my boss). Her girls weren't there so we decidedthat I'd call back at 3pm and we'd make plans to meet up then. I decided to go to the National Palace Museum. I had to take the MRT and a bus, but I got there okay. It's huge and I didn't have a tour group or an audio tour, plus I was rushed to make it back to the hostel by 3pm so I missed a lot. But, I grabbed information cards at every exhibit, so I should be okay if I really feel like I was gypped. Actually, the thing that I do feel gypped about it that you weren't allowed to take pictures of anything. There were signs on all the windows saying no pictures. Shoot, we all know that my brain is not capable of holding onto images of everything in the museum. Once I got out of the museum I walked in the garden because it was free with the same day museum ticket. I was seriously rushed through that, but it's okay, it wasn't a spectacular garden, it was just more of a tranquil place to sit and relax (not what I had the time for).

I didn't make it back until 3:15pm, but when I called her, Yuling told me that the girls still weren't back and it had started to rain so she didn't feel like going out anyway. She wanted to know what time we could meet up on Sunday and I told her I had church from 11am to 2 pm. She surprised me and told me that she wanted to go. I told her what MRT exit to meet me at and at what time. I was pretty excited that she would be coming with me. That night it never stopped raining and so I stayed inside and read my scriptures and read the ensign that I had picked up that morning at the distribution center. Actually, I didn't read the ensign, I bought a Liahona. It threw me off at first, but it's all in English, and it has all the conference talks, so I guess that it's okay that it's called Liahona and not Ensign.

Sunday I woke up and got ready for church. I went the the MRT to wait for Yuling and her daughters. I waited and waited, but they didn't show up and I was going to be late for church (it's still a kind of far walk from the MRT exit). I was super bummed that they didn't come, but having church in English overshadowed that disappointment. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to understand everything that was going on. When I had left for church, I had grabbed my umbrella, but I walked outside it was way sunny so I went back to my room and put it back (less bulk that way). When I got out of church I looked out the window and it was pouring. By the time I got to the MRT I was soaking. I thought it was hilarious, and I was seriously enjoying the thunder and lighting. It didn't stop raining all day, so again I stayed in my room and read scriptures and the Liahona.

Monday I was supposed to meet up with Eric (a boy from National Hualien University who lives in Taipei and is home for summer vacation). I went downstairs to wait for him at 9am (the time we were to meet up). Apparently he called right after I went down. I waited half an hour and then went back up to call him. I saw the note that he had called. I was so excited. I thought that he wasn't going to be able to make it. Nope, I called him back and he rushed over and he was so sorry that he was late. He had brought a friend, Louise, and he was surprised that I was alone. I told him that I would be alone, but I guess he didn't believe me or didn't remember or something. He showed me around to a few places. We went to the Taiwan Story House which is underground and just full of "traditional"/old fashion stuff from Taiwan. It was pretty fun. Next we went to the Sun-Yat Sen Memorial Hall. We didn't spend too long there because we saw that it was going to rain and we wanted to make it to Taipei 101 to go up to the top (they close the top when it's raining). We went and the lady told us that we couldn't go up to the top because they were doing repairs. I guess that you can only ever go up to the top in the evening? We decided not to go up and that that would just have to be something that we did next time, when I bring Natalie to Taipei (I was thinking I wasn't going to go again, but now I have to). Next we went to the Taipei Eye which is a large Ferris wheel. The boys were scared of heights and I just laughed. It was fun and we took some good pictures. I captures my most favorite memory of all times in Ferris wheel cabin. If I can post video, then I'll share it. The boys couldn't decided where else we should go because we only had an hour before I had to be back and where they wanted to go was kind of far. I suggested that we just go back to the San-Yet Sun Memorial Hall because we didn't finish that. So that's what we did. But guess what, by the time we finished looking around, it was pouring rain. No worries, I did bring my umbrella that time. But, Louise and Eric did not. We tried to all huddle under mine, but it didn't work very well, we were all wet. The boys went into the bathroom and blow dried their hair with the hand dryer. Oh my word, they are very into their appearance! We went to the Main Station and walked around the underground market they have their, but there was nothing I needed/wanted to buy. I think Eric was disappointed I didn't get anything- little does he know how much money I had dropped on my excursion to Thailand and also on a new camera three days prior, I was in no mood to spend more money.

We went back to the hostel and the boys carried my luggage to the train station and waited with me for Natalie to come. It's a super good thing that they were there. Natalie was late and so I had to use Eric's cell phone to call Joseph, who told me that Natalie had a cell phone, so I could call Natalie and talk to her. Eric was sweet enough to help me trade the train tickets for a later one. Then, when Natalie finally did show up, I looked at her and asked her if she had luggage. She said that she did, but that she had left it on the bus. Eric went and exchanged our tickets again, but he couldn't stay and help us find the bags because he had to run off and meet someone. But the sweetheart called us twice after he left to make sure that we had found the bags okay and had made it on the train.

Luckily it wasn't hard to find the bags. We went to the bus station that was across from the train station and we called Yuling (our boss, not the lady I met in Thailand) and had her explain our situation to the ticket lady. We were pointed in the right direction and Natalie's bags were sitting right behind the counter. We were able to switch our tickets one more time to catch the 6:30pm train. It said that we didn't have seats, but the train was basically empty and so we were able to get seats and didn't have to stand for 3 hours. Yuling picked us up at the station, and although I had my bike there, it was raining and so I got a ride home.

And that was my Taipei trip. I spent a lot of time in my room reading, I spent a lot of time in the ticket line at the train station changing tickets, but I had so much fun the whole time.