Adventures in Taipei

Welcome to the real world Bess.  Welcome.  Weekend is over.  Time to work. 

I had a girls weekend in Taipei and I would say it went pretty smoothly.  

I had my first High Speed Rail (HSR) experience and it was fantastic!  The magnetic levitation technology is mind blowing!  I had a nerdy discussion about it with my coworker Andrew (he is a mechanical engineer) and that made the trip all the more cool.  

Here Ruth is modeling our waiting for the train to arrive.  It pulled up in the split second between when I pushed the button and when the shutter actually moved.  That is how fast it is!

Snacks are required for every train ride.  Fact.

Ruth and I were on our own for most of the day.  We wandered about and tried to do some shopping.  We were feeling unsuccessful so we settled for getting a mani/pedi.  

Do you see my little piggy toes?  There they are!

Ruth was such a good sport.  You can kind of see me taking the photo.  These people took FOREVER to do our nails.  We were in there for over an hour and a half.  And within seconds of leaving the salon Ruth's toes were ruined and three of my fingers were smudged.  I don't know how we could sit there that long and the polish still was not dry.  It was frustrating but we didn't let it get us down. 

We kept on with our shopping and saw a few examples of "Engrish."  We use this term to describe any examples of a Mandarin to English translation gone wrong.  

For example.  What do you guys think this one is supposed to mean?

Yes.  The bear has stars for ears and in case you can't read it his face is missing all the normal features and instead just says "Sir."  Huh?

We didn't stop in here but I sure wish we would have.  Anyone have a good joke to go with this one?

Anyone see the "My Deer" store in the back?  

This isn't exactly an example of Engrish but I just can't figure out what it is supposed to be.  Can someone tell me what the shadow is and why it is there?

Or do I not want to know?

This is one of my favorites.  We see this all over Taiwan.  I think it is a tourism advertisement.  Nonetheless it makes me giggle every time I see it.  We've taken to making a game of it.  If we see one while walked around one of us shouts out, "Taiwan touches MY heart!"  Teehee.  

Mom.  I've found the perfect purse for you.  If it only had an asterisks that specified Panera salad.  I'm not sure I understand why this is a thing.  

I am equally unsure as to why there is this stuffed deer in the middle of this shop.  Any ideas?

Oh hai!

However entertaining all of those things were.  This was by far the most frightening!  Yikes.  Just yikes.  Who can come up with the best caption for this one?

And the last photo for this post.  All you square dancers you can buy your petty pants here for about USD$3.  I'm not sure what the Taiwanese girls here use them for but I am sure they use them.  The Taiwanese female style is very "cutesy" and young.  Even the older women dress like they are twelve.  It was very frustrating shopping since none of the clothes fit me and none of them were my style.  :(  

Alright.  Maybe that wasn't my last photo.  We might have one more.  Anyways.  After hours of grueling shopping we took a little rest break for lunch and devoured an embarrassing amount of KFC.  I'm getting a little sick of Taiwanese food and so I needed a taste of home. 

So much chicken.

After our caloric intake we decided to head back and rest for a bit.  After we recruperated we met up with our other coworker Wendy and we all went to a lounge/club called Brown Sugar.  It is a jazz bar essentially that caters mostly to foreigners.  We sat around, ate more fried American food, and listened to a great jazz singer.  It was a good night to just relax. 

We made a point of sleeping in the next day.  Sleep is not something any of us have been getting in surplus lately.  There is always more work to do.  Then we took an early afternoon train back and this was the view from the HSR station.  

Most of Taichung is in this picture in some way or another.  My back is to the outlying rural areas of the city and beyond that is the ocean.  In front of me is downtown Taichung and then the mountains that make up the center of Taiwan. 

It was a great trip to Taipei.  I was happy to feel like I got to use my camera some.  Sorry for the photo overload but I though you might enjoy it a little.  

Back to teaching now.  Let me know what you think of the funny things I saw!