Day 1 in Taipei

The day starts with breakfast at Hotel Flowers (the hard boiled egg is the only good part).  We all receive our MRT easy pass cards and start to get acquainted with Taiwan's public transportation system.  I learned really quick that if you do not push to get into the train, the doors close fast leaving you behind.  Danny, Chad, Angela, and I actually get left behind at one stop; we learned our lesson quick!  First stop of the day is LISHE for photo shoots.  We all get to choose two outfits; one formal wedding dress and one traditional kimono.  We had so much fun with this and all the girls working were so patient and kind to us.  We got pampered all day with green tea, hair-dos, and make-up...even the guys!  Angela and I did our first photo shoot together and we both found that even though we couldn't speak Chinese, we could partially understand what the photographer wanted us to do.  Plus, most of them knew a small bit of English which was a big help.  As we walked around later in park we found that a lot of people wanted to test their English on us and would say simple phrases to us.  

We take street buses to a pottery museum that was surrounded by mountains and beautiful buildings.  There was a music show starting at 6pm in the museum, so a few of us spent most of our time enjoying the traditional tunes of native instruments.  The instruments looked like a guitar piano board constructed all of wood.  Beautiful.  It was quite impressive.  It's strange to hear the Chinese speakers and their introductions to the music, yet we clapped when everyone else did and easily followed along.

Night Market:  The Shilin Night Market is quite an interesting place.  The smells are intense.  Contains fair rides, food, games, arcades, shopping, etc.  The food was the strangest things I've ever seen; a squid or octopus that was sliced and served on a stick...YUCK!  And along with that you may find an occasional cockroach, Yikes.

Mistake:  I buy a hand-knit hat from a woman in a small corner shop that is packed from top to bottom with stuff.  She used an expensive tweed yarn to create the hat and said it was 2100NT, so me and Kyle tried to bargain her down.  Sadly, at this point I didn't quite understand the currency conversion so I spent 1800NT for the hat (got her to lower the price a little) which I thought was like $28 USD, but actually ended up being around $56 USD...uh oh! It was okay though, I couldn't trade that first time experience for anything, plus I loved the hat.   SMELLS:  I've barely been in Taipei for that long and already the smells are starting to get to me.  I know these smells are like nothing I've ever smelled before in my entire life.  It is a crazy combo of sewage, dirt, weird foods and the different oil they cook with, and china-made products.  Really its unexplainable.  Makes my stomach sick--to the point of feeling the "throw-up" sickness in my tummy.  Oh man, this is something that will take a little getting used to.