i went with Josh + belgians to taipei. I was elected group leader since I'm the only one who knows any chinese! started with buying train tickets at the train station. a round trip ticket to Taipei was NT$94 (>$3US) and this is about 30min ride! CRAZY. The train was decently crowded (lookedl ike a subway on the inside) so we had to stand the whole time. There was a nice girl who knew english pretty well who set us in the right direction once we got out. The Belgians wanted to get a camera at this place called Nova. It's apparently THE place to go to buy cameras, or any electronics cuz there's like over 100 stores selling only that. It took about 15min to find someone who knew what/where it was even though it was basically just across the street. Unfortunately, prices were not as cheap as they thought so they held off on buying a camera. Then coming out we ended up walking down a road called "Audio Video Street" because every store was selling cameras, etc. So we had to stop at every store! Me and Josh just sat outside on the curb. then we decided to walk to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall so I went into a coffee shop to ask. It took another 10min and the dude drew a map for me and was shocked we wanted to walk it. Long story short, I got us kinda lost but then we got back on track after i asked another lady how to go. Then we saw a map on the street so finally got there! We passed president's hall and finally got to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial and it was beautiful inside. The bricks on the floor made nice designs. There was also a really pretty garden with a huge koi pond 
and a big bridge in the middle. By then we were starving so went to the street and ended up walking down Bride Street since every store was selling gorgeous wedding dresses. Then found another Ikira Coffee shop that had goooood food and I got a green tea smoothie...mmmmm. We decided to squeeze into a taxi to go to Taipei 101 because we were tired of walking. So 4 of us squished into the back. When we got there we took a bunch of pictures of us and the skyscraper, then went into the mall full of Dior, Versace, Coach, etc. Nothing for us to buy. We walked across to another mall called New York New York where there was a Marks and Spencers. Nothing to buy there either. So we decided to try to head to this Paper Museum I wanted to go to. I remembered seeing a sign for a free shuttle to the MRT and so we tried to find it. I saw a bunch of people waiting by a bus stop so we waited there...until we saw a Free Shuttle Bus drive right past then we ran to catch it. Then we saw it just sitting there in front of a line of people so we were fine. Getting to the MRT (subway) station I had to figure out how to get those tickets. You pay by the distance you go and it costs $20 (>$1US) for the close rides we were taking and you get this plastic coin that works kinda like the Oyster Cards in London (you just place is on a scanner and it opens the door, then you deposit the coin at the end) It was pretty high tech compared NYC and A LOT cleaner and nicer. Once we got to the stop there was another electronics market so we looked at more cameras. Then tried to head to the paper musem...only to get lost again at this pretty park area. There was a gate that looked like it opened to some Colonial village and there were signs for the society of wilderness. I asked people in there for this place and it took a while to get some decent directions only to realize it was probably closed at that point. So i asked for some night markets to go to and he told me a place that involved going back to the subway. So we did that and had to transfer and go one stop. At that stop there was an underground mall so we walked there and i chose a direction to walk which ended up being wrong and almost ended up back at hte subway station we had transferred at so we had to walk back then find the street the guy had told me t
o take. Then I asked a police officer where to go and after saying the name wrong a few times, i finally got it right and he understood. We ended up at a market that didn't seem like the right name that the guy said, but hey it was a night market and we were hungry. And it had one of the words in my name (ning)! we went through looking for food and they got their first smell of "chou dofu" (smelly tofu)...twice...and so they pretty much didn't want anything that was at the carts there. we walked more, still no food. Finally saw a place with pictures of noodles so we sat down. We got a menu and were lost so I just got the general idea of what they wanted and asked them what they had. She insisted I get some soup too so I order a soup to share. Later when she brought all this then I realized it was the size of one person's portion so I was skrewed, and would have to eat both. Luckily everyone really enjoyed the food so they all thanked me even though it was Josh who chose to eat here lol. And they even helped eat the extra bowl of soup. After that we finally walked back to the subway and took the train home!9/16: computer dies!
So I tried to upload all my pictures of taipei and so i ran low on disk space. Today I try to turn on my computer to see that everything look different...half of the icons are gone, the desktop pic is that green field and blue sky and i'm skrewed. I look in my docs and its empty, as well as my pics and my music! no one in the US is awake at the time so I called up Stephan from here to help because he mentioned he was decent at computer stuff. Luckily he was in lab so I took my computer over there. The rest of the day I spent walking back and forth from my dorm to lab getting various supplies for my computer and backing up all my files (luckily i found them again in a different spot!) They tried to convince me that I needed to reinstall windows as part of normal maintenance but that would involve reinstalling every new software i have installed since buying my computer...so i really wasn't up for that. I decided to call Dell the next day. In the mean time, we watched 28 Days Later which is REALLY gory...in one seen the dude pokes out his own wife's eyes with his thumbs (at that point i had to look away for the rest of the 2 min gory scene) I got food from a place downstairs called "artist cafe" which serves italian food and good drinks but is relatively expensive (~$65NT for pasta = $2US, $50 for a drink = $1.50 US) compared to the rest of campus food. Then i met up with j+belg to watch them eat dinner and met another student Spike who graduated from YZU but comes by to play soccer. Afterwards we went to go play basketball in the gym (again i watched, but with Jerome this time). I left round 9 to meet up with lab people because they were going to buy supplies for a BBQ they were having the next day. I got to ride on the moped again! and i bought some more supplies. Stephan recommended i get some instant noodles so now i can compare these to ramen in the US! I also got some pastries to eat since I hadn't had dinner, and a water bottle (a fake small nalgene for $2US). Meanwhile the other people had 3 full carts of BBQ supplies it was crazy. I learned some more words, it was like Chinese/English lesson time for me and Stephan. He showed me this Pig Blood Cake that is apparently really good...and i would have to try tomorrow...
then went back to the dorm and my roommate brought me "Dou Hwa" this dessert soup of ... tofu and the bubbles from bubble tea, and was pretty good. then spent more time trying to free up hard disk space on my computer.
9/17: went to internet people and FINALLY got internet on my computer. found i could use skype first time too. then went to meet my professor to go over his paper i was editting. Apparently he had submitted it and it was rejected for its poor english, i felt really bad for him but assured him that it really wasn't as bad as he thought it was, i guess the journal just wants it perfect. then went down to lab and went to get lunch with some of em. They told me one of the guys, Paul was really scared to talk to me in English, and i pointed out that he doesn't really talk to me in chinese either! So they said i had to insist on talking to him, i guess so he gets over his fear. i also got a watermelon smoothie. then went back cuz we had class. I had my Sustainable Energy Tech class that i was so excited about, only to find out it was all in Chinese and there were only 2 other students so it will probably be canceled. the professor was really nice though and he said the class would probably be participation based and maybe not even have exams! participation is a little hard because i dont understand half the questions. i think he knows i'm trying, at least i try to look like i'm thinking. anyways, if the class is canceled i'll just take Solar Energy Tech with the rest of my labmates, thats at least taught in english. then tried calling dell but they're not help. so they may take me on wed to go get it fixed locally. then went back to take a nap. went back to lab at 6pm for the BBQ to find out they canceled it cuz of the rain (oh, it was raining most of the day) so i told the guys cuz i invited them too, so we were thinking of just going to eat elsewhere. then i see 10 people running downstairs with plates of cut up food and stephan's like we're eating downstairs come look!! so we run downstairs and it's like hotpot. anyways, we decide to still go out to eat. which we felt bad leaving when they had invited me so wholeheartedly and i had made a big deal of inviting them too. oh well, we went to eat at Artist Cafe. then went to a local bakery...sooooooo good :) i love chinese pastries. and there was this cute little chubby boy. and he heard me and josh talking about the cakes and he's like (in chinese) "ahhh mama, they are speaking in a foreign language!", and the mom's like yes that's english, go say "how are you" to her! and he just looks at me giggling so i say, How are you? and he like bursts out laughing to himself. so he gets some confidence and yells "howru!" to the other guys and when they wave back he laughs like crazy. it was really cute. then we walked back and it started raining like crazy, not big drops like in NJ but like sheets of rain that soak you. i was wearing a rain coat but anything not covered by it was totally wet. anyway a TYPHOON IS COMING! so classes for tomorrow are canceled...that officially means i have no more class the rest of the week...yayyy best semester EVER (so far!) i'm excited for my first typhoon :) apparently i am the only one worried, so i'm guessing i can just take it as a cool/wet experience
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