Wandering Through Wonderland: January 2007

Taiwan - Day 2

With no real agenda, the most practical thing to do seemed to be to simply head towards the giant building on the horizon. So that was the, what I thought, easy plan.

However, after really irritating the ladies at the coffee shop, aforementioned giant inescapable building disappeared. (Note: That is my travel companion. It is quite commendable of me that he made it through the trip. JUST KIDDING...sort of...in that way where I am not kidding at all...)

But after a decent amount of wandering the city, we made it!

Taipei 101 is the tallest building in the world with, appropriately, 101 floors.

I don't think you can get to the top without selling your first-born child to the Taiwanese or something, but for a mere 300 NT$ you can go to the 91st floor - and you can go in the fastest elevator in the world.

...almost to the top(ish)...

Thou shall not surpass the 91st floor.

I am such a dork...

Everything looks really small from up here.

Shall we go have an intense and slightly nauseating look outside?

Yes, let's!

Now I am very high up in the air.

But please beware!

Hmm, what's this? Just use the easy-to-read diagram, and you can figure out how it prevents the entire building from collapsing due to the fact that the building is not far from a major fault line.

On your way out, feel free to browse the merchandise, and so some shopping:

This building looked interesting from above, so I decided to check it out.

Welcome to the National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall!

Please enjoy the gardens.

That night I headed down to the Shilin Night Market, which is a pretty big attraction. The food was great, but other than that it was sort of "Winneconne Carnival meets Sovereign State Days meets Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory on crack". But you know, that is pretty impressive.

That was the end of Day 2. In closing, I give you an excellent way to hold up traffic:

Whew! I am exhausted after all of that, and it's only the second day! A professional blogger I am not. If you love me enough to read all of this, that you will love me inspite of that fact. Good night, and until next time - miss you all!

Taiwan Day (Night) 1

(I am going to do this in separate posts, just to make my own life easier. If you have a problem with that, please shut up :). )

For those of you that didn't know, I spent part of my self-proclaimed winter holiday in Taiwan. I had so much fun! I spent the first three-ish days in Taipei, then took a train to Hualien on the fourth day, and spent most of the fifth day at Taroko National Park before heading back to Taipei that night to fly out on day six. If you would like to retrace my steps geographically:

Keep your eyes on the top right corner. The font is a bit small.

So like any trip, I started out at the nearest international airport, which in this case is in Narita.

The folks at Narita International Airport had some encouraging advice as I prepared to embark on my journey:

Unfortunately I couldn't find any peaple to communicate with. Such is life.

I flew China Airlines for the first time, because apparently I have a death wish....

Cheap tickets will make a girl do rash things. Luckily for myself, this is not the last image you were to see of me.

No, instead arrived safe and sound somewhere in Taipei. It was very late...so I went to bed. So ends an uneventful Day 1.

Merry Christmas Happy New Year Bon Voyage

My how long it has been! My apologies to those (one) of you that I promised I would update before 2007. Things simply did not work out that way. I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I survived my first away from home with no permanent scarring. I spent Christmas day at work, but the weekend before with the Furuyamas. Also, Shiomi was in the city for a night, so I got to see her too. In a few hours I will be leaving for a week, so I am just going to throw these pictures up and hope for the best...or something.

My Christmas tree...well, not MINE, but the closest thing I got to one. Unless you count the night light that I got from my grandma, which upon second thought, I do. So this is the Furuyama Christmas tree.

Christmas feast...mmmm, beef...

Maiko and Reo getting their first fix of Wii, although certainly not their last.

The first Kispy Kreme in Japan opened in Shinjuku a few weeks ago. All I would have had to do is wait in line for a mere four hours and I too could have enjoyed some delicious donut treats. My camera couldn't capture all of the line, which wrapped around the building and across a bridge...but you get the idea.