New Years in Kuala Lumpur (December 31- January 3)

::This is still in progress. I'll be posting pictures at a later date, but I'm so far behind with the posts themselves, I wanted to get something up::

We spent the night in Hat Yai, Thailand, which is a city apparently quite famous with Malaysian tourists. We had left the island kind of early in the morning by ferry. Once we got to the mainland, we got on a big tour bus that took us to the main bus station. We waited in the station for our next bus to pick us up. The bus was actually a 12 passenger van, and they drove around, continuing to pick people up, making sure there were 12 people in that van. James and I sat in the back, and needless to say, the next four hours or so were a little cramped. It started raining, and the window I was sitting next to did not close all the way. Yay Thailand.

The van dropped us off in what was supposed to be a bus station, but just looked like a market area. We hadn't even gotten off the van before the vultures descended, poking their heads in the van asking who needed a taxi? Who needed a hotel? It didn't seem to occur to them that we would need to get OUT of the van in order to actually need a taxi and/or a hotel.

When we actually got out of the fan, we shooed the drivers away long enough to figure out what we wanted to do. Then James got one of the taxi drivers that was bothering us the least to take us to the hotel. We wanted to walk around a little, but after traveling all day, we were both too tired to do anything but sleep.

We had breakfast the next morning at the hotel, a weird combination of Western and Asian food, and got a taxi to the teeny tiny Hat Yai airport. It had only 3 terminals, all right next to each other in one room. There was nothing to eat in the airport and we were both starving. Luckily, the flight to Kuala Lumpur was very short.

We got there around 4pm on New Year's Eve. We had some vegetarian Indian food in the airport, and caught a bus into the city, which took about an hour. The bus dropped us off at a main station, and from there we had to figure out how to find the monorail to get to the hostel. This is where we started learning how well designed Kuala Lumpur is for pedestrians.

In the main station, there was a sign for the monorail, which we followed downstairs. We looked around, and there were no more signs, and no indication of where any monorail would be. We went back upstairs and asked someone who told us the monorail was across the street. We looked out the windows and all we could see was a big construction site, which we ended up having to walk alllllllllll the way around in order to get to the entrance to the monorail.

We were staying in Bukit Bintang, which happens to be the area of KL where all the action is. We were within walking distance to several ginormous malls, the Petronas Towers, the KL Tower, and pretty much everything. The area in front of the hostel was like a mini Time Square, with lights and billboards and people everywhere. After checking in and taking a short nap, we went out to explore the area and find a good place to watch New Year's fireworks.

We got a map of the city from a nearby fancy-schmancy hotel, and followed the crowds to the front of the Petronas Towers. We were standing next to a park that had people performing on a small stage. We had gotten there a bit late, so we couldn't see the people very well, but we knew they were there.

We wanted to walk around a little to kill some time, but we actually had a moderately good place to stand, and if we left we never would have gotten it back. The crowds were filling in pretty rapidly, and there was all kinds of pushing and shoving going on. At one point, a greasy-looking guy and his girlfriend shoved past me. I thought they wanted to get to a spot beyond me, but instead, the guy pushed me out of the way and then just stood there. He took my spot while I was still standing in it. That made James kind of mad, so we sort of pushed back and completely blocked anyone else from getting by. Good job, rude greasy guy.

We waited for an hour, watching the clock on the top of one of the towers count toward midnight. I bought an ice cream from some vendor guy. At midnight, there was an incredible fireworks show, and the smoke made the towers above us look like they should have been in Gotham City. After the fireworks, the crowds cleared, and we were actually able to walk around a bit and take pictures of the fountains and whatnot.

I was hungry because we hadn't eaten dinner, so we went to one of the big shopping malls nearby that had a large restaurant area, and after much deliberation, decided to have our first dinner of the New Year at a Mediterranean place.

The next day was a sightseeing day. We went to the Petronas towers with the intention of going up to the observation deck, but it turns out that you have to wait in line early in the morning to get one of a limited number of tickets to go up. We didn't really care that much, so instead, we took some pictures from the outside, and after a lunch at Chilis (!!!!!), we did some shopping and eventually made our way to the KL Tower, for which there was not a waiting list.

When you buy an entry ticket into the KL Tower, you buy either the "cultural package" or the "nature package". We chose the nature one, which consists of entry into the tower with really nice night views of the city, as well as entry into this extremely sad little zoo with lizards, birds, monkeys, raccoons, and some very scary-looking spiders. The saddest moment of my life was looking into the tank of a very large snake and seeing a little lone, white mouse huddled in the corner, cleaning his paws. They didn't even pretend like that mouse had a chance, because he had no shelter and no food, only a giant predator sleeping in the corner. I was traumatized.

At some point, we decided to make our way to the Batu Caves, which were slightly outside the city.

We found out that we could get a number 11 bus from the center of town that would go straight to the caves. This seems easy enough, until one realizes that there are no marked bus stops or bus stations. No schedules. No routes. No maps. I assume if you live in Kuala Lumpur, you must be born with an innate sense of where/when to go to get a certain bus, because we wandered around for a good 20-30 minutes looking for ANYTHING that would give us a hint as to where we needed to go. Finally, we spotted a bus (not the number 11, but at that point, I didn't care anymore) that was headed for the caves, and we got on it.

The bus dropped us off in a neighborhood, directly across a busy highway from the caves. We found somewhere to cross, and went in. In order to enter the caves, you have to walk up a huge flight of stairs that is covered in monkeys. These monkeys are very crafty, and I watched them steal food and bottled drinks from many people. Mostly, though, they just hang out on the railings and run up and down the steps. The cave is an impressively huge, open cavern, with a few temples inside. While we were there, there was a small ceremony going on in one of them. It was also a really nice place to be in the middle of the afternoon, because the whole place was naturally air conditioned with a nice breeze that blew through it.

Aside from the cave, the best thing about Kuala Lumpur was the shopping. As I said, there were tons of malls everywhere, and I realized while I was there that I was on the vacation I had been saving for forever, so I just went nuts and bought all kinds of cool stuff. I would go back just to go shopping again :)

Koh Phangan, Thailand (December 25-30)

We chose to spend Christmas on Koh Phangan, a small island off the eastern coast of southern Thailand. To get there, we first took a night bus from Bangkok to Surat Thani. The bus station was really confusing at first, and it took a while before we were able to figure out where to go to get on the buses. We ran into some foreigners who were trying to find the place to buy tickets. We had gotten ours ahead of time, so we had no idea. I hope they found some :/ We had gotten there early, so we had some time to kill. The station had a kind of mall inside. Nothing really worth looking at, but it was something to do while we waited. At one point, I walked in a shoe store that sold Thai-looking sandals, and as I picked up a pair, the guy who worked in the store came up to me, and the first thing out of his mouth was, "We have big sizes, too." I put down the shoes and walked out.

We spent a good portion of our time wandering around in one of the many 7-elevens that was around at the train station. We bought some snacks for the bus ride and some toilet paper, as we had come to realize that there generally is none. When it was finally time to get on the bus, it turns out that the time that they say they will leave is more or less just a general estimate, not a schedule. Most of the time they want to make sure that the whole bus is full so that they can make as much money as possible, so we sat for about 30 minutes waiting for people to board the bus. Soon after we left the station, they started to play "Salt" as the in-bus-movie. It was terrible. Don't see it. I was able to sleep on and off. We made some random stops in the middle of the night, and they kept telling us it was time to go get food, but who wants to eat dinner at 4am?! I would rather they had just let me sleep. At one stop, I experienced Thai-style bathrooms for the first time. Those things are quite an adventure. In Japan, I'm used to seeing the squat toilets, and as disgusting as they usually are, they at least flush and work like regular toilets. Thai toilets, however..... They don't flush. There is usually a basin full of water next to the toilet with a bucket. You use the bucket to scoop some water into the toilet and it "flushes" that way. It's gross and I was traumatized.

Very early the next morning, we arrived at the ferry port. We got on the ferry, which seemed to be a retired Japanese ferry - the Japanese writing was still everywhere - and after a few hours we finally arrived at the island.

We hadn't been on dry land for more than a few minutes before it started:

"Hey! You want taxi!?"

"Where you go?!"

"You need hotel?!"

and so on.

We spotted a 7-eleven across the street, and ran for cover.

In the relative safety and quite of the convenience store, away from the tourist-hunting taxi drivers, we pulled out our map and the directions from the hotel. We were staying on a beach called Haad Yao, which was on the northwestern part of the island. It was a bit far away-too far to walk- so we found the phone number and called them and it turned out they had a free shuttle from the ferry port. They said they would meet us at the 7-eleven in about 20 minutes. While we waited, we had a few people come up to us and try to get us to their hotel/bungalow/taxi, but they left us alone after we said we had already called someone.

Soon, the taxi showed up. I use the term taxi very loosely. On the island of Koh Phangan, "taxi" means a pick-up truck. They have benches on either side of the bed in back, and a cover over top with some railings to hold onto. It was quite the bumpy ride, and it took about 20 minutes to get to the hotel. Once we got there, everything became wonderful.

The people working at the front desk were so nice, and not the "I want something from you" nice that we had previously experienced. The hotel was right on the beach and there was a really cute restaurant/bar that we had to walk through to get to the ocean. After having lunch at the nearby 7-eleven (even in the middle of nowhere, they're EVERYWHERE), we went out on the beach to relax and watch the sunset.

This is Christmas Day. On the beach. \(^o^)/

Christmas Day sunset.

For Christmas dinner, we decided to try the hotel restaurant. They had a sitting area sort of inside, with a bar, tables and chairs, and also a section with low tables with pillows to sit on and hammocks. We chose to sit in the more outside section, directly on the beach. We sat at one of the tables that had the pillows, but some of the other nights, we sat at tables with beach chairs that were 10 feet away from the water.

The bar area of the restaurant.

View of the tables on the beach (they're right in the sand!!) and the Christmas lights the employees put up.

Christmas dinner. Hot and sour soup, and chicken satay and mojitos.

Sometime during dinner, a bunch of the guys who worked there would perform fire dancing on the beach. Some of the guys were just learning, but a few of them were really good. They all had burns on their arms from practicing.

Fire dancers at dinner on the beach.

Basically, my entire time on the island consisted of waking up, eating breakfast, going to the beach, floating for a few hours on a cheap raft that I had bought, laying on the beach, lunch, maybe floating some more, watching the sunset, eating dinner, sitting on the beach some more, and sleep.

One night, I decided to get a $5 Thai massage, and it was so fantastic. Thai massages are supposed to be very painful, but I think they are more careful with tourists- they know we can't handle it.

Pretty much the most perfect 5 days ever.

We had some cloudy weather one day, so James and I decided to go into town to go shopping. I bought some really cheap dresses (although I think I overpaid for them- my bartering skills were still kind of shaky) and James got a book.

We were both getting hungry, so we decided to have lunch. We walked around for a little bit, trying to decide which restaurant was least expensive/least likely to make us sick. We decided to go in a small cafe. Right as we walked in, we were looking for a place to sit, and I saw something on the floor. I looked down at it, and it was a centipede. Or milipede. Whichever one is the giant poisonous one over 6 inches long and as big around as your pinky. I started freaking out, James ran over to it to take a picture, and the lady who worked at the restaurant just looked at it, completely unphased. It was an open cafe, so I suppose they get strange Thai bugs all the time. We found a seat as far away from the door as possible, checked the cushions to make sure nothing scary was hiding in them, and sat down. I had a delicious sandwich with feta cheese, bell peppers and olives on ciabatta, and then we headed back to the hotel. We got a taxi, and the guy made us sit in the back for 15 minutes while he tried to get more people. It was extremely annoying, and I was very close to getting out and finding another taxi, but he finally took us back.

Then we sat on the beach and had dinner and watched the sunset.

Our hotel had really good food, and it was really cheap, and we ate at the restaurant there everyday. They had an amazing Thai curry and spring rolls that I ordered almost every night. I love Thai curry, because it's made with coconut milk which gives it a very unique, very amazing flavor. It was very spicy, and I know it was toned down because it was made for a tourist resort. I think eating Thai curry at the spice level it's supposed to be would probably kill me.

This is a sauce that usually comes with another Thai dish- Basil Chicken and Rice. The Basil Chicken is already enough to make you sweat, and I can't imagine what adding this would do.

After a perfect 5 days, we (very regretfully) caught another ferry/bus combo, leaving the island and onward to Hat Yai, where we would catch the plane heading towards our next destination: Kuala Lumpur.

Bangkok, Thailand (December 22-24)

View of Bangkok from James' friend's mother's apartment.

From Taipei, we flew to Bangkok, Thailand.

From the very beginning, I knew Thailand was going to be a bit of a pain. I read all the stories online of people getting scammed and ripped off and just generally hassled by people everywhere, and all the stories are basically true. We had just gotten off the plane, exchanged money, and were trying to find a map of the city and figure out how to get to the hostel. Maps of the city should be fairly easy to come by in an airport. One would think.

The problem with the Bangkok airport is that there are tourist information booths, and then there are the REAL tourist information booths. It's very easy to tell which is which. If you walk anywhere in the vicinity of a tourist information booth, a random man will approach you and say "Where you go? You need taxi?"

Then you say: "No, but can I have a map please?"

They say: "Where you go? Which hotel?"

You: "I just want a map."

Them: "I know you want map. You need hotel? I get you good hotel."

You: "Map."

They hand you a map, but it's only a map of the monorail that goes about halfway to where you need to go.

You: "Do you have a regular map?"

Them: "Where you go?"

Your boyfriend: "We're staying with friends."

Them: *walks away and doesn't speak to you anymore*

However, if you go to a REAL tourist information booth, they wait for you to come to them, and when you say, "May I have a map please?" they hand you one, and when you say, "How do we get to BlahBlahBlah part of town?" they draw a picture for you on your map, and point you towards the train that will take you there. Thank you REAL tourist info for being so helpful.

We finally got on the monorail that took us closest to the hostel. I stepped off the train, and I was so excited to be WARM! It was around 80 degrees F, I think. We tried to figure out where we were in relation to the hostel, but eventually just gave up and took a cab. On the cab ride, I realized how much Thai people LOVE 7-eleven. At one point, I could see three of them on one block. The cab ride was actually really interesting. At one point, we drove through an intersection where all the streets were lit up with Christmas lights (but not for Christmas), and there were pictures of the King of Thailand everywhere.

The King of Thailand

This guy is everywhere. I think right now, he is sick, so there are extra pictures and light displays devoted to him.

The next day, I wanted to go see the Golden Palace and other famous Thai things.

We discovered that our hostel was within walking distance from the palace and temples. We walked by Khao San Road, which is a famous road that a lot of foreigners go to when they visit Bangkok. A lot of shops and food and hostels and things. As we were walking, we hit a big intersection that was kind of confusing. We knew what we wanted was on the other side, but it was difficult to see exactly where to cross so that we could get there.

This thing was in the middle of the intersection.

We kept getting harassed by taxi drivers, several of whom told us the temples were closed until later that day. This happens to be one of the most popular scams in Thailand, and there are warnings about it all over the internet. Their aim is to get you to change your mind and go somewhere farther away, probably to a place that they get paid to bring people to. Someone should probably tell them that the internet has made sure that the majority of foreigners are not going to believe anything they say.

We finally found where to cross, and started walking down a long, wide sidewalk in front of some important looking building. There was one spot on the sidewalk where there were a bunch of pigeons, and some people feeding them. I do not like birds in such large numbers. Japan has kind of made me afraid of pigeons, because they get used to people and enjoy flying dangerously close to your head. My aim was to walk through the birds as quickly as possible, but this was not to be.

The people who were feeding the birds all of a sudden attached themselves to me and James. They were being all excited about the bags of corn they were holding, saying, "Good luck for New Year!!!" over and over. I kept saying no, but they wouldn't leave me alone, and as I tried to keep walking, the guy closest to me grabbed my hand and put a bag of corn in it, then, while still holding my hand, opened the bag and tipped my hand over.

He had forced me to feed those stupid birds. Now they were coming near me and making me nervous, and he kept putting more bags of corn in my hand. I was able to drop one, and I tried to walk away, but he got me again and had opened it and handed it to me upside down, so when he let go of it, all the corn spilled. After accidentally through no fault of my own feeding the birds 3 times, the guy all of a sudden started demanding money. He got angry, too, like someone flicked a switch. I kept saying I didn't want to pay, I had said no and I don't like birds so I never wanted the corn, but he kept demanding. James had paid the ladies that were hounding him, so they came over to me, and I was surrounded by 4 very short, very ugly, very angry scammers who wanted money. I tried to say that James had already paid for me, but they didn't buy it. They were asking me for 100 baht (a little more than $3), which is a lot in Thai money. James told me to give them the smallest bill I had, which turned out to be 20 baht (about 60 cents). They were mad they didn't get more, I think, but at least they left me alone.

I was really angry after that, because even though, to me, it was barely any money, I was mad that I knew what they were doing, but was unable to get away. It was just so rude and so mean, and very frustrating.

We got to where the temples where, and there was a random man that was trying to tell us something about bowing or whatever, and he was genuinely trying to be helpful I think, but after those jerks with the birds, I just wanted people to leave me alone. Across the street from the temples was a sandwich place, Au Bon Pain, and we decided to go in there for lunch to escape the scammers and the heat. The front of the store was mobbed with people selling things, showing me fabric, umbrellas, fans, and all kinds of things I didn't want. Once we were inside, *sigh* paradise. It was the first time I had felt air conditioning all day, and it was glorious. I had a chicken salsa wrap and strawberry smoothie, both of which were amazing, and we took our time relaxing in a place where no one would offer a taxi, and the price on the menu is what you paid.

After a nice leisurely lunch, we were ready to go back to reality, and enter the temple grounds, which by the way, Mr. Taxi Driver, were open.

When you go to the palace, you're supposed to cover your shoulders and not wear shorts or skirts or super short or tight anything. Because it's Thailand and it's hot, they have rental clothes on hand for those that want to visit the palace and temples, but don't want to walk around all day in long sleeves and long pants.

Fabulous, no?

Who knows how many people have worn them, and when the last time was that they were washed. Ew. I wore a long dress and brought a shirt to cover my shoulders, but James had to wear the rental pants.

When we first walked in, this is the guy that greeted us:

He's actually a giant, and comes from a Thai story that's roughly about a giant and a monkey, and one of them stole the other one's wife.

Since I live in Japan, I've seen a lot of temples. One would say I'm "templed out". It was really awesome to see the Thai ones, though, because they are so different from Japanese temples. The one thing that the Thai people really excel on is BLING.

There are very few places on these buildings that don't sparkle. Everything is gold and jewel tones, and they use mirrored tiles to make the mosaics on the buildings.

Look at the sunlight reflecting of that roof (@.@)

We went to see the Emerald Buddha, and you're not allowed to take pictures inside, but I was able to sneak this one through the doorway.

It's a little difficult to see from the quality of the picture, but this guy is blingin'.

Picture inside another temple that shows a little bit better how elaborate they are.

This is another building that was in the grounds. I saw a similar one on a small island in Japan. It's built to house relics of Buddha.

This building wasn't as sparkly, but it was just as beautiful, because it was covered with colored tiles in a floral design. In the front are some cool phoenix-looking guys guarding the entrance.

Close up of the tiles on the "plain" building.

This is a model of Angkor Wat, the famous temple in Cambodia. Thailand and Cambodia have a bit of a rivalry, and I think this is part of that rivalry.

This is the palace for the King. While we were there, a bunch of school children were on a field trip. All of the girls had the exact same haircut.

Some Dr. Seuss trees near the palace.

After the palace and the Emerald Buddha, we went to another nearby temple to see the Reclining Buddha. This pose is representative of him being about to die. A street vendor later told us that he doesn't like the Reclining Buddha because he looks lazy, and he wants to see Buddha do more interesting things.

Buddha from the front.

Full length view of Reclining Buddha.

The bottom of Buddha's feet, inlaid with mother of pearl.

After hanging out in the hot sun all day, we wanted to go somewhere to look for dinner. I had read online that the food courts of malls are good places to get food that is cheap, delicious, and won't kill you. We were closest to a mall called MBK, which is one of the more famous shopping centers in Bangkok. It used to be a good place to buy knock-off goods, but Thailand has recently been cracking down on that kind of activity, so now it's a legitimate mall.

We looked around the mall for awhile, and then headed upstairs to the international food court. It was amazing. Food from EVERYWHERE. They give you a card when you go in, and you buy whatever you want and they put it on the card, and you pay for it all on the way out. It took me about 30 minutes of wandering around to decide what to get. I ended up getting some spicy soup with shrimp. James had something Greek (gyro, maybe) that came with the most delicious french fries ever. While we were eating, there happened to be a performance of traditional Thai dance. They performed the giant/monkey/wife stealing story, as well as another dance with girls who dance with feathery fans.

While we were at MBK, we were able to buy tickets to something else I really wanted to do while I was in Thailand: a Ladyboy Show!

This is a man.

And so are these.

Thailand has this whole part of their culture where they're apparently completely okay with cross dressing. You see Ladyboys on the street all the time, and sometimes it's really hard to tell that they're not women, because they're so beautiful. The only reason you notice is usually because you're in Thailand so you're looking for them.

So we watched the show. They did a variety of songs in different languages, even English and Japanese. There was one older man whose performances were meant to be comedy: he was running into walls and at one point the music stopped and it was just him singing in a manly voice. Very silly, and I enjoyed it very much.

Afterwards, we were able to take pictures with the performers.

This is the only picture I have with them where they only make me look a little frumpy (as opposed to completely frumpy).

The next day, we went back to MBK. There is a building nearby the mall that is a cultural center and has some free art exhibits. The regular exhibits were mostly made up of children in special art programs, and were really cute. They did have one special photography exhibit, created by the Princess of Thailand. It was meant to be about the empowerment of women, I think but ultimately it was more or less a cliche group of photographs of women in their underwear.

Beautiful photos, though.

The best part of MBK was a food store on the bottom floor. They had sourdough rolls, which I have not seen in a LONG time, so of course I had to buy one. I also found some garlic and herb camembert cheese that turned out to be amazingly delicious on my sourdough roll. I think I had a salad as well, but the bread and cheese really stole the show of that lunch.

Later, we were picked up by the driver of the family of one of James' friends from Vancouver. We went to their beautiful apartment that overlooks the city, and then they took us to another market (more for locals) and for an early dinner. At the market, James' friend's mom bought us a couple traditional Thai snacks. One looked like a taco, but was kind of like a crunchy crepe with this coconut filling inside. It was very sweet. The other thing she bought looked like tarts, but they were made from egg and rice flour, and had different toppings, like corn and sesame, and some other things I didn't recognize.

For dinner, we had Pad Thai and eggrolls, and I had Thai iced tea, which is an opaque terra cotta color, is extremely sweet, and is flavored with different spices and milk.

After dinner, we got a ride to the bus station to catch the overnight bus to our next destination: Koh Phangan.

Killing time at the bus station.

Taipei! (December 21-22)

First stop was Taipei. We weren't originally supposed to go to Taiwan, but it turns out it's very expensive to fly out of Japan, and Taiwan was a cheap jumping off point to the rest of Asia.

I tried very hard to do everything ahead of time, but inevitably I was packing on the morning of the flight. Actually, I had to run to Sannomiya to buy the bag that I was packing everything IN the morning of the flight. It's an awesome backpack with lots of pockets and cool things for traveling. I met James at a coffee shop, and then we were off to the airport bus.

The unfortunate thing about taking a bus to the airport, is that sometimes there is traffic. And sometimes, you get on the bus that already takes an extra 15 minutes or so because it has to make a detour to pick up people on a nearby island. And sometimes, you have just come from a coffee shop and didn't think to "go" before you got on this bus that's about to hit traffic on top of the extra 15 minutes. This was one painful bus ride. About an hour into it, I decided I couldn't take it anymore, and James had to run up to the bus driver and beg him to make a bathroom stop. It's quite embarassing being the only one jumping off at an unplanned bathroom stop, cuz everyone knows it's your fault that it's going to take even longer to get to the airport. But we got there.

So blah, blah, customs, security, airplane, 3 hours, Taipei.

We got to Taipei and headed for the hostel. I think we took another bus. We couldn't understand the airport bus driver as he was yelling out the names of the stops, so we just kind of assumed we'd somehow end up at the correct place. As luck would have it, our stop was the very last stop on the line. We didn't realize the bus had stopped for good, so we sat there like dumb foreigners for a moment until the bus driver yelled at us. We stood at the train station for a minute and decided the easiest thing would be to take a taxi the rest of the way. So we did. We stayed at a hostel called The Meeting Place, which is sort of a misnomer in that it's kind of difficult to find and there's not much going on around it, but the inside was beautiful. They had a huge open area with comfy couches and a large projector screen for movies, also a kitchen area and a bunch of tables for eating or skyping or whatever. I guess people are supposed to meet on the inside, not the outside :) The people who worked there were incredibly nice. We got in kind of late - around 10 or 11 pm - and I didn't even have to ask before the guy gave me directions to the nearest night market to get some food.

This is where we went.

The night market was a fairly short walk from the hostel. There are about a billion night markets in Taiwan, and they basically consist of a bunch of food stalls and little shops selling clothes, toys, souvenirs, and pretty much anything. At first, I was a little paranoid about walking around, as I had been reading entirely too much about southeast Asia and it's pickpockets and whatnot, but it turns out that Taipei is a really safe place. Not quite Japan, but not anywhere near as sketch as other countries can be. After spending some time at the night market, we realized the people of Taipei are REALLY nice. We had had a lot of trouble in China with people being pushy and rude and not leaving you alone when you are shopping, but in the market, I nearly fell over from shock when someone approached me about buying earrings and I said "no thank you" and she just walked away. Amazing.

I ate some candied strawberries and a hotdog on a stick that was covered in potato and then deep fried. You can choose whatever sauce you want with it, and I got it with some kind of honey mustard-ish sauce. There was some other food I kind of wanted, but I was a bit overwhelmed with everything, so couldn't really decide. James got some guava, and it was really good. I also bought an awesome belt, but forgot about the whole bartering thing and, while I got the price down a little, I totally paid too much. But by paid too much, I mean I got it for less than $10, so I wasn't too worried about it.

We finally headed back to the hostel, stopping along the way at a 7-eleven for a bit more food. The guy at the hostel gave me a look for eating 7-eleven noodles instead of the noodles at the night market, but I didn't care, I was tired. We asked him about things to do for the next day, and he recommended going to this famous museum, but it turns out we would have to wake up early to go there, since it was about an hour away by train/bus, and it's a large museum. We decided to sleep in instead (it's vacation, after all), and went to Taipei Main Station to have a look around before we had to head to the airport again. I bought an onion pancake from a street vendor guy, and we had an amazing lunch at a pizza place called Alley Cats. We didn't really do anything particularly exciting, just wandered, and then we found the bus back to the airport. We were coming back to Taipei at the end of our trip for a longer period of time, so we figured we'd do our sightseeing then.

Cool building next to the night market. I think it's a museum/temple thing.

Onward to Thailand!

The Epic Journey: 5 Countries in 3 Weeks

For the past 3 weeks, I have been on planes, trains, boats, tuk-tuks, and automobiles, finally experiencing the result of 6 months of planning. I traveled to a total of 5 different countries: Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Cambodia. I had Christmas on the beach, New Years under the Petronas Towers, imitated Angelina Jolie at Angkor Wat, and made a total fattie of myself everywhere. Without a doubt, as silly as it sounds, my favorite part of my trip would have to be the food. Not only was I pleasantly surprised by an abundance of my Western favorites (Chilis, California Pizza Kitchen, and TGIFridays, oh my), but southeast Asia happens to have some absolutely amazing food, and I was there to eat it.

I'm going to split up the tale of my trip- one blog entry per country -to make it easier to read and easier to write.

First, Taiwan........

Happy New Year!

It. Is. Cold.

This morning, Tomogaoka had their opening ceremony to start the 3rd term of the school year. They didn't bother to use any space heaters because the ceremony was supposed to be very short and we didn't need them. When we finally left the assembly, I couldn't feel any of my toes or fingers. :(

This cold weather comes as a bit of a shock for me, because I have spent the last 3 weeks in Southeast Asia (multiple entries about my trip to follow! :) ), where the temperature during the day is over 80 degrees. Being warm in December is amazing.

Holy cow it's November ALREADY?

It is cold. I don't like it.


Waking up in the morning is starting to get more difficult. It's all warm under the blankets and it's all cold in my room. Not cold enough to turn the heat on yet, but it's getting there. Sad face.
Summer didn't last long at all and I'm already looking forward to spring :)

Yesterday was "Open High School" at Tomogaoka where middle school students came to see the school. They will have to decide which school they want to go to for high school and take entrance exams in March. They were only there in the afternoon, so I only saw them around during my Eiken classes, so they weren't too much of a disturbance.

Other than that- bleh. Winter.