taiwan

i am back from taiwan, and so happy to be back! the trip was pretty miserable, too much rain and sooooo cold. since shal already gave a trip summary on her flutterofwings blog, i won't repeat it =P
the first six nights (sat-thurs), we stayed in a hotel room all 4 of us in a room. it was very damp in the room, the sheets felt wet and slimy. and somehow all the bathrooms in the hotel were connected or something, cause our bathroom always smelled of poo even though none of us had used the restroom, it was gross. i guess that's what you can expect for a room that is $60/night! i didn't sleep well most of the time in the hotel. and it rained every single day, which pretty much sucked. it's no fun to walk around in the rain.
the next two nights we stayed at my grandma's house (fri, sat). luckily the rain stopped on fri & sat, but it was soooo cold. it was around 50 degrees i guess? i don't know, but like everywhere in taiwan, there is no heater in my grandma's house, so you have to wear warm clothes all the time. even with warm clothes, my head was still cold so i had a perpetual stuffy & runny nose the whole trip. the last night (sat) there were several small earthquakes starting at 3am. so basically after the first earthquake, i didn't sleep a wink.
and the flights to/from taiwan were loooong. and we didn't get an individual screen.

so that was all the bad points. some good parts of the trip: got to see shally, and she was a very good tour guide. she took us to pretty much all the sights in taipei, and all the good food places that she liked. it was fun celebrating her bday at ktv, much nicer than karoake around here, but of course it's also a lot more expensive. we got to take wedding pictures....unfortunately since it was raining we didn't get to take any outside wedding shots, but oh well. i didn't really get to shop that much, cause i was always tired which thus did not put me in the mood to shop that much. plus, it was raining all the time, so the night markets was not as good. i didn't get any new clothes or shoes which i had hoped for.

overall, i think i've done about everything there is to do in taipei, so i don't think i want to go back for a long time, especially in the winter. i'm thinking hot humid weather with bug bites is better than cold and miserable!! isn't that crazy?? anyhow, i now know that i don't think i could ever live in taiwan, the lifestyle is very different and i don't think i could ever give up my american luxuries =P