Starting a trip off right!

I had been hearing the loud banging for like the last half hour, and thought it was really annoying construction or something.  So when we got down to the apartment lobby I was super suprised to see a festival parade going on right in front of the building.  DaTing said it was because today was a holiday, they have a parade put together by all the temples the day before.  How awesome is my timing?! I mean first full day in Taiwan and I get to see a festival!  It wasn't as nice or cool as some of the ones I've seen in Japan, but still very cool.  After watching the parade for a few minutes we went to the bank....so I could stop freaking out about not having money....and the ATM at an actual bank actually worked...so now I feel kinda bad about reaming out the woman Tuesday night. 

One of the boys gave me his pole of the Dragon to hold for this shot.  It was soo sweet of him!

Ahh oh well can't do anything about that now, anyways after I got money DaTing took me to get some noodle soup, and we ended up walking right along side the parade (again) to get to the food shop she wanted to take me to.  I got to see a different part of it! and I took some great pictures with the different groups of people. I felt kinda weird, but DaTing told me it was ok since I was a foreigner...they kinda expected it...I'm not sure how I feel about that asumption!

At Danshui

We then jumped on the train and headed to Danshui the major river front way on the far side of Taipei...it took almost an hour to get there.  Grabbed some donuts and then strolled along the boardwalk looking at shops and playing carnival games.  I did the dart/water balloon game and won a thing of bubbles for breaking 2.  Makes me embarassed since we had a dart board in my parents house growing up! I took a lot of pictures and we had fun shopping.  I baught a suvenior for mom...which I'll mail back home once I get to Japan, I think she is going to love it!  Other than that DaTing and  I were content to just stroll along the streets trying different snacks and buying a few.  I got some new hair accessorys...which...hey when in Asia right?!?  You can't see it in the picture, but I'm wearing one of them in the club we went to later. 

Shinlin Night Market....It was nuts!!

Once it started getting dark we went to a night market....man was that some crazy amount of people packed into a very tight area.  but again fun.  It was kind of like a high quality flea market!  I got an awesome leather braclet...something I've been searching for for over a year.  And it was only NT290...something like $9...I'd have to do the math to find out specifically.  We ate some really weird egg, veggie, sauce and gel mixture of a dinner and a bowl of some really good soup. It had at least 10 different things in it.  Note to self to ask DaTing the name of both.  The egg thing was really hard to eat...the jell didn't like to be seperated from itself in order to get it into pieces, and the sauce made it kinda slippery.  But still it was good....weird, but good!  There were sooo many different side allies and such, I'm glad DaTing knew where we were going since I was totally lost.  I had started looking for a cute bad to hold my camera...the one I have is kind of ulitilitarian for where I'm living, and DaTing had been having an amusing hunt for fake glasses.  Anyone know why Asians like to pretend to wear glasses?  I mean most of them don't even have lenses...? I've noticed this in Japan and now here in Taiwan...I mean yay she looks cute in the ones she's been wearing the last few days, but most of the fake glasses she was trying on were SUPER nerdy...like what my grandfather wore 20 years ago.  I was really tired by the time we decided to head back.

After about an hour back at the house, DaTing asks if I want to go to the club since Nelson's (her BF) friend can get us into one for free, with free drinks.  I didn't have to think about that very long. We got dressed and headed out at midnight, drank, danced.  A group of guys came over to me after a little while and asked where I was from...standard first question any foreigner is expected to recieve before even a hello or what is your name. A little backwards from how we start a conversation in the US!! When I said America, they told me they were from Japan, so I had fun talking with them in Japanese for a few minutes.  It was nice...my Chinese is limited to maybe 10 words...none of which are helpful in a club (though I have gotten DaTing to teach me a few new ones every day).  So chatting with them gave me a bit of a break from demanding DaTing and Nelson to talk to me in English!   At about 2:30 we had to leave, Nelson had class this morning..I kinda felt back about making him come with us.  But hey apparently unless you have a lot of girls going out together, girls shouldn't go clubbing without at least a guy in Taipei...and it was his friends that were going to get us in. 

My poor feet...they were only just starting to recover from Monday's night in heels and I torchered them again last night

DaTing after we got back..she'd had a bit too much to drink!