Taiwan: Arrival/Day 1

I hate traveling. Thank goodness that I had to wait in Japan for an hour because otherwise I would have been stuck in the plane for 15 hours! Praise God that my flight went very smoothly :) I was worried because it was my first time traveling by myself but the whole process was a lot easier than I thought it would be. The only bad thing is that I suffered from some sort of inflammation around my eye; I went to the bathroom and was startled to discover small red dots under my eye and eyebrow D:

My 2nd aunt (in Chinese I call her 二舅媽) and grandma picked me up from the airport. Then we headed to my 2nd aunt's house. She has the most adorable dog! His name is Chodie or Jodie. I think Jodie is typically a girl's name but it's a play on words in Chinese; his brother was named Cho Cho and "di" means brother in Chinese. Therefore, Cho + di = Cho Cho's brother haha.

My grandma made me Taiwanese oyster pancakes and clam soup on the night that I arrived. Her food is always amazing.

I fell asleep at 11 pm and woke up at 6:30 am. My grandma and I then went to eat breakfast. The food here is seriously so cheap :O We ordered 2 cups of soymilk, 3 sandwiches (Eating sandwiches for breakfast is the norm here), and one Taiwanese egg crepe for only $3!!!!

We then went to the grocery to buy a watermelon. I forgot how amazing the food selection is in Taiwan.

There were so many snacks that I wanted to buy but I decided to wait. I ended up buying just two sets of pudding and a bag of shrimp crackers. I've only see this type of pudding sold in Taiwan and it was my absolute favorite as a kid.

Taken on the way to lunch

Then my grandma's friends stopped by for a visit. We all went out to eat lunch. I think the total amount of money we had to pay was $20, so about $4 per person! I can't get over how cheap everything is. The picture only shows half of our order too; we had more bowls of noodle soup and three giant plates full of dumplings.

At around 3 we headed out to Wu Fen Pu, a gigantic shopping district. There are so many clothing stores! I have been to Wu Fen Pu before (4 years ago to be exact) but I forgot how big and overwhelming it is. I planned on buying a lot of clothes there but unfortunately I ended up buying only three things, which I will reveal tomorrow. I guess the style here is too different from back home!

We then went to Rao He Night Market to eat dinner. We got fried chicken (the best I've ever had) and stinky tofu. A bag full of fried chicken was 55 NT (around $2 USD); we couldn't even finish it so the bag of chicken could have easily fed 4-5 people. An order of stinky tofu was 55 NT as well.

We just got back home (we took a bus to Wu Fen Pu but later we ended up being too tired to walk to the bus stop so we took a taxi back home). My cousins Jenny (my 2nd aunt's daughter) and Ivy (3rd aunt's daughter) were already at home; Jenny got married a month ago and so she now lives with her husband. Ivy is from another city in Taiwan but is staying in Taipei for a day for her college's art gallery. I ended up going to sleep at 9:30 pm but just woke up (it's 2:41 am now) and can't go back to sleep haha.

On a side note, I have never seen so many attractive and well dressed Asian guys.