Taiwan Day 3

Woke up around 8 to meet Shui at the bank to finalize our contract and rent stuff. If Shui was not already hilarious enough, she dropped this gem on us today: "If I picked tenants based on cuteness, I would not have let Cindy live here." HAHA. Which is entirely fair because my passport photo is very old and horrible.

Afterwards we went to a very cute little bakery for breakfast, where I got a little strawberry mousse dessert, mainly because it was so cute. Which is really supporting my theory that I really just like things that are pink/match the color of my nails. I'm only mostly kidding.

And then, MOAR STATIONERY!!! I am not allowed anywhere near stationery anymore. This time got pens too. They were so cheaaap! Like 12 TWD each, which is like...40 cents? My conversion of TWD -> USD is still horrendous. And got a really cute giraffe cup. Charlotte bought a matching one with a lion too :3 My shopping weaknesses are food, clothes, stationery, and cute things. So...Taiwan is probably the worst place for me to be with money. BUT I WORKED HARD FOR IT! And everything is so cheap. And I will not be back for a long time.So it's okay, right?! .__.

Took a break from the horrible horrible heat and humidity for a bit in our apartment, then met up with Logan and Eric to visit the botanical gardens in Zhongzheng. Logan is a foot taller than everyone in Taiwan, has red hair, and is hilarious. And Eric and I are basically the same person (first person I've met who has seen Bravest Warriors!).

There were so many nice trees, a lotus pond, and other nature-y things. It was really really big so we walked around for about an hour or more.

A very photogenic crew

Duck faces by the duck (between my and Eric's head haha)

HOWEVER. Also saw a HUGE FUZZY DEFINITELY POISONOUS HORRIBLE CATERPILLAR just scooting along this bridge railing like it owned the place. So I may or may not have made a horrible death noise and ran away (and can you really blame me. Saw a gigantic cockroach outside of our apartment yesterday, and have been completely COMPLETELY devoured by mosquitoes since I have been here. Hooray tropical climates). The upside to this story is this very cute old Taiwanese man saw me and was like "小姐！Why are you so afraid?" (in Chinese) and we continued to have a pretty good conversation with him despite the fact that he spoke really fast with a really strong accent. He says I look Chinese so everyone will speak Chinese to me. Womp womp. Though I suppose that actually is a good thing.

And here is a picture of Logan promoting the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, which we didn't actually go inside, but will one day.

The t-shirt is perfect

Wandered around some more...

Skipping through the streets of Taipei...a bromance in the making

...Until we found this awesome bubble tea place...and it was a DOLLAR! Taiwan is the best country in the world.

  Cool people with green tea on the left, less cool people with red tea on the right:

Afterwards, Logan Charlotte, Eric and I came back to our apartment to play Uno and Bananagrams. Connor had disappeared to go to this place called the gym which I have never heard of before. Eric was not very enthused about Bananagrams.

"Beaten" haha

Met up with a bunch of ICLP students and Arran (another Williams kid! Haha. Not an ICLP student though, cause he actually knows Chinese and is working a real job in Taipei) to go get dinner. There were like 10 of us so it was hard to find a place to seat all of us. Eventually found a really good noodle etc. place.

Went to the outside of 7 -11 again to hang out, which is slowly becoming our home base, since it's near our apartment/the ICLP dorms/Gongguan station. Then most people went to the club, and Charlotte, Arran, and I went back to the apartment to hang out because 我们不喜欢 going to clubs. Actually just me and Charlotte don't like it 哈哈

Today's most used Chinese phrase: "可以用信用卡吗？" (Do you take credit card?) Because Wells Fargo only lets me withdraw so much money and I used all of my cash on rent. And guess what. The answer to this question is no, no you cannot use credit card, because Taiwan just loveeees cash -___- 

But money looks pretty cool here, so I guess here is a picture of Taiwanese money that I don't have Q___Q

再见。我得睡觉了。