This was our first real day in Asia and it was absolutely amazing!
First we had breakfast at Cafe DuTour. It was kind of strange; all we had to order from was a picture menu and I thought I got like some kind of egg and cheese and lettuce sandwich...but it ended up being a corn, asparagus, and thousand island sandwich instead. Then we got our subway cards and learned how to use the MRT system. We took it to this little dress shop called Lishe and split into two groups--one to get their makeovers first and the other to tour Chiang Kai-Shek memorial first. I was on the tour first with Megan, Trey, Charles, Emily, Meredith, Taylor, Haneul, Kyle, and Charlie. We had this really nice Japanese tourist woman take our picture in front of a giant statue with all 50 of our cameras; she was extremely patient with us. Then Charlie told us we had free time to walk around until it was time to go to Lishe and promptly left us. Charles, Megan, Emily, Trey, and I wandered around a little bit and walked back over to Lishe.
The other group was still working on their pics so we got to see some of them in their clothes. We got to choose a traditional Asian outfit and a formal one, and then had our hair and make-up done. The first Asian outfit I chose was definitely way too small so I chose a Korean one instead. The makeup artist put waaaaay too much crap on my face, but it looked dramatic enough for the pictures....the best part, though, was when she french-braided half my hair, wrapped it around the other half in a low ponytail, and then teased it! I love teased hair! I mean, I had been talking about getting Jareth the Goblin King hair the entire pre-trip and so far on the trip. Meredith, Haneul, Emily, and I went outside and took some pictures in our Asian clothes with the funny photographer who barely spoke English. After we finished outside, we went inside to take another shoot downstairs in the basement...Charlie and Dr. Fox were absolutely hilarious to watch! I ended up picking out a white weddingy-looking dress but the girls at the shop were like "no fit you" so they picked me out one that was so-so and still way too small. I think my ribs might've broken a bit from those tiny clothes. Charles had on a ridiculously awesome off-white suit with coattails that I loved, so we took a whole extra shoot together upstairs in the "wedding room." It was so cheesy, but I loved it. The running joke of the trip became "1, 2, sree, smiyee!" whenever we took pictures because that was how the photog said it.
After our long photo shoots, we went to a Chinese potsticker/dumpling restaurant. Our group had to split into 2 tables, with both professors at the same one. I was at the table of just students/not professors and instead of ordering only a few items to share with everyone like we were apparently supposed to, we each ordered one to two things and ended up with waaay too much food. It was fun though; for most of the meal we just took group pics of our table, which consisted of Danny, Emily, Megan, me, Charles, Trey, Chad, James, Taylor, Meredith, Haneul, and Mel.
After lunch, we walked to this place called Monster Ice, where they sold frozen fruit dessert things. We got a few different kinds and they were amazing. I had one with fresh kiwi, strawberry, and mango, on top of shaved ice with a mango ice cream on top.
The day continued with a trip to the National Palace Museum across town. To get there, we had to take a super-bumpy bus ride where Charles basically had to hold me up on the entire ride there because I was bouncing all over the place. Charles, Chad, Megan, and I walked around for awhile and met Danny in one of the exhibits. By the way, most of us didn't know each other's names pre-trip, and we met along the way over the course of the first couple of days in Taiwan. We got to see a concert downstairs by three girls playing zithers but several people (ahem...Dr. Fox) fell asleep during it.
After the museum, Charlie took us to the Shilin Night or Ny Market (still not sure what he was saying) where Megan and me and a couple of the guys walked around...Megan and I almost immediately separated from the guys somehow though and ended up wandering around the smelly place by ourselves looking for shoes and luggage. I bought a few pairs of leggings and thigh-high socks. We almost gagged at the stinky tofu smell in the food section of the market, the mean sunglasses vendor ran us off when I wouldn't pay full price, and then we found some luggage for Megan for about 13 bucks. Oh yeah, and there was this amputee banging his head against the ground begging for alms or something right on the street. Leaving Shilin was Megan's and my first time navigating the MRT by ourselves but it was successful.
When we got back to the hotel, we got dressed up (or rather I did) in punky little outfits and met Josh, Mel, Haneul, Taylor, Meredith, and Kyle to go to the club Room 18. We split into 2 taxis and once Josh, Mel, Megan, and I arrived we never saw the other cab, so we walked around the mall part a little bit, got dinner, and came back to the hotel. We met "Crark and Rogan" when we got back and just chilled with them for a little bit drinking Kirin grapefruits from 7 Eleven.
