Taipei

Wow our first two days in Taipei have been insane.

We arrived at the airport and the first thing we had to do was walk through a sensor that measured our temperature to make sure that we didn't have a fever that could be an indicator of possible swine flu.  Not kidding. 

Everyone here wears masks, and they even have stylish ones.  There are a MILLION scooters everywhere and a special lane on the freeway just for the scooters.  People drive like maniacs and we have watched death being cheated many times already.  Everyone has been very friendly and helpful.  The city itself is chaotic and dirty and the smells are the strangest part.  They are so unfamiliar and definitely unpleasant.  Our hotel is on the 13th floor(gulp) of a very strange building.  Some of the other occupants: pool hall, movie theater, nudey bar... and then there are these three creepy empty floors.  There is no button on the elevators for the empty floors.  Eeeeerie.
I HATE the food, everything, even the coffee at Starbucks, tastes like fish.  No joke.

Yesterday we deboarded and went straight to National Taipei University, where we spent a long, grimy, jetlagged day being led around the campus in a zombie-like state.  Then later we were so deleriously tired we decided to wander around.  The nightlife is insane, and we wound up in a restaurant where no one spoke English and we had to just guess which items to get(no pictures).  I(as you might guess) opted to just have a beer and no food. The beers are insanely HUGE and cost 2.00.  

Today we went to the National Palace Museum and had a tour of the largest exhibit of Chinese artifacts, some as old as 8000 years old!  We also went to see a Taiwanese show being taped, which was entirely in Manderin and trying to figure out what was happening was quite amusing.  The Taiwanese really really like to use sound effects in their shows.  I lost count of how many boings, meows, and clashes we heard.  Now we are getting ready to go visit one of the famous night markets, which only open after sundown.

This is craaazy!!! Love you miss you!