Monday 1/31/11
This morning we took a Taxi to Taipei 101 for some shopping and sightseeing. When we arrived, we headed to Shin Kong Mitsukosha department store first to grab some lunch at the food court. The food court was filled with all kinds of Asian food, kind of like the Mistuwa food court x 10. There were all types of Chinese/Taiwanese/Hakka food, Japanese food, Korean food, Thai food and some fast food places. It was so overwhelming it was hard to choose what to eat. I ended up with a pork katsu donburi and a Mos burger on the side.
After that we headed upstairs to do some shopping. The main floor of the department store was all beauty stuff. They had most of the same premium brands we have in the US like Chanel, Dior, Chantecaille, Cle de Peau, etc and also some premium Asian brands like Shu Uemura, Kose, Fancl, etc. I wanted to buy some makeup to bring back but there was so much it ws hard to focus. There were a lot of cute shoes and boots (from Europe? Brazil?) but they were pretty pricey. I wanted to see the selection at the cheaper night market type places first.
Next to that department store, there was a small indoor mall that had boutiques from all the major European designers. Some of the stores had a sale sign in front that read 3, 5, or 7 which means up to 30, 50 or 70% off selected items (respectively). It was hard getting used to and the boutiques were so small it was hard to tell what was on sale and how much it was on sale for. It seemed like the salespeople just memorized which ones were what since the items weren't marked.
After we were done browsing, we walked to Taipei 101 which was a 4-story mall in the lobby. We headed up to the 5th floor which was the entrance to the observatory. After getting tickets, we waited in line for the elevator up. The elevator was super fast, something like going up 3 stories every half second. I got very woozy but it was a very short ride up. At the top we each got a little museum-tour-like speaker and walked around to take pictures and see the displays. There were a couple of gift stores at the top, a coffee shop and some other little things to do. After about an hour we headed down.
On the way down you can see the large damper ball which is this massively huge round structure suspended in the middle of the building that is used to keep the tall building secure and not sway in the wind. We also had to walk through the largest coral/jade shop ever before they let us exit. By the time we were done it was dark outside and we jumped into a taxi and headed towards Julia Wedding studio to look at our picture proofs. The traffic was horrible (New Years? Rush hour?) and it took almost 2 hours to get to the photo studio. We arrived around 8pm and it took about 2 hours to sort through 355 picture proofs to narrow it down to our top 42. The package we chose had 30 pictures included so we had to pay $1500NT ($30) extra per picture.
After Julia Wedding we went to the Shilin Night Market to eat traditional night market foods. Yup, this meant stinky tofu and oyster pancakes. At the beginning of the trip I was actually excited to try these things. I typically like exotic foods and it would be nice to like these "special" Taiwanese items but as soon as I walked into the stinky night market and actually saw the foods being cooked I was pretty grossed out. I tried the stinky tofu anyway, which was deep fried and didn't look bad, and got as far as putting it on my tongue before I had to spit it out. It tasted like really, really bad/strong fish sauce and literally stung my tongue. The oyster pancake would have been much better except it was drenched in this questionable red sauce. I took a bite (without the sauce) and actually enjoyed it until I got some gooey pancake part. I'm noticing that a lot of Taiwanese food is gooey. We ordered a couple other dishes like this oden-type soup with unidentifiable floating white things in it and some fried tempura fishcake which was good but had this pink sauce on top that I didn't like that much. After that we walked around some more to take pictures and I was just so tired (and grossed out) that I couldn't really enjoy browsing around. It was like an overly crowded flea market that smelled. There were rows and rows of clothes and accessories vendors and each played their own loud house/dance/pop music. It was craziness. After 15 minutes of being over stimulated we took a taxi home and I knocked out.
This morning we took a Taxi to Taipei 101 for some shopping and sightseeing. When we arrived, we headed to Shin Kong Mitsukosha department store first to grab some lunch at the food court. The food court was filled with all kinds of Asian food, kind of like the Mistuwa food court x 10. There were all types of Chinese/Taiwanese/Hakka food, Japanese food, Korean food, Thai food and some fast food places. It was so overwhelming it was hard to choose what to eat. I ended up with a pork katsu donburi and a Mos burger on the side.
After that we headed upstairs to do some shopping. The main floor of the department store was all beauty stuff. They had most of the same premium brands we have in the US like Chanel, Dior, Chantecaille, Cle de Peau, etc and also some premium Asian brands like Shu Uemura, Kose, Fancl, etc. I wanted to buy some makeup to bring back but there was so much it ws hard to focus. There were a lot of cute shoes and boots (from Europe? Brazil?) but they were pretty pricey. I wanted to see the selection at the cheaper night market type places first.
Next to that department store, there was a small indoor mall that had boutiques from all the major European designers. Some of the stores had a sale sign in front that read 3, 5, or 7 which means up to 30, 50 or 70% off selected items (respectively). It was hard getting used to and the boutiques were so small it was hard to tell what was on sale and how much it was on sale for. It seemed like the salespeople just memorized which ones were what since the items weren't marked.
After we were done browsing, we walked to Taipei 101 which was a 4-story mall in the lobby. We headed up to the 5th floor which was the entrance to the observatory. After getting tickets, we waited in line for the elevator up. The elevator was super fast, something like going up 3 stories every half second. I got very woozy but it was a very short ride up. At the top we each got a little museum-tour-like speaker and walked around to take pictures and see the displays. There were a couple of gift stores at the top, a coffee shop and some other little things to do. After about an hour we headed down.
On the way down you can see the large damper ball which is this massively huge round structure suspended in the middle of the building that is used to keep the tall building secure and not sway in the wind. We also had to walk through the largest coral/jade shop ever before they let us exit. By the time we were done it was dark outside and we jumped into a taxi and headed towards Julia Wedding studio to look at our picture proofs. The traffic was horrible (New Years? Rush hour?) and it took almost 2 hours to get to the photo studio. We arrived around 8pm and it took about 2 hours to sort through 355 picture proofs to narrow it down to our top 42. The package we chose had 30 pictures included so we had to pay $1500NT ($30) extra per picture.
After Julia Wedding we went to the Shilin Night Market to eat traditional night market foods. Yup, this meant stinky tofu and oyster pancakes. At the beginning of the trip I was actually excited to try these things. I typically like exotic foods and it would be nice to like these "special" Taiwanese items but as soon as I walked into the stinky night market and actually saw the foods being cooked I was pretty grossed out. I tried the stinky tofu anyway, which was deep fried and didn't look bad, and got as far as putting it on my tongue before I had to spit it out. It tasted like really, really bad/strong fish sauce and literally stung my tongue. The oyster pancake would have been much better except it was drenched in this questionable red sauce. I took a bite (without the sauce) and actually enjoyed it until I got some gooey pancake part. I'm noticing that a lot of Taiwanese food is gooey. We ordered a couple other dishes like this oden-type soup with unidentifiable floating white things in it and some fried tempura fishcake which was good but had this pink sauce on top that I didn't like that much. After that we walked around some more to take pictures and I was just so tired (and grossed out) that I couldn't really enjoy browsing around. It was like an overly crowded flea market that smelled. There were rows and rows of clothes and accessories vendors and each played their own loud house/dance/pop music. It was craziness. After 15 minutes of being over stimulated we took a taxi home and I knocked out.
