Expensive Malls

Hello! Today we didn't have a solid plan we just kind of set out with a few places in mind not really sure if we could find them. We didn't find the first place we were looking for, The Barbie Cafe, but we spent a great deal of time walking all around looking for it. We took a break at the next best place, Starbucks! I prefer not to go to Starbucks if we can find a smaller cafe but it was close and we had been walking around quite a bit so we went ahead and tried this 3 story Starbucks. They had a few different flavors but nothing too unusual and the employees spoke decent English which was a plus.

   Our next goal was to look for this big bookstore called Eslite? It turned out to be inside a large department store mall that supplies mostly expensive brand name clothes, but the book store itself was pretty impressive. Not exactly Barnes and Noble but  they had an extensive collection of books including a good size art section. Unfortunately the few books I would have wanted cost more here in Taiwan and I can't read any of the other selections so I opted out of making any purchases here.

We wandered the mall for a while and ate more Japanese food at the food court (which is drastically different from mall food courts back home mostly bc not only is the food well priced, it actually tastes good too) and then exited back out into the street to walk around more. The area we were in was mostly just expensive designer clothes like Chanel and Versace although it seemed they had many of the same stores repeated outside on the street. We stopped and sat at a fountain outside Hermes where lots of couples were taking fancy photos. The women had on big ball gowns and fancy photographers were all over the place. I don't know what was up with that location but the girls in pretty dresses flocked there with their cameramen escorts. There was a walkway of lights that we passed through to get to the street as well as 3D displays of advertisements for Fashion week Taiwan. They were literally giant glass boxes with displays set up inside. It was pretty cool actually.

We entered yet another department store mall and found a few more affordable brands as well as my dream store with its incredibly unaffordable bags and wallets. Maybe one day (╥_╥)

☆*･゜ﾟ･* WAAAAANNNNTTT*･゜ﾟ･*☆

 
   This mall was not particularly different from any other mall we visited except that on one of the higher floors there was an entire assortment of Alice and Wonderland themed bakeries and displays. There were giant rabbits pointing the way and beautiful displays that didn't quite fit the theme but were lovely nonetheless.

It had become pretty late so we headed back for the train after our exploration of this mall and now we are back in our hard beds calling it a night~

   

First Vlog

We thought it might be fun to try and do some vlogging while here, unfortunately I don't have room on my phone for excessive videos so I have to shoot them on my camera and then try and piece the videos together with this free software that I have no idea how to use (was this not such a great idea haa (TヮT)ﾟ｡anyway just thought we'd give it a shot and see how it goes.

 This vlog follows us on our first expenditure out on our own while we navigate the metro and it's extensive underground and then end our journey back above ground at the Taipei 101 tower.

p.s. I reaaaally don't like hearing my own voice ugghhh I realize how repetitive I am sorry ;A;

Savi~

Evening temple trip

Tonight we took a short visit to a nearby temple. We parked at a huge deck where they store the cars in this conveyor belt thing, it was really neat and I had never seen cars parked like that before. The temple was kind of crammed on the tiny street that was acked with vendors selling street food and clothes. It was huge and very decorative. I've noticed the temples here seem a bit flashy and colorful in comparison to the ones I visited while in Japan. They all have these digital signs on top and many lights on the inside to highlight all the diety statues.

We lit some insense and I asked for saftey in our travels while we walked through the temple. We decended back onto the street afterward and ate dinner and tried this jelly lemonade drink. It was pretty good until the lemon flavor got watered down.

It was a short trip but it is really nice being able to go out for the evening and not have to travel very far to find something interesting.

Thoughts on Taiwan

Since arriving here a little under a week ago I have taken notice of some difference in the life here

•   Driving is literally a life and death situation, whether you are in a car or on one of the million motorbikes crowding the streets
•   It is unbearably humid and hot here, my closest comparison would be Florida although much worse
• Everyone reverse parks here
• Generally, they do not seem to serve water or drinks with meals in general
• Everything looks very old and rather dirty from the outside
• No soap
• No one usually greets you when you walk into a businessafforb
• Temples have huge light up signs on top (why?)
• No women's shaving cream?
• Food is inexpensive
• There are always people out at anytime of day
• The sun sets very early here, about 6 or so

just some things that have crossed my mind, more to come I'm sure

Savi

(~˘▾˘)~ 你好台灣

(I am re-doing this old blog and trying it out this site again to create my "Travel Blog". This may be a complete failure because I really do not know how to work this website nor do I have the patience to figure it out, but here I am giving it a shot.)


       So a few years back my girlfriend and I sort of casually brought up travelling to Taiwan, her homeland, but we dismissed the idea as more of a future goal or a dream to be reached later on. After quite a lot of discussion and help from our families we made the ultimate decison and now here I am sitting on an extremely hard matress in this new and foreign place.