Something a Little Less Dramatic

Well, after all the chaos this trip has held for me, it’s certainly been a fun experience. My schedule has been so busy though I’ve unfortunately not had many opportunities to explore outside office buildings. However, last night I did walk around a little, just on the streets near the hotel. There was a small night market in an ally about a quarter mile away that was really neat to see. Taipei is apparently famous for its night markets, which consist of many street food vendors and an obscene amount of shopping. Tonight I’ll likely venture out to a larger market since I have the entire day at my disposal.

With that in mind, Taipei is home to the worlds smallest miniskirts. Although I think it is also home to the worlds thinnest women, so perhaps the skirts make sense. There is no way I could (or would) squeeze my big American butt into one if those skirts, so shopping is basically ruled out for me.

The food carts are neat, and while I love seeing different types of food, my palate is more apt to trying things that actually LOOK appetizing rather than trying something simply because it’s different. Having said that, the following things do NOT look appetizing:

1. Hearts, or any organ for that matter.
2. Eyes. Gross.
3. Stomachs or anything that is part of, or near the digestive tract.
4. Appendages. I have no desire to eat a foot, ear, tail or hoof.
5. Bugs. Need I say more?

Oddly, that seems to leave next to nothing for me to try. I did have some sushi and fruits last night that were pretty good, but am no where near as adventurous as Robert.

Near the hotel was a really amazing temple that I managed to get a couple photos of with my phone:

I wanted to get some photos inside, but there were people praying and I didn’t want to be disrespectful.

That was about it – I spent about 2 hours in the hotel bar drinking wine and listening to a woman play the piano and sing tacky show tubes (all the whole laughing to myself as I was constantly reminded of the Christmas carols at the Chinese restaurant in “A Christmas Story”) before going to bed.

All in all it was a good day – our meeting was successful and has made me very excited about what 2012 holds for us and now I just want to relax & enjoy my short amount of time left here.

More to come soon 🙂