day 10!

It's Kevin and Jennifer's second to last day in Taiwan, so we say that we are going to meet our mom in the morning for  doujiang and shaobingyoutiao (soy milk and .......savory chinese donuts??), which is a pretty traditional chinese breakfast that Jennifer really likes to eat. I'm not a huge fan, they put vinegar into the savory soy milk so it curdles (NOPE!), so I only like the sweet soy milk. The chinese donuts might SOUND good cuz they're donuts but they're really just fried things of dough with no taste :S Just my opinion though! The rest of my family loves it.

Anyway, there is probably some theorem or law that correlates group size to prep time -- it probably involves exponentials. The four of us are ideal test subjects because it takes us FOREVER to decide anything, get ready, and head out. Mostly it's someone mumbling "so did we decide what we're gonna do? let's decide" and then everyone mumbles "i don't care" and we all go back to our internet devices. I think we're all individually frustrated that we're like this, but as a group no one fixes it. :|

MY POINT BEING that this morning, same as every morning, our grand plans to wake up early and do something fall through, and we spend the morning sprawled around chatting online instead. When we finally get to our grandmother's apartment, all the breakfast places have closed, and we have to find something else instead.

Found it!! Potstickers. :)

We found a cute little garden to sit and eat. It was so random....it's  not even a park, just...a little garden.

nomnomnom

After lunch we went with Kevin to run an errand -- he'd promised Kevin (Cheng) that he'd get a badminton racket for him since they're cheaper in Taiwan. Found the store and completed our quest! xp: 0, gold: 0. damnit kevin.

Oh incidentally the automatic sliding doors in Taiwan/Japan are odd: some are automatic, where you step up and they open, but other ones have a little button that say "push". Those are NOT automatic, if you step up to them you'll just stand there like a retard cuz they won't open til you push the button. ALSO: IF THEY START CLOSING, THEY WILL NOT DETECT YOU STANDING LIKE AN APE IN BETWEEN THE DOORS AND THEY WILL CRUSH YOU. And you will feel stupid and your pos siblings will laugh at you. I learned this today at Yonex. Actually, I knew it already from Japan, I'm not sure why I totally zoned out. :(

Since the store was close to my mom's university, we dropped by to look around. It's really hard to see, but that sign says "taida" = taiwan da xue = taiwan university.

The campus is actually quite pretty. :) And very open, for being right in the middle of the city!

Flower garden. :)

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We met up with Michael's friend Justin, and decided to split into two groups. Michael/Kevin/Justin went off on their own, and my mom took me and Jennifer to some other area -- I forget what it's called. Yongkang?

Stopped by a bookstore cuz I wanted to pick up a simple Chinese book to practice reading. And no trip to the bookstore is complete without dropping by the stationery/gifts floor :3

Here's the entrance to the bookstore, it's pretty old, everything is made of wood inside and there's no elevator or escalator. :) I got a book!! shi you ji -- it's the story of the monkey king! as in mk from HON, yes :)

Mom has to pee, so we hijack the bathroom of a nearby Starbucks. It's super crowded inside, 3 floors and not a single open seat.

They were selling these cute...kitchen implements at this stand! They have these peelers that you can use to make carrot or zucchini flowers :D and little shredder peelers that can shred things up for you (like ginger) so you don't have to sit there trying to chop it really fine. Thought about getting one cuz they were so awesome but -- then I remembered that I don't cook. :(

There were some places here that sold a variety of ready-made dishes for you to take home. You can't tell from my hastily snapped shot but they looked sooo pretty!! Row after row of glistening dishes. :') I was thinking that it was sort of like authentic Panda Express...

My dad helped organize a concert starring some Japanese opera singer, so my mom had to leave to go see it.  We quickly met back up with the boys to have dinner, and somehow ended back up at the place we bought lunch from. O_o Jennifer bravely tried the sweet and sour noodle soup (not good)...

but I stuck with my potstickers. :3

and picked up a pmt for dessert! X3 This one is cute, it's called "the three brothers" milk tea. You can barely make it out but, there is a scoop of pearls, a scoop of grass jelly, and a scoop of pudding inside! :D

Michael and Justin went off to the tech mart, but Jennifer Kevin and I went back home cuz we were tired, and Jennifer and Kevin had to pack their stuff. Justin suggested we meet back later for drinks, and Kevin seemed pretty excited for it since that's one of his few hobbies, so Jennifer and I were like "sure...". Went to zhongxiaofuxing station, to a little dessert/lounge called Dolce. Justin has an in with the owners, who are apparently from Cupertino!! lol. Met one of em, his name was Mike, he's 30 years old. He and his friend were studying to be lawyers, or working at a firm or something, and one day he was like "hey. let's move." and his friend was like "sure. where to?" and that's how they ended up in Taipei. :p lol. Oh, they are abc's though, so not too far of a stretch. :) Anyway the lounge felt really..."homey". Couldn't place a finger on it but the way it was decorated...it did feel like places at home, a bit.

They specialize in desserts (we didn't try any) and dessert cocktails.

Jennifer and I got a gingerbread man and girl scout cookie. :) Both good! Even though I don't usually like creamy cocktails.

Ordered a "springbok" as well, which was a super yummy dessert shot that was a delightful green color. :D And tasted delightfully minty! Like chugging an Andes mint. Apparently the springboks' (team for some sport) official color is green.

They had this cutie little waitress there, she looked pretty Taiwanese but also had a hint of ABC look to her. When she spoke she sounded Australian. Turns out she's from South Africa! Pretty exotic. :) Anyway her name was Angel and she kept plying us with drinks all night. I guess that's her job. :p Justin mentioned that he thought she was pretty cute though and was wondering about her age so I kept getting drinks trying to pry the info from her (yes I am an excellent wingman tyvm). The bill was a little wowza at the end, but to be fair we did order a lot of drinks. :) Kevin/Justin kept ordering weird shit like 15 and 18 year old scotch (I suspect to impress the cute waitress), with each drink being about $5-$10.........by the end of the night we'd gone through $200. ^^; And the best I got was that she had graduated from college and had been working for about 7 or 8 years? So, late 20s early 30s. Anyway I did like her.

Justin ordered a final drink of Texas tea though (suggested by Angel) and he couldn't finish it. He had been rubbing his stomach and drinking water nonstop for a while so I figured it was almost vomit o'clock. So I tanked it for him T_T cuz it cost like $10!! I'm not wasting that shit. It was....appropriately named. It's like an AMF, a mix of like 6 different kinds of liquor, including tequila. The....fragrant tequila made the whole thing taste like BBQ sauce to me -- hence, Texas tea. That is my proof anyway, QED. Anyway I had already had quite a few at that point, and have not had much to drink in a while so I was a bit weak....the Texas tea put me over the edge. :S Felt a bit meh as we took the taxi home, and jumped into bed as soon as we got back and passed the fuck out. Lol! I've only drunk with my sibs a few times, Kevin more than the others. They've never seen me tooooo bad off. This might have been the worst :) and while sharing a room with Jennifer....ack. Tooooo far. too far.

p.s. Apparently in the middle of the night, I turned over and flung my arm out and it smacked Jennifer in the face. She woke with a start, and her first thought was "AHH a walrus!" That's right. I'm a walrus.

p.p.s Forgot to mention that we spent most of the time drinking playing drinking games. :) Cuz i dunno. We don't have that much to say to each other! Can't talk about raunchy stuff. And we'd spent the last 9 days together so, what else is there to do but play games. It was really fun though, we were cracking up really hard at the end. We tried 5 or 6 different games, and eventually they all mixed together so that at any point, one of us would say or do something to start the game, and everyone else would try to continue it in a panic, so as not to be the one to lose and have to drink. :p We don't often all have fun together so it really was a pretty good night. :) Good way for Kevin & Jennifer to finish up in Taiwan!