day 42! ximending, zhongxiaoxinsheng, shilin night market

Omg. :( Last day in Taiwan. T_T Better make it count...

The only real thing we had on our agenda was to go to ximending. I'd held off on it til the last day cuz A) it's my "favorite" area in Taipei and so I wanted to save it for last, and more vainly, B) I wanted to go back and get my eyelash things fixed up before leaving. XD

It started raining a bit in the afternoon, the first rain since Kurt had arrived! Which is really not proportional at all, since I went through about a month of thunderstorms, and then the whole time Kurt's here it was like one pitiful little shower. :p Hehe. He probably thinks I was lying and just being lazy, about not going out cuz of the crazy insane rains.

Anyway shopping around ximending is always pretty fun. I think Kurt liked it. And he did agree that it looked like Harajuku.

Just a bunch of fonglisu (pineapple cakes?) that were sitting outside. We sampled little pieces of one, they were good. ^^

Stopped for some bing. :) This one was so interesting, the block of ice had chocolate in it so when they shaved off the ice, it was all brown.

Mmmm Kurt fucking loves brown mush! :9

He also loves picking candy! We went back to Sophisca (where Michael bought that ridiculously large lollipop) and got a few gifts.

Look how cute! Kiwi, sushi, and smiley lollipops. :)

Then I went and got my confidence painted back onto my eyes, and Kurt went to kill half an hour somewhere. A bunch of ladies came in and out while I was waiting, all to get their nails done. Man, the nails here are super crazy! They're like those ones in Japan, ridiculously long, with all sorts of 3d decals on em. Yikes.

Kurt got a guava juice from a fruit stand. I'm just adding this pic cuz I like how it turned out. Tropical fruit is so awesome and colorful!!!

Proof that it's not lies...here he is buying the drink. :)

By the time we left ximending it was maybe 5 or 6pm, and the rest of the night was still open. I wanted to go and say bye to my grandmother, cousin, and aunt. We went back to the room first to drop stuff off and figure out how packing would go. We were short one suitcase cuz Kurt only checked in one instead of two, so luggage space was....short :| and kind of worrisome. I bought too much crap. >< I packed up some stuff in bags to bring to my cousin's, to have my dad bring back with him next time he went. Then we went and picked up another black sugar milk tea (from Gongguan) to bring my cousin. Haha when she saw the cup, she knew where it was from, I guess that's how famous it is. :)

So yah then we went to my grandmother's just to say bye. It was hard. And really sad. :') Yah it's true that communication never got that much easier and that sometimes conversation was lacking but, through it all, I still felt the strong family bonds there. Man, the intensity of ...family in Chinese culture is just crazy. When she walked us downstairs, my cousin said that she hoped that I felt like Taiwan was a second home. And I told her that I really did, and was 100% sincere. And then I told her (again) to come visit Cali and we'd take her to Vegas. :p Lol.

The only pic I have of all of that, the two buns I gave my cousin/grandmother, that they left near the telephone. Bye buns, hope I see you guys again soon. :)

Sigh. Well with that we left. Still had a few hours left before trains stopped running, so I asked Kurt if he were to pick one last thing to eat again, what would it be? And he said oyster pancake, so off to Shilin we went. :)

Happened to find one other thing on my list-of-stuff-Kurt-needs-to-eat that we hadn't gotten to yet, lu roh fan.

If this face doesn't say mm mm delicious, then I don't know what does. :o

Some more last minute searching for presents, and we did manage to find one something that I promised certain people but couldn't find the last time at Shilin, so that was a success. :D

The rest of the night was spent packing and cleaning up the room. My god I accumulated a lot of crap. -_-;; We pretty much exactly filled all 3 suitcases so I'll have to buy a new one in Japan I guess.

I felt pretty weird, thinking about leaving Taipei. It's true that I only got to see a few small parts of the city, and that 1.5ish months isn't very long but....to me it was long enough. It did feel somewhat like a home. And I didn't want to leave. :) Not even to go to my beloved Japan. I mean I didn't exactly want to stay there forever either but....people are resistant to change. And I dunno. Left to my own devices alone at night, I get to feeling pretty sentimental about things. So all in all I'm glad the last few days were really busy, and that I had tour guide-ing to distract me from thoughts of whatall was gonna happen. I think if I stopped to think about it a lot I'd be pretty bummed out. :) Ah well. I will be back. I think whatever vacation I get this year for work, I'll put it towards another trip to Taiwan instead of a new place.


Ok to keep this post from getting too emo, here is a pic of me eating greens at din tai feng:

I like this pic cuz you can see bits of greens coming out my mouth. God I eat like a Neanderthal. Also it's proof that I am getting my fibers. :D