5/1: traveling by air...obviously

Yay for independent traveling! After leaving school early, I made my way to Narita airport via the Narita Express in Ikebekuro. I didn't check any bags since I had only my rolling school bag (which I procured from my apartment. ^-^) Since there was still time before boarding, I sat at a nearby cafe and ordered a green tea latte...which was more milky then it was green tea. The flight was comfortable enough with yummy food and my own tv screen. (I made note of that since my return flight didn't have one. ^^;) My movie choice was 'Ocean's Thirteen' which I felt was better then 'Ocean's Twelve'. Perhaps it regained some of the high tension-y scenes since it return to the casino background. ^-^ Unfortunately, I didn't get to finish watching it so I might have to download it or watch it online....

My arrival at the airport in Taiwan was smooth and I didn't have to wait for my bags...since they were with me. I found the express bus stop to Taipei Main Station with minimal problems and bought my ticket for the bus. After the bus, subway and a bit of walking, I found myself at my cousin's place. I gave my aunt and cousin, Esther-neechan the banana cake I bought in Tokyo. Over a late dinner, I found out my grandmother is back from China so I'm to bring the strawberry-banana treats to her the next day.

5/2: too much good food...as usual

Esther-neechan and I made plans to meet in the later afternoon for church. First, my aunt and I went to my grandmother's place so I can get money from my uncle and feast on yummy food. My grandmother has been very, very busy. She made my favorite dish...which is actually many mini-dishes and rolling it up in a thin, flat dough.... *refer to pic for info* I had two large rolls but couldn't eat more. Sadly, I'll be travling around (in the heat) so I couldn't wrap up more to take with me. <.< The fish soup was delicious which is no surprise.

back to Akiba of Taiwan

Armed with money, my aunt dropped me off at Guang Hua Song Tsong. I bought some various things, my fav purchases being FMA vol. 21 (22 is not out yet) and Xxxholic character info book. I also picked up some manga covers...mainly some mini ones for the 2nd Loveless novel that I'm going to buy. (I ended up 2 different sizes because I didn't bring my novel and I couldn't remember which size it was. ^^;) There was some awesome ads out and I asked around some places if they were willing to sell them to me. Kuroshitsuji maybe? Sadly, only one store didn't think that was too weird and agreed. Unfortunately, the only one I might've wanted was Code Geass, but decided not to since it was only an okay poster. ^^; Watase Yuu-sensei's BL novel is not out in Taiwan yet. I'm definitely buying it next time!

I wanted to go buy a drink...but got sidetracked by the call for ice cream. I sampled a bit of their honeydew melon flavor and was hooked. The ice cream was in a pastry bread which was crunchy and delicious. More please! There was a promotion going on outside with a panda bear (which I chased down to grab a pic) which I watched a bit before my cousin came.

church and a bit of shopping

Esther-neechan goes to Taiwanese branch of the church I'm at now in Japan. (More like, I'm at the branch church since Taiwan is the main one. ^^;) As mentioned numerous times, her church is super talented and most of their songs are those they made themselves. After the young adults service (which was the one I went to at 5pm,) we went to the junior high/high school service since Esther-neechan is leader for one of their small groups. Then we had a small group meeting which had a hands-focused ice breaker game which I can't explain but was alot of fun. *notes for future small group games*

Although we bought some yummy bread aka. dinner in the break between the young adult and teens service, I wanted to eat after small group so we headed to a nearby night market for some browsing. (BTW, I bought onigiri-which was soooo yummy-at the convenience store as well as a Hello Kitty cookie gift for my French roomie. There was so much Hello Kitty stuff since there was Hello Kitty annivesary. ^.^) Yay for food and shopping! ^.^ I bought something like really fatty pork, veggies wrapped in a bun which was so heartattack enducing but extremely delicious. I also had passion fruit green tea with tapioca pearls and jelly which was ultra yummy. *happy sigh*

Later, we went shampoo shopping since I wanted to buy shampoo while in Taiwan. (Might as well pay it in NT and save on the yen later.) Was thinking of buying detergent...but realized that would be too heavy. ^^; Since we bought so much stuff (shampoo, bandaids etc,) we got free cups. ^-^ Yay for service in Taiwan!

5/3: big or small? good quality or bad?

FYI, Esther-neechan didn't sleep the night before (the night I arrived) since she was watching a Taiwanese drama, 'My Queen' on youtube. 14 episodes (one hour each) in one night! o.O Sugoi.... So, even though I woke up periodically at 9, 10 and 11am, I didn't want to wake her up. My aunt already went to church and left curry and soup in the kitchen for us to heat up. Heeding my tummy's call for food, I washed up and ate breakfast. Then I went back to sleep since I could. ^.^ Esther-neechan came out of her room past 12pm and exclaimed at the time. (Turns out, she was awake afterall. ^.^) I prepared breakfast for her while she washed up. After eating, we went to the suitcase store where I painstakingly took apart each suitcase and examined it. lol 'Took apart' meaning I opened all the zippers and any 'nested' suitcases I noted and took out. ^.^ I was torn between two varying choices: a more expensive, good quality (semi-hard) case and a soft case, polyester, cheaper one. 4 wheels or 2? I chose the cheaper one since it was smaller (2 wheels) which gave it a better chance at nesting in the suitcases I have already back in Tokyo. (Turns out, it fits perfectly. Yay for my choice! ^.^) We bought the set since it was way cheaper to get the 3 pieces together. My cousin chose a wallet for her mother (Mother's day next week) and we went off for some yummy dessert to rest.

BTW, the brown stuff is grass jelly ice which is why it is brown. I thought it was brown sugar at first. ^.^ We started to head home to drop off the suitcases but I got distracted by a...Hello Kitty store! I bought a Hello Kitty umbrella for my French apartment mate (since we talked about her needing a cute umbrella ^.^) and my cousin bought a Mickey Mouse hat and a Pingu pencil case. ^.^ So many cute things...so many 'Made in Japan'. ^^;

snacks, snacks and more snacks

After dropping off the suitcases and HK goods at home, we rode out by scooter for snack shopping. More like 'snacks I'm bringing back to Japan.' Of course, I chose the usual egg rolls and pineapple cakes among other things. ^.^ I even picked up peanut butter since I occasionally have PB&J cravings in Tokyo. We returned home to dropp off the food (since it was a hot day and not good for my snacks) before heading out to Gong Guan.

Gong Guan is the area around Taipei University. I immediately found a puzzle store that had alot of the famous Japanese Disney and Ghibli puzzles. Only 2 KH puzzles...but so expensive. ^^; My cousin and I discussed the merits of different types of puzzles and agreed that the drawn/artworks ones are nicer looking as a puzzle. Our fav was the same: the pencil sketch one of Totoro and crew blowing ocarinas in a tree with the moon. Definitely buying that one some day!

After puzzle browsing, we bought some yummy food and I even got an eggtart from KFC. Their specialty. They have 4 different flavors, one regular and three others though I only got to try one. (Still don't know which one it was...but it was soooo delicious!) Fresh eggtarts are really different from others. Melts in your mouth...warm...sweet.... *drools* We headed to two bookstores since I wanted to check out some English books. Alas, no Sherlock Holmes anthology in English. (I don't think they even had one in Chinese. At least not an anthology. ^^;)

wanna be reading buddies?

Whilist I was browsing, a man came up to me and explained that he was looking for someone to chat with about books and wanted to trade contact info. o.O I just stated simply that I travel often (aka. I'm not giving you my number!) He noted that me being abroad must be the reason I can read English (due to the book in my hand and me being in the English section.) My only thought was, 'Can't you tell that I'm not really Taiwanese by my accent?' ^^; lol He thanked me and walked away. Not dangerous but an amusing anecdoct of sorts. Told Esther-neechan later that he if he was cuter, I would have suggested her as a reading buddy instead. My cousin of course was in another section so didn't witness this. ^.^

bang! bang! bang!

We hopped over to the Christian bookstore I love so much so I can count all the Stream of Praise piano books I didn't buy. Ooo...I'm only missing 3. A piano score book by Sandy Yu (one of the composers) and book 12 and 13. *records down so father can buy for me next time* ^.^ I bought a set of butterfly cellphone stickers for myself and my cousin renewed her membership card since it expired. Afterwards, we headed to the nearest smelly tofu vender for soup and tofu. *happy sigh*

Back to our shopping and food faze, we went into a few stores. I found a shirt at Espirit but it didn't look good on me so I didn't buy it. It looked awesome on my cousin so she got it. ^.^ I also stumbled upon a vendor selling leather bracelets, cellphone chains, etc...and you can have your name and symbols/designs pounded into the bracelet. It's like engraving...only they pound it using a metal pike and hammer. ^^; I bought a cellphone strap for myself, my Japanese friend and Fighter. My cousin got one too since it's buy 3 get 1 free. (I would have bought one for her anyway. *hugs* ^.^) I wanted mine to say 'silentdeath' but my cousin talked me out of it. So mine is 'Rai' with a butterfly on it. ^-^

The others had sakura designs and of course, I chose the butterfly. The guy actually put another butterfly symbol on it (not the one I chose) but using some kind of liquid, he can expunge the design and redo it. Thank goodness! I wouldn't want him to waste the strap. ^^; It was all done very quickly, but since I ordered 4 straps, we stood there for a good 20 minutes if not more. We gave them business so it was no problem. ^.^

After we got our straps, I bought takoyaki and Esther-neechan bought drinks. She ordered yogurt green tea with tapioca...the 'yogurt' being the kiddie drinks in those little bottles, 'yong le duo'. I never had that before and it was good. Next door to the bubble tea place was a 100 NT haircut shop. It had a tv at the door with the news report about it on a continuous loop. Kinda like fast food only for haircuts. Interesting idea.... Esther-neechan mentioned that you can actually buy a news slot, meaning if you want to be on the news, you just need to pay the news company and someone will cover the news. Don't know if the '100NT haircut' was one of them but that's good advertisement. ^.^

Naruto cosplay for free contacts? sure!

lol While shopping in Gong Guang, we went into various eye glasses stores in order to check out and compare the various prices for colored contacts. My cousin likes to explain that I'm buying gold/brownish contacts for cosplay. One of the salesperson mentioned that he understood what cosplay was and inquired about my character. I told him that I only knew the Japanese title and I was going to be a boy from Natsume Yuujincho. Of course, he didn't recognize it and said that he would give me contacts for free if I was cosplaying from *insert Chinese title here* Of course, I didn't recognize the title until outside my cousin was describing to me about the series...and it was Naruto! lol I should've went back said 'Sure! I'll do Naruto!' (No wonder he mentioned that people were looking for red contacts. Naruto's fox form has red eyes. ^^;)

tetris packing and nightly drama

When we got home, my aunt greeted me with a box filled with pineapple cakes that I requested for. My aunt knew a famous bakery in Taipei that had one of the best pineapple cakes so I asked for a variety to give to the teachers as omiyage. ^.^ They have cranberry, pineapple with a layor of something extra amongst others. Totally yummy. Add that to the pile of snacks we bought earlier, my suitcase was filled with snacks. (Last time, it was filled with snacks and maxipads...now all snacks. ^.^) Out of the 3 suitcases we bought, I chose the middle size and we proceeded to play tetris with the boxes admist packing. Between the suitcase and the rolling bookbag, we got everything all packed very quickly. There wasn't alot of things anyway. ^.^ After a shower, I joined my cousin in watching 'My Queen'. We watched 15 to 17 which was the one that aired on sunday nights. (Esther-neechan was soooo happy when the newest one came out. ^.^) It is an interesting drama and I may type about it another time. She gave me the link so I can watch it to see what happens. ^.^ Suffice to say, we didn't get to bed until 3am.

5/4: heading home

I woke in time to see my cousin bid me farewell since she needed to leave early for work. I had breakfast with my aunt and then we headed out so she can get to her meeting and me to my flight on time. She dropped me off at an airport bus stop and we had our goodbyes. I napped all the way to the airport. After checking in my suitcase, I went to the departure gate. I kept on hearing music...and went I went through, I saw a contempo Chinese band playing. I have of course seen modern styled guitars, violins and cellos...but I never saw them in Chinese instruments before. Sugoi! The music was awesome and I was able to grab a short vid of them. It was only practice but I didn't have time to see the actual performance.

more Hello Kitty!

This Taipei trip has been filled with Hello Kitty stuff. Gate C3 is where Hello Kitty lounge and store is. o.O I noted that sign when I was in the airport in January. Here, it was situated next to the HK nursery. I wanted to step into the nursery...but thought I better just go to the lounge. ^^; I don't need to describe how cute it was....

The people in the lounge? Two guys. ^.^ I browsed the HK gift store. So many yummy snacks...but I had enough in snacks. Also, need to save money. ^^;

flight home

One snack I definitely want to buy next time around is the taro dessert that is similar a variety of moon cake. I sampled a piece and loved it and promised myself to get it next time. Something else I want to buy at the airport? This giant gundam at the Gaming store! lol

I don't think it was for sale, but a giant gundam is still awesome. ^.^ I headed to my gate and ate the food that my aunt gave me...so I wouldn't have to carry it anymore. It was yummy sticky rice, vegetables and apples. So full.... It definitely help tie me over until my meal on the plane. The aircraft was an older model (by the looks of the interior) and there are no individual tvs. *is sad* I was hoping to watch the rest of 'Ocean's Thirteen'. ^^; I slept a bit and even listened to the radio...which had the opening to the new FMA series, 'Again' by Yui.

Entry into Narita was no trouble, albiet an extra line for people to submit their 'I'm not sick' forms. I think I'm becoming a regular traveler between Taiwan and Japan...a sad statement towards my bank account due to the tickets. ^^; I found the JR office rather quickly and bought my Narita Express ticket. More sleeping all the way home....