A Weekend in the City

Last weekend Andrea and I took our last trip to Taipei before going home, we had many things that we wanted to fit into this visit, in the end I'm not sure that we covered all of them but it was a memorable and fun adventure.

Isn't this gorgeous? This is what we get to see every time we go to Taipei, on the way up and on the way down.

Friday when we arrived it took us a little bit of time to find our hostel (there were three buildings owned by the hostel but we went to the wrong one first), but it was still early and we didn't really want to go to bed yet. It was really strange as we were signing in we heard the owners speaking Spanish, and we were both like we understand that. It turns out that the owners (used to be married or are currently married--we weren't sure) are from Mexico, well the guy is from Mexico and she lived there for 20 years.

We decided that we would go on a walk and find something to eat. We asked if there was a movie theater nearby and discovered that there was one only like a five minute walk away, we got something to eat and decided to walk over and see what they had to offer.

We had originally planned on coming Saturday night but there was one starting right then and so we decided to watch it. We ended up watching Letter's To Juliet, it was really cute and I would highly recommend it. I haven't seen any movies lately that I have felt the urge to buy but this is one that I think that I will buy when it comes out on video.

When we got back from the movie it was about 1 o'clock, our roomies were there (we got a woman's dorm room with 4 bunk beds and a private bathroom), they were from England and have been living there for the last year as they work at an English school in Taipei. They weren't the most talkative or friendly towards us, despite Andrea's attempt to ask them questions. They had no problem walking around in their underwear or leaving them out to dry though :(

Saturday was a very long day spent with much walking, shopping, talking, eating, and just having fun. We went to see if there was any other movie that sounded good but nothing caught our attention so we decided to just go home and get ready for bed.

Sunday morning we got up and ready before the roomies were even starting to get up, we left to go back to the Temple and stake center to go to church, it was really weird to hear everything in English and even stranger to pick up the hymnal and find it feel very heavy compared to the English hymnal. After Sacrament meeting we bundled all of our stuff and headed back to the train station where we had a little bit of a wait until our time.

Walking from our hostel to the MRT there was this little park that they had lots of animals made out of stones. I'm not sure what their purpose was, but they made for great pictures :D

Our "humble abode," Andrea and I both decided that this place is not what we would pick to live in for over a year, I don't know, maybe we are spoiled with our apartment but I would not be too excited with the prospect of living out of my suitcase for a year. This is the door to our room.

Looking in from the door, that door on the right is the bathroom, with shower and toilet. The shower was really nice--a lot bigger than ours and it actually has a little thing that separates the shower floor from the rest of the bathroom floor.

Looking from the bathroom.

By the end of the trip I felt kind of like a city girl, or at least that I could live in one if I needed to. I'm still not excited by the idea but I could do it.

Hello....Paul?

Since we were gone for 4 days on our adventures to Taipei I am going to break it down into at least 3 different posts so that you (and I) are not completely bogged down with things to read. This is part 1 of our adventures, or Monday.

Our train was supposed to leave at 1pm and we had arranged that if Yuling was available they would pick us up and take us to the train station. She wasn't 100% certain if she would be available so I wanted to be ready to leave earlier in case we needed to. I woke up around 8 and took a shower and did some cleaning of my room and finalized my packing. At 10 was my family phone call that we have every week, it was fun to be able to get on and not have to rush to class after 30 minutes, I ended up staying on for almost 2 hours and was able to talk to 3 of my brothers.

To be sure that we would have enough time to walk if we needed to I called Yuling's house at about 11:15, their cleaner/helper answered the phone and said that they would be able to take us, Joseph (Yuling's husband) would come around 12:30 to get us and if we hadn't seen him by 13:35 to call. Since I wasn't concerned about time I was able to talk some more with my family. I finished my phone call and asked Andrea if she wanted to try calling her family, by the time we were able to get her family on skype and get it all figured out she was only able to talk for 5 minutes but I think that she appreciated being able to hear their voices.

12:30 came and we still hadn't seen Joseph, I tried calling there house but the phone was busy, I tried calling the cell phones- one was turned off and the other no one answered. I was starting to get really frustrated and anxious, I knew that there was no way that we would make it if we had to walk. I kept trying to call the house and finally at about 20 till I got through, I was told that Joseph had been on the phone with his Mom and had lost track of time but that he was on his way now. We were outside waiting for him when he pulled up, he apologized and explained that he had been on the phone, he then proceeded to rush to the train, he was going really fast honking at people and zooming around them. It was quite entertaining to watch as just on Friday night Yuling was telling us how Joseph is not a angry driver, he always lets people go before him and takes his time while driving.

We got there and we still had about 10 minutes before our train was supposed to leave but they were already lining up and getting on, so we quickly got into line and found our seat on the train. Andrea and I talked for probably the first hour or so, it was really nice to just have some sit down time and to talk with each other, the last several weeks we have had some tension building between us, I am not very good at expressing things because I don't want to hurt the other person or to make things awkward between us, but I guess I'm not very good at hiding my feelings even though I wasn't expressing them, so we were able to talk about it and other stuff and just make things a lot better and smoother.

After talking we both fell asleep for awhile until right before we pulled into Taipei. We got off the train and headed towards the other part of the Main Station where the MRT (Taipei Metro System or underground trains)) was, we first need to purchase our MRT cards (electronic cards where you put money on them and just scan to pay for your ride), I needed to pull money out of the ATM before I could get my card but I couldn't get the ATM to work finally I tried doing something different and I was able to get it to work.

I had written down the instructions on how to get to the hostel, they were a little confusing but we were able to figure it out and got there safely and with no real problems. We came to the door and buzzed up that we were there. We went to the 8th floor where the hostel was and walked in, I had made the reservation in my name so I was asked to fill out a little sheet with some information about myself, 1st problem…I didn't have my passport with me ("where did you come from?" oh we are working down in Hualien…oh ok--I think that I freaked her out for a 2nd saying that I didn't have my passport with me), it was ok I could just put my e-mail instead.

I finished filling out the paper and paid her, she said let me show you your room, She walked to this room that 2 sets of bunk beds, and told us that we would be using the top and bottom of that bunk. And then she said the worse words that I could hear "and this is your roommate…Paul" my first thoughts going through my head…please let Paul be a girl who had real mean parents. That thought was quickly dashed as Paul (very much male) got off his bed to say hi. I felt bad but I quickly asked "umm…do you have anything without…boys?" She told us that she was full but that the other dorm room had been reserved by two people and they had reserved the whole room, they were supposed to have already been there, she normally gives them an hour to call but that we could wait and see if they came if not we could have the room.

We both sat down on the couch, probably both silently praying for a solution, something that would not be against our morals and what we believe. After we had been sitting for a few minutes she said "you know Beth I do have one room that is available, why don't you come and look at it" she showed us a very small room with one double bed, we would have to share the bed, we didn't care we both very quickly said "we'll take it!"----Isn't it funny though? When I had first been looking at hostel's this room had been available but then when I went back to reserve like 20 minutes later it wasn't available and now it was again! (but we weren't going to complain, we weren't having to share a room with a guy possibly even two!)

Man after that story the rest of our week is going to look pretty tame :D The rest of the evening we went out and had dinner at the Taipei Main Station, a yummy Indian pita place and then went to watch a movie at the Breeze Center, we watched Valentines Day, we were lucky that it ended up not being R (they didn't have any ratings anywhere so we went in with faith that it wouldn't be rated R or be really bad), it had a lot of big name people and had a cute story line but there were several parts that I could have done without.

After the movie we quickly ran back to the MRT (we weren't sure what time it shut down) to get back to the hostel, we stopped at Family Life to pick up some snacks and something to eat for breakfast and then went home. We played cards on our bed for an hour or so and then went to bed.

Not bad for our first day!

AB Taipei Trip: The Hostel