My first experience in a Love Hotel!

Jan. 1 New Years Day

So today, Leslie and I got up super early...well 7am, to go and catch the bus to go to the Formosan Aboriginal Village Cultural Theme Park in the next county. We got on the 8am bus and it took us 2 hours to get there. There were a bunch of young peoples going there as well. The place is located up in the mountains area, near Sun Moon Lake. SO it was a beautiful ride up to the park.

We got to the park and the first ride we went on was this knock off of Disneyland`s Space Tours. LOL It was soo old and so not exciting. But all the Taiwanese people were like OMG that was so crazy! lol Leslie and I just looked at each other and was like "what was that". =P Anyways, we then went in to the amusement center and rode the ever exciting carousel. And then rode the pirate ship which was so much fun actually. lol But again, the other peoples were like screaming and everything and only Leslie and I dared to hold our hands up. haha. We be brave cool girls. THen we rode the awesome knock off of Space Mountain where the inside was just totally all black and no lights or music and couldn`t see a thing. lol That was a fun ride though.

Then we walked a bit more towards the Formosan villages up the hill/mountain and saw some wonderful penis statues (see my pictures) and awesome aborigines. And we went further up to get onto the skyline/ropeway over to the Sun Moon Lake. The line was f-ing long that day. We waited a supposed 1 hour compared to the original 2 hours so we were lucky. So there was a kid that dared cut in front of us. And at first i was like, maybe he`s with the family behind us and just wants to see the carriages go up so I was fine with it, or he`s with the people in front of us. But then I remembered talking to the people in front of us and they were all couples and there`s no way they`ll take their siblings with them on a date trip, and the family behind us only had lil lil kids cuz I talked to them too. And I also saw him look back and smirk at people or friends in the back. So I was sure he was cutting. That one smirk gave it away. I asked him who he was with and he tried to lie to me and then I looked at him and gave a more severe "Say it louder" expression and he just shrank and wasn`t sure what to say. So I told him we were behind these couples and I don`t appreciate you cutting in front of us. I felt kinda mean, but alot of asian families and kids do this and I get soo annoyed and tired by this kinda thing and no one else saying anything that I take matters into my own hands and do it. bleh. Neways, The ropeways was awesome! Super high and freaky, but I kinda like high places, but going down was a lil freaky because the hill just drops below you and you`re floating via these ropes up on top.

So we get there, and the first thing I notice are all the hot guys standing around. That was nice. haha. But there was a shit load of people waiting to ride the gondola to the theme park. The lake was beautiful though! I wanted to stay there longer, but I didn`t want to miss the bus back home. So we left to get the bus, waited for an hour and a half for a supposed 15 minute wait only bus. It was stuck in ridiculous amounts of traffic because it was new years Day and everyone wanted to spend it on the beautiful lake. In the end us and these 5 other girls from Hong Kong decided to take a taxi together as it would cheapen the price becuase it was about $15 because we were on the other side of our destination. The girls were really cute htough and was surprised that I could speak cantonese to them. They weren`t expecting it and just though I was Taiwanese who could speak English. I get that here in Japan too. haha.

We get halfway and the taxi driver told us to get off and charged us just $12 because he has to go back and get the other peoples stuck there since the bus isn`t coming. In a way, it`s valiant of him and in another he just wants to make more money. lol So we walked on the lake trail back to the big bus stop that would pick us up to go to Taichung. It was a beautiful scene and I do want to go back to the lake and stay in the luxurious hotel with a lake view oneday. When I am rich and famous I will. For sure! So we finally got to the bus stop and found out that the 4:30 bus was super late and it was already 5pm. Come 6pm the 4:30 bus came to pick us up. Due to horrendous Taiwanese traffic, 1 hour later we arrived at the theme park to pick other people up. It`s supposed to only take like 15 minutes to get over there from the lake. I was worried about getting back to Taichung on time since we have to get my supervisor, but luckily we arrived in Taichung station without further incident, but since we arrived so late, everything was already closing so we ate at Subway. I hadn`t had a sandwhich in a long time, so it was nice.

The one guy who made the sandwhiches there was ridiculous hot! But I`m pretty sure he was a college kid. Which made me feel old. lol But he had an ear piercing and spoke English pretty well and that made him even hotter! So he fixed up our sandwhiches for us and we went upstairs to chill and eat them as we waited for my supervisor`s bus to get here. Come 10pm we headed over to the station to meet her. ANd as I expected, because she`s a Hokkaidian and Taiwanese weather in the winter is like summer in Hokkaido, she was wearing a t-shirt and jeans. haha. it was warm I have to say. Leslie thought so too, yet everyone was still dressed like it was Hokkaido in the winter. We caught one of the last trains back home and my aunt came to pick us up at the train station to go home.

We got home and Su absolutely loved the dogs! Hurray! Who wouldn`t? They`re fat and funny dogs. We settled in for the night and watched TV until like 3am and then went to sleep.

Jan. 2 Saturday

We woke up at 10am got dressed, drove over to my hospital, parked my car there, and walked up the stone stairs/hiking trail next to my hospital to Bagua Mt. It was a pleasant yet tiring walk up, but we made it in time for the morning market and bought lotsa foods and stuff. Then we went to see the Big Buddha. There were lotsa Vietnamese tour groups there and they kept saying hi to us because we were such an interesting group of peeople. lol It`s so hard explaining in Chinese to people who we were and where we`re from and our relationship with each other becasue that`s what they all seem to want to know. We`re all technically from Japan, but two of us are originally from America, one of us is studying abroad and one of us an English teacher, and the Japanese person is my supervisor/co-worker. It`s a mouthful. haha

We took lotsa pictures and I was able to eat my little conch shells snails in spicy soy sauce that I used to eat so much of when I was a kid. =P And I saw boiled ostrich eggs and goose eggs like EVERYWHERE! I wanted to buy an ostrich egg just to try eating it because it was so damn huge, but advised myself against wasting my money...lol We walked back down the hill to my car and drove to get delicious drinks. In the afternoon we went to buy stuff at Carrefour because they had stuff that Japan doesn`t, like American products for CHEAP! Ah, I missed these things. So we all bought a lot of stuff to take back to Japan to use. haha. At night we went to the nightmarket and bought and ate lotsa food (gaining 20 pounds and all). And afterwards we went to go get an awesome relaxing/painful massage for the whole body for just around $27! Woo! I felt very relaxed and dizzy afterwards though, i have to say. Su got herself a foot massage since she didn`t wanna get the full body one. The masseuse were very friendly and kept trying to talk to me, but talking to me while giving me a full body massage is dangerous, it`s already hard to breathe as it is and you want me to talk? But I will, cuz I`m trying to be friendly. ~~

We came back home at around 12pm (the massage place opens until 6am which made me kinda question it a little ^_~) and went to sleep because we had to catch another early bus in the morning to go to Taipei.

Jan. 3 Sunday

Got up and said goodbye to my family and dogs and left to go to Taipei. It`ll be my first real sightseeing trip there. hehe. So when we got there we first took the subway to get to the hotel which is supposedly located close to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. We got outside and i was amazed! The roads were soooooooo wide and big and clean compared to Taichung! But then again, we are in gov`t area. So stupide me, I forgot to write down the address of the hotel and only know the English name of it so we had a hard time trying to get the taxi drivers to take us there. But finally we found it as we drove along the roads. At least I knew what road it was on, just wasn`t sure of the exact location.

We got in the hotel and it was so fabulous and modern looking! Everything was contemporary modern art style and it was so oshare/fashionable. The beautiful ladies who worked at the desk spoke English as well, so it was easy for Su and leslie to understand. We couldn`t check in yet, so we just left our bags with them first and then went to see the President`s house. Obviously, you can`t go in because there were guards just everywhere so we stood outside, stared the guards down, and took pictures. Then we left. And off to the Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall. We originally wanted to go to the Palace Museum, but it was way too far away and would take us too long to get there and would deter us from seeing other things. So we decided against it and went to the Memorial Hall instead. It was a huge place! It also included the National Theater, the National Opera House, and the large courtyard upon which that day they had a special exhibit with a huge ass blown up Gulliver body which you can go inside to view the anatomy of a human.....it costs money, so we didn`t. heh. We then went to go see the Theater area, but you cant go in unless you have a ticket for a show. And finally we headed over to the memorial hall where just as we arrived they were doing changing of the guards.

Now that was cool. The guards looked hot and damn good in their uniforms as well as the body guards around them cuz they were wearing their black suits. =P I`m a sucker for men in suits and uniforms. I just like how they look, not necessarily who they are. Anyways, at the memorial hall there was a huge bronze statue of Chiang Kai Shek sitting on a chair much like the marble carved Pres. Lincoln in D.C. And then we went down the elevator to go check out the exhibits downstairs and found out that they were having a dinosaur exhibit. So we bought tickets for it and went in. Interesting, but not amazing. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel, checked in and found a fresh new condom on the table in the room. And immediately we were all like "Omg, is this a love hotel? And saw that the bathroom doors were made of transparent glass....and so was the shower stall. woooooooOoOo. And to make sure of it, we flipped on the TV to check if there was porn, but no, no porn. We still weren`t so sure, so we said we`ll wait until night to check out the TV to see if there is porn on.

Afterwards we jumped on a bus and headed over to the Taipei 101 building, the tallest building in the world (well that is until on Jan. 6th I read that Dubai`s bldg. is now the tallest). When we got on the bus I first asked the busdriver if this goes to Taipei 101 and he said yes. After my friends all sat down he motioned for me to come over, and he started talking to me. He was interested in who we were and found it interesting that I was like the tour group leader. haha. He was a cute young guy actually and really liked to talk to me. He recommended all sorts of places for us to go and helped me set up a sightseeing plan even though we were leaving the next day. I didn`t tell him that because I felt he really wanted to tell me these things so I let him talk like we were staying here for awhile. He even helped to tell us that we were at the stop for the Taipei 101 otherwise I would never have known.

On our way to the bldg we passed by a lot of hot young guys and I was wonderin why whenI noticed that there was a car convention going on in the bldg next to Taipei 101. We decided we would go after we went to Taipei 101 (which we didn`t end up going back to the convention). We got in, took the elevator up to the 5th floor to buy tickets to get up to the tower and realized how expensive they were. It costs $16 to go up in the world`s fastest elevator to the 89th floor. >.< So expensive, but we decided to go up since it was a once in a lifetime chance I suppose. Oh, and all the guards were kinda hot too. So filed in line and went into the elevator and the whole elevator turned dark and the ceiling lit up with shooting stars. You could also see how fast you were going and what floor you were on via the moving picture of the elvator going up the bldg. We got to the 89th floor in 37 seconds! Amazing!

The view from up here was amazing! And breathtaking. Althouhg we couldn`t see very much because of the fog since the air wasn`t so good today. But towards evening, since we stayed up there for a good 1-2hours we saw the lights of the city below and watched as the sky cleared up. It was magnificent. We even went to the 91st floor`s outdoor observatory so that we could brave the high winds and look over the rails to the world below. It was such a wonderful feeling! ^^ We then went back in and took pictures with all the cute lil Damper Babies (see pictures). They`re wind damper mascots, so they call them Damper Babies. I wanted one, but for lil figures they cost $6 and I didn`t want them that bad. Anyways, we then went off to the Shilin Night Market from there.

At the Shilin Night Market there were just hot guys EverYwhERE! I was ecstatic. haha. I bought lotsa heels cuz it`s cheap. I swear, the main things that I bought in Taiwan were the Taiwanese puppetry merchandise, food, and shoes. When we went to go eat Taiwanese shaved ice and I had to translate in English and Japanese (even though I realized that I could just speak one of the either since they both understood enough) and then back into mandarin/Taiwanese for the shopkeepers I sometimes would accidentally spill Japanese while speaking mandarin. And it kinda confused the people. haha. But I heard one of the workers talking later saying how I had to translate the Chinese first into Japanese then English then Japanese and back into Chinese again. lol I thought it was funny hearing him say that.

After buying stuffs we went back to the hotel cuz we didn`t want to miss the last train back and turned on the TV to find that there was porn on 3-4 channels!! YES! So we were in a love hotel!!! Woo! So we all sat around watching porn for a good 15 minutes because we were so fascinated by it. (Picture my supervisor, my friend Leslie, and I all sitting on the bed watching porn with fascinated faces. LOL =P) I have to say, the porn with story/plot in it was kinda interesting, while the other ones just were funny to watch. Anyways, we spent a wonderful night altogether on the king sized bed. The next morning Su and I left at 6am to catch a Taxi to the bus station that would take us to the airport to head on back to Hokkaido. Our plane, btw, was extremely small and only had 31 rows dude. lol But no incidences. Everything was good and calm.

And that is the end of my wonderful 9 day Taiwan vacation. Otsukare! My pictures are all posted, so take a look if you`d like! Love you all!