FEB 09 - Ian's Birthday!

A while ago I told my MSN friend Cher that I was trying to think of something to do on my birthday. We came up with the idea of going to Taipei and meeting up with her friend. So yesterday I woke up early, got a taxi to the high speed railway station. Sadly the time it takes to get there and the price of the taxi is really disproportionate to the HSR fare and speed.

So I managed to buy a ticket, instead of using the automated teller things I went to a real person, which took much longer. Later I found that the machines seem to have and English option, I need to try that next time. The train came, it at about 10:16, and I was off to Taipei! They don't call it high speed for nothing, I think the top speed I noticed on the indicator was 286 kmph. When it got to Banciao I thought maybe we were halfway there but it only took about 10 more mis from there. The whole trip takes 2 - 3 hours on a normal train I heard, HSR is about 50 mins.

So I met Cher and her friend Joy at the Taipei station. We went to a big mall, Breeze Center, I think, and ate a good lunch. Then it was off to Danshui, which was even colder and rainier. We took the MRT (Metro) this time. Cher and Joy were both really funny and sweet and getting to know them and making jokes was really great. In Danshui we walked down some night market streets and then up to Fort San Domingo. The signs were a little confusing to me, but it seems the fort was used by the spanish (hence the name) but later was used by the English. There were some other sections discussing the Dutch's occupation as well.

After this we went back down by the water, it was a very dark day but the view was still fun. People were still setting off fireworks over the water, CNY celebrations won't stop until Monday the 11th. We played some little games at the night market and then headed back into Taipei. There we went through another night market, ate some shaved ice dessert, and took some silly photos.

In many Asian countries it is popular to go to these crazy photo-booths. In America I have only seen the old style which quickly takes 4 photos. This kind lets you choose all types of backgrounds, and you can go out and write on them too. Then the machine lets you print them as stickers of all different sizes and even e-mail them to yourself. So then we were pretty exhausted, we had been out playing for almost 12 hours. I got back on the HSR from the MRT, and went back to Taichung, took a Taxi home, and my legs were aching!

Somewhere in there I also bought my favorite Taiwanese artist's (Chang Chen Yue's) CD, an older album called "Useless Guy." I took a good bit of video too so I will edit that together, maybe with one of his songs, so you can see the trip.

So thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes and greetings, and thanks to Cher and Joy for a really memorable birthday trip!