days_unfolding

Rare day that I have a free afternoon so I might as well finish my write-up for the trip.

Day 1 - Going to Taipei

When I posted this photo on Facebook, i was surprised at how many of my real life friends actually didn't know I am (also) Austrian. They know for a fact my Dad is Austrian, so why would they find that my being Austrian is a surprise? I know not why.
My friend and I had this plan of choosing one window and one aisle seat and hoping that nobody chooses to sit between us, but alas it was a full flight that day.
It was a very Snoopy experience. Though the plane itself wasn't wrapped in Snoopy decoration.
I had some reward points on an app (trip.com) that was going to expire, and I had just enough points to book us an airport transfer, so that's what we did. We got to the hotel, not knowing that it's actually a hotel under a Japanese chain, so the whole hotel, room, bathroom, heck, even the clientele was very, very Japanese. The hotel had a Godzilla thing going on too. I never watched Godzilla and I always thought Godzilla was the monster. But my friend (who's Japanese) said, she thought so at first too, but later found out Godzilla was actually a good thing as it helped to clean out nuclear waste (???? I have no idea)
We actually saw some other runners and they had the marathon goods in hand, so we did a quick search and found the location of the pre-event headquarters and went there. There was the event merchandise, but it looked cheap (250 TWD for a sports bag) but there was a spiffier version (and pricier of course) that I immediately liked because of the spiffy colors. Photo was taken back in Macau, but yeah, I can see why I liked it. It's got yellow and fits my Snoopy Run Charm hahaha.
After we got that bag, we roamed around the area and came to... I dunno, freedom square?
There was some sort of bazaar thing going on.
Interesting, but it started to rain a bit, so we headed off for an early dinner.
Don't know what this braised stuff is called in Mandarin, but in Cantonese we call this "Lomei" and my friends in Macau grew so envious that I was having this haha.
Made preparations for the following day.
Day 2 - The Half-Marathon

Early day. And since I wrote about it already, I'll skip.
Was at Ximending hunting for lunch and saw this guy with this dog and cat. So well behaved!
By late afternoon, my friend had rested enough and so we went out exploring the area around the hotel.
Interesting stuff, but we didn't go in anywhere.
Late evening we went for a foot massage
Random window-shopping around after, and had a quick dinner near a night market that was disappointing. At a bookstore, I saw this display for RF Kuang's newest (?) book, Katabasis. I was slightly tempted to buy because my earliest nickname at school was "Kata" and I thought a pun could have been made, but then... I remembered how long and dragged out RF Kuang's books can be..... and decided not to get it hahaha
Day 3 - Roaming

First we actually went for some Taipei breakfast (Shihai Soy Milk I think), then we walked all the way to... Dunhua I think (a good 45minute walk). Which I didn't dislike per say, but the weather was a little too muggy for that. After a quick coffee, we went to one more place for a quick look around.
Books.com.tw! I used to hunt for certain Chinese books on this website that apparently now they have a brick-and-mortar store!
Funny-looking books that I did not buy haha.
And right opposite was a huuuuuuggggeeee Starbucks. I'm always impressed with how unique yet consistent all the Starbucks I've been to are. Consistent enough to know they are all Starbucks, but unique enough that you can tell they are all different.
Sat for a good long while as I wasn't sure if my friend was going to finish browsing soon.
And lucky the staff didn't kick me out, despite not having a drink nor product from them in hand.
Found a place for a late lunch then....
We booked a head spa thing. We did a combo of head spa + ear cleaning. We both expected the ear cleaning thing to be spectacular, but we both turned out to enjoy the head spa more than the ear cleaning. I was underwhelmed by the ear cleaning. It felt like she did a lot of things, but then she only showed me some specs like dandruff on the paper. I get more gunk out with a Q-tip anyway (despite all the labels saying don't use Q-tips haha sorry). Head spa though? I think I will look for a head spa place in Macau so I can go there sometimes.
We decided to head towards another night market.
Ningxia night market! My second favourite night market in Taipei (1st favourite is Raohe).
There was a pig. Then some guy (stall keeper) fed him some meat. I was like "OMG, is the BBQ man feeding the pig pork?" Then I saw the stall menu and apparently, the guy fed the pig some beef. Er............ I don't know how I feel about it. But, hey, no judgement....
I was having some pork knuckle in front of the pig as well... sooooooo.... no judgement.
Oh, on the way back, I felt like getting a donut from this mom-and-pop store and OMG this was like one of the best donuts I've ever had. Even better than the Mister Donuts and other places.
Day 4 - Tea House and Japanese

Breakfast. Friend was curious about the Fuhong (?) place but when I showed her the queue, she said no. Luckily, there was a Yonghe Soymilk just opposite which served similar food and had no queue at all. I had savory soy milk, yum!
Yeah we finally were able to see the Godzilla on the outside of the hotel building.
Made our way to Dongmen area.
Shops weren't open yet so we just walked on.
Reached a tea place. Had some pretty good tea.
There's some story/history to this place which I read about but I've already forgotten about.
Anyway, the guy wanted to make a sale and wanted to sell us like, over 150 balls of the tea we had. We sort of started making excuses. Then there was an influx of customers and the guy got busy serving them, so we took the chance to scram before he could force us to buy that many tea balls.
Friend had a brain mix-up and said wanted to go to one place for lunch, but when we reached it, the menu was totally different.
After the embarrassing, being seated but leaving without ordering because we found out we were at the wrong restaurant, we made our way further on...
Found the right place, and proceeded to have a late lunch.
All very Japanese.
So nice!
Mine... all mine!
Both our meals together.
Drizzling day.
More drizzling.
I've actually been here before but i didn't mind showing my friend around.
Got a postcard but didn't get to send it because we couldn't find a post office (more on that later). This postcard is part of an animal-protection series. "___________ Until the end of the world." Meaning you would commit to doing __________ until your pet crosses the rainbow bridge. I've all along made the joke that I will always have dog walking duty, be it rain or shine or typhoon or apocalypse, so this postcard, "(Dog)Walk until the end of the world" seemed fitting.
Dinner was had at a very local place...
Where the cat served as a cashier, thankyouverymuch, LOL
Day 5 - Last day and going back

This was a bit of a difficult day. I made plans, but friend just kept.... I dunno, had other plans. So we went ahead and got a locker for our bags.
"Tried of the Taiwanese breakfasts" so we had to look for a Japanese breakfast. Found one place and as we were making our way there, passed by another place and friend wanted to go instead. Ok, so changed location.
I did say I wanted to see this old-school foundry/printer place. But while there, my mind went blank and I couldn't think of what stamp to make. In the end I just made on of my Chinese name.
But I will keep thinking about designs until the next time I'm there and make something spiffy.
Really so old school!
Found an interesting map on the "old school" or retro things, said we'd follow but then we just walked back to the station.
Some random exterior wall.
Another bookstore. Anyway, after this, I kept saying "let's go up to the station building" for like, last minute shopping or stuff, but friend wanted to get the bags and walk by the "underground shopping". Okay? We did so, but after 20 meters or so, she just went back to the exit saying "it's just cheap goods anyway".... and so we headed out to the airport with 5 hours to spare...?????
Anyway, anyway, at the Airport Starbucks, I saw this... cup carrier thing with a cat butt..... I had to get it.
Inside the airport we actually got to walk around the 2 terminals... on foot LOL. And by then we've already crossed immigration and forgotten about the post office and so, didn't get to send our postcards.
We then sat in a free lounge area to charge our phones and kill time.
Flight back and more food.
Back home around 8pm that day, dog walk and unpacking, and the next day, back to work!