So we have just concluded our Asia binge of 6 countries all over Asia all jam packing into one short month! The time went by in a flash and left us in awe of what had just happened. With only 2 or 3 days between countries at some times, we had little time for reflection, and for processing everything we had experienced on this incredible journey.

Our next, and last, port is Hawaii, USA. It will be nice to be back in the US where I can rely on people speaking English, and know how much something costs without having to divide and multiply by factors up to 7000, but at the same time it is bittersweet because it means the semester is coming to an end. We are now sailing on the Pacific! All my west coast friends can’t believe its my first time in this ocean. We get to Hawaii a week from Sunday and spend 2 days there. After that its exam time and before we know it we will be pulling in to San Diego with our bags packed.

So a little bit on Taiwan…
Taiwan really showed me how much I have learned and grown throughout this experience. Since it was sort of a last-minute stop no one really had any big plans for the 3 days we would be stopped there. If this were one of the earlier ports I would be anxious about what I was going to do the whole time, but now this was not an issue. The night before we got to port we found a hostel in Taipei that had pretty good reviews and me and 6 other girls booked it.

The next day we packed our bags for our Taiwanese getaway.  Three months ago I would have immediately hopped in a cab begging the driver to take me where I wanted to go. But this time we had our maps out and were ready for the challenge. We ended up walking to the bus stop, in the pouring rain =( , and hoping on a bus to Taipei. We sat there soaking wet with our bags on our laps. Surprisingly we were the only SAS students on the bus, which made me think maybe we were on the wrong one? but sure enough after about 40 minutes we had reached our destination.
       
I have never stayed in a hostel before so I prepared for the worst. I packed my sleeper sack in case the sheets were dirty, an extra pillow-case, a towel and all the toiletries I could possibly need. Although I have learned a lot, packing light remains one of my weaknesses =) When we got to the hostel I knew I had no reason to worry. We approached the building. The ground level was a tattoo parlor, but when we looked above in the window and a sign read “JV’s Hostel” in bright colors decorated with smiley faces and flowers. Inside we got the tour of the home, which consisted of a bunch of rooms with bunk beds and a big common room with a couch, some bean-bag chairs, a tv, and two computers. There was also a section with a ton of guidebooks for our convenience. It was all decorated with bright colors, flags, and one wall was covered with Polaroid pictures of all the guests that had stayed there.  The bed I chose was a bottom bunk with pink and purple princess bedding, it was very cute.

It was a pretty dreary day, cold and rainy but we decided we should still make the best of it! Half of the girls decided to checkout a Mexican place but the rest of us wanted some more dumplings!! We went to this great place called DIN TAI FUNG.  It was amazinggg! Immediately upon getting there they handed us a fill-in menu for our choices. A few minutes later we were seated and just a few minutes after that our dumplings came. They were served to us cute little circular bamboo boxes.  We finished off the meal with the Red Bean Buns. This was my favorite food of Asia by far! They are circular sticky buns that taste like they are made out of dough and inside is a warm red bean mush. I tried it once in first grade when we took a field trip to the Japanese supermarket and I never forgot it! My friend Haley and I both became obsessed with it and kept an eye out for the buns the entire trip.

After that we decided to try out the MRT subway system and go to the zoo! Once we arrived we met up with our friends and walked around for a while. The highlight was definitely the Pandas! They had their own exhibit (where the line was out the door!) and looked very cuddly. Once our time at the zoo was done we headed up the mountain to a Tea House to taste some tea. It sounded good in theory but it ended up being self-brew and we were a little confused by the complicated process. Needless to say our tea probably wasn’t the best, but we tried.  We took a gondola down which was so much fun and probably one of the highlights of the whole trip. We could see the whole city from it and we were playing music and singing and dancing the whole way down.

That night we decided to go out on the town, after a luxurious meal at McDonalds we had a little pregame party at the hostel with the other guests which included a couple of quirky English guys and one man from Australia. Then we hit the bars, first Roxy Rocker then to Luxy then back to Roxy Rocker bringing along with us a huge group of Semester at Sea kids.

The next day we took it easy in the morning. Everyone wanted to be able to take full advantage of the WiFi in the hostel and get on facebook and skype with friends from home. Later we checked out the surrounding area and did a little shopping. That night we decided to checkout Taipei’s famous night market. It was a ton of fun. The first section had stands with all types of food. From some that looked like weird shaped thick sausages, to huge ice cream fruit sundaes. I ate at a little stand that was sort of like hibachi where they cooked on a fryer right in front of us.  YUM! Next we checked out the arcade games. The first one was shoot the balloon with the BB gun. I wasn’t that great at it but my team was able to hit 4 so we won a black ballpoint pen haha.  After a few more games we headed into the clothing section. Most of the stores in the market had trendy girls clothes and shoes. Many of the small boutiques reminded me of SoHo. They all had pretty similar merchandise. There was an abundance sparkly jewelry and hair clips that reminded me of the Asian section of Hot Jewelry Box in Ridgewood. The market was swamped which really surprised me because it was a Tuesday night. We ended up staying there until 12:30 browsing around and at that point we just headed in for the night.

The final day in Taiwan was gorgeous! The sun came out for the first time put everyone in a good mood. We walked all around the city just exploring different areas. Overall Taipei was not as bad as I had feared. It just seemed like a mini China. There were good parts and bad parts. Some places with fancy designer stores, and other places that were super run-down and dirty. 

On our walk we stopped for Bubble Tea, I had milk green tea. It was basically like iced green tea with boba bubbles that are black and made out of tapioca. I gave it shot but I have to say, the bubbles kind of grossed me out a bit.  Our next was stop was at sushi express! It was like a fast-food place like 7-11 but it was all sushi individually wrapped. If I ever saw a place like this in the US I would be a little skeptical but it ended up being some of the best sushi I’ve had yet. Our third food stop of the day was a little café called Chocoholic. It looked like a restaurant that would be in the West Village. A little vintage-y feeling and a cool menu. We got chocolate fondue and some iced coffee chocolate drinks. Naturally we stopped for some red bean buns to- go on the way back to the hostel.  Our short trip to Taiwan ended up being a lot of fun. It was pretty laid back and I would conclude that it was a great success.