Out of Taichung and into the Taipei

Notice, this is a fairly short post because the next post will be a large undertaking of mine for “Taiwan, A Brief and Rough Guide”. The guide won't be meant as a replacement for the guide book you might buy at a store. My guide will be more of a supplement with some overlap to your normal guide books.

The night before leaving Taichung, I witnessed the system for people disposing of their trash and recyclables to the garbage and recycling trucks. It was an interesting process. Take a look at the short video below:

                                          

After seeing this it made sense to me why I didn't see very many dumpsters or personal garbage bins. Some nicer or larger apartments will have dumpsters, although even then most still won't have dumpsters.

A very large bunny outside a store just chilling as someone's pet. The pictures don't completely show it but the rabbit was larger than many cats I've seen.

…

We ate Hot Pot on the last day with Jonny and set off for Taipei. We made it early for the bus to Taipei and went off on an Operation MC (Meg's Coffee). What we found instead was a great historical site that was in the process of becoming a restaurant, cafe, ice-cream shop, and part museum. Since we were foreigners in Taiwan, we were given an all access tour, complimentary cookies, tea, and ice-cream tasters. The ice-cream tasters were normally 10 NT each, and we had about 24 between us. The woman that gave us the tour told us that Taiwanese people weren't allowed to go to the areas that were still under construction and we were since we were foreigners. They had some of the best ice-cream I'd ever had, and we got some to go. We took so long on the tour that we had to run to make it to the bus. We had our prize of great ice-cream in hand.

            

            

            

            

            

We made it to Taipei. After getting to Taipei and being settled, we went to a near by 7-Eleven for some soda and found it over flowing with foreigners drinking outside of it...it was crazy!

See the video:

We thought our flight was for the next afternoon, but double checked and it was actually a red-eye for 1 AM and not 1 PM. The confusion was that some foreign airlines use a 24 hour clock and some don't when you're on their site in English. We made it to the airport early to be on the safe side, and as it turned out we needed the extra time. We didn't know it when booking but you need a departing ticket from the Philippines before you enter. The flight out of the Philippines can be after the 21 day visa that you're given at the airport but you have to have it before boarding. I found myself on the hunt for Internet. I eventually found a open network that had Internet access outside of a closed Bank of China! I booked a ticket and we made it to our plane. The only bummer for all of the hassle was I left the hat I bought in Tainan at the security check point :(

The flight to the Philippines with Cebu Air was a little bumpy. We made it to the Philippines in one piece.

Tip for the Day: Check out what the locals like to do on their time off...should be a good time!

PS: I'm behind on my blog as, I'm no longer in the Philippines and actually I am in South Korea now. I'll try to get things caught up.