Only 2 weeks left... (sigh)

Taipei
Well on Friday afternoon we hopped on a bus to go to Taipei. Since we have caught a few buses here in Puli, we are now pretty good mates with the bus ticket seller man. As we waited for our bus, the ticket man offered us each 3 small bananas, one large banana, a photo he took, a bottle of water and a business card each. He is a pretty friendly guy and he keeps also offering us betel nut which we decline (its this red nut thing that is apparently carcinogenic and gives a bit of a narcotic 'high' if you chew it - on the side of most roads they put young girls wearing minimal clothing in glass booths with neon lights to sell this legal 'soft' drug... it's quite sad to see them everywhere).
When we got to Taipei we landed smack bang in the middle of the city and were met by Pete and Jade's friend Vivian. Vivian is a Taipei local who came to Sydney a few years ago to study and went to Pete and Jade's church. She had a class on that night (people have class during the day and at night and on the weekends!) so she showed us where to meet her after her class and then left us to explore the CBD of Taipei. However, we first required some nutrition and having been deprived of dairy products for a long time, I made a beeline for the large neon sign which advertised my former employer, Pizza Hut! The Pizza Hut we went to was pretty packed and the Works costs about $10 (AUS) there (which is expensive for Taiwan) so I just ordered a Hawaiian pizza. It was actually nicer than an Aussie Pizza Hut pizza and the whole restaurant made me feel like I was back home.
Then we decided to explore this large shopping centre which is in the CBD and on top of it is this large tower. We took some photos and then our friend from Sydney, Mark Woo, called us to see if we wanted to meet up (he is now doing the 2nd bit of his elective in Taipei) and so we tried to find him in Taipei Main Station (like Central Station in Sydney) but it ended up taking him most of the night to find us, by which time Vivian had finished her class and we decided to head home and meet up with Mark in the morning.
Vivian took us to her house in a cab and began telling the driver off in Taiwanese (different from Mandarin) because apparently he was trying to take us the long way. During the course of the weekend we probably caught about 8 cabs throughout Taipei and each one was fast and cheap, much nicer than the Sydney ones.
Vivian lives with her family in an apartment in the 'nicer' part of Taipei. I was able to stay on the top floor of their apartment which meant I got basically a whole apartment to myself for the weekend (not that we actually spent any time there apart from sleeping!)
In the morning we woke up and headed off straight away to a local restaurant for breakfast. We ate all these dumplings and beef rolls and it was the most delicious breakfast I've had in ages. Apparently the restaurant is famous because it was the last place a young army official was seen before he mysteriously 'disappeared' (all sorts of conspiracy theories abound!).
Then we raced off to the MRT (Mass Rapid Transport) station to catch a train to the beach/river. I must say that having seen the Taipei railway system I am very envious now and don't see why CityRail in Sydney are so inept at producing a decent public transport system. In Taipei a brand new single deck train arrives at every station every 4 minutes and they travel much faster than in Sydney. The ride itself is so smooth and even better than the new Millennium trains that the NSW government is boasting about. And to travel from the CBD to the edge of the city cost us about $1.20 (AUS) which is much better economically than CityRail's prices.
We met Mark on the train and Vivian took us to this place where the river meets the ocean and it had a lot of classy stalls and shops (kind of like the Rocks area in Sydney). We bought fried ice cream (really yummy!) and then we bought these huge ice cream cones for 30 cents (AUS) and as we walked along we saw this drink vendor selling these strange looking drinks. Mark Woo told us that they were toad's eggs and were a delicacy in Taiwan. It took us a while to realize he was pulling our leg and now I realize how foreigners must feel when we tell them about 'drop bears'.
We caught a ferry across the river and then had lunch at this restaurant famous for mussels (I just had some rice and noodles) and then we walked up the promenade eating at every second stall or so.
Then on the way back we stopped off at a jade market (Jade wanted to go to a jade market) and whilst Vivian and Jade tried on every bit of jewelry there, Pete and Mark and I were assaulted by a little child who had found a big stick and thought it would be funny to whack the foreigners with his big stick. We tried to outrun this little monster but everywhere we went he managed to follow us! Eventually we left and Mark said we should go to the 101 Tower shopping mall, but that there had been threats to blow up the tower on that particular night. That didn't particularly sit well with me, but we went anyway and the fact that I'm still here to talk about it means that obviously it didn't happen.
Tower 101 is the biggest building in Taiwan and stands at 101 floors (hence the name!) and the bottom of it is a huge department store so we went in and tried to have our picture taken with Santa (this badly dressed American Santa who spoke Mandarin quite well) but he said we had to spend a certain amount in the shopping mall before we could...so we didn't!
Then Vivian took us to these huge night markets where we ate some Maccas and then did some shopping for most of the night. I managed to do some Christmas shopping and we ate more food and it was lots of fun! The night markets were so crowded and apparently you are not allowed to sell things in the middle of the 'arcade' area but people do anyway, but the police came along so the vendors quickly grabbed their carts and did the bolt through the crowds.On the way home we walked through some of the city, then caught a cab home and crawled into bed dragging our blistered feet behind us.
On Sunday, Vivian had class again but she dropped us off in the CBD and we met up again with Mark and we also met up with Jesse (the resident doctor from Taipei who was working in Puli one month ago) and he showed us around NTU Hospital; which is the biggest and most prestigious hospital in Taiwan. It is about 3 times bigger than Australia's biggest hospital (Prince of Wales) and the doctors here work longer hours than we do in Australia.
Then we went to a souvenir store where we did some more shopping and then Mark and Jesse helped me find a bargain on some electronics in the CBD.We managed to have lunch at KFC (this time it was nice - thanks Steph!) and then we walked around some more arcades in downtown Taipei and we visited this old theater that has been restored before hoping on a train to go to CKS Memorial Hall.
CKS was this famous guy in Taiwan's history who basically helped found the country as it is today (kind of like an Abraham Lincoln or George Washington) and they have this huge park with a giant white gate and avenue which leads up to a huge temple like building which holds a statue of CKS in it. I heard somewhere that CKS was a Christian, but I'm not too sure if that's definite. There were heap of people there and Vivian met us after her class there. The whole place was really big and next to the CKS Memorial ther are 2 enormous temple looking buildings which are actually the national Theatre and National Opera (kind of like the Taiwanese equivalent of the Opera House).
Then we headed off to a museum which is dedicated to what is known in Taiwan as "2/28" when there was a mini-revolution in Taiwan and the government killed almost 20,000 people (apparently). It was quite an interesting (and sad) side of Taiwan to see and then after that we ate a nice meal of steak in a Western restaurant before rushing across town to hop on the bus with 5 minutes to spare.
The whole weekend was so rushed and busy (a bit like life in Taipei from what people here tell us) Vivian, Mark and Jesse were so hospitable to us and kept paying for all our meals and taxi fares (even though we argued with them, to let us pay - they are quite insistent and sneak off to pay the bill when we aren't looking). I really enjoyed the weekend and we all had a blast racing around Taipei in 48 hours. There's heaps more I could write of, but clinic started 5 minutes ago so I got to run.

Will write again soon (when my feet have stopped blistering from Taipei)

God bless,
Jimbo