Hey everyone! It's been another long while...
This week was my first week back at work after the best winter vacation ever! I happened to start my first day at work back at my visit school...ugh...
Anyways, winter vacation!!! :D
Winter vacation didn't exactly start well. The original plan was to meet up with Ryan ASAP to hang out with him until the hotel was ready. After that, we would explore and then have dinner with a couple friends from our TEFL program, Yumi and Sho. hen, we would wait for Raina to arrive in Shinjuku. The next day, we would leave for Taiwan!!
Sounds great, but this plan had quite a few hitches in it.
I happily took the 4:30am bus to Tokyo (luggage and presents in tow) and, halfway, realized that I had left the most important thing back home: my passport. >.< So stupid... Because of this, I had to take the next bus back to Komagane. Luckily, I managed to catch one as soon as I got there. Unfortunately, this meant that Ryan had to wait in Ueno Park by himself until I came back (:[ I'm still so sorry Pumpkin!). I got back to Komagane around 12:30, but the next bus back to Shinjuku left in 20 mins, so I left my luggage with the attendants at the bus terminal, ran back to my house (in my boots), grabbed my passport, and came back to the bus stop, just in time to catch the next bus to Shinjuku. The roads were super crowded in the afternoon on Christmas, but I still managed to arrive in Shinjuku in time to have dinner with Yumi and Pumpkin (Sho had lost his phone, so we couldn't contact him).
The next day, we took the train to Haneda airport. Ryan ended up leaving his backpack with his passport and Taiwanese money on the train. He had to go on another train to try to get it back, but ultimately ended up missing the flight to Taiwan. Luckily, he got the flight changed to the next day at the same time for free!
Long story short, I wasted some money on accident and Ryan wasted some time on accident. Let's just say that we definitely won't be making those same mistakes ever again.
Anyways, I made it to Taiwan with Raina a day earlier than Ryan did. We wandered through Taipei and went to many, many night markets, explored many cities that I can't even begin to pronounce, visited temples, ate a lot of delicious food, got to hang out with family, tried our hand at karaoke, and went to Taipei 101 (EDIT: which was once the tallest building in the world, but is now a building in Dubai at the moment) to watch the New Year's Eve fireworks!
Here are some pictures of things that we did in Taiwan!!
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| Night market...so crowded!! |
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| An amazing view of a temple and the Taiwanese coastline |
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A golden statue of a man reading (and not watching over his people lol)
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| Shrimp Fishing!! My favorite! :] |
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| After we caught the shrimp, the shopkeepers skewered them, grilled them, then gave them back to us to eat! Yum!! :D |
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| We also ate fried whole mini-soft shell crabs!! These were also delicious! |
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| Pumpkin and I leaning in front of an angled museum. I failed, as you can tell... >.>;; |
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| Whiskey Distillery KaVaLan |
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| Making Pottery! |
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| The fireworks at Taipei 101! Found on the internet. Pumpkin took a video of these while they were going off, using my head/body as a unipod of sorts... |
P.S. Sorry for stealing your pictures, Pumpkin! Nevertheless, thank you! ^.^
Haha it's okay. Let me know if you need any more!
ReplyDeleteAlso, Taipei 101 was the tallest building in the world at a point in time, but not anymore!