brendapanda in a typhoon..

and she feels like she’ll never be dry again.

i’m part of the welcome party receiving typhoon sinlaku here in taipei. since we’re been getting sporadic rain spells the past couple of days, i feel that i’m constantly in the showers. except for the fact that i’m fully clothed. imagine bathing in your clothes for 4 days. not a good feeling. not to mention that i’ve thrown away my favourite zebra striped flats. sad.

so, i experienced my first typhoon. since i’ve been hiding in my hostel, i would have to say that the experience has been pretty anti climatic. which is a very good thing of course but it would have been interesting to see a few flying bicycles. (think: the flying cows in twister the movie) although we did brave the wind and rain twice during lunch and dinner – running to the hostel opposite to get lunchbox (便當) the 5 mins short walk got me 1. food 2. wet 3. a broken umbrella. there goes my pretty black and white polka dot umbrella ella ella eh eh eh.

so i think we’ve accomplished quite a bit in this short one week. a lot of walking. a lot of food. a alot of bubble tea. i’ll let the pictures do the talking…

as usual, my favourite-est travel companion: paddy boo. yes, i did carry her onboard in my arms and no i did not feel ashamed. nor were there weird stares. =) what can i say. she’s adorable. me love.

street scenes. lots of bicycles and bikes…. i can safely say that i have never seen so many bikes at a traffic light in my little life. its quite a new experience crossing a street and having so many eyes staring at you. yes there are also people in cars but its really different when your “audience” are on bikes.

台大新鮮人. i din realize that freshmen are really literally 新鮮人 in chinese. the school is really old. some parts are not really well kept but the others are really pretty. i think the driveway lined with palm trees on meteor garden (where shan cai is forever cycling down) is actually shot in ntu. u can sorta see it in the last pic of the collage.

other parts of the school. it was really a pretty day (despite the bursts of rain) all green, blue and white. was really nice holding a bubble tea and just sit under the tree to appreciate it all.

night falls = start of the food tour. we began at shi da night market near where we live. deep fried mushrooms (AMAZING!), chicken chop, smelly toufu, bubble tea… anything and everything. haven’t tried the oyster stuff but no worries. i have time. =)

sitting down with our hostel shopping and bubble tea. because the school is so big and we have so much admin stuff to do, we often walk from one end to another and back again. so tiring. oh! and the white bunny is my new pet – benny buttons (10bucks). adorable huh? my room mate (valerie is the girl in red with the ponytail) got one too. since you’ll be seeing these guys on my blog pretty often, lets have a basic intro. first guy with the blur face and holding my laundry basket is Aloy. 2nd bubbly girl is xinyi/cindy who has been here since april so shes the tour guide. justin the blondie is the one holding my bunny. the last pic shows benedict the ktv king. and i’ve told you who valerie is. fellow bunny owner and room mate =)

and since we were talking about food. here’s a little glimpse of what we ate for the past couple of days. good stuff.

first trip on the taipei choochoo (捷運) they’re so neat and organized. everyone really really step to the right on the escalator. in singapore we sorta do when its crowded. but over here, they queue up to get to the right of the escalator. left is purely for people who are walking. and they also queue up to get onto the train. we sorta of scatter around until the train arrives but they stand in line and wait. cool.

destination: xi men ding (西門町) the hangout place for teenyboppers. we just explored the place a little. and it’s far east, bugis, heeren and cine all in one. and when you’re in taiwan… you do what they do….

大頭貼! i haven’t taken these in forever. there were so many shops just doing this. each shop is like 3 storeys and are filled with neoprint machines of all shapes and sizes. amazing. fun too!!! thats us taking pictures of us taking neoprint. hahaha. cheapo.

mister donut! soooo cute la… =)

tadah~ the must-see in taipei. you can see this building from almost everywhere in taipei because there aren’t many high rise buildings here due to the frequets bouts of earthquakes so this one sticks out like a very big thumb. we din go up though because well…. you been up one tall building, you basically been up all. 20bucks to go up…. nah.

woot. its like paragon, taka and dfs all put in one place but make it 20 times more grand and flashy. i expected a gold toilet seat or at least a gold faucet. sadly…. i was disappointed.

and now… for the big concluding pic… the big finish……… !!!!!

I present to you…………..

MY ROOM! home sweet home for the next couple of months. valerie and i really made it homely. from the rugs to the table lamps to the nemo shower curtain….. its a really comfy place now. =)

oh i lied. i have 2 more pics. something valerie and i spotted on our walk back home across the school…

rainbow!!!! the first full and clear rainbow. i’ve never seen one like tat. it was a full semicircle except i can’t take the entire thing on my camera. so pretty. you can really seee the colours. Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet. So pretty.

i won’t be surprise to see carebears bouncing on the clouds.

(:

next post: ktv + wu fen pu wholesale market.

p/s: after a week in taipei and bouncing through the streets, night market, taipei 101 and xi men ding, i have not seen any gorgeous drop-dead people. not saying that they’re not attrative. i just haven’t see the POW WOW kind. maybe when school opens……… there is still hope my friends.

edited to add:

just made a booboo. valerie and i went to do our first laundry. after reading the chinese instructions on the washing machine painstakingly, we dropped in a coin and the water started flowing. when we opened the machine lid to put in our clothes, we found that the previous user’s clothes were still in it. oopsie. some girl just got her laundry washed twice. i just hope she din have any delicates or stuff that will shrink. at least she can be sure that her clothes are pretty clean now.

maybe the first instruction should be: open machine lid to check that machine is empty.

LAST THING:
for some people who read my post, see the food pics and want to kindly remind me not to eat so much good food or drink too much bubble tea. please save it. thanks for those kind and considerate warnings and comments on “wait you get fat” ”wah so fattening sia” “eat so much wait fat” “i see you eat a lot ah” “so fattening you also dare to eat ah” ”better don’t eat” please take those helpful comments and irritate someone else. =) i’m happy the tubby flabby way i am and i know myself and my ways better than you. afterall i fought anorexia. did you?