Pandas, Indian Food and the Stationery Store

This is my boss and his family: wife Angel, daughters Chloe and Faith (who is so not looking at my camera)..

This is the Panda we went all the way to Taipei to see! It did this the entire time. I was a little dissapointed but at least I can say I've seen a Real Live Panda.

This is very Cool to me (haha, literally..) it was SO HOT at the Zoo and they had these Things above us that sprayed fine mists of water (some of the businesses in town do this too) to cool things down.

This is me with one of my roomates, Katie Jo on the left and Ching on the right (Ching is a friend from Maylasia)

So yesterday: The Taipei Zoo. First of all, let me start by saying, that my Boss, Jackson, wanted me to meet him at house at 8 am yesterday morning to go to the Zoo. He wanted me to walk there, "for adventure" he says. He lives at 151 Dadun Road, he says. Half an hour walk, he says. Easy, he says. Okay..so I get on Google maps and find 151 Dadun Road, and think, easy.. okay. So I leave my house at 7 am (in case I get "lost")..and promptly forget what Google maps said. So I figure, I kind of know that Dadun runs parallel to Wenxin Road, and I knew where Wenxin Road was in relation to where I was, so I figure, if I walk around a little in that general area I would eventually hit Dadun. So, I walk around a little (like, half an hour), Not Finding Dadun Road, and then I FOUND IT! and I looked at the number on the closest building. 851 it says. Hunh, I say. Jackson lives at 151. You do the math. 45 minutes and a lot of sweat later, I find 151 Dadun Road. I could tell it was going to be a great morning.

So we get on the bus and go to the Bullet Train station. The Bullet Train rocks. Taipei is about a three hour regular bus ride from Taichung. The Bullet Train it is 50 minutes (but expensive..) so I got to see the country between Taichung and Taipei...really fast. But I was also entertaining Jackson's two kids, Chloe and Faith, during the majority of the time so I really didn't get to see the countryside much at all. They were really cute though. We played games with my little calculator and drew pictures of Pandas (mine looked like of like..cows).

So we get to Taipei and we ride the MRT to the Zoo. So Hot. So So So So SO HOT. and I wore JEANS. Oh bad bad Sharon. So Hot. So we go find the Pandas and we get a Ticket that says we are Allowed to see the Pandas betweent 12:50 and 12:59 AM. This is our Time. We were lucky, Jackson says. If we had come on a Saturday, we would have gotten 9 seconds, he says. So at 12:50 we go to see the Pandas. They were excited to see us too. I could tell. So excited that they slept the whole 9 minutes. *disappointment* but we spent lots of time in the Panda Gift Shop where I saw many Fake Pandas.

Then we went on to see a whole bunch of North American animals (hunh!) like beavers, various reptiles, wolves, and other Things. And the Koalas. oh and some Penguins. It was fun, but oh so Hot.

So Today I made a Find: The Stationary Store!! close to my house and oh so interesting! Asians make such Cute Things! Cute little note cards, papers, pens, note books..I will be spending Lots of Time in there in the coming months.

Also tonight we went out for Indian Food, and it was SO GOOD! OH wow I couldn't believe how good the food was. We ordered coconut beef, some kind of mutton thing, some kind of chicken thing, and some kind of indian cheese thing. It made up for getting "lost" yesterday. :)

New Things:

1.) Squat toilets still exist and are kind of scary. Also in the western toilet stalls there are signs (at least there are in Taipei) saying things like "Do not stand on the toilet" and "Do not crouch to prevent accident" in case someone mixes up a Western toilet for the old-style squats.

2.) There is a Body Shop (a real one!) in Taichung, not far from my house. Oh happy discovery...

3.) Chinese people can cook REALLY GOOD Indian Food.

Well, my internet is being spoofy on me again..at first I thought maybe the internet at the library was iffy..then I thought it was Gib and Retha's internet acting up...THEN I thought the internet at Rhonda's house where I was housesitting was doing funny Things...but NOW it's doing it AGAIN and I know it's not the internet's problem..it's MY computer.:( Just in the middle of doing things online it will suddenly decide it can't contact the server. No reason! It does it off and on with NO reason. So now it's tell me it can't save my Blog because they the computer can't contact Blogger.com. So irritated. So I will save this in Word and post another time when it IS working. SO irritated. but there is an Acer repair shop not far away. Acers are made in Taiwan. Go figure. :)

Until next time..