My dad visited me last weekend! It was exciting and strange to see someone from my non-Taiwan life not only in Taiwan, but in my newly adopted city. We went to dinner at my favorite local restaurant and then out for beer (Asahi is delicious; the white beer tastes like Stella and is therefore glorious).
On Friday night I took the high speed rail to stay with him in Taipei. The HSR is so beautiful and fast (it only took an hour to get from Taichung to Taipei!), but I was confused by the lack of electrical outlets. Also, the hotel we stayed in has my new dream bathroom. The bathtub was gigantic and had a high-pressure shower which renewed my faith in hot showers (I really need to figure out how to make my water heater work effectively--Edit: As of the time of this blog post, I have wrangled the hot water heater into at least slight submission).
Saturday was slow but packed with fun-filled activities. The first activity I engaged in was to take advantage of the glorious bathroom and indulge in a long, hot shower. We then ate breakfast at the hotel (I picked bacon, eggs, stewed chicken, and assorted fresh vegetables from the buffet. Yum.). Soon after breakfast we went to the Taiwan International Green Industry Show, an environmental trade show at the Taipei World Trade Center, where my dad's company (Agile Switch--check it out if you work with large-scale electrical conversion!!) had a booth. It was interesting to see all of the green technology being developed in Taiwan and elsewhere around the world right now. There were even games!
After the trade show my dad and I went to Taipei 101, which was the tallest building in the world from 2004 until 2010. Even on a cloudy day, which it was when we went, the view is impressive. We could see for miles (er, kilometers)! I mailed postcards to my mom and to my friend who is currently volunteering with the Peace Corps in Cameroon (I *really* hope the postcard makes it all the way!), and my dad and I sent a postcard to my sister. We also ate some scrumptious ice cream--with how gray it was outside, the experience felt like I was revisiting Toonie Tuesdays at Frostbite.
We spent hours at the 101 Building, then went back to the hotel to chill out (Internet time for me, e-mail for my dad), then went to the Shilin Night Market; this is the biggest and most famous night market in Taipei. It was quite overwhelming, and smelled DISGUSTING, like food mixed with feces and the sweat of far too many people crammed into one space; however, the food was good. It was my first night market experience, and despite the smell I plan to visit other night markets. Hopefully the markets in Taichung will not be as off-putting.
It took a while, but we finally found our way out of the night market and into the open air of the street. We took a cab to a bar we had passed on the way to the night market. It was okay, but would not even rank near my hypothetical list of top [insert number here] of bars I have visited. We then went on a wild and crazy adventure to find another bar, which we did, but we were somewhat tired by then and did not feel like paying the steep entrance fee to stand in a mass of people (if I had been less tired and with people my age I probably would have stayed--the singer on the stage sounded like the Counting Crows and was enigmatic). Part two of the incredibly misguided adventure to find a famous hotel with a purportedly awesome bar. After walking around impossibly lost for too long of a time in the stifling humidity, we decided to call it a night and made our way back to the hotel. Cue another shower to wash the night off and experience the pure bliss once again.
The next morning we woke up early (I showered again, of course, making it a personal record of three showers in two days, which is something I usually only do during camp), packed, ate breakfast, and went our separate ways. Dad had to catch a plane to China and I had bags and a train ride ahead of me, so we split at the hotel and I came back to Taichung, said hello to my bed, probably showered again to get the feel of the train off of me (oh, and a fistfight almost broke out on the train between two older men), and went to sleep for a while.
