Last Days in Taiwan

I wish I had more time to do a full update (I will definitely do one once I get back home and sort through pictures from three computers) but for now, here are some things I did in the last couple of days:

Wednesday

We went to the Taipei 101 area to eat at one of my favorite restaurants, a place that specializes in Beijing duck. After lunch, we walked around the area and then met up with one of my mom’s colleagues – she took us to the new Sogo for tea at Kaffe Amadeus (one floor below the place we had dinner the night before). We had ice cream, souffles, cookies, and ice coffee (all very delicious). After afternoon tea, we went back to the hotel to meet up with my dad because we were meeting up with my dad’s friend from work for dinner. We mentioned that we wanted to eat traditional Taiwanese cuisine and my dad’s friend, Yen ai-yi, took us to a place that specializes in Taiwanese cuisine. Her niece is also my dad’s secretary and helped me with my grad school application in Taiwan. I’ll post pictures of Taiwanese food in another post, but here we are after dinner:

After dinner, my dad took us back to the hotel and we were so exhausted from eating all day that we decided to call it a night.

Thursday

On Thursday, dad picked me up to visit my potential school for the next two years, National Taiwan University. We did a tour of the campus and checked out the nice dorms (a huge thank you to, Tina, my dad’s student from 20 years ago, for showing me around!) After doing a tour, we met up with my brother and went to A Cut Steakhouse. We met up with my dad’s friends as well as my dad’s wife, Isabel, for a really wonderful (and filling lunch):

They have a pre-fixe lunch deal and everything was really great and it was really nice to see Isabel and my dad’s friends!

After lunch at A Cut Steakhouse, my dad drove us past Xin-Dian to Wu Lai and we went on a gondola ride to an inner mountain (it was a pretty scary ride):

Here I am clinging onto dear life because I’ve suddenly become afraid of heights:

After taking the gondola back to my dad’s car, we drove to his house and had dinner with Isabel and then drove back to the city to pass out after another fun-filled day with my dad.

Friday

We had lunch with my dad’s friend, Tina, at Chopstix, which is the restaurant right next to National Taiwan University. Afterwards, I attended a class to see what it was like and then we went to dinner next to the hotel (the second time, actually)

Saturday

My aunt picked me and David up and we went to Matsui with my cousin, Eric. Matsui is popular because they have really fresh seafood and it was in the papers when the past president’s son took some people there to discuss insider trading (or something like that). The fish was very fresh and we ate a lot:

After lunch:

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel and later in the evening, I went back to the night market to pick up some candy:

And baked goods:

Sunday

Sunday was my mom’s last day of class and her students invited us out for lunch:

We ate Thai food and hung out with my mom’s students for a while, discussing life in Taiwan vs. life in the US and what they plan on doing after they finish their masters. After lunch, David and I were on a mission to find Meet Fresh again – we asked all of my mom’s students and the waitresses at the Thai restaurant…eventually, we found one not too far from where we were. Once we found the Meet Fresh, we were so excited that we were speaking gibberish to the waitress (our Chinese is already pretty bad so the waitress must’ve been REALLY confused), but eventually we pointed to what we wanted:

Grass jelly with grass jelly ice, taro balls, yam balls, and fresh cream is really the best thing EVER. We were contemplating whether or not to get another order, but sadly decided against it since we were supposed to meet up with my dad and we left him waiting in the city.

On Sunday night, we went to a great restaurant with my dad and extended family and then went by my dad’s city house to have some shaved ice (one last time before leaving Taiwan!) My dad also surprised us with a birthday cake and we went back to the hotel to celebrate.

Monday

On Monday, our flight was at 8AM, so we got up around 5 and met my dad at the airport for one last meal together. Our flight from Taipei to Hong Kong wasn’t too bad, but from Hong Kong to Shanghai, I was really short of breath and started scaring everyone around me. I guess flying too much has made me really claustrophobic and all of sudden, I just couldn’t breath (I used to love sitting by the window, after that incident, I can’t stand it at all). China updates, including the World Expo, will be posted as soon as possible!