Ta~i~wa~n
So I'm in Taiwan for about 8 weeks for an internship. (This would explain the irregularity of my AIM/Skype hours.) I've actually never been there (or anywhere outside the US) for quite so long; I'm kind of excited at the chance to explore, but having to go there for work slightly sucks =( It's a bit dull, and we have 7 weeks to do a 2 week job, and it's kind of lonely because no one's online at some points of the day, but it'll pass.
I haven't really done a picspam in a while (ever?), but I thought it was worth it since this is a bit special, so spamming from the first 2 weeks~
First week involved orientation-- a bit more like a road trip-- run by the internship organizers. These people seem to have a questionable concept of the word "fun," but some of the places we went to were nice.
Wen-wu Temple, a huge and gorgeous temple near our hotel. I think this is the prettiest one I've seen in a while; the paint looked bright and almost NEW. I think the temple might have been dedicated to Guan Yu from Three Kingdoms among others, as there were some figures with guan daos, but I could totally be wrong... We ended up going to SIX temples in the span of 4 days, but Wen-wu was the prettiest by far.
There's a long stair path, edged with two iron fences with tons of tags for making wishes. It's a really nice image.
Each of the steps actually has a day of the year, and lists a famous person or figure's birthday. Surprisingly, the figures are quite contemporary (Doraemon's birthday is noted O_O), which makes me think the temple must be quite new.
I liked this picture but some random guy got in the way =/ I'm too lazy to shop it.
We went to Sun Moon Lake. I can't really take nice landscape-ish pictures ^_^;
One of our tour guide people, who's a born-and-raised Taiwanese older woman, kept calling it 明潭 instead of 日月潭, combining the "sun" and "moon" into "bright;" how embarrassing!
There's some pretty floating manmade island on the lake. It's quite small too.
The rest of orientation kind of sucked because we went to really boring places. Like a plastics company or a factory that makes essence of chicken. Why they hell do they think we'd be interested in that...
But there was a
bonfire. It was kind of scary but pretty. Also, we made some kind of "traditional" tea
but it tasted terrible.
Came back to Taipei, afterwards; went out on the town a bit with a friend the next week. Don't know if it from was having company or just because I love cities more, but it was much more entertaining.
There's a Haagen-Dazs in Taipei that's like this fancy sit-down restaurant/cafe thing! It was really cute, although the heart decor is way over the top. I guess it's more of a place for "couples" or whatever. But there's the reflection of some skincare ad outside the window that shows a woman's nude butt, and that's gotta ruin the mood for such a thing ^^;
Ice cream~ This dish is called Flower Blossoms, it was so pretty~ and tasty. Everything on their menu looked delicious and gorgeous, although there were a ton of embarrassing names like "Cherry Kiss" or "New York Romance." But it's not embarrassing once it's in your mouth, I'm sure~
(Also, I found a place selling Russ-K shirts! But they didn't have the one I want (Yamapi's black one), so I passed. They're like almost $40 too...)
Next time: shopping in Taipei's own otaku paradise~
I haven't really done a picspam in a while (ever?), but I thought it was worth it since this is a bit special, so spamming from the first 2 weeks~
First week involved orientation-- a bit more like a road trip-- run by the internship organizers. These people seem to have a questionable concept of the word "fun," but some of the places we went to were nice.
Wen-wu Temple, a huge and gorgeous temple near our hotel. I think this is the prettiest one I've seen in a while; the paint looked bright and almost NEW. I think the temple might have been dedicated to Guan Yu from Three Kingdoms among others, as there were some figures with guan daos, but I could totally be wrong... We ended up going to SIX temples in the span of 4 days, but Wen-wu was the prettiest by far.
There's a long stair path, edged with two iron fences with tons of tags for making wishes. It's a really nice image.
Each of the steps actually has a day of the year, and lists a famous person or figure's birthday. Surprisingly, the figures are quite contemporary (Doraemon's birthday is noted O_O), which makes me think the temple must be quite new.
I liked this picture but some random guy got in the way =/ I'm too lazy to shop it.
We went to Sun Moon Lake. I can't really take nice landscape-ish pictures ^_^;
One of our tour guide people, who's a born-and-raised Taiwanese older woman, kept calling it 明潭 instead of 日月潭, combining the "sun" and "moon" into "bright;" how embarrassing!
There's some pretty floating manmade island on the lake. It's quite small too.
The rest of orientation kind of sucked because we went to really boring places. Like a plastics company or a factory that makes essence of chicken. Why they hell do they think we'd be interested in that...
But there was a
bonfire. It was kind of scary but pretty. Also, we made some kind of "traditional" tea
but it tasted terrible.
Came back to Taipei, afterwards; went out on the town a bit with a friend the next week. Don't know if it from was having company or just because I love cities more, but it was much more entertaining.
There's a Haagen-Dazs in Taipei that's like this fancy sit-down restaurant/cafe thing! It was really cute, although the heart decor is way over the top. I guess it's more of a place for "couples" or whatever. But there's the reflection of some skincare ad outside the window that shows a woman's nude butt, and that's gotta ruin the mood for such a thing ^^;
Ice cream~ This dish is called Flower Blossoms, it was so pretty~ and tasty. Everything on their menu looked delicious and gorgeous, although there were a ton of embarrassing names like "Cherry Kiss" or "New York Romance." But it's not embarrassing once it's in your mouth, I'm sure~
(Also, I found a place selling Russ-K shirts! But they didn't have the one I want (Yamapi's black one), so I passed. They're like almost $40 too...)
Next time: shopping in Taipei's own otaku paradise~