>101.

>brian and i walk into elevator going up to aunt’s apartment. we try pressing 5, but button doesn’t light up. a woman tries explaining something in chinese, but we don’t understand. when she sees my keys, she takes it and holds it against a sensor. elevator passes 5 and starts going up to her floor, 21. when the elevator door opens, woman sprints out. “yo, we just got profiled.”

i woke up today at 5:30am. couldn’t go back to sleep. my aunt sat next to me, doing her make up. who does make up at 5:30 in the morning? we spent the morning in some temple speaking with a lady monk. well, at least my mom and aunt did. brian and i sat already, commenting on how the monk lady’s cheeks looked as smooth as a baby’s butt. it did look pretty smooth. the monk started talking to us about how learning chinese is very important.

we then walked around the area and went to go find a place to eat. found a japanese restaurant in the food court under a mini-mall. i ordered some chicken and egg thing, brian ordered some pork thing, and my mom and aunt ordered some noodle soup thing. that’s exactly what they were called to me, i couldn’t read chinese at all. i just pointed at something in the menu, asked what kinda meat it was, and said okay. then my aunt started talking to us about how learning chinese is very important. we also saw our first white person in taiwan eating a subways sandwich across the food court!

we took the subway to taipei 101. the subways here are nothing like nyc metro. there is no food allowed once you enter. the place is spotless. there are lights on the ground that go on when a train is approaching. a train comes every 5 minutes. i got confused at first when a barely empty train arrived and our aunt told us to wait for the next one so we can get seats.

as soon as we stepped in taipei 101, i felt like we had to apologize for doing something bad. brian and i just stared at those stores, and cried a little inside–gucci, valentino, armani, tiffany’s, dior, versace, etc. so we spent about an hour roaming around, feeling like lesser human beings, and headed back to the subway station.

johnnie (?) walker tent

dior tent

taipei 101

taipei 101: 101 floors, high pressure elevator goes from 5th fl to 89th fl (observation deck) in 37 seconds

taiwan subway

I will be starting a series of firsts in taiwan (F.I.T.) It’s basically pictures of the first random things i saw in taiwan.

graffiti

stray dog

scooter lady

love

fire department

vendor cart

metro card

vending machine

recognizable brand

hydrant