Shopping all day / Chang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Today, the only plan was to go shopping for some electronics and things of that nature. So the first thing we did today after getting up was eat a little breakfast which was a gift from Lee’s parents. It was quite tasty and a great way to start the day. We went to a little shopping street area where everything is supposed to be the cheapest in Taipei. It’s like the Akihabara in Japan and there are many stores lined up for a few blocks selling things at below market price. I thought that it was pretty interesting. Things were a great deal and I had my eyes set on a few things that I have wanted for a really long time.
My goals for the trip there were to get a new laptop if I saw one that interested me. But I couldn’t get persuaded from the one that I’ve longed for in Japan. Since I could get that customized to fit my needs and even though it will be expensive, I think that’s still the way to go. So I had erased my goal before even going to the Taipei shopping area.
So the next thing that I wanted was a projector. I've wanted one since I moved to Japan and even then some. I'm not sure why I didn't end up buying one, but I think that it had something to do with the price since it was a bit out of my budget. I didn't want to spend more than 700 dollars for it, but it ended up being around 800 dollars for a good one, so I didn't end up buying one of them. I would have to replace the light bulb after 1000 hours of use, and the bulbs are really expensive too. I have the money and I brought enough with me to purchase it, but I just didn't.
The last thing that caught my attention today was a portable media player. It's like a larger version of the Ipod with video. The one that I saw was a 40 gigabyte 3.6 inch screen, but I just didn't want to spend the money about it. The one that I was looking at turned out to be way more expensive than the 60 gigabyte ipod with video and it just wasn't worth it. So I didn't end up getting anything. I turned my attention to DVDs but couldn't find anything that I really wanted or liked. So I ended up going home empty handed from all the shopping at the electronics store area. We went there twice today too. We started the day there and then we went back after we went to Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall.
The memorial is quite impressive, but what would you expect from the person who led the country. It's rather large and took a bit of time just to walk from place to place. We were dropped off in front of the library and then we walked under the grand gates in the front. We took a ton of pictures, so when I get back to Japan, I'll load them up. The national theater and the national music hall are also on the grounds. We took a bit of time in the memorial section that was dedicated to his personal life. He's got a ton of awards and all that stuff, it's pretty cool to see. I'm glad that I had the chance to see that and go walk around. I bought some postcards in the gift shop that I plan to be mailing out this week and very soon. I think that I won't get that much of a chance later on in the week. It's pretty hard to find a post office here, although I've seen 2 already.
Since we worked on our plans for the next two days this morning, we could take the time to take it easy today. Later in the evening, we went to a Shibuya like place where a lot of young people hang out. It was pretty interesting. I found a Lollicup there, but it wasn¡¦t that good to be honest with you. It wasn't sweet enough for my taste. I would have liked it better if it was sweeter, but since I got honey milk tea, I thought it would be sweet enough. It was much better than Eigo's though. His didn't taste so great and it was just a regular Tapioca Milk tea. We were just walking around waiting for Lee to finish his massage. He really needed it because he was very tired and I could tell that.
I'm glad that we had the opportunity to eat some good food today too. We had a hong kong style lunch which was a mix of three meats pork, duck, and beef. It was very good and I'm glad that I had the chance to eat that. For dinner, we were just walking around the Shibuya like place and picked up some rice noodle dish. It was really nice. Then we came back to his place and I could get a chance to type up this entry. Eigo called Sally and talked to her for a little bit, but it was faster than my shower, so I¡¦m not sure what happened there. I¡¦d like to find out some more details about it though. We have to get some shut eye early on tonight because we have to get up at 5:30am to get ready to go to Tarako Gorge tomorrow morning. I think that it will be a fun trip, even though we don't get to do the things that we want to do like go to an open onsen and go for a 2 mile hike. But I think that it will be good anyways.
