Oh glorious day, Christina is finally blogging.

Let's see what has happened in the past couple of days. We spent about 18-20 hours on a plane that brought us from DC to San Francisco to Nagoya, and then finally to Taipei. At least six of those hours were spent coloring pictures of Hello Kitty with crayons, which I believe, led the stewardess to think that Emma and I were both mentally challenged and were being escorted to Taipei by my mom. All in all, it was a good time and even though Emma slept for about 10 hours of the ride, I couldn’t make myself fall asleep, so luckily when we reached Taipei, I didn’t have any problems with jetlag. Although she didn’t either, which makes me wonder how she manages to sleep so darn much…?

The next day, we finally got to meet up with my grandma’s best friend, Wang po po, whom I haven’t seen in three years. I’m glad to say that she is looking really healthy, but it was pretty embarrassing that an 86 year old woman could eat more than Emma and I did combined. I’m becoming pretty fobby because sometimes I’ll be trying to translate what my mom says into English, but then I just end up repeating the phrase in Chinese. Hopefully when we get to Beijing, I’ll be able to pick up the Beijing accent, which is really my goal this semester =)

We also met up with Jia Ying (Maggie), a close family friend, who took the two of us out on the town while my mom went to the hospital for a full body scan. We used the metro, which is impeccably clean and obviously made for petite Asian frames because I could reach the handlebars without stretching too much and my elbow still retained a nice 90 degree angle, which Emma and I took multiple pictures of. We went to Ximending, which is kind of like Downtown Crossing, for those of you who know Boston. Jia Ying warned us not to speak to any old men there and I couldn’t really understand why until she said “young girls. prostitutes.” Apparently one of the MacDonald’s in the area was recently shut down because it was used as a meeting hub for pimps. Hot. Luckily we didn’t encounter any pimps, but we DID waste about US$10 playing the crane game, but Emma’s skills won us two little chicken stuffed animals. I got a massage for the first time in my life. Thank god I was facedown the whole time because otherwise the masseur would see that my face was like this the whole time: O.O What can I say, it tickled a lot. We basically shopped the rest of the day away…God, shopping in Taiwan is 100 time more intense than it is in the US. I bought about 6 new pairs of shoes (including knee-length brown suede boots with dark pink ribbon stitching. Teddy, if you’re reading, I will send you a picture asap), and countless new peacoats, but I haven’t even spent that much money. Honestly, it’s heaven.

It’s only been about 5 days and I’ve already taken close to 400 pictures. Thank goodness I decided to bring my laptop so I can just delete them and keep taking more =)

Today was probably my favorite day thus far. We rented a van and drove to Jiu Fen Pu, which is an open air market on Yang Ming Mountain. It was just so adorable and the view was breathtaking because it was just foggy enough, so we could see the “yun hai” which, directly translated, is “cloud sea.” Mountains are definitely my favorite type of natural scenery. Emma is convinced it’s because my relatives in China are wild mountain people. And by wild mountain people, I mean that they live in the mountains and are farmers for a living. Then we drove to Zhu Ming Art Gallery, which I was super excited to see because I went there 3 years ago and absolutely loved the place. To my dismay, the entire museum was closed for renovation until February 18^th. The museum is actually an outdoor park and the art pieces are various metal/bronze sculptures. Hopefully next time we visit it will be open… Afterwards, we went to Yeh-Liu Geopark, which is about 2 hours outside of Taipei. By this time, it was pretty foggy and kind of hard to see, but I think that made the park all the more beautiful.

Tomorrow we're going to go to my aunt and daniel's old apartment for nostalgic purposes and then hit some more interesting places around the city. We're going to try to find the old stand where Daniel and I would always buy breakfast in the mornings every summer. I wonder if the restaurant owner will remember me. The last time I saw him was probably the summer before 7th grade and it's been a looong time. We’ll see.

Anyways, I think it’s probably pretty boring for everyone to read all of this, so I’ll just finish out this post with some pictures from the past couple of days…

view of Mount Fuji from our airplane

Me and Emma in front of the hotel in Taipei

mmm poultry...

posing with my adorable two month old second cousin

why is there an entire store dedicated to this abomination?? this is for you, chen. you can add your own jibbitz to the picture.

check out the clownman behind us

the view of Taipei from our hotel room

at the metro station with Jia Ying

metro map

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

The one-sie Emma picked out for Ben

Teddy, the next few pictures are for you...

sneaky

wish you could be here to eat ridiculous amounts of xiao long bao with me!

shopping, as always

god it's good to be a gangsta. chillin in the VIP tea lounge

we're special.

the new upscale SOGO

Japanese garden on the top floor of the new SOGO

look at the perfect ninety degree angle bend in the elbow. that's the way it should be.

Secret Garden Tea House entrance. Sam, you would have loved it. Unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries right when we go there. My mom's friend let me borrow his, but I won't be able to see the pictures until he gets back to the US which isn't for awhile...

secret eatingggg... (does anyone else get that or am i the only person who watches strongbad?)

persimmons, dates, and a hybrid between a pineapple and si jia

emma and i like to call it the grenade fruit

Jiu Fen Pu outdoor market

so cute

giant block of peanut candy

the sad little boy who was making food for us as his mother yelled at him

ice cream wraps!

tang hu lu! but i'll bet they're better in China...

Yun Hai covering the mountains

Tiny ancestral shrines

farmland

we were pissed that Zhu Ming Yi Shu Guan was closed for renovation, so we consoled ourselves by posing with what seemed to be a giant poo sculpture

Zhu Ming parachute sculpture

that's a pretty bold claim...

Yeh Liu Geopark

Yeh Liu Geopark again

With my mom

Us again

The stones that look like faces

pretty

Emma: OMG I'M TALLER THAN THE TREE!

The famous Queen's Head stone. Apparently the material on top is really hard, but the supporting stone erodes more easily, so one day this will probably just topple over from the weight. (Chen, i know you're tempted, but no SUH jokes please.)

I climbed up, but really had no exit strategy, so I just scooted all the way back down while everyone laughed. And apparently I was caught doing this on camera because some Americans were filming a tourist video there. Great.

Well, that's all for now, and I don't know if I will blog again before heading to China on the 13th and who knows what the internet situation is like there...I promise to update this when I have time, but this should do for the time being. I'll be in Suichang, China visiting relatives/celebrating Chinese New Year from Feb. 15 - Feb 20, and then I have school orientation from Feb. 22nd - 25th, where I will hopefully have more stable internet access. Anyways, take care everyone and goodbye for now!