thursday to Taipei

got up 7ish but went back to sleep.
Had breakfast around 9am. I hadn’t decided what time I was gonna leave here. I had to reply to so many e-mails so I did a bit of that. had to repack my stuff. I had so much when I came here and now I’ve got even more. It is impossible to take everything home so I had asked my family to take some stuff home for me. I’m gonna be away for 5 days so I had to pack for that as well. When I put them all together it was nearly impossible to carry them all.
I don’t know what I was doing but by the time I left there it was already after 11:30. got Yj’s mom to call the taxi again.
got to the station at noon. Went to the window and asked the train schedule to get to Taipei. She said that I just missed the train and had to wait until 1:12.
had lunch at Mos burger. I was hoping that they have a power point but I couldn’t find any. I must have looked so strange looking at walls around. when I had a bite my phone rung. It was my brother. He said they got to the airport. They had seen the guide and he said that their car was big and I can come and join. Told him that I can get there around3:30 pm. He said that they would be in the museum until 4:20pm so I told him that I would get there before that. I told him to get the guide’s mobile number. He said he wasn’t sure if he got one. I said “how can he work as a guide without having a mobile? ask him anyway” I didn’t have a pen so asked him to ask the guide to call me to get his number. Added the number to the contact lists. I had so much stuff with me and it was hard to get out the restaurant. Everybody was looking at me. Got a ticket at the window using my credit card. I don’t look foreigner enough so whenever I talk to them in English they look so confused. There was a train leaving for Taipei at 1:12 but this one was arriving around 4pm so I got on an express one which leaves at 1:29.
The station was designed by Japanese so it looked just like Japanese station. Trains were the same.
I had set my mobile’s alarm just in case I fall asleep. Had my ipod on and fell asleep soI got to Taipei quickly. Got off the train and went up to get out of the station. I didn’t wanna go to the wrong side so I asked the lady at the ticket gate if it was the right exist but she didn’t understand. Luckily it was the exist with an escalator. Found a taxi and asked the driver to get to the “kokyu museum” well I knew the name only in Japanese so I had to show him the map. It wasn’t that close and I started to worry about the fare. I had to find my envelop cause the money I had in my wallet wasn’t enough. Asked him to drop me off at the closest gate. It was already 4 :20. Called the guide and talked to my brother. He said that they were gonna be there until 5 o’clock. Told him that I didn’t wanna go in for just 10 minutes cause I knew how good this museum was. I would be so sad not to be able to see the things I wanted to see. Told him that I had so much stuff with me and there were so many steps.There was no way that I was gonna walk up the stairs with 4 bags. He said “bags? Then you didn’t have to come here” I wasn’t happy with this and told him not to say that sort of things now when I’m already here. Just waited there for 40 minutes. It started to rain a bit and I was a bit worried about my camera. Many people talked to me to see if I needed help. You wouldn’t see many people with lots of baggage in front of a museum.
.It was already 5 but they were not out there yet. I stepped back and took a photo of the steps and the gate . it was probably 20 seconds but they had called me when I was away from my phone. The guide called me again and said that they’d been looking for me. I told him that I was still where I was at the very bottom of the steps. He said that my brother said I was on the first floor. The bus came around and Aya and Shi got off and ran to hug me as usual. The car was huge. It was a 20- seater. Mom said welcome but dad said something like “we had bee looking for you for a long time” I said I was waiting even longer although I came here the time I was told to get. Bro said why I would get off there sort of thing so I had to tell him off. I said “if you don’t stop there now I have to say everything I wanted to say which I had refrained from saying anything about it until now.“ that shut him up. Mom and sister whispered to tell me that they thought I would be angry when I see how big this car is. I said hi to my nephew Dai. Aya started to cry cause Shi sat next to me. She had given me a letter which she wrote on the plane and I forgot to keep it oops. She was upset all the way and didn’t want to eat lorries I brought. When we got off the car Aya’s tooth came off. She was chewing it secretly. All of sudden she was in a good mood and was showing off the tooth. There was one more place they were supposed to go. It was a night market which was apparently famous. we just walked around and didn’t buy anything apart from this vegetarian dumpling and drink. Dad was complaining again for just getting the drink. Shi was holding it and dropped it. Kei hit her forehead right away and of course she started to cry. Dad blame me for getting the drink..
got to the hotel. It was a very nice hotel and we felt like we were actually a rich family. Bro didn’t organize a room for me so I sneaked into Kei’s room like last time when we went to Bali.. Kei said that was told to have some bananas in Taiwan by people who have been here. I said they are certainly right that bananas here are so good. what we were eating weren’t really bananas! As soon as she said that we found bananas in the room. She grabbed and ate it quickly and put her head on one side. I had a bite and said this is not the one. She asked me where we can find them. I said everywhere.
we were supposed to eat at the hotel but it looked so expensive so we decided to eat out.
Walked around to see what we can have. We saw this sushi shop and Dad stopped. Some said “it’s first day here and we have Japanese food already??” we decided to look around more but couldn’t find anywhere nice and going back to where we came from. When I looked back may mom and dad were going into the sushi shop. Well we can’t order or read the menu at other restaurants so it was probably not bad idea.
The only thing was that my dad is quite rude and I was worried if they are gonna understand what he says. And.. I was right.. he was saying “this is not good “ in his loud voice.. well, he was right it wasn’t that nice but we don’t have to let them know. It was kind of expensive, too. but they tried so hard to get what we wanted. Kids loved the portable chopsticks I had and they wanted to get a pair too. I promised that I would get them for them.
I told them that we should have Tofa for desert but couldn’t find it around there. Instead we saw banana on a street stall. I didn’t realize that it was for drink. I told kei to buy it by herself and video taped it cause I knew it was gonna be funny. One of the customers noticed and tried to help us. He understood that we just want banana but it was hard from there. We tried so hard and got a bunch.
Looked around to see if I can find tofa still but no luck. We went to convenience store to see if they sell socks. Kei forgot to bring her kids socks.. kids wanted my chopsticks so bad so we looked for that as well. Dad was buying beer as usual.
It was only 8:30 when we got back to the hotel but we decided to do nothing. There was a internet cable but we were not too sure if we could use it or not. I updated some photos and did some writing. When I finished they were all asleep.