The World Needs More Ninjas

Sunday, September 18 9:35pm (Taiwan time)

Today I slept in very late. I think a combination of a long day on Saturday and some jet lag got my body all confused. I didn’t head out of the hotel until about 5:30 tonight.

I walked down the street to a major shopping area that Jason and Jackie had shown me on Saturday. I walked through several shops just browsing around. I didn’t realize how expensive Taipei is. I was expecting cheap stuff everywhere, but that’s not the case. For example, most of the clothes I saw in the stores were about $40 USD each. I did get super cheap stuff at the night market, but all the stores are more like US prices.

I was starving, so I decided to go to Ruby Tuesday’s for dinner. After all the traditional food I had on Saturday I was ready for some chicken fingers and French fries. There was a guy from Austin, TX sitting at the table next to me. He’s in Taipei for work and we talked for a while during dinner. (You pretty much always talk to anyone else you see that looks like an American.)

We were both planning to go and visit Taipei 101 (world’s tallest building) after dinner, so we decided to walk over together. (I felt pretty safe since there were tons of people out and he seemed like a decent person while we were talking at dinner.) At Taipei 101 we got tickets (400 TWD (Ed. Note: 400 TWD = $12.09 USD)) to go up to the 87th floor of the building where you can look out over the whole city. It was very cool! It was dark and the lights all over the city were beautiful.

We stayed there for a while walking around and looking out, and then I headed back to the hotel so I could check email before the business center closed. That’s it for now. Tomorrow I’m headed to Manila.

P.S. I also went to a candy shop tonight and bought some Hello Kitty mints. It reminds me of the “Names & Things” days at Anderson Mall.