Lee Seung Gi Fan meet

One of the great things about living here in Taiwan is that a lot of my favorite South Korean artists come here. One of these artist that have visited was Lee Seung Gi. He is my second favorite South Korean actor. 


I heard of the event because I was hanging out with two of my friends from work when they found out about it. It turns out that we were all fans of him and went down to 7Eleven to buy our tickets together. 

On the day of the show we had to work in the morning. We don't usually work on Saturdays but we were doing a make up day for Moon Festival the following week. Even so we had plenty of time to go home and make our selves look beautiful because we bought VIP tickets and were actually going to meet and shake Lee Seung Gi's hand. 

Once we got to the venue there were a lot of vendors selling his merchandise but oddly enough there were no official vendor there.  I bought a light stick that was a pretty teal color. It was only $100NTD or approximately $3USD. If this was America it would have cost about five times that. It was also then that I realized that I had forgotten my camera at home, but I at least had my cell phone that I could take pictures with even if they weren't the best quality. 

We got inside and there was a little packet of stuff siting on our seats. They also were playing his music, which was great because I all honestly don't know his music I know his acting. 

Finally he came out and preformed one of his songs. I swear he is even cuter in person.It was then when we found out that it wasn't actually a concert but a fan meet. Even though it wasn't a concert we were still okay with it. They then had the MC come onto stage. I was shocked it was one of my favorite Taiwanese Idols Calvin Chen. 

I have to say though that Calvin almost stole the show. Even not being able to understand what he was saying he was still funny. Having two really cute guys together on stage was almost cuteness overload. Anyway they played some different games to test their fans on the determination and knowledge of Seung Gi. For the first game a little girl won and it was adorable. In the second game three women won signed copies of his newest CD. My friend kept on complaining on how she hated them because she was jealous. 

After the intermission they showed a weird interview from his time in Hawaii but the background music for it was 'Beauty and the Beast'. The music alone made me laugh but he was also being interviewed on the beach wearing a blazer with a picture of a beach on it. Sometimes I just don't understand fashion. Anyway the second half of the show was him preforming some of his more popular songs. 

After the fan meeting officially ended there was a meet and greet. If you paid for the VIP tickets you could shake his hand. My friends and I of course bought those tickets. We were in fact the last row of those tickets but we still got to meet him. I really wish I had my camera at this point instead of using my phone but at least I have my memories. He was very nice considering he had already shook like 200 hands and he spoke just a few words to us in English. I still can't believe that I shook his hand. It was totally a night that I will not forget. Anyway after that we headed back to Nankan. 

Nankan Night Market

Just like Taipei has a night market Nankan has one too. Nankan's is just much smaller. The night market is only open on Teusday and Friday nights. It is a really good place if you want to go get some food and is only located a couple of streets over from my apartment. The majority of the stalls are food stalls. There were a good selection too. We saw food stalls selling quail egg, fried squid, fresh rolled sushi, takoyaki, and a lot of other traditional Taiwanese food. 

Just like any other night market there were lots of vendors selling clothing and accessories. There were also a good number of stands selling underwear... and bedazzled bras. Yeah I don't know why you would want one unless you are a stripper but ok. There were also several not safe looking rides there. It was a great way to spend the evening after a long day of work. 

 And the only two things that I bought were a giant thing of cotton candy and a key lime juice.

Adventure to Taichung

The other week I went down to Taichung to visit some of my friends who live down there. I didn't though really get to see a lot of the city because of the time that I arrived and it was also raining.

So I left Nankan around 2pm. I had wanted to leave earlier but it turns out I was waiting on the wrong side of the road for the bus. Also I missed a bus because I'm still not good at flagging buses and taxis (I never had to do that before I moved to Taiwan). Anyway I took the bus to the Taoyuan Airport because of what I could research online it was the easiest to catch a bus down to Taichung. It was pretty easy and cheap. It was only like $250NT but it was also a cheap bus. There were only five other people on the bus and when we arrived in Taichung and it started raining the bus leaked. The important part though was that I made it down there and I was help by several Taiwanese people along the way. 

It took about two hours to get to Taichung but once down there I didn't have to wait long to meet up with my friends. It was really good seeing them. It had only been a few weeks since I saw them but it honestly felt like so much longer... probably since I'm really busy with work and don't get out as much as I would like. Anyway after picking me up we headed out to dinner. We were meeting up with some more people at an American food restaurant  I have to say that I had been really craving bbq sauce and I had a bbq chicken flat-bread pizza. It was amazing. Just writing about it is making me hungry. 

Anyway after dinner we headed out to a swazy joint called the 'Night Owl' that is owned by the one guys friend. I found it really amusing that he also owned the dinner below it call the 'Early Bird'. It was fun we stayed there till really late until we went back to my friend's friend's place. Before we got there we of course stopped at 7Eleven to pick up snacks because there was going to be a video game marathon. Anyway after watching them play video games we finally headed to bed around 4am, but I didn't get to sleep then because I was sharing a bed with my one guy friend. This is not the first time that I've shared my bed with one of my guy friends and it's not going to be the last. Let me put it out there that nothing happened any of those times or this one besides talking and attempting sleeping. This though was the first time that I had someone kick me and roll on top of me in their sleep. For the rest of the morning I spent it on the couch trying to sleep. 

Later that morning when everyone got up we headed out. They dropped me off at a train station instead of a bus station to make my way back up to Taoyuan and then to Nankan. Unfortunatly there were no seats left on the train so I bought a standing ticket. 

Buying a standing ticket probably wasn't the smartest choice on my part considering that it was a 2hr train ride back to Taoyuan. I had also thought 'Hey I could probably just sit down on the floor' but there wasn't even enough room for me to do that until I got like 30min away from my stop. I saw a lot of cool scenery but didn't get the opportunity to take any pictures because there wasn't any room for me to get out my camera and we were moving too fast. 

Once I reached Taoyaun it was really easy to get a cab back home and it didn't cost that much either. 

My Life here in NanKan

I have been in Taiwan for over two months now and in Nankan about a month and a half. So far I have really been enjoying my time here. the only thing that I majorly complain about is the heat and humidity. I don't know why I didn't expect to sweat as much as I do. 

Back home my family and friends have been asking me about my adventures and all honestly I haven't really been on overly many adventures besides just living here. For the most part I don't have overly much time during the week. I have 6 classes all with 10 to 18 students ages 3-10 years old and I have to commute between two branches. Although my company is awesome and basically has everything planned out for me there is still a lot that goes into teaching. I usually get home from work at night around 9pm and am too tired to really do anything but lounge around my apartment but I do have the weekends off though.

Oh, that reminds me I haven't posted really anything about my apartment. It is pretty big.We have three bedrooms, 2 living rooms, a dinning room and it came with laundry. If this was America there would be no way that I could afford it. I live on the top floor of my building that is located on one of the main streets in Nankan. It is in between my branches. Also in the bottom floor of my building is a supermarket, a couple clothing stores, and two restaurants  Oh there is also a Toys-R-Us which has some awesome well priced tokusatsu merchandise. We live down the street from the McDonald's and several cheap Taiwanese
restaurants. Even though I've been living here for over a month I don't really have any pictures yet because I haven't quite gotten it to they way I want yet... and I need to clean. On to the pictures!

View from my apartment

Second view from my apartment

I bought cute hippo slippers ^-^

As mentioned before I live above a Toys-R-Us. It has tokusatsu merch and as a fan it is very hard not to spend all of my money buying stuff. Although I did decide that I will buy one or two things every pay check... If I leave after a year I'll probably have to buy another suitcase just to fit all the stuff that I've bought. 

yep I'm totally an adult

So in general I really like living here in Taiwan. I'll have a separate post on food and stuff so you all can see the stuff that I've been eating but till next time. 

Climbing the Mountain

To get into Nankan from Taipei you have to climb over a mountain. There is several trails on the mountain that you can go hiking. My first weekend in NanKan two of my new co-workers and I decided to go and hike the mountain... which was not the smartest move on our part. 

I like hiking and going on short day hikes but hiking in the summer in Taiwan is nothing like hiking in the summer in Pennsylvania. Our mistake was that we didn't get out until 9 or 10ish in the morning and by then it was already super hot. It was so hot and humid that you didn't even have to move to get drenched in sweat. Despite the heat we decided to go hiking anyway. On the mountain is a giant shrine that is about half way up. There are also tons of stairs that you climb before you even get to the hiking trail.

Supposedly there is a KTV (karaoke)set up at the top of.the mountain where to locals go to sing on on the weekend. We did not make it that far. We only made it to the look out. It had amazing views of the city.

Yeah after the overlook we headed down the mountain. Unlike going up where the path was paved this was more of a mountain trail. I have to say that I was exhausted and it wasn't even that long a trail. 

Overall it was a nice mountain and I would love to try climbing the mountain again when it is less hot and humid... so I might try again in October.