Big Yellow Duck

So this is another one of my adventures that happened quite some time ago. Again sorry for the delay. 

You might not be aware but one of the huge trends here are yellow rubber ducks. This is because of the giant yellow duck that has been on tour here in Taiwan. So when it came to my area I had to go and see it.

I went and saw it with a Taiwanese girl that I had met. We met up in Zhongli at the train station. I got there super early but that gave me time to go buy some sunglasses( notice the picture) and have breakfast. From the train station we walked over to the bus stop where we got on the bus that was to go to the yellow duck. The bus ride was way longer than either of us thought that it would be.

When we finally got there it was warm and breezy.Since it was close to the water it honestly reminded me of the Jersey shore and made me miss my best friend from home a little bit.  There was also tons of people there. We waited in line for like half hour before we were able to even see the duck. 

First sight of the duck

Soon...

After we saw the duck we went and looked at the different stalls. There was all sorts of Yellow Duck merchandise that you could think of. There were also lots of food stalls. We decided to get some squid balls and my friend got some warm soy milk. The squid balls were awesome although a little dangerous to eat while walking since they were on very sharp sticks. We also got something that looked like a corn dog but the batter was closer to that of pancake batter than cornbread. I also bought a yellow duck stuffed animal that quacks really awkwardly so I named it after my favorite awkward angel from the show Supernatural, Castiel. After that we made the long way back home. 

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. 

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.