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. 

Missadventures in Traveling to Taiwan

So I had quite the adventure traveling to Taiwan. My first flight was suppose to leave at 11ish on Monday July 15. Everything went really well, I got to the airport early, got passed security no problem and waited outside of my terminal. I even was the first in my section to board the plane. I was also doing really well considering that all my previous experiences with flying I didn't do well. Well and that is to say that everything went really well until we got two hours into the flight and they told us that they had to turn the flight around. By the time that we got back to the airport it was already 6pm and there weren't any other flights till the next day.

Thankfully the airline put me up to a local hotel and gave me a meal voucher but since there was like 250 of us it took a while to sort it out. By the time that I got over to the hotel and checked in it was like 9pm. I then had to message my company and my parents to let them know all what was going on. 

the hotel room that the airline set me up with

Needless to say that it was not the experience that I thought it was going to be. It was a hey you are now an adult experience  This was also the first time that I was ever in a hotel room by myself. All other times that I have been in a hotel I was either with my family or with friends for like an anime convention. 

Anyway I got up super early because of my flight.I originally had an aisle seat but this time they put me on a window seat. I was nervous cause as I said before I didn't really use to be good with flying but the window seat was AWESOME!!!! I saw so many cool sights like snow covered mountains, really cool cloud formations and the Pacific ocean for the first time. I was really surprised that I was able to see waves on the ocean. The only down side was that I had to climb over this little British girl every time that I needed to get up but I did warn her and apologized to needing to get up often. On the flight I either read, watched a movie, or slept.

After my first flight which was 13 hours long I landed in Japan for about a 3 hour lay over. This was my first time in Japan but I will totally go back someday. My first thing that I did was went in search of some tokusatsu merchandise because I figure that they would have some. There was a lot of  anime and HelloKitty and only one thing of tokusatsu and that was from Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger and out of my price ranger. I had only hat $20 converted because I wanted snacks. I mostly then sat outside of my terminal and waited for my plane to arrive. 

I kid you not it was a HelloKitty plane

So after taking in all that is the HelloKitty plane. I had a nice Japanese man sit next to me. We talked a little and he told me I was crazy because of how long I had been on a plane that day. He was rather nice. I do kinda regret snaking earlier because we were served a meal on the plane which of course was HelloKitty themed.

All honestly I just wanted off that plane. I totally spent too much time on a plane that day. It wasn't that long of a plane trip either only like 3hrs well not compared to the other flight. But when it was said and done the nice Japanese guy even helped me get down my suitcase from above.

Once in the Airport I exchanged some money and went through immigration. I was so glad that I didn't have to go through security again like I had to landing in Japan. Immigration honestly didn't take that long and we moved pretty quickly. Since I'm from the USA I just got a 90 day landing visa that I will transfer over to a regular visa later. 

Another one of my first in this part of my adventure was that I had to take a taxi to the hotel. I had never taken a taxi before. I also should have taken pictures as we rode into Taipei but I was rather tired and didn't. Once at the hotel I checked in and found out that I was rooming with my one friend that went over with me. I will save what we did for another post. Till next time.