I Can Go The Distance

A group of us took off after school on Friday to check out the tallest completed building in the world; Taipei 101. We took the bus and got downtown and could see it in the distance and started our quest. 3 miles later we finally made it! It was amazing - the elevator made your ears hurt pretty bad because of how fast it was going. It's 101 stories tall. CRAZY. Getting back to the youth center took approximately 20 minutes as opposed to our hour 1/2 walk.

Saturday morning we went to the Jade Market and they had some pretty stellar stuff to purchase. It was fun to look at everything. Then our group split. Some left to go to some botanical gardens while the others went to see the museums with me. We got lost again but it was great because I feel like we really saw the heart of the city. 'Twas fun. The Museum of Contemporary Art was closed but I am going to find out if it's open later in the month - I will probably go back. Then, after getting lost we finally arrived at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum with the help of two women who went like 3 blocks out of their way to help us. The people here can be so friendly. The art at the museum was different. There was an exhibition on anime like figures and there were a lot of them. I hadn't realized how dirty I feel looking at their idea of the "beautiful female" has all this sex appeal. It's just different.

We had a girls night out and went out to dinner and went to a club. It was interesting going to a Taiwanese club on "Russian Night." A very different culture all around but it was fun to go out and dance with the girls.

We got up early this morning and went to the tea gardens that are out of the city and in this beautiful lush green area. It was spectacular and I wanted nothing but to stay there all day. However, it was freezing and rainy so a group of us didn't stay very long and came back to do a lot of our work for the trip. There's your update - sorry it's not very in depth but we've had a lot of fun this weekend. I'll be teaching a lot this weekend so if I don't update very often I apologize ahead of time.

Much love to you all!