I am going to recap Taiwan in three long posts. I just need words, herbal tea, and time. Memory, be persistent. This is post number two.

On Friday morning we meet two awesome guys: Brandon and Taylor. Since Dani is a Taipei navigating expert at this point, she gives them good directions while I chat them up on the side. Hostels are great for meeting people on vacation. My first and hopefully not last hostel experience. We visit the National Palace Museum. Highlights include the bed made out of mahogany wood and pillows made of ceramic and stone. Now I understand why my Korean bed is as hard as the ground. Crazy Asians.

We enjoyed the Shilin Snack Market and Night Market, which end up being my favorite places to go at night, so we do revisit. Still no danger of being robbed so far. For convenience I begin to ignore their cultural norms, to resume wearing tank tops and little shorts because it is a steady 35°C and 75% humidity. I think I did a Xena Warrior Princess-esque cry of, “To hell with cardigans! I am exposing the shoulders!!”

On Saturday, we lead a tired French guy and his girlfriend Cassie to the subway. We switch hostels just to “try something new.” The second hostel was not as good as the first one, but I’m glad we switched because (1) it was in a new location, (2) awesome hilariousness ensued which would not have otherwise occurred, and (3) we would not have appreciated the first hostel as much without our stay at the second hostel. My Pollyanna attitude actually makes for a great travel partner. Just ask Dani.

I won’t mention names, but the second hostel was run by a bunch of angry lesbians that just scowled at us and read Twilight books in Chinese. Dani and I ventured to Longshan Temple (where we prayed with monks!), the Botanical Gardens (where we walked through a cat sanctuary!), and Wufenpu. Wufenpu is where you can find crazy deals on clothes. Shirts, pants, dresses and accessories for around $5-$10. I bought a bra (in my size!) for $3. Good deal. Afterwards, we consumed McDonalds and had a fashion show at the hostel to show off all our new purchases. Well, not the bra, but everything else was fair game.

On Sunday, we took an hour long train ride to Fulong beach. It is the most famous beach in northern Taiwan. Trying to find the correct train platform was a little harrowing as nothing was in English. Thankfully, while I don’t panic, I do have a great “I am terribly lost. Someone please help me” face and a kind lady asked if we needed help. She looked at our tickets, pushed us towards the correct set of stairs and we jumped on the first train. An hour later, we discovered that we made the right decision. We followed the first foreigner we saw to the beach. We swam in the East China Sea with a temple as a beautiful backdrop. Something reminded me of Dani’s misery and I laughed so hard that I started to drown (because I swam out too far and could not touch the Ocean floor). Dani is a good person, took pity on me, and pulled me towards the shore.

We were still slightly paranoid of being robbed so we put all our cash and my camera in a ziplock bag, tucked inside of a travel purse, and wrapped it around my neck. Dani has been robbed by the ocean in the past, so she couldn’t be trusted. Well, the bag wasn’t waterproof for whatever reason so we discovered that we had soaking wet money, train tickets, and camera when we were back on the shore. Thank goodness my camera is waterproof. We laid on the beach and laid our money out flat to dry. We had thousands of Taiwanese dollars laying out on the sand and no one even looked our way. We stopped being paranoid of being robbed right at that point.

We returned to Taipei, went back to Shilin Market to eat and shop. Endless happy shopping which resulted in another fashion show back at the hostel. We bought a lot of fruit. Dani ate too much and had to vomit.

I can’t think of a better time to say varium et mutabile semper femin. Latin for “woman is ever a fickle and changeable thing.” My favorite undergraduate university professor scribbled that on one of my research projects after I had switched my topic two dozen times. Still makes me smile thinking about it.