Around the World :: Brian & Susana Schaller

April 6

Taipei
Taipei was so fun. The first night we spent having dinner with Brian's friends from his year abroad at Taipei University (Tai Da). As they haven't seen Brian in 10 years, I urged him to shave off all his facial hair (the beard became handles which became an extended moustache from back in sleazy Cebu).

Every night we spent with either Kuru or Ah-Big, and other friends who could meet with us for dinner. We ate very well, and there was always a steady supply of Taiwan Beer. We stayed a week and spent our days wandering around the neighborhood for food. We also spent time checking out the English teaching scene, playing with the idea of returning to Taiwan to work & save a little money.

We both got to practice our Mandarin Chinese, which has become rusty.

We devulged in our favorite pass time: eating. We ate goose (cooked in a goose & ginger broth, a local specialty), deep-fried crickets (Brian tried it, not Susana), cai baozi (vegetable buns), stinky tofu, mala houguo (aka sabu sabu), and other street food. We also managed to fit in one night of KTV (karoake), where our friends booked a room in a hotel that basically served this purpose. Very plush, and with all our basic needs met, the room came with access to a 24 hour buffet, its own bathroom, 2 TV screens, and 4 mics, we were set to sing our hearts out the rest of that night. I think we only lasted until 4am.

The last night there, Ah-Big and his wife treated us out to dim sum for dinner (yes, you heard it right). This place serve dim sum 24 hours, and it was go-od!

April 12

We were sad to leave, but at the airport, we are stunned to find that we needed a visa for India (and we didn't apply for one). We ended up making a pit stop in Hong Kong for few days to process our India visas. In HK, we stayed with Susana's family.