What's so fun about Taiwan, you ask?

well, besides the fact that it's nice to go back to the motherland, to see where you were born, what kind of place you left, it's nice to see old friends. And when I say old, I'm talking, like, kindergarden.

I've probably known kathy since I was, like, 5 years old. Maybe even younger. We kinda lost track of each other for like 8 years, then found her again in taiwan, haha. We also met up with some of the kids we taught english to last time we went back... sean daniel wayne wendy hermione etc etc. Good times... drank 4 nights outta 4 the time we were in taipei... i think I lost like 5 lbs due to malabsorption; didn't really get a chance to absorb all the good food in taiwan, and good food it was.... ahhhh i wish I had ate more in taiwan... but my stomach wasn't feeling up to it.

clubbing was fun, drinking games with friends were even more fun.... I think their parents probably think we're alcoholics, haha. so bad. But we were there only for 4 nights in taipei, gotta make the most of it.

less made-up girls in taiwan, more natural beauty, which is nice. me likey. I also met one of my former student's gf, who is ridiculous. She knows german, japanese, english, taiwanese, and mandarin. She speaks better english than I do, goes to Taipei University (which is like the best school in taiwan), interns for microsoft, and is gonna become the CEO of Microsoft one day, haha. Ambitious girl huh? She told me all this with her perfect english, and cute too. I like wayne and he's a good guy, and it's just good to know that a nice guy like wayne found a good girl like her. I've known my share of good guys that don't get the type of girls they deserve, so it's nice when ppl who deserve each other get together ;]

I miss taiwan, haha. I wonder when I will go back again. It's kinda all up in the air. At least my parents didn't try to sell me off too much. I mean, maybe they were selling me more than I realized, but at least I wasn't there, so that's good. haha.

and the cheap good food! aww i wish I ate more!...

There are pretty much two things to see in japan: A shrine, or a temple. Sometimes you get a castle. That's all we saw on the guided tour! every day you get up, pack your bags ('cause we stay at a different hotel every night), eat breakfast, get on the bus, drive to a shrine or a temple, look around, take pictures, then drive to somewhere else, more shrines/temples/castle, go back to the hotel, check in, dinner, shop around, then you do it over all over again the next day.

Now, that sounded pretty boring, and it would've been, but we (me and david, david and i, whatever) met these other kids that were our age, and so we kinda ran around together. The tour guide was really informative and she had a lot of interesting stories about each shrine/temple/castle we visited, but you can only take in so much stories before you just feel like taking off on your own. Me David Catherine (we call her Cat) Brian and sometimes Sophia all hung out together, so that was fun... it really is about who you go on the trip with rather than where you go.

So of course we went clubbing. The first night we went clubbing was not successful per se, as in, we got drenched by the typhoon and walked around for an hour before finally just chilling inside a bar that we ran into. Japanese clubs are HARD to find unless you know where they are...

The 2nd time we went clubbing we had better luck. We ran into a canadian who was working in japan.... he brought us to this place called david & sam's (or something else equally corny) that was on the 3rd floor, and you had to get in this tiny elevator to get up there, and the elevator was kinda secluded and pretty much there's no way you would've found that place unless you knew it was there. On the way there he was telling us how since it's sunday night, there might not be a lot of ppl... since japanese ppl work HARD. We ended up paying cover to go in and see what's going on, even though it sounded like nothing was really happening... but i was like, fuck it we're in tokyo if there's a place that's gonna be clubbing it's this place.

We went in and there was like... 40 ppl... and we're like... o...k.... we ask the bartender and he said there's gonna be around 300 ppl here tonight, and we're looking around, like... um... ok. Long story short, a lot of ppl did show up later, there were ppl from youth hostels (sp?) because I guess those close at 10 and open at 5am, and since the club opened til 5 am, ppl came. I don't remember too much of that night besides taking these really strong drinks called "japanese slippers," going back to the hotel like 3-4 times, running into david and brian at the noodle place, looking for david 'cause I dont know where he is (which I do with absolutely horrible accuracy when i'm drinking. I seem to always run past whatever person I'm looking for) and then passing out.

the next morning was a lil rough. We barely made the bus, haha.

Next one will be about taiwan, which was bomb. Time to get ready for immu crap now.

Japan was fun, but Taiwan was the bomb.

I miss everyone already, damn.

gotta pack and move down and settle in and do immu crap, more later.