At the night market

After Taipei 101, we went to this place that was serving a real American Thanksgiving, complete with turkey and all the trimmings. There was even pumpkin soup and walnut cake to finish. It was a whole turkey too! Nothing in Japan would even have cme remotely close! But it was super yummy, and took several ours. By the end, we were extremely tired, but Sara and Francis decided we should go to the famous night market and try the snake restaurant. We went, and actually, once I was up and about, I wasn't so tired. We found the restaurant, which served all the different parts of the snakes, snake syrups, and all sorts. It was pretty disgusting, but I did try a little tiny piece of snake, just to say that I had, and it tastes just like Chicken! We even got sme yummy watermelon juice, it was super cheap that I just couldn't believe it. Living in Japan has totally affected my thinking on prices! It was so delicious!

Taipei 101

After leaving the cafe, we discovered ow insanely cheap the taxis are in Taiwan. We took one all the way over to Taipei 101, what was once the tallest building in the world ( until two years ago) and it was super super cheap. I'm talking five pounds maximum, for about 20 minutes in rush hour traffic. It was great. We headed up to the main building, and bought our tickets. We had to wait a little, because the line for the elevators was quite long, but once we were in the elevator, it was so quick. I'm fact, the elevators have a sign and a Guiness Record saying that they are, in fact, the fastest elevators in the world. It was pretty crazy how fast it was and how it hurt my ears as I went up! We walked around and took some pictures, but it was a little cloudy, and surprisingly, Taipei is quite a dark cit compared to some I've seen in Japan. There were some fun places to take your photo, and I loved this one with the giant candy canes and the big sign. it took quite an effort to even get the picture, we were definitely back n the rest of Asia, where people won't wait in lines in order to take a picture! I was pretty pleased that. Did get this picture regardless. We also went down a few floorsto see the amazing damper which keeps the building upright, and protects it from falling over in the wind. I'm not sure if it was the largest in the world, but it was obviously a big deal, because all of the mascots, which were multicoloured, we're called Damper Babies!

Hello kitty sweets cafe, taipei

We got picked up at the airport, and taken to our hotel. They drive like maniacs in Taiwan, but we made it there in one piece! The hotel was nice, and pretty soon, Junko, Francis's girlfriend arrived. She was so sweet, and had planned a nice evening out for us. She first took us to the Hello Kitty cafe! I've heard of one in Korea, and I know there is one in Tokyo, but not quite like this! I love themed cafes, and this one was adorable. All the waiters and waitresses wore pink and we got adorable food and yummy hot chocolates with Hello Kitty faces on them! It was our first meal in Taiwan, and even thought Junko had arranged for us to get a proper American Thanksgiving dinner later, we still ate tons!

Inside the kitty plane

The outside of the Hello Kitty plane was adorable, but the inside was super super adorable. I was taking photos of everything! First, all the staff had a little Hello Kitty on their aprons. The pillows were all Hello Kitty's face. I loved the pillows most of all, and took a few of the covers as souvenirs. The card in the seat pocket for safety was all Hello Kitty shaped, and out food and cutlery was also Hello Kitty themed. The dinner was really delicious. And the cutlery, which was pink with Hello Kitty heads on the end, came home with me. On the little TVs, a skit of Hello Kitty played as we came on the airplane, and even our coffee cups were Hello Kitty. It all was super cute, and I really enjoyed the whole experience. When I went into the bathroom, there were tons of Hello Kitty the,ed things. The toilet paper was, of course, Hello Kitty. It's not tha uncommon in Japan, but this was specially designed Hello Kitty EVA stuff. Pretty silly but adorable all the same. then, both the smoke detector and the air freshner were Hello Kitty. They also had little bottles of things you cold use, like body spray, lotion, face mist and such things. I think it's a really good plan to have those types of things. I think in America, they would get stolen, but things like that are quite commonplace here. The whole Hello Kitty plane experience was great, and it was a great way to have a memorable flight, and start outer trip out right. On our way back in Japan, we got a cute Hello Kitty passport too, which you can get a stamp in, each time y fly on the Hello Kitty plane. Looks like Taiwan is more obsessed with Hello Kitty than Japan!

Fly away on Kitty Airways

One of the new ALTs, Francis, has a girlfriend who is from Japan but now studies in Taiwan, and he often goes over to visit here. In November, he decided to arrange for a few of us to go there, and he arranged everything for us, tour, hotel etc. It wasn't until I arrived at the airport with Sarah Helland, that I realised we were going on the cool EVA airways, which fly Hello Kitty themed planes to Taiwan! I was so excited! Everything was decked out, and the plane was super cute!

Matsushima

We volunteered, if you might call it that, by planting flowers, and then we all were exhausted and headed to an Onsen and a nice dinner and then we all headed to bed. Well some people stayed up, but I wanted to get up at 5am for a nice Onsen, or really a quick shower! The next morning, we got up super super early and headed for a long, long journey home. The drive was about 12 hours, so you imagine how horrible it is to sit like that for so long! We stopped every hour, which I was grateful for, but now, because it was the daytime, we got to explore some of the nicer rest stops. I collect little phone straps, which come from different places, and as we stopped in about 6 prefectures, I got to collect quite a few! It was very odd, but we didn't stop in Fukushima for soloing, so Brittany and I took our photo with some curry from Fukushima! Our very last touristy stop was Matsushima, one of the three best sights in Japan. It's a rock sticking out over the ocean to look at a chain of islands covered in pine trees. It's supposedly on par with the big tori gate in Miyajima, but I wasn't very impressed. We checked out the fish markets, and a couple other places too.I wandered around with Brittany and Katie, which was nice ( we also sat together on the bus), it was so nice to have girlfriends to hang out with! We bought lots of omiyage, and more katei charms for my phone, and wandered along the coast, before heading back to the bus because it was super, super windy and cold!

Tsunami Damage in Rikuzentakata.... 29 months on

After lunch, and a few more rest stops, a lot of people started falling asleep. Soon, we came to the areas which were hardest hit by the tsunami which hit north east Japan in March 2011. I guess I expected to see little signs of it here and there, but what I wasn't prepared for was the fact that there were towns and streets, and then there was nothing. The bus was eerily silent, and it was just heartbreaking to see. In some of the bigger areas, all the debris has been cleared and there are sme temporary building that make up convenience stores or banks or the like. In other areas, you can see that some buildings have mainly been demolished, but there are still some foundations that need to be removed. Its the foundations that are the saddest, because there simply isn't anything there any more. We came to this place called Rikuzentakata, which is a small town where the tsunami hit really bad. They are still trying to demolish buildings there. We helped plant some flowers for a lady who runs a farm there, and then she took us up to the broken sea wall to show us what it used to be like. It used t be a beautiful beach, and now there is nothing. Brittany and I wandered off and did some searching. While the vending machines had been replaced, and there was work going on at the school, there was not much else. Quite a few houses still stood...and they hadn't been cleared out at all. We got quite close to some, and you could see how the roof had caved in and how things had called out and been swept away. There were still children's books inside. It was heartbreaking. And really sad to not know what happened to the people that lived there. I was glad to be able to come and see Tohoku, and help however I could, but I wish the rest of the world could see how far they are from being back to normal. And will they ever be?