I grow fatter

Night vendor selections. Those flat disc things are some sort of fish (I think..) which are really good. The black things in plastic are pork blood, which is actually not bad.


This was rice with meat on top. It was Japanese style cuisine, though it also had Korean kimchi. It was quite good.



This was better. It was some sort of ultra thick milkshake type thing with soft serve ice cream on top. The entire thing minus the ice cream was mango flavored. Amazing.


This was actually Indian food, but it was $2 and still very, very good.


This is squid. It was a dollar and also delicious.


This was called "duck blood with stinky tofu." Coincidentally, that's what it was! The duck blood is that solid stuff under the green onion, and the tofu was under that. It smells awful, though it actually tastes decent.


If I actually gain any weight in Taiwan, it'll undoubtedly be because of this stuff.


A night market vendor's offerings.


These are from my previous trip, but the picture was better than the ones I took this time around. Chicken hearts! Possibly the most delicious thing on a stick ever. (Yes, even better than fried squid on a stick.)

Googles Maps is the best, true dat, double true!

I live here!

Adventures with Kids

These are some kids that said hi to me while I was waiting for the bus. Every single one is supposedly 13. The shortest kid really, really, really liked video games. I had them help me order milk tea, though I'm the one that ended up looking like a tool in the picture. Whatever they ordered for me was definitely ridiculously overly unbelievably sugary to the point of that sweetness that only kids can enjoy.



These are some shots of the intersection where I live, complete with spectacular 7-11 which I am directly to the left of:








The guy who owns our building has a restaurant at the bottom and I had been hanging out speaking English with his kid, at which point said child took me over to his preschool to meet his teachers. His school is on top of the 7-11 up there in the pictures. I was promptly hired out to substitute teach, and taught English on Friday afternoon. My first group were all around 7 +/- 1 year and were great. They would also not stop playing with the hair on my arms. My second group were around 11-12, and were all stubborn and insistent upon not doing their work. This one kid was caught chewing gum by another teacher, and then she caught him chewing gum again when he walked back by 10 minutes later. I'm pretty sure it was as close to being brutally killed as he's ever been.




Also, this is probably the best $20 I've ever spent, or will ever spend, ever.

Housing

Down the hallway from my room. On the direct left is the door into the building staircase. Going down the hall on the right is my landlord who works at a newspaper, a Korean guy studying Chinese, and two Taiwanese guys who are still college students, with a room for laundry at the end with bathroom attached.
This first dog is really peaceful, the other one gets really excited with strangers. My landlord gave me a lighter to threaten him with, which seems to have subdued him into being more docile. I seriously spent my first 20 minutes here having the dog jump on me with my landlord shouting at it.





My room! It's about 8 ft * 10 ft.



It's also white like in the other pictures... not yellow.



My desk and closet, and the internet cable, which is undoubtedly the most important thing in the room.



The view from my window! There's a billboard in front of it.



The street outside, when one sticks their head out and looks through metal support beams.



I was out buying things on my first day like a mat, pillow, tissues, etc. When I came back this was in the bag. I'm in Asia for less than 24 hours and I'm already subconsciously obtaining Hello Kitty merchandise.



I suspect Hello Kitty tagged along with the sandals I bought to wear indoors. They were the only ones that were even close to being large enough, though they are still probably 1 1/2 sizes too small.

Nagoya Proves I am Inept with Digital Cameras

Kansai International Airport, 4 am














My first trip to Japan was so unexpected! I'd always imagined it would be slightly more exciting and expensive! We had an 8 hour delay so they shuffled us off to a nice hotel (though the free meal wasn't so great!). Room assignments required two people, which I found out when a Taiwanese guy asked me if I was alone and wanted to share. This worked out extremely well, as I was currently being talked to by a sketchy guy who wouldn't tell me what company he worked for, only what companies he was going to be visiting, so a potential crisis was definitely avoided. My roommate also found these kimono robes in the room that he figured we should take as souvenirs from our trip since we didn't actually do anything. We also discussed the fact that although they had specifically told us the mini-bar wasn't part of our free hotel stay, we were going to be out of the country in 4 hours anyway and they probably wouldn't be able to trace us. We watched House for an hour and then slept for 2 hours instead.

















Nagoya from the hotel window that I kept trying to open before I realized it was only to be opened in emergencies and required me breaking a plastic shell to get open. Whoops. Though blurry, fun is clearly visible in the distance.