My Taiwan Adventure

Finally I have some time to share my travels in China! First stop was Hong Kong, because I needed to get my Chinese visa there. PRETTY expensive, let me say... A Taiwanese person doesn't even need to pay US$3 to get their visa... I'm a little jealous. We landed in Hong Kong late Saturday night (August 17th) but we went out for a Sichuan style dinner with our friend who was coming with us for a week in China. It was a nice taste of what was to come later when we trek around the Sichuan province. Our restaurant was in Soho and the area is nice and quaint. It's quite a shock to see so many non-Hong Kong-ese people there. Turns out most of the foreign population lives in Soho. The locals are extremely extremely friendly there though! We spent three days in Hong Kong before heading off to Beijing. I got to go Salsa dancing for the first time in three years!!! And saw some neat paintings...portraits of Chinese women with jade-green backgrounds. Here's some pics! Loc...

Saturday night we flew into Hong Kong so I could apply for a Chinese visa on Monday. Sunday I had a great time salsa dancing. It was my first time in over three years. :'( today I applied for a visa and I will hopefully pick it up tomorrow. Then well be flying straight to Beijing!

I'm engaged! I'm lucky- I get to have a celebration in Taiwan and in America. I'll share more details when I have some! PS- We're going to Tokyo for the weekend! :)

A few months ago in Chinese class we learned a little bit about 月下老人, or "the old man of the moonlight." He is worshipped in many temples in Taiwan and I first got to meet him in Tainan I believe. His legend is as follows: In the Tang Dynasty a man named Wei Gu found an old man sitting under a tree during a full moon. This man was holding a thick book and a bag full of red strings. Wei Gu asked this man who he was and why he had those objects. Yue Lao (月下老人) said that in his book is the list of all the marriages that have been/are/will be, and the red strings are used to bind soulmates together. Wei Gu didn't believe in Yue Lao's power so Yue Lao pointed out a nanny caring a baby. He said that the baby will be Wei Gu's future wife. Wei Gu didn't like that idea so he ordered his servant to stab the baby to death. Years later Wei Gu ends up marrying the baby, because she wasn't fatally wounded in the attack. Now people pay respects to 月下老人 in order to...

So the rest of the trip was meant to be in the casinos at Macau but... I wanted to stop off in Hong Kong to order a latin dress!!!!!!!! I'm so excited! It'll be ready by the end of March! Macau I tell you... was SO UNENJOYABLE! Because...... :sigh: the tourists from Mainland China. Their culture is just so hard to accept... cutting in line, pushing, standing in front of you when they can see you're trying to take a picture of something.... I can go on and on, but I wont' because I want to get back into China to travel again someday. Let's just say there were a lot of unhappy feelings those two days. We did get to visit some cool casinos though! The Wynn casino had a couple of fun shows in the lobby and some nice high-end shops. We stayed at the Holiday Inn/Sheraton which could connect to the Venetian so we got to see some more cool shops and an exhibit on the Titanic! An example hallway inside the Titanic The famous staircase in the Titanic I trie...

So after spending a whole day in Ubud, we had to go to the beach! So day two was spent in Kuta where our hotel was. Unfortunately, not much time on the beach. We ran all over town looking for swimsuit shops. I thought they would have some cool and cheap designs. Lonely Planet recommended Carrefour... Liars!!!! They had only children's swimsuits. Bought some souvenirs though. Then went to a shopping mall near the hotel.. TOO EXPENSIVE. Finally, we went to a street market nearby and got one. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We had brunch first in the hotel where I got to meet an Italian chef! I spoke some Italian to him and I guess I charmed him because he gave me his number and said I could contact him to practice. Cool! Totally not gonna call though. Then came the wild goose chase for a swimsuit. And finally, the beach! We took the red-eye to Hong Kong that night. Bali, hope to see you again soon!

So two days in Bali ARE NOT ENOUGH! I had plans to go to lots of cool places but we only had time to go to Ubud city and Kuta. Bali is famous for cheap and good spas. We went to an awesome one called SKIN in Ubud city. Ubud is the hub for pretty much everything. After massages and mani/pedi we went to the tourist office to buy tickets for the famous Legong dance at the Sultan's palace. Seeing a local dance performance was something I really looked forward to! We tried looking in the Ganesha Bookshop, a store recommended by the Lonely Planet guide. Let me warn you.... NOT WORTH IT! It doesn't have that many books on Indonesia and everything's expensive! So before the dance performance at night we went to the Sacred Monkey Forest. Monkeys there are known to be aggressive and just snatch things from people. I saw a monkey take a guy's back of chips and eat them. We got to buy a bunch of bananas to feed them and the monkeys just swarmed on us as soon as they s...