The Journey Begins

13th

Complete fail with trying to keep a blog if im honest.
But guess i have to start somewhere.

so been here for about 2weeks now,
and altho i seemed to have done alot,
i cant really remember too much of it.

So might aswell start from when i left.
Getting to Heathrow wasnt too difficult really,
but the suitcase i was carrying was heavy as shit,
and thats kinda the main problem i had when i went to check in.
Bag was like 8kg over, and its not even like i had much in it.
It was mostly coz the Suitcase itself wasnt heavy,
and so i ended up leaving qutie a few things at excess baggage,
stuff i doubt i'll ever get back with their extortionate rates.
Shouldnt have taken anything out anyways,
the flight wasnt even full for starters and wen i went to weight it again,
i'd only managed about 4kg..
and coz it was nearing the end of check in the lady let it pass.
what a waste of time and money.

Besides that everything else went really smoothly.
Cathay Pacific is awesome.
haha..
food was quite nice, had a couscous feta salad, stir fried chicken with mushrooms,steamed rice and veg, followed by double choc moose..
:P
then for breakfast fruit salad and yoghurt, shredded pork congee, with a bread roll.
there were cup noodles and other stuff, but i didnt bother asking.
Didnt even sleep on th flight coz i'd spent the evening and night sleeping,
that frustrated me a little.. just a little.. ok maybe alot..
Grrr!

It wasnt really sinking in that i was leaving for an extended period of time really,
not until we hit were about 1hr from HK, at least.
The sun rise on the horizon, was almost like signalling a new dawn,
so i took a photo.
xD



Once we landed in HK, i just lulled about for a bit,
lots of shops, but nothing to buy.
Really wanted to get Anna something, but couldnt see anything to get her,
Jenny had mentioned that i should get perfume,but thats so obvious..
Really need to think what would be good.

The flight to Taipei was short and sweet, only 1hr30mins.
But as i had left UK in somewhat of a hurry, i didnt actually sort everything out.
I did however manage to hide my student visa, stuck the edges of the page down..
and hopefully will be able to pry it open later.
The reason i did this is becoz British passports are visa exempt in taiwan for the moment,
so i can enter without a visa, but the student visa is better, as its easy to get an extension for.
The only problem is that its a single entry, and i want to go HK for CNY.
so had to blag it a little, got a little worrried coz the girl was staring at the passport photo for ages!

The Airport is suprisingly small, thought it'd be a little bigger,
it is the newest of the 2 in Taipei, and its further out.
As i was saying before i didnt sort anythign out,
so i didnt have a hotel/hostel to go to.
which meant i had to get my laptop out and try find one,
spent way too much time on facebook tho. FML!

Whatever happened i would have needed to get a sim card,
so i just walked over to the desk for sim cards and just bought any old one.
even tho its not really expensive, it doesnt seem to be much value for money in terms of using a mobile.
So the number i have is probably only going to be temporary, unless i cant help it.

Called Anna, and luckily she was working from home, and helped me call a few places.
Found one quite close to her, and then had to work my way into central,
luckily its kinda cheap to take a bus from the airport.
After getting to Taipei main station i jumped into a cab to take me to the hostel.
The cab driver was deaf i think, and so he just shouted all the time,
but even then he wasnt very clear, we tried to communicate as much as possible,
it was hard but it made it a fun journey!
He got me to the road that the hostel was on, and almost left without taking the money,
but then after checking the price, and even after a mini-struggle, he decided to refused to take any money.
That made my day.
Too bad the hostel was at the other end of the street tho.
haha.



I was pleasantly surprised at the price and the state of the hostel,
cost me 1400NT but i got the double room for the price of the single.
Altho later i got moved to the single, and the traffic noise from outside was absolute hell.
I was way too tired to do anything, so i just went to sleep for a few hours.

I woke up at about 8pm, and called Anna, turned out she was ill,
which is why she was working from home.
shingles is like the adult version of chicken pox and much worse!
Now i felt worse for not geting her a gift.
Also happened to have another friend in taipei,
just out of coincidence, but i'd never met her before as shes an old internet friend from malaysia.
I went to meet her in Shida night market, it was walking distance from the hostel,
but i took a wrong turn and once it have started to rain,
i just gave up and took a taxi, quite sure he took a slightly longer route than he needed to!

It was a little weird meeting Cherrie for the first time,
mostly as her friends and family were with her,
so they were teasing her about me.
unfortunately we left the market didnt eat, and just left for a bar.
On the way there i got a call from Anna to check up on me,
and where i stopped to take the call just so happened to be the street she lived on,
and the bar was on the oher corner of the block, so i waited there for her bf to come pick up somethings.
Had never met him before, so we had a little chat, but he's cool, so thats a relief.

I went back to my other friends, and chatted a bit, but then everyone had to go home,
but just before doing so, i managed to get them to help me get an easy/i-cash card,
means i can use the public transport and pay for things at 7-11.
its basically like the oyster card, but better, only not as good as the octopus card.
:P