Day 16

Today, I went with my cousin on a search for presents: tomorrow is her sister’s birthday, and the day after is Father’s Day (in Taiwan, at least.) For her sister, we decided on jewelry. For my uncle, we weren’t too sure about what to get; we decided to look for shorts. My uncle wears ‘em high and tight so it was going to be a daunting task (considering the current fashion trends) to find loose, ventilated, short shorts.

We took the metro to the Dongqu area (lots of trendy stores) and ended up going to Accesorize ( a store that specializes in, you guessed it, accessories). After searching a bit, we found some nice earrings. Interesting fact: lots of Taiwanese parents don’t let their kids get piercings because they believe that it lets out good luck. So, we had to get the earrings altered to be clip ons. Again, interesting quirk about Taiwanese culture.

Afterwards, we strolled around Dongqu for a bit, looking for my uncle’s present (despite the fact that the area was primarily geared towards younger people. My cousin ended up getting more stuff for herself, haha.) We gave up, and had a dinner of udon noodles at a street vendor. The stuff was really good, despite the fact that there was only one lady serving at least ten customers.

After dinner, we decided that maybe the Taipei 101 area might be a better bet (maybe one of those high-end Nike stores?) We finally found the shorts. They were swim trunks. SWIM TRUNKS. Nobody here wears casual swimwear. Everything is either a speedo or jammers. What the shit dude..I’m just chlling, not running a HEY-CHECK-OUT-MY-JUNK show. But I digress.

But yeah, having accomplished our mission, we decided to celebrate with ice cream, and went to a Coldstone (yes, they have what might just be one of America’s greatest cultural achievements.) and then wandered a little bit. I found an arcade with one of those boxing games (you put on a glove and punch a pad, and it tells you how hard you hit.) I managed to get within 50 points of the top score (see pic on FB!)

Then we rushed home, since it was past my cousin’s curfew.