Earthquake in Taiwan

We experienced our first earthquake in Taiwan yesterday. The shake we experienced at Taipei was for about 30 seconds and was measured about 4.0 in magnitude. We could feel the entire building was shaking. It scared us to hell.

Food in Taiwan

Food in Taiwan is just dirt cheap. At the first night, we went to a night market for some quick late night snack. We bought bbq stinky tofu, pancakes, stir-fried mix of veggies and meat, baked yum, sticky rice cups, and drinks. The entire meal for 5 people was no more than 1000 Taiwanese New Dollar (NT), which is about US$30. The next morning, I had a tuna sandwich and coffee. The entire breakfast was NT$45, which was about US$1.50. During lunch, we went to the food court at a department stores. All lunch food was around NT$120, which is US$3.50. All types of food are just ridiculously cheap. I asked about the salary of typical Taiwanese people. Their salary range, however, is also relatively low compared to typical North American. However, they seem to have better purchasing power than we do -- due to the lower tax rate and lower cost of living.

Our favorites, so far, are bbq stinky tofu and the ice desserts. The ice in the desserts are so fluffy and soft, not like the ones found in North America.

We have been pigging out everyday since we arrived at Taipei. Aunt and uncle have been taking us to various places to try out different specialities. We have NOT repeated a single type of food yet!!! Yesterday, we got treated to a Las Vegas style buffet except that the price was much cheaper and more varieties of food. Many types of food were cooked only when you ordered. So they were really good. They even served steamed live shrimps, live clams, live crabs, shabu shabu, etc. We pigged out so much.

Transportation in Japan

There are various ways to travel around Japan. To travelers, it is rather confusing to find their ways through all the available transportation options since many of them are interconnected and their stations are all in the same place. After being here in Tokyo for five days, we finally got some sense out of the public train/subway transportation. Of course, we paid much tuition fee along the way. For example, on the first day, we spent 1450 yens (~US$14.00) to go from Shinjuku to Tokyo station because we hopped on the express JR train. If we hopped on the Tokyo metro instead (which we originally intended to), the cost would have been 190 yens. A whopping 10x difference. Tokyo metro and Toei Line have been our best friends. If we wanted to go slightly further, but not willing to pay the extra $$$, we would hop on the local JR trains. Though, we really had to watch out which platform we went to, because if we went on a wrong one, we would have to pay the price difference. Going further distance, shinkansen is the best. It is extremely quick and comfortable.

Well, now that we have picked up the Japan transportation maneuvering skills, it is time to go struggle with the Taiwan ones :)