8 November 2007 – Arrival in Taipei

Leo and I reached Taipei city around 7.15pm. The weather was around 21 degrees. We were rather surprised when we saw Taiwanese wearing winter clothes. We looked at each of them while walking to the hotel, and then we looked at one another, trying to control our laugher. The Taiwanese are quite exaggerating. I am not insulting them but just feel that this kind of weather does not require winter clothes.

We put our luggage and went to search for food. We ended up in a small eatery house that sells vegetarian food. I don’t like vegetarian food and if not because of my hunger and want to rush to the comic shops, I would have spent more time searching for better food.

We alighted one stop away - 中山站. This area has a few wholesalers that sell comics. We walked for about 5 – 10minutes. Either the shop is closed or we cannot locate the place for the other shop. We looked lost at a big junction and an uncle offered to help. He was curious why we would want to look for the place and when he heard that it was for comics, he looked at us in surprised. He said something like “你們有沒有搞錯,現在幾點了?店都関了.”He was full of expression when he said it. It was rather comical and I felt so 丟臉 because he treated us like fools. In the end Leo called up the shop and the shop owner picked us up at the 7-11 near the junction.

We stayed in the comic shop for quite long as Leo has a long list to buy. The shop owners, daughter and mother are friendly and serve us well. We chatted for a while and understand from them that it is rather hard to maintain a old shop like them due to the poor economy.

After purchase of comics, we walked back to hotel. It took us about 10 minutes walk. Went to Family Mart and bought my groceries. So happy to see Ebisu beer (green bottle). It was made in Taiwan, and cost about NT45. So I drank beer and relax after bath. Tomorrow will be a busy day. ^-^