Pervert or Thief? Both? Neither?

Uh, so I was on the train today in Beijing and from what it seems, they're a lot more strict with their security check (scanning your bags), so they even made me take off my (small) cross body and drop it through the scanner. It's closes with a flap and a twisty lock, so obviously I made sure to close it tight before dropping it through to make sure that things don't fall out or something while scanning.

So once on the train... I had it just slung on my shoulder, but then I had this gut feeling to sling it across my body properly so that it would be in front of me rather than on the side where people can easily steal from me, even though I should do this all the times anyways though. AND THEN I FIND THAT SOMEONE UNLOCKED IT WTF. And there's only this relatively old man to my rightwho happens to have his hand down there. It's possible that I forgot to close it properly, but I find that unlikely when I have to go through security check and I didn't take anything in or out since it was only like two minutes ago! Luckily everything was still there.

Then came the feeling that someone was rubbing their knuckles on my ass or something, IN THE DIRECTION OF THAT MAN AGAIN >:( But idk maybe it's just my pants or something. At some point after I kept suspiciously looking down there, he put his hand up pole. Then I felt it again and it was just this girl's jacket that she was holding that kept hitting against me. Okay old man, I'll let you off. Then his hand went down again and I felt it again and I quickly looked down and he instantly shot his hand back onto the pole. WTF?! I didn't feel like I was being groped or anything, so I was never certain if I was even being touched or not, so I couldn't make a scene and ask what the fuck he was doing when I wasn't even sure or not.

T_T

Airbnb Verified ID: Invasion of Personal Information?

Fuck fuck fuck. 

Under the pressure to have somewhere to stay for tomorrow night, I suspiciously and hesitatingly put in my personal information for Airbnb to verify. It's ridiculous for them to ask for a scanned copy of your passport/government ID or the last four digits of your SSN and then you have to link your Linkedin/Google/Facebook account. I'm even more of a dumbass for doing it and regretting it right after. Now I'm going to be paranoid for the rest of my life of someone trying to steal my identity because Airbnb already knows my name/address/everything about me basically, so ughhhh. Fuck my life. 

Taipei, Taiwan: Shilin Night Market

Walked around the neighborhood for a bit before heading to Shilin Market!! It is a three minute walk from Jiantan Station (Exit 1), basically like right across the street. There are also signs that point toward where to go. 

The place seems to be mostly shops, but it's laid out so that carnival games are all lumped together, food stands are generally all at the same place. It's pretty crowded too and we came on weekdays. But it was the Chinese National Holiday (国庆节) so it could've been a lot of tourists. Plus it's nighttime, too...so locals could still come.

They had a lot of UFO catcher shops, but I feel like they're so rigged >:( I ended up blowing more money on it and didn't win anything. So much harder than the place in Ximen. The workers also reposition it ever time you mess up, so I can't tell if it's to make it harder for you again or if it's actually an easier position to get it because if it falls too behind then it's impossible. Maybe it's a combination of both.

They recently renovated the place, so now the food count is in the basement. From what I heard, locals don’t like the change. We came to Shilin on both nights, but it wasn't until the second night that we realized there was a food court...so we just assumed that the few stands outside was all there was. 

Food from the outside stands:

Bacon wrapped chive (??) NT$10; Not worth it. A lot of people lined up for this so I thought it would be good, but it wasn't my thing.

Spicy fish balls NT$25; Can't really go wrong with fish balls..

Calamari; Nice and tender :D It was kind of a lot though.

Steak cubes NT$100; Also not worth it because it was basically eating eating cubes of fat and I wanted my meat :( 

Cory bought stinky tofu (臭豆腐)...and I actually tried it too. I only took a small bite, but could definitely taste what makes it so distinct. It's like a really gross aftertaste. Wanted to try it in Hong Kong since I think that's where it originates from, but didn't actually get a chance to while I was there. Stinky tofu also has a really distinctive smell even if you're just walking by it and it took me a while to realize where it was coming from.

The food court didn't really have that many people, and it was basically just open food shops. 

蚵仔煎 Oyster egg pancake thing? I didn't like it so much >< It has a gooey texture underneath, but from what I was told, it's the sauce that determines whether it's good or not.

Forgot what this was, but I didn't like it that much either. So picky wtf.

大腸包小腸; uhh...big intestine wrapping small intestine literally. It's basically a hotdog with sticky rice as the bun and Chinese sausage as the uh sausage. 

I always see the goldfish scooping in manga during summer festivals lmao so I was curious to actually try it. They're like little fishes, so not really goldfish. NT$30 for one try.

Heh..caught one. For a while, my scooper was upside down so it I thought I just sucked at it -.- But the girl next to me pointed it out and it was a lot easier after that. She was so good too because she caught sooo many :X Probably like twenty in the time it took me to caught one. Basically you corner the fish in your scooper and slowly lift it up so it doesn't break. Ofc, I didn't keep my fish, so I just gave it back after my scooper broke.

Heard that the chicken steak (NT$60) is really good, so I "had" to get it right before leaving the night market even though I was already super full :X I ended up forcing myself to eat half of it before I gave up. The thing was like the size of my face. Had to wait til we got off the station to go home before I could eat it because you're not allowed to eat in the metro in Taiwan :O Apparently it's enforced and people do abide by it...

I didn't actually buy much from the night market. Trying to think of what I got and I can only think of this Hello Kitty jigsaw puzzle I bought. So expensive (NT$983) considering I didn't have much cash T__T I spent like 40% of my cash on that because Taiwan only takes UnionPay for the most part and I didn't know if there would be foreign transaction fees for using mine. They don't really take Visa and it wasn't until after the trip that I found out my Discover is only accepted in Mainland China.

Meeeep... almost done with Taiwan posts. I have a lot of photos to go through for Hong Kong, so I've been dreading it :X Anyways, until next time!

I guess hungry people are bitchy people

We had a group of 14, so we split into two tables in a small private room, the "vegetarian" and "meat" tables (I sat in the meat table ofc). We had two vegetarians in the group, and each table were free to order their own dishes. 

The second dish that came got misplaced into the vegetarian table and I don't understand why they think it's okay to put their hands (literally) on our food, especially after we kept saying it's our dish. 

Our molested food after we got it back. Poor thing.

Then another dish came out and it was theirs but placed on our table. We told the waiter that it's theirs and to bring ours to us, and one of the girls from our group yells at us, "just get your fucken food yourself." And it's like...you're only getting your food because we made sure they go to your table, so be fucken grateful instead of bitching.

Throughout the whole night it was so awkward because they kept complaining about how our dishes were "bigger" and theirs were tiny and they were pissed at us. Everything they said, they couldn't just say it like a civilized person, but with a bitchy attitude. When we asked them if they had enough food (because we didn't know if the food finished coming out or not) they were just like, "no, we're hungry cuz our dishes are so small." But it's like...you ordered your own dishes, so why are you pissed at us that we made better choices with food? And honestly, they weren't limited to ordering just veggies either..it was just easier to have the two vegetarians sit on one table. Also, for a good 10 minutes, we had three people from our group still on their way, so the meat table was half empty, which meant they all CHOSE to go to that table.

At some point one of the girls from the veggies table came over and saw a dish that we just ordered: 

She was like, "oh we want to order that too." And we offered for them to just come over and take some if we wanted because it's a relatively big dish and might go to waste. She gave us the dirtiest look over omg. 

Another thing is that someone from our table ordered a single chicken foot. It ended up on their table at some point, and for a while we were asking the waiters like what happened to it and stuff because we never got it and there's no way that it went to the other table because they only have vegetarian dishes. So we finally asked them just to make sure, and they're like, "Oh yeah, we got it. We ate it." Umm really... thanks for eating our food. It's OBVIOUSLY not theirs when it's meat too, so I don't know why it's think it's okay to do that. It was a single chicken foot, so it was obviously for someone too. If you want it, you can order it yourself.

It's not the fact that we had to share that makes me upset, but that they were bitching the entire night that it ruined the mood and made it so awkward for my table. I didn't even write about all the bitchy things they were saying, nor did I know the extent of it either because I wasn't at that table.

When they were walking out, they walked by our table and looked at our dishes, which were empty btw, so it might just be literally be the dishes. And they were making comments like, "oh yeah look at how big their dishes are and how small all ours were." 

So fucken bratty and bitchy. 

I learned how to ride a bike!!

I got tired of walking 25 minutes to class everyday, so I decided to just get a bike, which only takes 10 minutes to get to class. The only issue was not knowing how to ride one...but gotta learn one day, so why not now ;) 

So I bought a second handed one for CNY220 (~$35), which included a basket and lock. It still looks pretty new too. I was debating between this one and a new one, but the color was metallic and not what I wanted. It's still a pretty color though, but might end up being something I didn't want everyday. Plus it was probably more expensive. 

After maybe the third day of riding, I finally got a hang of it and was able to ride smoothly :) Before I would wobble A LOT and it was kind of dangerous for me and pedestrians.. but now I can do it, so yay!!

My babyyyy..it's a lighter pink irl

So a month later, I ended up crashing into this guy head-on. It was my fault though >< It was actually a relatively light crash too because we were both going slowly and I think we tried braking as well. But anyways, part of my brake handle broke :( It still works, but it's just so sad.

I think riding a bike in Shanghai isn't as dangerous as I had thought it was. But I typically only ride through campus or to the station at most, so I try to avoid riding on the roads. I find that typically, cars are good with avoiding you, but obviously they have the right of the way. The only frustrating thing is having to navigate through slow pedestrians/bikers or ones where you can't predict which direction they're going.

I think it was a good investment :) It saves time and most importantly, I've learned how to bike. 

Taipei, Taiwan: Hello Kitty Sweets

It was still too early to go to the night market so we decided to go to Hello Kitty Sweets, the Hello Kitty Cafe of Taiwan!! I think they renamed it to Hello Kitty Kitchen and Dining or something like that though. It was my top to do activity. 

Address: 大安路一段90号

It is about a five minute walk from Zhongxiao Fuxing Station (Exit 3).

If you're dining in, there is a NT$300 per person plus a 10% service charge. Online they say they accept Visa and Mastercard, but they only allowed me to pay with cash...

Basically everything was decked out in Hello Kitty...napkins, coasters, business card, table mat, etc.

Ordered the Kitty Oreo Cheese Pie with Pudding Milk Tea (NT$300). It's not the prettiest one, but I think it suited my taste best compared to everything else. It tasted mediocre..I was expecting worse. I couldn't finish it though and it was a bit on the sour side, which the waitress informed me of.

Complimentary pudding of some sort.

 The Pudding Bubble Tea was actually pretty gross haha... I mean, I never had a pudding one before, so I guess it was also my mistake for ordering it. My friend had a fruit juice, which was pretty good. They drink was complimentary with the order, but only starred ones on the menu are.

Friend got the Kitty Brulee

Upstairs. There were two floors.

Because I'm a weirdo, here are pictures of the bathroom. It's a pretty cute bathroom though...

Even the toilet is Hello Kitty themed hahaha

Overall, it is overpriced for mediocre food. It wasn't terrible though. They also have real food, not just dessert, but we didn't have any so I can't comment on that. It was worth it for the experience. 

Dang, I just realize it's been a month already, so I'm falling behind on my posts :( But I swear it's been busy..so until next time!! Upcoming post should be on Shilin Nightmarket :)