Good evening Future Weg, it's Tuesday and you're single again. It's not because of some sort of mess up, but Tiffany left for America. How 'bout that snow?

For our last few days together we checked out a new restaurant that just opened in Taipei. You may know of it. Yes, it's Dairy Queen! They have made the jump to Tianmu district. I have heard Tianmu is where all the foreigners in Taipei live, but I've never been there. I really don't like the Tianmu district. Quite simply, there is nothing there. People with a lot of money to waste, and more importantly, it's fracking far from the MRT. Why would anyone live so far away given the choice? It's a good place to test out a DQ though, and they were pretty packed. It's only the cold stuff, but I quite enjoyed a Snickers Blizzard.

After we went to Dahu Park, which I have been to once before, but it was a loooong time ago. Also it was under construction at the time. Well it's finished now, and it is a nice park. Following that we went to see Frozen. I'm going on record that Frozen is my favorite Disney movie since... Wreck it Ralph? God that was last year. Alright, minus those two maybe Hunchback? The point I'm trying to make is that I liked it a lot, and I haven't liked all that many of Disney's movies lately.

All of this was on December 31st, which means New Year! New Year has come and go in Taiwan, a full 11 hours before you east coast folk - suck it. They have a firework show at the 101, which is always packed. I wanted to avoid the crowd, and had an idea to hike up Jiantan Mountain, as I know you can see from up there. It turns out it wasn't a bad idea. There were some people, but for the most part it was pretty chill. We got a nice view of the festivities. Now, I had heard, from someone, the firework show was 20 minutes. Maybe the WEBN Fireworks spoiled me, but I was ready for a show. After about 3 minutes, there was a pause in all the action. I looked up, thinking they launched a shell into the air.

Nope.

Then everyone started to file out.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! That's it? That's not a firework show. That's President Ma Ying Jeou going down to 7-11 and picking up a few firecrackers. I was thoroughly disappointed. The drunk guys who kept falling on the way down the mountain helped a little, BUT NOT ENOUGH.

This picture belongs at the end of the blog, but it insisted it be here.

Unfortunately, the next Monday was the day Tiffany left for America. I got up at 5am to meet her at the airport and say goodbye. There were no buses in the morning except for the airport shuttle, so I had to take a taxi into the middle of town to catch it. It was a brief goodbye, and then came the awkward moment that this stranger (me), is standing next to her parents. Who I have never met before. Who also... don't know I exist, because she kept it all a secret from them. (Which, is a looong story and maybe too personal) I didn't really know how to broach the topic of "Oh hey. I'm sort of your daughter's secret fling for the past 8 months." so I wanted to be on my way. Also they don't speak a word of English, and as sleep deprived as I was speaking in Chinese was not high on my to do list. They asked if I needed a ride back. I said "No no, that's okay. In fact, the bus goes right next to my home! (It doesn't)"

"Oh yeah? Where is that?"

"Minquan West Road!"

"Oh that's great - we can catch the subway back from there! Let's go together!"

".... Yaaaaay...."

Of course, it's now 8 in the morning so traffic into town is terrible. The 40 minute ride out was a 1.5 hour ride back, and Tiffany's mom loooves to talk. On the plus side, I'm amazed at how coherent our conversation was. My Chinese has really improved this past year. So we get back, and they ask if I want to get breakfast.

"No no, that's okay."

"We insist! You helped our daughter so much!"

".... Yaaaaay...."

So we go to get breakfast. They actually own a restaurant, and invited me to come to see them sometime. I kid but they're actually really nice people, I may take them up on the offer. After breakfast, we step outside and they ask which way I'm going. Keeping up with the now silly ruse that I live here, I tell them I'm going in the direction away from the subway station. I thank them again, and I go sit at a park for 15 minutes before taking the same train they did back home.

".... Yaaaaay...."

After that sitcommy situation, the next day, April and I went museuming. I think that's a word. We stopped by the postal museum, which is pretty dull and probably has not changed in 40 years. That fact was further reinforced by the stuff from "West Germany". When we paid the admission, it was 3 NT to go in. In American money, that's 10 cents. Seriously. Some of the stuff was sort of cool, actually. Old letters and postcards from 50 years ago, some from America wishing Taiwan success. And they had a pretty crazy stamp collection from around the world. It's definitely not the most exciting museum in the world, but hey, for 10 cents?

Following that we went to the Taiwan History Museum. This is not what I expected. I expected like, history? You know, something along the lines of "The first evidence of people in Taiwan is from this year...", or "In the 50s, KMT forces from mainland China fought these wars..." Nope. This place is basically "more old stuff we couldn't fit into the National Palace Museum". Seeing a room full of 200 year old bowls is not my thing. They did have a student art exhibition which was a little cooler, but overall I'll take the Postal Museum over this place. Just to be a further buzzkill, some staff member scolded me for taking this photo. Apparently no photos are allowed, for no reason at all.

Now with my first day of singleism in a while, I set out to resume my time honored tradition of mountain climbing/exploring! This time to the districts of Wugu and Taishan. These districts have nothing of note in them, but exploring Taipei is kind of my thing. Turns out yeah, they're pretty boring. Wugu did have a nice enough mountain to climb, and some guy selling little cake things out of a James Bond themed cart. Wugu also had probably the highest per capita breakfast restaurants I've seen in Taipei. There's a lot around, but Wugu has practically one on every block. Anyway I've been there, it's checked off the list, and now I can get on with other things.