So guess what I got? No, not a puppy. A sunburn! Just on my lower arms, because I left my special UV-resistant umbrella at a bus stop and my UV Tainted Milk (what it says on the lotion that I have under the "SPF 40") does not work very well. I am surprised by the fact that the sunscreen lotion over here is neither screeny nor lotiony - it really is like milk, very runny and in teeny tiny bottles. Everything to do with women and beauty is "milky," rather than "creamy," here. Westerners, we love our cream. But here, not so much. So no slip, slap, slop - it's more like slip, slap, dab. (I will send the bill to the Canada Airport Authority for my skinectomy - if they hadn't confiscated my perfectly good thick, SPF 60 ubersunscreen lotion I would be, well, somewhat less sunburnt.)

In other news, Hello Kitty really is everywhere. Miniskirts are "in." You pay for busses when you get off, not when you get on (except sometimes, when you do). Jade is WAY OVERPRICED. Whole families live in the back of their shops, and all the children wear brightly coloured two-tone school uniforms - none of this plaid crap. All the dogs (well, the male dogs) have enormous testicles; neutering is virtually nonexistent. I saw a pack of about ten wild dogs just lying around in the sun the other day. They all looked very hot. We went to a carbonate hot springs and the nice lifeguard lent me his goggles for swimming laps in the cold pool. Do not drink tap water, because even if it starts out safe, it travels through some pretty suspicious pipes. Air conditioning is a public service - without it I would be dead. Honestly. We saw a huge mangrove swamp and all the little black-, white- and pink-striped crabs waved their one big pincher at us angrily. Also, the nice old man whose family runs the breakfast shop down the street recognized us and came over and shared his tea with us (after informing my mom that her container of store-bought sugary milk tea drink was probably bad for her.)

This morning I sent off like 20 postcards. If you don't get one in a week or two, well, um, tough luck! It cost me a whole FIVE DOLLARS to mail them all and I hope you all appreciate the fact that I licked those stamps myself (well, not all by myself. My mom helped. You can thank her later.)

Tomorrow we are off to Hong Kong.

Just some general impressions before I sack out for the night.

1. I am a dork. Only old people wear Tilly hats. But GUESS WHO DOESN'T HAVE A SUNBURN? That's right: ME. Take that, hip backpackers.

2. The bathrooms at the subway stations have a little chair in the stalls that you can buckle your kid into while you're on the loo. What a great idea.

3. There is no good coffee here. Get used to it.

4. Damn. Avril cancelled her concert tour.

5. Everybody is not actually better "acclimatized," they are just more nonchalant about being sweaty. Because it's bloody hot.

6. Buddhist and Taoist shrines make Catholic churches look downright Amish. The incense smells better, too.

7. All the white people are stashed at Starbuck's. I can't believe I was surprised by this. Also, all the Taiwanese women carry parasols coated with a UV reflecting material. White skin is highly prized over here, which breaks my heart a little bit. But at least they're safe from skin cancer.

8. Stuff isn't really that cheap here. Food, however, is. And universally delicious. Except "stinky tofu," which smells like feet.

9. Poor people are really really poor. The middle class is somewhat poor. The rich are really fucking rich. However, there are lots of public works and public art and public parks.

10. Mosquitoes. They eats me.

Things I Have Eaten

• Fried squid. On a stick. Cephelopodilicious.
• Baked quail eggs.
• Some stuff called "ocean mushrooms" which was striped and tasted suspiciously rubbery.
• Pig's blood.
• Shrimp fried in sweet batter with chocolate sprinkles on top. This was yummy, and might possibly be singlehandedly responsible for my forthcoming heart attack at 45.
• Rice paste in various configurations. Red bean pastes. Sweet gooey stuff.
• Drinks and shaved ice with little chewy pencil-eraser-sized jelly bits in them.
• Tofu up the yin yang.
• PEANUT FISH!

I'm sitting in a filty apartment in Taipei, after a busy day of riding the subway and getting lost on busses. The apartment is on loan from the family of an old lady who has been in a retirement home for five years. They kept the apartment, although it hasn't been cleaned in awhile. If you've been to any city in Asia you'll realize what this means: gross. A thin layer of ick is covering everything, sticky brown ick that is mostly mold, car exhaust and cooking oils but could really be anything. We're thinking of staying in a hostel tomorrow instead...

Otherwise, though, my trip so far has been a blast. I have many photos but no time to upload them, but don't fear, they're a comin'. I have learned five words in Mandarin! And I can count to four! Ok, well, actually, three! I am now able to confuse store clerks and order the wrong thing from menus. This is progress.

I also discovered that there is a rule here in Taipei. If you see another white person, DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT. DO NOT DO IT. Even if you want to smile and say "Hey, you're also white! We have something in common! Want to be friends?" you must resist the urge. Apparently it's considered gauche.

In other news, I am sticky. I gave up on not being gross on the first day, and now I just happily sweat. Wait, not sweat. GLOW. I am radioactive I am so glowing. Also, if you ever visit Asia, carry tissues. Because you are not supposed to flush toilet paper down the toilets here, so they don't usually provide any. People bring their own. They then put the used tissues into a very small, very smelly garbage can that sits beside all the toilets here. It takes some getting used to, and by "takes some" I mean "will never ever get" used to. Call me a cultural imperialist, but I likes me a good sewer system.

For the touristy stuff, we went to the Taipei Zoo today, which was fun. We saw monkeys! Monkeys! Everybody loves monkeys. Also some sad elephants and some angry hippos (as I understand it, hippos are bad-tempered by nature, so it wasn't surprising that these dudes were mean). They'd put away all the ungulates by the time we got there, but we see some nifty birds, mostly ibexes and a few strange ducks. As a nice surprise, the Zoo has changed since my mom was last there, what with the tiger getting out and eating that kid that one time. They completely redid it and now it is Safe. (The closest I came to danger was seeing a cloud leopard, but it was flopped down sound asleep, like every cat ever. Snoring, in fact. It did not try to eat me, although I think one of its ears twitched at one point.)

On Tuesday we went to Toroko Gorge, which was breathtaking. I got many pictures, because I am a camera-carrying overweight Westerner dressed in a safari shirt and bulky sandals. Embrace the stereotype, I say. It was very nice, the mountains are fabulous and full of low-lying clouds, because of the tropical weather, making the whole thing very misty and mysterious. I also saw two wild gibbons, although I don't really know how wild they really were because there was a sign up saying "This is a gibbon."

On Wednesday I visited the Hualien Prison, an interesting story for another time, but the best part was the fact that the prison has A GIFT SHOP. That's right: the prisoners make stuff, mostly carved marble and some pieces of art, and they sell it. For cheap. In the gift shop. (No, the prisoners do not get the proceeds...)

Then we went to the Hall of Still Thoughts, a Buddhist temple founded by a particular order (Tzu Chi) of self-sacrificing nuns whose focus was on providing health-care and aid to the poor, including building a huge public hospital in Hualien. They did very well for themselves, and the temple is ENORMOUS. (And yes, there was also a Giftshop of Still Thoughts. Kinda pricey.)

More later, must sleep now and try not to touch anything in the apartment with any part of my body. Hmm.

Me: Hey, was that an earthquake?
Mom: Yep.
Me: Huh.

My Dad says that they arranged the earthquake for me because they knew how hard it would be to wake me up in the morning.

In other news, it is raining. There are lots of stray dogs around here. They're all pretty affable and they are all mangy. Some stray cats, too, but not as many.