Taiwan trip, sundry random items

1. I forgot to bring my camera. Of course, I realized this while I was at the San Francisco airport, because I saw some vending machines that sold iPods and Gameboys and audiobooks (!!) and wanted to take a picture. That may qualify as the niftiest vending machine that I've seen in the US! I miss the totally random Japanese vending machines, but iPod vending machines were pretty cool. Alas, you will all have to suffer the lack of my camera with me.

The good thing is that my dad is letting me steal his, as I have been inspired by other LJers' trip photoblogging to try and do my own. The bad thing is that I'm not quite sure what to take pictures of, outside of the food, because things that I think are normal aren't necessarily, and things that I think are nifty may indeed be very boring.

2. I opened the in-flight magazine, only to discover that they were showing Nana the movie.... but on the way back. Woe! Hopefully I will get to see it on the way back. Or find a DVD or something here.

3. Taiwan bookstores are really crowded. I ogled over manga and restrained myself, given that I will be going to the comic book store later, and it's cheaper over there. However, I did get myself two Chinese cookbooks! One is just on assorted pancake-like flatbreads (bin) and what you can do with them, which totally excites me, and another is just a fairly normal-seeming vegetarian one. I only hope that I don't get too confused by figuring out the instructions in Chinese, and the names of assorted ingredients.

4. I am now in the hospital getting a very thorough physical, courtesy of my mom, who is, shall we say, extremely concerned about all things healthwise these days. All the doctors keep asking me why I'm doing this when I'm so young (all the other people here seem to be in their fifties or so). It's very cold. But the good thing is that they feed you lunch (unagidon! whoo!) and that they are providing me with internet access! They are also frighteningly organized.

The bad thing is that anytime they tell me something or ask me questions, I'm very puzzled, given that my Chinese medical terminology really sucks, to say the least. Also, it's freezing in here because Taiwan doesn't believe in indoor heating and the building is made of concrete, and I'm in a robe. At least they gave me an outer robe.

5. Further plans for this afternoon include a haircut, at long last!

6. I have already had beef rolls (beef flavored with some sauce and green onions wrapped in something rather like a scallion pancake), noodle soup, dates, wax apples, strawberries, and Asian pears. And watermelon. Whoo fruit! How I have missed you! I will make my mom go out and buy me lots more, but I have to remember to bring said camera so that I can show everyone pictures of fruit stands and such!

In which I am very bored

Aka, they aren't feeding me for another half hour, and my book is boring. Oh internet, I hug you! *hugs internet*

Further notes on Taiwan:

1. Fancy Japanese toilet seats are becoming more and more common. They are heated and have assorted bidet functions and a whole lot of buttons. They used to really scare me, but given that my fingers are freezing, the heated seats are sort of nice. I'm still too afraid to use any of the buttons, though.

2. I keep forgetting that in America, there doesn't seem to be a good way of checking to see if someone's in the bathroom. Here, usually you give a little knock on the door, and if someone knocks back, you move to the next stall. Ok, maybe they do this elsewhere too, but it seems more prevalent here for some reason.

3. I had much fun browsing manga yesterday. Apparently there's now even a how-to book based on Nana called something like Love Advice from the Two Nanas! I am very tempted to get it, just because. Also, Angel Sancutary apparently ends at vol. 20, which I did not realize. Also also, the covers of Fruits Basket in the States are pretty close to the Japanese ones; only they take the figures and make them big and put them on the sea green background. In the Japanese and Taiwan ones, the figures are in a little box, probably just because that's how pretty much everything published from that publishing company is done. They've also reissued new versions of Yazawa Ai's Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai and Gokinjo Monogatari.

4. I saw a book called The Culture of Sex in Ancient China, or something to that effect, and really wanted to get it. Except.. it's giant and hard to carry back.

5. I actually browsed the non-English sections of the bookstore for what may be the very first time. I know. I am embarrassed as well. There are actually a lot of things scattered here and there, and there are, of course, giant sections on Taiwan sociology and cross-strait relations and all that stuff that I want to read. Except I'd probably take three years to get through a single book and only understand about half of the content. Le sigh. On the plus side, I found the knitting section and desperately want to buy books! And I want to find a yarn store here, just so I can see how different they are!