speeding towards the new year.

mum, dad and i departed taichung early this morning for kaohsiong via bullet train. what would normally be a 3 hour train ride was a measly one hour and a very smooth hour at that. once at the kaohsiong station, we hired a driver for the day who proceeded to drive us through the city making little picturesque pitstops at all sorts of landmarks along the way. temples, pagodas, lakes, bridges, tunnels, etc etc. one really cool place we stopped was this tiny marine aquarium that had tons of coral and exotic fish. theodore would have felt like a kid in a candy store. i was able to take a few pictures there, but got yelled at several times by the staff since i'm technically not allowed to, and they started watching me rather closely. took a lot of pictures today with dad's new fantastic nikon digital camera (a christmas present from john), but sadly i will have to wait until i'm back in the states to upload them all.

did some shopping at this huge new mall in the city - found a muji store and stocked up on pens, as well as finally found something i think theodore will like. ate a LOT, especially for dinner. we just spent an hour at a night market and ate at about five different little food stands. i had pig brain and spinal cord for the first time ever. it was neuron-y, corpus collosum-y goodness:

well. it's just about 9pm on new year's eve. we were going to go where there's an outdoor concert and fireworks, but we're all pooped out from ten hours of sightseeing today (10a-8pish).. so i'll probably be asleep when the clock strikes midnight. kind of sad, but i'll be awake for all the american new years' so i'll just celebrate in my head and wish i were in LA or chicago.

{ 9.03p taiwan / 5.03a los angeles }