The Magnifier of Ivan's Life: The 100th Birthday of Taiwan (Double Ten)

Eventually the tiring week passed. Thanks to the national day I could have the chance to meet up with my brother and cousin.

On Sunday afternoon, after the service I got on the train to Taipei. There's one thing interesting happened that is worth mentioning. I remember I was really exhausted so I sat and immersed myself in music. Not until somebody patted my shoulder didn't I notice the woman next to me was talking to me with nonstandard Chinese. She seemed to know that I'm not able to understand her; therefore, she asked me if the train goes to Taipei in English. And we chatted about everything and cultural differences till we arrived. Both of us agree that Taiwan is way too crowded and few people in Taiwan could speak English. Thanks to this foreign woman, I went to Taipei with pleasant mood. Helping brings pleasure.

Since my cousin David got a dinner party, he wasn't home when my bro took me to their place. I updated my life with my bro and shared something with him. It's for a long time that we didn't have an alone-time with each other, talking about ourselves. As a result I seemed to talk too much..lol Later on David came back and my bro went to bed. I and David also talked alot till 1:00AM.

Next morning, as I wanna take part in the merriment, I woke up real early and went to the presidential palace with my camera and lenses. The main roads and streets were all blocked off for security's sake hence, I could only stay on the back side of presidential palace. When I just felt bored and was considering to get to somewhere else, I met a group of foreigners. They asked me if I can help them take a picture with a tank. They came from the country that has diplomatic relation with us, Paraguay. Since we're all sick of staying at such a crowded place, we left and had lunch together. We never know in which, at what time and how we meet people. We just meet people, and that was really cool. I'm so glad to make some Spanish-speaking friends. Maybe I could in doing so learn some Spanish.

And my next stop was Ximending. I and David spent the entire afternoon looking around there. Even though we didn't get to buy anything, we talked and walked and had afternoon tea. As both of us just felt fatigued, my brother called us and came to meet us. We finally decided to have ramen as dinner. We went to a really nice Japanese restaurant 赤坂拉麵. After we're all done, David took me to train station and that's the end of my wonderful Taipei trip. I hope it's not going to be too long when next time we meet up. I love being with families. Meeting up with families is just like re-charging yourself. I think I'm will prepared to face my barricades in life. They're all going to fall =)