another fourth away from home

it's still hot. really, really hot. i cannot express just how hot it is; you just have to come and experience it for yourself.

taipei is a consumer whore's paradise. there are malls and department stores everywhere. in some places there are 3 or 4 of them rite next to each other, like near the city hall. there's the old warner village and new york new york that's been around there for a bit, but there's also a new multi-building shin kong mitsukoshi, and of course the new taipei 101 (the tallest building in the world!), all of which is connected to each other with a network of bridges to assure that you won't be tempted to leave the area without having loaded up on the latest fashions from around the world. as if the prices for designer labels weren't already way out of my price range, the fact that the exchange rate is about 30 new taiwan dollars to the american dollar so the numbers go up into the 10000s frightened me so much i yelped and fainted.