Though I was born in Taipei, I didn't have the chance to live there till a heavy earthquake which was a kind of turning point in my life. It occurred on the 21th of September, 1999 and torn down some buildings in the university where I studied back then, which was located in the epicenter of the earthquake surrounded by the mountains in the middle part of Taiwan. After the first living experience in Taipei for one semester (6 months, a real release from the bird cage), the damaged buildings from my university was repaired and we had to return back to the mountain. Since then I wanted to go back to Taipei and live there. After my graduation I found a job in Taipei in a company that manufactured stationary products, greeting cards, gifts and my job was to make cutie pinkie sweetie goods. That was a very nice one year apart from my 9 to 7 slave job. The nicest part is the night life, which already began in the one semester refugee time from the earthquake. It was not the kind of night life you'd expect in the west: bar, clubbing, parties... It's alcohol free, but 'food' addicted. I would stay up till 6 am whenever I had chance to do so, watching DVDs (rent or downloaded) or playing computer games, going out on scooter around 2 am to fetch food in the night market or food stalls on the street. You can always get something in the 24-hours opened 7-11 chain stores that are highly dense in Taiwan. Getting some snakes, drinks, instant noodles, or microwave meals, and flipping through Gossip magazines from the magazine section was a daily routine. There's also a place I went very often, Eslite bookstore. The one I went is located in Dunhua South Road, Daan District. Eslite was the first to set up a 24-hour bookstore in Taiwan at its Dunhua store, attracting night-time readers. There's an interesting phenomenon going on there: instead of club or bar, some people would dress up very nicely to be there, hunting each other in a discrete form. Plenty of beautiful boys or girls to look at and the books became mere accessories for those who came for another purpose. On January 1, 2006, Eslite's new flagship bookstore, located in Taipei's Xinyi District, with about 8,000m² of floorspace.
Everything goes gentle, soft but chaotic and rough at the same time in this southern island. Taipei is like an oven in summer time. It's not recommend for people who can't stand heat to come around this time. For people who love heavily stinky French cheese and have guts I would recommend to taste 'Stinky Tofu'. The deep-fried fermented tofu that smell like horse pee (according to a friend from France who had tried it).
