Today was the first real day here, sort of. Since I was so exhausted from getting here, I kind of slept until past 3 pm. After waking up, I begrudgingly agreed to do some walking around and exploring. A friend of hers had also arrived the day before, so we waited for her at the hostel lobby.
We set out, cameras on hand, in no particular direction. Our aim that day was just to capture some decent pictures, and footage for our projects. We of course also wanted to look around and take in Banqiao’s view. After a few hours of walking around, we happened upon a Night Market. At the Night market, all sorts of food, drinks, and goods were sold. We walked around, gazing at all the small carts of goodies, played a few games, and bought some food, all in Chinese.
After some time at the market, we walked around some more, looking for a nice spot to eat. We decided to eat at a small shop, a couple of minutes from our hostel. I was so hungry, I paid no idea to the food and just gulped it down.
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After some rest at our hotel, Rauful and I decided to go for a run. The thing is though, I hate running. Queue the most horrible ten minutes I’ve faced in a while. Combine my lack of enthusiasm with a pounding headache that was building up from that morning, with shoes unsuitable for running, and you have quite an unenjoyable experience. However, even though I don’t run, I still did surprisingly OK. I was able to push myself a bit through the 1.3 miles to the park.
Running in Taiwan is a strange experience. Walking down the streets of Manhattan, seeing a runner or two is not an uncommon sight. However, apparently, no one enjoys running in Taiwan (or at least Banqiao). As we ran down streets, peoples heads turned quick to watch the 外国人(wai4guo2ren2), or foreigners run down the street. As we j-walked (or ran) across an empty street, we had a group of girls screaming at us, as if our lives were in danger. We also had a group of kids poking fun at us a bit, saying hello， call 帅哥（shuai4ge1）， handsome guy, general playfulness.
Finally, after our run, we stopped at 711 to have some dinner before hitting the sack. Today was really fun, and I wish to go do some exploring tomorrow. Hopefully, I get to use my Chinese a bit more.
Link to Vlog