Back from taiwan: beauty in taiwan mundane

I came back from taiwan 2 days ago, here's my obligatory return afterthoughts blog

Taiwan was fast this year... I was there for 5 weeks, and it passed in the blink of an eye. I think I did a lot on this trip. A lot of things I wouldn't traditionally do, like cafe hopping with a laptop and work on schoolwork/website/server. It was really mundane, but I really tried to enjoy every last bit of it. I wanted to enjoy the mundane little things and simple personality taiwan has. I don't actually like visiting very crowded and popular places like Ximending in Taiwan. My mom and sister actually went to Japan together for 4 days for a vacation while me and my dad stayed in taiwan. My sister is a part of the Jirai Kei subculture so she was happy to go and spend money lol. She's also my biggest influence for fashion since we have similar varying fashion tastes. She bought me some subcul clothing too! 

My sister asked me why I didn't go with them, well the main reason was that I was in class and school, but then something in the back of my head also caught my attention. I don't think I would have gone because the golden route of Tokyo (shinjuku, shibuya, akihabara), Osaka, Kyoto don't really interest me, it won't really feel like Japan. Similar to how Times Square is not NYC, Ximending is not Taiwan, and Paris is not France. 

This ties back into how I expressed feeling more enjoyment in the mundane things; like going to a local breakfast store run by kind elderly taiwanese at 6 am who will serve you the best 蛋餅 (egg pancake), 蔥油餅 (green onion pancake) 蘿蔔糕 (radish cake) and soy milk for great prices. Walking around my local area before the sun rises too high and it gets too hot to walk around. By the way, I personally believe Taiwanese breakfast should start being spread around the world. I love taiwanese breakfast, you have many options and many of them are bread-y with egg, meat, and plenty of good flavors. I like the taiwan that is not trying very hard to be something else. Taiwan has an identity problem: a country that was native, Chinese, Japanese, and then Chinese again. When going to the Financial district, you can see a lot of western influence, while going to Taichung, you see Japanese influence. Sometimes, I feel like Taiwan is trying to hard to be Japan, or trying too hard to be China. Taiwan is far too rude to be Japan, and Taiwan doesn't slap LEDs on our deteriorating buildings and call ourselves Cyberpunk to be china. And that's good, because there is a perfect imperfection in Taiwan. Yes, the ugly buildings and ton of power lines, make taiwan seem very frozen in time. Like it is still the 90s. And that's all great.