Good morning here, good evening to all of you at home! We are still feeling no effects of jet lag, and we are grateful. It has also not rained yet, though rain is in the forecast for today - maybe our good luck with weather will continue, as we are all going into Taipei City soon for sight-seeing including going to the top of Taipei 101, until recently the tallest building in the world.
After our blog yesterday morning, we met Alana for lunch. We walked to Uncle Sam American School and waited in the adjacent park. Paul meanwhile had taken a bus to meet with the French scooter owner, then he rode back about an hour. It was his first time ever on a scooter, and he had to negotiate Taiwanese traffic. Brave guy!! Alana took us to yet another bank to try to exchange our Traveler's Checques for Taiwanese dollars, and yet again, no luck. But it is interesting how we are treated like celebrities in every bank. Their system of service is always that you press a little button on a box that dispenses sequential numbers, then you wait for your number to come up on the monitor above the teller's window. (Kind of like when you get a driver's license at the Iowa DOT.) Well, for some mysterious reason, somehow our number just happens to pop up immediately, out of sequence, or else someone who speaks some limited degree of English slips out of a door to come and greet us. P and A say that "white" people are always treated this way. Very strange, but they definitely try to be hospitable!! Alana had to go back to school, so we took the bus to the metro and navigated our way to bigger banking district nearer to Taipei. (Sanxia seems to be somewhat in suburbia/the sticks!) A/P didn't think we could handle the MRT on our own, but it was no problem. It's an excellent system!!
At the next bank, still "no way Jose", but they called around to other banks for us to see where we could change our checques. A delightful Taiwanese man in line helped greatly with translation, and then told us it was too far to walk in this heat, so he'd drive us to the next bank. We told him Iowa can get this hot, and we're used to walking outside even in the heat, but he insisted. So nice. Everyone want us to feel welcome in Taiwan, and they simply do not walk long distances in the heat! This was a CITIbank, and much more upscale, so we finally got a "yes" answer and proceeded to hand over our checques. Well, there is a $200 per day limit there on changing them, so we still didn't have enough for our upcoming weekend travels. Let's just say I was a little frustrated by then!!! And by now it was after 3:00, and banks close at 3:30, with none open on Saturday. A bank manager there called to the Bank of Taipei and found they'd do $1000, so we could go there. Unfortunately by the time we finished at CITIbank, it was 3:20, so we knew we wouldn't make it on time. My desperation must have been evident, because another call was made and we were the new bank's address in Chinese and English, the name of an employee there to see, and an assurance they would let us in if we arrived before 3:50!! WOW!! The security guard at the bank hailed us a taxi, and he rushed us to the new bank through heavy traffic, with scooters (with death-wishes) cutting in and out between cars like crazy, and pulled up to the Bank of Taipei telling us "bank close - two minutes - two minutes!!!" So I hurried in while Tim paid the cab driver, and finally, we secured our money changing transaction. There were even ads for American Express Traveler's Checques in the lobby. Whew!! It turns out the CITI lady had told the B. of T. lady that if they didn't help us, we would have no money at all. It wasn't exactly that bad, but we did need cash for the train tickets to the tourist destinations and hotel this weekend. Whatever works!! :-)
Well, at this point, we needed to find our way back to the MRT station where we were to meet P/A at 5:00. I had watched out the back window
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