Costco in Taipei

Because Costco is one of my favorite stores in the U.S., I was very curious to see what it would be like in another country. There are three Costco stores in the Taipei area, one of which didn't look too far north of where I'm living. It's near a smaller airport (not the main, international one that I flew into, which is an hour outside of the city). From the yoga studio, I saw planes taking off in the not too distant area, so I thought I could bike there. (It's a good thing I went when I did, because last week my bike was stolen - all that was left was the cut lock.)

So, off I went a couple of weeks ago to see the Taiwanese Costco, map in hand. It took me about 35 minutes to get there by bike. However, after 10 minutes, I noticed that there weren't many people walking and biking; I guess it's more of an industrial/suburban area (also, the sidewalks weren't as smooth and continuous as they are in other areas). I knew from the google map that I had to cross a section of the river, but I never imagined that to get on the bridge, I would have to go up and down this (I pushed my bike up the center section):



The view from the top was great, though:



The outside of Costco looked very similar to the U.S. So did much of the inside, except that it has two floors:



Prices were higher than in the U.S. For example, the little Acer netbook (a Taiwanese computer!) that I bought from Costco in the U.S. cost $350. In Taiwan, the same thing was $493!



Of course, they had many different products that are regional:



The lines for samples were incredibly long (and it was mid-morning on a weekday):



The snack bar had mostly American food, with the addition of soup. Soup is a staple of Taiwanese meals - I heard that they even sell a couple of varieties of soup at McDonalds.

Taipei Zoo

It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted, so over the next few days, I'll try to catch up...

The week after the Rotary dinner, I went to the Taipei Zoo with the two exchange students, Michael and Henrique. The zoo is only about 20 minutes from my apartment at the end of the subway line. This subway line runs above ground, so the trip is very pleasant as it winds through some green hills. Just before the zoo, on the side of one such green hill, I saw what looked like a deserted colorful little community. I thought perhaps it was a cemetery and, when I asked later, that was right.

The zoo is fairly large with long walkways. On the trees are orchids:



The much-talked-about sight to see is the Panda bears. When we entered the zoo, we were given an entrance ticket for a 10 minute time slot to see them. Even with the ticket, we had to wait in line about 10 minutes (which can be much longer, especially on weekends):



One of the more interesting sights was these monkeys chasing each other and the other animal (the gray and black one with some green residue...that's from the pond area in his area that was covered in green algae...anyone know what kind of animal it is? We didn't...):



There were several school groups visiting the zoo and the kids were so cute: