TAIWAN - Day Three: Godzilla!

That evening Lance and I were kind of tired of doing the touristy thing, so we decided to go see a movie.  The new Godzilla seemed an appropriate choice.  We found a really big movie/mall complex down kind of by Taipei 101.  It was a very Americanized mall - it even had a California Pizza Kitchen!  (The website said this is where teenagers go to experience what it's like to live in America.  Hmm... kind of. It was American with a very Taiwanese influence.)

Finding the theater was easy.  Trying to buy tickets?  A lot harder.  The theater was laid out in a weird way; there didn't seem to be any central location or entrance.  There were lots and lots of cash registers,  but none were open! (At least, none that we could see at first.)  With no signs in English to help us out, we were happy to find kiosks to buy tickets.  We put all the info and everything in only to find out you had to have special credit card to actually purchase the tickets. Dang!

So then we got into a line that looked promising.  We had no idea what it was for, but we figured it was a line in the movie theater - it had to be to buy tickets, right?  Wrong.  Lance did a little more scouting and found the real line for tickets. (I think the first line we were in might have been for IMAX tickets.) It was super long and partly outside, which meant it was super hot and muggy, too.  We finally got to the front and were able get our tickets.  Fun fact: in Taiwan you choose and reserve what seats you want in the theater, which I think is a fabulous idea.  You also buy your concession items while you buy your tickets and always as a combo.  Interesting.

We had some time before the movie started, so we decided to stroll around the open-format mall. Lots of American and international brands, so nothing too exciting.  There were lots of people around, and several musicians in the square around which the mall was situated.  We saw this cool wall covered in plants. (Turns out it was ad for Samsung.)

At one point a mid-sized black dog started following us.  He had a collar and was obviously owned by someone, but as of then he was on the lam!  We tried to get rid of him and told him to get away, but he ignored us.  It occurred to me that this dog had no clue what we were saying because he only spoke Mandarin!

We decided to head back to the theater and the dog followed or led most of the way.  It was pretty funny.  He kept looking over his shoulder at us as if to say "You're still there, right?!  Follow me, I know the way!"  I was starting to get a little nervous about this - how were we going to get rid of this dog?  But we eventually lost him when we crossed a big street with a ton of other people.

The inside of the theater was pretty big and I don't know... flashy?  There was this big statue in the middle.  We had to go up to the third floor just to get to our theater.  (There were lots of theaters and I'm pretty sure the whole place was open 24 hours a day.)

Borrowed image.

So we watched Godzilla and it was alright.  I mean, it was a monster movie - I wasn't expecting academy award winning performances.  There was too much back story and not enough Godzilla for my taste.  Also, I was sad that they destroyed San Francisco.  Couldn't the monsters have gone across the bay and destroyed Richmond or Oakland instead?  Just sayin'...  I have to admit that the jet lag caught up with me in that theater and I dozed just a little.

After the movie we decided we should just eat in the food court there since we didn't' want to spend a lot of time looking for food and then taking so long that the MRT would be closed when we were done.  (I'm pretty sure it closed at 10pm.)  We skipped the American choices and went to a hot pot place.  Well, Lance had the actual hot pot; mine was more like bi bim bap. (Complete with raw egg and all. You know what?  Not so bad!)

Lance had this fancy flower thingy in his bowl that he let me have.  We thought it was tofu, but my friend Yi-Chou (who is from Taiwan) said it was probably a fish cake.  Either way, it tasted pretty good!

After dinner we stopped at a local Family Mart for some ice cream.  (Family Marts are even more ubiquitous than 7-11's in Taipei!) ((Also, Lance and I tend to eat a lot of ice cream on vacation.  It's like an unspoken rule or something.) My stomach was hurting again, and it was at this point that I started to wonder if I had issues with MSG.  At any rate, just the thought of ice cream made me feel better, so I had to have it.  And it made me feel better. :)

We were standing in line when this kid, probably around 11 years old, totally just cut in line in front of us!  Like it was no big thing - didn't even acknowledge our existence.  We got a good kick out it.