Closed! Complex recycling

When I moved to Taipei to live with Drew and Cala, I was replacing their third roommate Lisa. Lisa studied in Taipei and went home June 11 and I arrived June 14 which was really good timing. She left her bed mattress which was a nice queen size bed but the only problem is that there is no bed frame. So Cala and I went to IKEA today to check out the bed frames. The picture above is a kitchen set up at IKEA and I thought it was cute because there was a wok :) Anyway I didn't find a cheap bed frame so I will either ask my relatives or just try to live without one. I want to buy a bed frame but there's no point to buy an expensive one when I'm only going to be there for a year.

Cala knew a really good Thai restaurant near IKEA but it was closed. Then after IKEA she showed me a underground shopping mall near the MRT (subway train station) and we were going to eat at this restaurant called 21 after we went shopping but it was closed. We got there around 3pm and it didn't open until 4pm. Then later we were going to go running on this track at this school and it was also closed due to cutting and cleaning the plants and trees. It really wasn't our day but oh well.

Something that is really interesting and yet really confusing is the trash system here. It's great because Taipei is trying to be Go Green but it can be such a headache to recycle. Usually you just separate the bottles from the paper etc. Here you have to separate EVERYTHING! So let's say for example you bought some noodle soup with bubble tea. The noodle soup is going to come with a lid. That lid, the chopsticks, plastic spoon, straw, and bag can be thrown out in the regular trash. If there is food in the soup container, that needs to be thrown in a container that is just plain food. The soup container itself then needs to be washed so we won't get cockroaches and then put in a bag that is for paper and cardboard that has touched food. Styrofoam and paper/cardboard that hasn't touched food is put in other separate containers. Then the bubble tea container is also thrown in the bag with the plastic/cardboard that has touched food. The little plastic bag that comes with the tea (all the drinks come with bags because of the condensation from the humidity) is put in an another container. The trash comes at different days at odd hours and the truck plays Fur Elise to warn everyone that they are coming. Why that song? Cala doesn't know lol If you don't separate the garbage correctly, you get paid a fine. Sometimes you can just eat at the restaurant and not have to deal with it but it's a pain. There are barely any garbage cans in Taipei except near the train stations. And you need special bags to recycle and plastic bags cost an extra 2 元. I just remember the first day I arrived they were explaining all these rules to me in the kitchen. I'm getting the hang of it now :)

-Chihchat