My good friend Mike. He’s done a lot to help me out around Taipei.

I have made some good friends at a camera shop downtown near the main train station. Mike and William have helped me settle into Taiwan and they have become my good friends. Today when I went down to see them I was greeted by their mother and father who also help out around the shop. Mike and William (brothers) have been in the camera business for a number of years and have very good English speaking skills.

Looking down one of the streets. From what I saw today it’s about a 10-12 square block area.

Looking down another one of the streets. There’s a Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts just to my right, an important part of every university student’s diet.

After sitting around his camera shop for a while (you know of course I enjoy every minute sitting around the camera shop 🙂 ) Mike took me to a new neighborhood nearby the main train station. He described the shop as being very popular with university aged students. The area is full food vendors, restaurants, clothing stores, Starbucks and movie theaters, all the things a university student needs. Needless to say I’ll be heading back. As soon as I find out the name of that neighborhood I’ll update this post.

Here’s the famous noodle shop where you can get a filling, warm and tasty bowl of soup for NT$55 (US$1.65). You won’t find any chairs either. It’s a buy the soup, eat the soup, and put the soup bowl in a bucket kind of place.

The only drawback to cheap, good food is the line. It moves fast though.