Taiwan! (oh yes, and my new netbook :D)

Taiwan was totally and completely awesome. Not for the typical I-went-out-drinking-every-night-and-did-all-the-touristy-stuff-and-all-hours-of-my-time-were-accounted-for type of trip, but that's exactly why I liked it. I didn't get to do two things while I was there but both aren't really that big of a deal so it's like whatevs.

I really liked Taiwan because even though I didn't understand the language, it was still pretty easy to get around. I did all the tourist-y stuff and stumbled on some other little stuff that was quite nice (like I got to see this historic village type thing by the Longshan Temple because the city government or whatever had all these little maps and stuff that listed all these tourist spots)... so I hit up more places than I had initially intended. I also got to go to a hot spring! It was nice though this old man kept talking to me in really really broken English so it wasn't as relaxing as I would've liked. *shrug* meh!

The people and the food was both very nice though when it comes down to it, I don't think I'd want to live there. Everything's pretty cheap, especially the food but the clothes and shopping is comparable to Korea... I didn't spend as much money as I had initially thought (thankfully) and it was fun getting random food that I really didn't know what I was eating but I guess I'm more or less happy to be back in Korea. I kind of liked the fact that I couldn't talk to anyone because that meant that even if people were talking to me, I could just ignore them...... well I suppose not really but at any rate, the solitude was nice.

I didn't get any work done (any writing) but that's ok. I didn't have my new netbook anyway and the plugs weren't right so I couldn't use my laptop for extended periods of time.

I think the only thing I was sad about missing out on was the tea street that was supposed to be the SoHo of Taipei... o well! And after visiting Taipei 101, they mentioned this tea village place or whatever that you could go visit and they had like tea farms and what not... but it's ok. I got Taiwan's famous pineapple tea cakes and their famous oolong tea so I guess I can't complain. I brewed some of the oolong today and I'm not sure if I didn't put enough leaves in it or if I brewed it for too long, but it is definitely a very very light (but deliciously fragrant) tea. I'll have to read up more on oolong teas.

I need to buy a ceramic teapot... Meh! I'll get to it eventually.

Now I get to talk about my newest gadget!! So I got the 11.6" Asus Seashell (they had an ad for it in Taipei! ^_^) and although I can't say it's perfect, it's definitely much more of what I wanted than the clunky LG XNote.

This netbook is still a little on the heavier side (I think maybe 3-4 lbs - the battery adds a lot of weight) but honestly, I can't really complain because the brick (ac adapter) is so much smaller and the laptop overall is much more responsive. My LG XNote had this weird space bar that sometimes wouldn't work when I pressed it (not sure why) but this one is really responsive. A small difference, but honestly, you only appreciate how useful the space bar key is when you lose some functionality of it. The placement of some of the other keys (volume up/down, page up/down, home/end) are a little different (as is expected) and I liked where LG put the keys better, but it's just a matter of getting used to the new keys. They say that this is a full size keyboard, but it doesn't quite feel like one - for one the shift is next to the up key which means that sometimes I'll miss and hit up then 1... sux but again, not a big deal and just requires a little getting used to.

As for the glossiness of the cover and what not (the black gloss has little blue sparklys in it! -_-), I think it looks good when no one touches. But alas, as it is a laptop, obviously, the user has to touch it and it sux constantly wiping off the fingerprints. I'm trying to teach myself not to care but it's a new toy! I can't help it!

As for the specs, as with netbooks, obviously this one is a little slower - the 1 vs. 2 gb of ram really does make a difference so I'm probably going to upgrade it. After I get my all-in-one, I think I'll pretty much be set in terms of computers. The cool thing about this netbook is it comes with this data synching program so if I could synch up my data with my desktop. I don't have a desktop yet but being able to synch the data will be really convenient because then I don't have to remember what files I changed and added to and what not. ^_^

Otherwise, there isn't anything interesting going on in my life. Moving forward with the job search! I am now officially unemployed! (As with before, I wasn't because I wasn't actively seeking a job. ^_^)