I went to the Taipei Metro Mall two times just this week. I take the MRT around the area it's located underneath several times every day, yet never heard of it just until this Monday where a teacher on my school asked me if I had been there yet. It's an awesome and quite big place with a lot of shops, all underground. That'll be one of my really big projects in the future - to cover some of the underground malls around Taipei because I believe they're probably not something you're going to see very much in little europe untill a few years have passed.

However, today is reserved for figures. Actually just three of them, because I'm not really a big collector just yet.

And there it is, my entire collection. All off them are rather cheaply obtained. I bought two packs with random Haruhi figures in figures in at a discount because they were the last two that a street store had for sale some day pretty long ago already. At that time I got the two standing on the red circles or whatever-they're-called for just 200 NT$ total. I think the version I have of Yuki (the one with a raincoat) must be quite popular amongst haruhists around here. I can see her in a few of those kindof flee-market-stores where anyone can rent a box and sell used stuff. The pack you can get her in usually costs 150 or 200 NT$ but you cannot see which of 6 female Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu you get. That's the way most of the figure selling for the smaller ones work, so people will often try to collect all the possible ones for a type of box and then sell the ones they get too many of. This results in that this kind of figure can usually be found in mint condition below the price of the random box.
However, this figure here always costs 200NT$ and up, so I guess I was lucky on my first buy, hoho. Not going to sell her though, I can see why people like this figure.

So today I also went to Taipei Main Station. I bought some donuts there at Mr. Donut. They always look and taste really great so I bought there a few times before. It's quite some time since I did it last though, as they're a little expensive compared to other food here and also will make me fat if I keep eating them.
I had to go there sometime soon though because I had some coupons I got from earlier purchases. They're from some promotion where you can collect points to get a little bag for free there. I had 7 of them and you have to hand in 10 points to get the bag. The promotion runs out on November the 10th so that's why I wanted to buy more.
What a shameful day this is. I have failed my anticonsumerist ideology. I got just the points I needed though (the coupons are little scratch card so you have to use your luck again.) So yeah... I guess I'm becoming a real Asian now, eh?

You can prepare a plethora of goodness quite easily with donuts like this I tell you.

So here's Mikuru. I just bought this one today in the Taipei Metro Mall before I bought the donuts. Actually I spotted a number of characters from Lucky Star in one of the many "flee-market-stores" there this Tuesday when I went there for the first time, but when I came back to check them out again I saw this one and decided it was worth the 200 NT$ on the price tag. I bet the previous owner paid a lot more than just 200 NT$ to obtain this one, it's quite detailed and good looking I think. I don't understand why the owner decided to sell it actually, it seems to be in pretty good condition too. I'm quite satisfied with my loot today I think.

Now tell me, have I gone completely insane?

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That's my cosplaying classmate up there. She calls herself Koru (that's what she put into my cellphone), but also goes under the alias akoru972077. The cat ears aren't a part of the outfit and also this is actually not really called cosplaying around these parts. I don't know the exact reason why but I think it has something to do with her dressing up like a real person in a japanese punk band (actually I think it's a metal band. After all punk is not a really appearing music genre anymore and the Taiwanese have a bad habit of mixing music genres up as with so many things.)

So this day I followed her around while she was hanging out with some of her friends. Some of them pierced in ways I wouldn't imagine and all wearing black goth/punk like clothes, most of them of which were probably acquired from the store in which the picture was taken and where we also hung out most of the time. It's called Kira Punk just by the way. Sells a lot of slightly expensive special wares.

Not much happened this day except that I saw a lot of interesting looking people which less open minded people would probably regard as dangerous looking rebels, emokids or even anarchists. They seemed almost more like normal people than everyone else to me, and I couldn't even understand a tenth of what they were saying. Well, almost that is.

But for reasons beyond my comprehension, this was the only picture I took during the time so you'll have to wait a bit more to see anything else on this. Is still interesting, eh?

You know what? I'll stick the barbeque into the photos/portal webpage I set up some other day instead of writing a blog about it.
Because today I went to Ximending after school with my taiwanese classmastes to have some fun.

Ximending is by far the most popular place in Taipei amongst young people. It's not the most important of Taiwanese shopping culture, but it's probably the best candidate for a youth related subcultures center. It's the place you go after school with your friends, not only because it's not really too far away from most schools in Taipei City, but also because it's the place that's the most fun if you're part of the younger generations. It's also called the Harajuku of Taiwan for some pretty good reasons. Mainly because it's very japanese influenced I think.