Day 4 in Taiwan: Moe Moe Kyu~n

Ate Sao Bing You Tiao for breakfast again. Had salty Dou Jiang instead of sweet. Good stuff.

We decided to go shopping today, wandering around Taipei Main Station. We visited Shinkong Mitsukoshi again, so my sister could buy some Anna Sui nail polish. It was pretty crowded in there, so I killed time by taking random pictures of downtown Taipei.

Inside Shinkong Mitsukoshi

Downtown Taipei

Afterward, we went to go find a nearby place for lunch. We ended up at one of the underground malls near Taipei Main Station at this curry shop called “Magic Curry”.

Food Report: Curry (Taiwan).

Short version: Pretty good. A bit on the pricey side though, at least in Taiwan terms.

Magic Curry

We wandered around the underground malls around Taipei Main Station after that. Reminds me a lot of Hong Kong, where everything’s connected by metro and shopping mall. Lots of small stores and booths selling mostly clothes and accessories. Lots of umbrella booths, good thing since my mom and sister were looking to buy umbrellas.

Underground Mall

I went by a small arcade filled with UFO catchers and rhythm arcade games. Got to play DJ Technika, my card even worked!

DJ Technika - in Taiwan!

They also had this rhythm game which I’m assuming is new called Jubeat. Basically you hit one or more of the 16 squares on the beat. Each of the squares has a separate screen, so you get a bit of warning on when to hit the square by the square’s screen slowly changing to a “Press!” image.

Maybe I just couldn’t figure it out, but there didn’t seem to be any way to see which squares would be need to be pressed beforehand. So there’s no way to read ahead into the song. So you need either straight-up memorization or good reflexes and pattern-recognition.

Some of the kids there were crazy though, hitting those squares so fast that I’m going to wager they have the song pretty much memorized. Watching them, I realized that the machines were linked and that they were playing against each other.

I liked the song choices quite a bit, too. Played Ken Hirai’s “Pop Star”, the Gurren Lagann OP, and Do As Infinity’s “Boukensha Tachi”.

Jubeat

By the way, I’m fairly sure that the crane games there are rigged. Or at least basically unwinnable. If you notice the claw’s default position in the picture below, the bears are blocking the prize hole. Pretty much all the UFO catcher machines there had a similar setup. It might just be that I suck at these games though.

Crane Game

We went to Ximen afterwards, a popular spot among the Taipei youth.

Ximen Shopping District

Ximen Station

We wandered around for a while in the shopping district, looking for either a cafe to relax in or for Animate, a Japanese chain of anime goods stores. On the way, we stumbled upon a bunch of cosplay shops, like this one called the Blue Dragon:

Blue Dragon Cosplay Shop

We eventually stumbled upon Animate, but I noticed that the store next to it had a menu. Upon closer inspection, the menu belonged to a maid cafe called Cafe Cosic (可思客).

Animate

Cafe Cosic

Though really, I should’ve just looked at my feet:

Floor in front of Cafe Cosic

So we went in, went up the stairs, and were greeted with a nice, “Okaerinasai, Goshujinsama~”, followed by normal waitress talk in Chinese (“How many? 2?” etc.).

Unfortunately, patrons are not allowed to take pictures of the maids (if you want a picture, you need to pay 80NT and they use their polaroid -standard maid cafe operating procedure), but I was allowed to take pictures of the inside:

Inside Cafe Cosic

Inside Cafe Cosic 2

They had an afternoon tea set from 2:30-5pm. Cake and any drink at or below 100NT for 120NT. I had the Cosic iced coffee special and Tiramisu, my sister had a rose latte and chocolate cake. It’s kinda hard to see in the picture, but the coasters were pretty awesome. The cake plates were decorated with cute pictures made of chocolate syrup.

Rose latte and Cosic iced coffee

Tiramisu and Cake with Decorative Syrup

After that, we went to visit Animate. I actually got a member card from them a few years ago from spending way too much money there. Turns out the card still works -I even got a member discount!

Bought a bunch of stuff, like an awesome Vocaloid illustrations book that I had downloaded sometime ago, and Pop’s 2nd art book. All in all, cost me about 1000NT (the discount actually put me under 1000NT).

Stuff from Animate

Sharp eyed viewers might notice half of the envelope in the top-right. Apparently, there’s a promotion going on called “オトメイトフェア” or Oto-mate Fair, a pun on “Otome” and “Ultimate” that doesn’t romanize well at all.

After making my purchase, the clerk told me that I get a promo item and to choose either East (with Fullmetal Alchemist stuff) or West (with other stuff).I chose West, then she gave me this sealed envelope. Upon opening it, I saw…

Inside the envelope

Yaoi-bait.

Actually, my sister tells me it’s from an otome game called “Hiiro no Kakera”.

Spent quite a bit of money today, but shopping in Taiwan’s always fun, even for otaku like me. Gotta say I’m happy about my first trip to a maid cafe, too, even if I kinda expected my first trip to be in Akihabara not Taipei.

To end, here’s a picture of a restaurant in Ximen:

Dog and Risotto