Tuesday and Wednesday

On Tuesday I went to the Ministry of Statistics which was in the Executive Yuan. This meeting was very quick, and essentially they just showed me where the specific statistics that I might find useful were online. I think it will be helpful for writing the paper, but it was not much of a perspective. Afterwards, it was raining and quite miserable, so I decided to go see Avatar at Ximen. Ximen is considered the fashion district or student district of Taipei. It was very new and modern, and it was probably the nicest place I have visited so far. The movie was also excellent. Today, I had a meeting with my contact from the American Institute of Taipei. It went extremely well, and he had a slightly different perspective than any of the other people I have spoken to. He was definitely more sympathetic to George Mason's economic views. After that I headed out to Tianmu, which is the international area of Taipei and I hiked up a mountain. The views of the city are fantastic. I actually saw baboons in the trees! It was a bit scary because one was on the ground, but there were many people on the path so I assume they don't pose much of a threat. Besides that, the weather was great and I am really enjoying my time here.