Also, Happy President's day to those in the US! Tomorrow is Lunar New Year, and this week in many Asian countries, people have the whole week off. To all those celebrating, 恭喜發財 Gong hei fat choy, 新年快乐 Xīnnián kuàilè, 새해 복 많이 받으세요 Saehae bok mani badeuseyo and Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!! This year is the year of the horse, which is my year! Here is what that means for me.
Horse: energetic, independent, charismatic, and quick-thinking, with a love of freedom, movement, and new experiences. They thrive on travel, change, and forward progress, and often feel restless when life becomes stagnant. When their zodiac year returns, it is not always lucky, and it can bring heightened change, personal transitions, and major turning points, especially around identity, career, or lifestyle. This is a year to stay grounded: wear red for protection, avoid impulsive decisions, manage financial risks carefully, focus on health, and balance ambition with humility. It’s not a year to hold back—but to move forward with awareness rather than impatience.
Sounds about right! I guess I need to wear my red panties every day (my only red item).
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A Day in the Life
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Taipei, Taiwan
6:30 am: My alarm goes off. I get up, go downstairs, and put the kettle on. I brush my teeth, put my contacts in, and go to the kitchen to make coffee. Today I have the final few exams of a comprehensive health check. I did 75% of the exams last week, but I was not enough days past menstruation, so they wanted to do the gynecological exams later. Luckily I do not have to fast like I did last time, as I need coffee! I drink two cups in rapid succession as I prep for my day.
7:00 am: Since I will be very close to people today, I decide to take a quick shower before heading out. Normally I shower in the evening, or right after my morning workout, but I don't want to embarrass myself at the doctor's office. I never used to have stinky pits, ever, but lately my flora has definitely changed, and not for the better! I shower and dress, grab my daypack, and put my jacket, water and snacks in it, as I will be going for a hike after my exams. I also put my stool sample in my bag, double bagged for safety, and head out the door.
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| Waiting for the bus |
7:30 am: I have about a seven minute walk to the bus stop, where I catch the bus to the clinic. The bus system in Taipei is quite good; when you get on and off, you swipe your transit card (called the Easy Card), and you can use Google Maps to get around quite easily. The only issue is that a couple of times, the bus has come a few minutes early! However, this time I make it there before the bus, and I flag them down to stop. I get on the bus and get a seat and turn on my audiobook. I am listening to Life is a Lazy Susan of Shit Sandwiches, which is good enough, but I am really only half listening as I stare out the window, watching the different neighborhoods go by. I get off the bus, and have about a 10 minute walk from the stop to the clinic.
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| Health Clinic |
8:30 am: This visit is a lot easier than the last. I will do an entire post about the comprehensive exam later this week, as it was quite extensive. I arrive at the health center, and head one floor up to the second floor to check in. In Taiwan this is the same "2nd floor" as it is in the US, rather than it being called the "1st floor" like it would be in Europe. The first thing I do is give the stool sample to the attendant. It is pretty efficient; when you walk in, if it is busy, you get in line at a desk for check in, but if you are early or it is not as busy, there is a line of "greeters" who come to you and you get your own personal check in person. My check in person takes my stool sample, and gives me a urine sample tube and my paperwork and sends me to the 3rd floor.
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| Urine sample - very efficient system |
8:45 am: I head to the toilet to take care of my urine sample right away, as the coffee has kicked in! The set up is quite easy; you get a little cup to pee in, which you then have to transfer to the tube, and then you leave the tube in an overall container in the restroom. That takes all of five minutes and I am headed to get blood drawn again. I say again, as I did a huge draw last week, but the draw they are doing today could be affected by hormones which is why they waited to do it until this week.
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| Leave the sample here |
9:00 am: Blood draw done! I head to the 4th floor for the gynecologist. I can happily say that this was the best gynecological appointment that I have ever had. No joke. First I waited in the waiting room for about five minutes. They called me into the little room, sent me behind a curtain to take off my pants and underpants (while they were still in the room), then I sat in the fanciest chair I have ever seen. Unfortunately I did not get a photo, and I cannot find it on the internet. Picture a massage chair, but where you sit has cups for your two thighs. Now the doctor pushes a button, which raises you way up, leans you way back, and the chair opens your thighs for you. I won't go into more detail about that, but it was pretty impressive. They did a regular exam and an ultrasound, but all in all, I was in and out (pun intended!) in less than six minutes.
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| Waiting room |
9:10 am: I am back in the waiting room. For all of the exams I have had done in the last week, they will send me all of my results via email, but the imaging must be put on a CD, which will take about an hour to produce. I sit in the waiting room and read blog posts while I wait for it to be done.
10:03 am: I get the CD and I walk out the front door. I am headed to a hiking area that is nearby, since I figured that since I had already taken the bus this far, I may as well hang out closer to this neighborhood a little before heading back. The trailhead for the hike I am going to do its about 3 km or 2 miles away from where I am now. I start walking.
10:11 am: Given that I haven't had breakfast, I am getting a tad hungry. I stop at 7-Eleven to grab some snacks. In Taiwan 7-Eleven is more prevalent than Starbucks, as in, you can be walking down the street and in a one block walk, you may see three of them. The cool thing is, not only do they have snacks, but they have entire meal kits, and the clerk will microwave them for you if you like. They also have a spot to sit and eat inside. However, today I am going to eat and walk, so I grab my favorite on the go snack triad: the rice triangle, a pastry, and a milk tea.
10:32 am: I walk past a dog park. It is cool; they have it segregated into large dog (over 9 kg / 20 lbs) and small dog (under 9 kg / 20 lbs) areas. They also have a bench, so I sit on it to have a snack and drink my milk tea.
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| Big dogs go here |
10:51 am: I walk past a fruit market, and make a pit stop to grab some snacks for the hike. I get a few mandarins and two large carrots for about $2.00. I put them in my backpack and continue.
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| The dragonfruit were tempting me |
10:58 am: I arrive at the trailhead for the Elephant Mountain hike. This is about 1 km straight up, but once you get to the viewpoint, you can see Taipei 101 in the near distance. It is a very popular hike, especially on the weekends and at sunset, but since today is a Tuesday, I hope it will not be too busy. I start climbing!
11:24 am: I get to the first viewpoint at Elephant Mountain, and it is a good one. I futz about, take a few photos and continue on. I am headed on a hike called the Five Yuan hike, which goes to five different peaks. The area I am in is called the Four Beasts, and the beasts are the elephant (Xiangshan), lion (Shishan), leopard (Baoshan) and tiger (Hushan), which are each a hill, and I will round it out by doing a fifth, which is called Jiuwu. Most people only go to the elephant, so after I pass that, there are a lot less people.
12:06 pm: There are a lot less people, but there are still a lot of stairs! I get to the first peak, Jiuwu, take the obligatory photo, and carry on.
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| Taipei 101 from Jiuwu peak |
1:54 pm: Despite the stairs, it is a nice hike, through lots of greenery and past temples and shrines. It is so strange to think that just a couple of hours ago, I was in the middle of a bustling metropolis! I arrive at Tiger peak and admire the view.
2:02 pm: I get to Leopard peak, which has a good view and no other people at the viewpoint!
2:17 pm: I arrive at Lion peak, and am done with the four beasts! This one had the least exciting view of all the peaks, so it is kind of a less than exciting conclusion! However, I am happy to nearly be done and I head back down the hill toward the elephant peak to complete my circuit.
2:42 pm: I arrive back at the trailhead where I started, check the bus schedule and head down to the nearest bus stop. The entire hike ended up being about 5 miles or 8 km. Here is the link to the route that I took. Since I have about 10 minutes until the bus comes, I go to 7-Eleven for a post hike drink. I try a new-to-me drink, guava juice, which is a little too sweet, but it is still nice to have something cool to drink after the hike.
3:05 pm: I am on the bus. However, I did not realize that the bus I am on doubles back on itself, and I am on the bus going in the wrong direction. I get off the bus, and get on the one going the right direction! Normally if you stand on the proper side of the street you are good, but this one does a loop, so both buses (going west and east) stop on the same side of the road. It is not normally like this!
3:55 pm: I get off the bus, walk through my "local" park, which is called 228 park, and is a commemoration of events that happened in Taipei on Feb 28. That takes me into the Ximen neighborhood, which is a hustling bustling pedestrian avenue with plenty of shopping during the day and a night market in the evenings.
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| Ximen |
4:05 pm: I stop at Watsons (like CVS) to get tampons and to check out their face masks. My friend's daughter L, who is 11, loves face masks, and I thought she may like one from Taiwan. There are way too many, and as a person who does not use face masks, it is a bit overwhelming. Luckily a clerk points me in the right direction (and likely upsells me a bit, oh well) and I am on my way.
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| So many face masks! |
4:20 pm: I am "home!" And I am hungry! I make a big stir fry in my one pan (don't get me started on this!) with cauliflower, tofu and noodles, and I sit down to eat while watching an episode of Outlander. I normally do not have Netflix, but this Airbnb has it, and I am taking advantage!
5:20 pm: I finish my episode, put a load of laundry in, and finally sit down to catch up on some blogs, reading, travel planning, writing etc. As is often the case, I do a little research, make some notes, but don't really finalize much. I am trying to make some plans with a friend for August, so I do a bit of research about that. I am also still trying to decide what to do about my licensing, and like I said, am dragging my feet about it.
7:56 pm: I take out the laundry, hang it up to dry, and sit down to do my Spanish practice. I have been trying to do roughly a half an hour of lessons, a half an hour of reading, and around 5-10 minutes of YouTube 3-5 times per week. I found this fun video of kids songs, which I have been working my way through. Just wait, before you know it, you'll also be singing along....los pollitos dicen pio, pio, pio, quando tienan hambre, quando tienan frio!! You know you want to sing along!
9:10 pm: I do my daily game routine of Rummikub, Sudoku (I am getting better! I was only doing the easy one; now I am sometimes doing the medium, hard, and even expert ones fairly quickly) and Octowordle.
10:06 pm: I set my alarm for 1:00 am, because they are releasing World Cup tickets at 12 pm ET and I am going to try to buy some. I put on a podcast, set the sleep timer to 15 minutes and fall asleep in about four minutes.
So there you have it, a day in the life in twenty blurbs!
Where is the last place where you had to take a bus? Have you ever had a comprehensive health exam? Do you have any videos en español that you would recommend? What zodiac sign are you?
