Taiwan uses the New Taiwanese Dollar (NTD) which is usually written as NTD, 元 (the standard unit in Traditional Mandarin), or both. One NTD, the smallest unit, looks like a penny, while 1,000 NTD, the largest unit, is a blue paper bill that has "1,000" on it.
A bottle of water is usually about 25 NTD, or 80 cents in USD.
The best meal this week was spicy hot pot with my friend, Shrivalli. We are Fulbrighters in Taiwan, and we brought our home cultures with us when we moved here. She is from an Indian household that enjoys spicy cuisine. I was heavily involved with Latin communities and thus also enjoyed many spicy dishes, so we love to eat our spicy hot pots together. Hot pot is a staple meal in Taiwan consisting of small pots of broth along with vegetables, rice or noodles, and usually meat or fish. Shrivalli is Hindu, so she does not eat meat and orders the vegetarian spicy hot pot. I order the spicy pork hot pot.
This week, I attend a students' instrumental concert and listed to songs there. I also listened to Taylor Swift's new album, The Tortured Poets Department. I was very lucky to win tickets to see her play during the Eras Tour when she visited Tokyo this February. I went with three other Fulbrighters, Maggie, Rylee, and Matt. The concert was a lot of fun and relatively quiet compared to American concerts, because the Japanese believe in being very respectful and modest. They do not like to scream or make too much noise during concerts.
