7 11

“I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything” 

-Charles Dickens

7-Eleven is a place where you get Slurpee's, junk food, and scratcher tickets in the US. Here in Taiwan things are a little different. Here they are a multi-functional stop for most of your needs. First of all they have many different types of drinks, sushi rolls, hot soups, freshly made lattes and even boiled soy sauce eggs. Every 7-Eleven varies on what type of food you can get exactly but it's good stop when you need something quick to eat.

I recently I was having trouble paying for my upcoming running event so I emailed the director of the race many times and finally figured out how to pay. But he told me to do is bring a number to 7-Eleven pay for the race there. Lo and behold I went to the 7- Eleven and put a number that the race director gave me into a machine after that the machine printed out a receipt where I paid the full amount for the race at the cash register.

This is not the only thing you can pay for at 7-Eleven. You can also pay your water, electricity, and any other utility bills that you may have. Unfortunately I found out a couple weeks ago that you could even pay your traffic fines at 7- Eleven. While riding the scooter coming back from a run I did not know there were speed sensor cameras on some of the roads and as a result I got a speeding ticket through the mail. I brought the ticket into the store and in two minutes I was all paid up.

There is also a mailing pick up service at there but I believe it's for only the domestic packages. As far as I could see most people use it for ordering things online and picking them up. I have also heard that you can bring your dry cleaning to 7-Eleven but I have never met anybody that does that yet.

In a nutshell there are many things you can do at 7-Eleven across Taiwan. One extra tip whenever you walk into a 7-Eleven or any other store more often than not the person at the counter will say, “good morning.” At least that's what I thought they were saying when I first came to Taiwan. I used to always reply to this by saying good morning back but what they are actually saying is “Ying Guanglin” which means welcome in mandarin. I have yet to find out what the correct responsiveness is. Normally I normally I just say Ni Hao to them or just nod my head.