Day 7 - Kaohsiung

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Today Ma-Ma had to work so Lindi showed Wade and I around the neighborhood. We were in fairly close proximity to a large Fe’21 department store, so we went in to check it out. It was 12 floors, 2 of which were a movie theater. It didn’t look too different from Macy’s or Nordstrom, but there was a food court on the top floor and that was where we spent much of our time. We had lunch at a restaurant called “Cha for Tea” (odd name, since “cha” means tea in Chinese). This place was amazing: every item on the menu was either cooked with tea or had tea as an ingredient. For example, I had a cold beef dish and the beef was braised in oolong tea. There were also noodles that were made with powdered green tea. Everything was delicious. We bought a lot of tea in their retail store afterward, too.

Late that afternoon we borrowed a neighbors car and drove to the HSR station to get our tickets back to Taipei for the next day and then went to an incredible buffet for dinner. About 10 minutes into the meal I realized that everything on this vast buffet was vegetarian (including the “meat” items), which made perfect sense, since Ma-Ma is a strict vegetarian (and Buddhist). This was one of the most memorable meals of the trip.

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