Eating all of the Food

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It is my last night in Taipei before I go to Taichung where the Tunghai University is located. A lot has happened these last couple of days. Trini and Makenzie joined me and Katie on Friday. On the morning of their arrival, we all went out to find some food. Since it was only 9AM a lot of the shops and places to eat were closed. We finally found this little place and walked in. We couldn't really read the menu and the woman behind the counter was speaking very fast to us. We said we were American and she seemed to understand why we were just standing there looking at her and then at each other. Two very nice women helped us order food and found us a place to sit. Makenzie, Katie, and I ended up getting these pork like hamburgers with egg, onions, and I think cucumber. Trini got an egg sandwich. Later in the day we took the subway to Taipei 101. This used to be the tallest building in the world! We ate lunch at Din Tai Fung (this was located in Taipei 101). We ordered two servings of soup dumplings (xiaolongbao), one order of bao, and steamed water spinach. The dumplings were so good!! To eat them, you would normally poke a whole in the casing to let the soup out and then eat the rest of it. After visiting Taipei 101, we went to two different Hello Kitty places. The first one was a bubble tea place and the second one was more of a cafe. I'm not a huge fan of Hello Kitty, but I thought it was interesting to see how much detail went into these places, especially the second one. There were Hello Kitty lights and all of the food was shaped like her face, or had a reference to her. On Saturday we rode the Maokong Gondola to go see the Zhinan Temple. The view was spectacular, but the gondolas lacked air-conditioning so it was REALLY hot and humid. The ride took way longer than I thought it would and in the end I unfortunately suffered from some heat exhaustion. When we finally got to the Zhinan Temple stop, what we thought was the temple turned out to be a pagoda so we didn't actually see the real thing. It was so hot/humid that we wanted to start heading back down. We bought tickets to go to the Taipei Zoo, but I was really not feeling well by that time, so we didn't actually see much besides a giant tortoise, a couple of frogs, and a bird. When we got back to the hostel I rested while the others went out. Today I felt way better which was a real relief. We went to this restaurant called Modern Toilet. All the decor involved the bathroom. The light was a toilet plunger and a lot of the seats people sat on were actually toilets. Our food was even served in a toilet dish! After lunch, we all went looking for this bubble tea place. We got a bit turned around, but we asked for directions and eventually found it. I got a milk tea, but I don't think there was actually any tea in it... It tasted a lot like brown sugar and was very sweet, but I liked it. For dinner we went to the Shilin Night Market. It was so packed! Because of all the people and the humid weather it was very warm there. There was a lot of different food options. I ended up getting three chicken skewers and a candied strawberry and tomato skewer ( I didn't eat the candied tomato). So far I have really liked the food I've eaten here. It's a little hard not to be too paranoid about the things I'm eating because I don't want to sick, but so far its been good. Tomorrow we're taking the high speed rail to Taichung and should be moving into the Alumni House around 3. My next post will be coming from Taichung!

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Comments

[Barbara Henry]

Heat!
I can relate to your discomfort in the heat, Sarah. It makes me just want to stay inside with my aircon. It's sad though because there are so many interesting things to do outside so i try to get used to it and just deal with it. I hate that my dislike of the climate limits what I do. People always tell me that I won't acclimatize if I don't just go out in it but that advice usually just pisses me off :) Loving the pictures on fb. One of these days I have to go back to Taiwan and see more than the airport! Have fun!