Taiwan March 30++

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March 30
So lucky I checked my flight last night because they changed it on about 8 hours early. Which I was a little bummed about because I didn't get to do the last few things I wanted to do but was good because I was getting into Taiwan earlier. The flight was fine. I found the bus to take me to Taipei main center. Then I called Talbot the couch surfer guy I'm staying with and he picked me up from the metro close to his house. He is a nice guy. American teaching English here in Taipei. When we got back to his place we took his dog molly a golden for a little walk. Then we grabbed some food chatted a bit and I passed out watching tv.

March 31
Let's see today I hit the streets of Taiwan. First I hit the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall. Remembering their dictator. It had some similarities to the Lincon memorial. There was a massive sculpture of the guy inside. This memorial was flanked by two other impressive buildings, the national theater and national concert halls. Both buildings resembled temples but on massive scales.
From here I headed to the 2-28 memorial park and museum. Both dedicated to the tragic massacre that started on feb 27 1947 which was a turning point for Taiwanese government from dictator to democracy. Then I walked past the presidential house which had a colonial feel to it being made of bricks/stone.
Next stop was nova another crazy computer market.
Then I headed to Longshan temple. Where I got to see a prayer in action.
Then I went to the red pavilion theater which is a old building that had alot of history about it. It started as a market place then cinema now theater. Right around the corner was the Tin ho temple. This one was interesting because it was truly a city temple mashed in a city block. It had a very narrow facade but opened up abut on the inside.
By this time it was getting late but I pressed on I tried hitting a market but it was closed then another temple but that was closed as well. However it was still cool to see because. It was about the size of a garage it was so small.
Then I ran to the Confucius temple which was supposed to be open later. With my luck it was and there was a religious performance going on across the street. The performance was interesting with beautiful costumes and the temple was pretty as well. My last stop of the day/night was the Shilin night market. It was pretty standard but was more of a cloths n designer one than some others that have crazy thing in them. However this one had a pet store section dogs cats rabbits fish ect. That was weird and there were quite a number of dogs as well.
I grabbed some street food a lamb kebab and some fried chicken for dinner. I haven't tried the stinky tofo yet. It smells like old gym socks and underwear mixed with fish. Haha after my meal I headed back to the guys house.

April 1
Talbot dropped me off at the mrt. Where I took that to the main station and talked to the visitor info center. To figure out how to do my day trips the next few days. I finally decided to head to Juifen and Jinguashi two neighboring old mining and tea influenced towns. So after a train and a bus I arrived at the gold ecological park. It was beautiful small cute mountains that descended right to the sea. If they were bigger and had snow it would be awesome to snowboard to the beach. There were a few breath taking over looks. From here I checked out the old mining tunnels and gold museum. Then walked around a Japanese palace that was reserved for visiting royalty/politicians.
After I finished a few more little sites I headed to Julien. Where I walked down it's cute covered old street, full of shops and food stands. Then I stopped at the oldest tea house in town for a Chinese tea experience. It was a cute old house but I don't think tea time is really my thing at least alone. Haha after my tea I headed back to Taipei but before I left I grabbed a wild boar sausage n a spiral fried potato. The sausage was decent but the spiraled fried potato was really good. I had also tried toro balls while I was there. Which was a hot soup filled with these doughy jell like things it tasted ok but had a real weird consistency. When I finally returned I chatted with the guys watched some tv n went to bed

April 2
Today I met man ping my friend that I met in Thailand a few years back. We met up for breaky. She had me try some typical Taiwanese breakfast foods. Which was a peanut milk accompanied by some sort of pancake thing and a veggie pasty thing. Everything was pretty good. We sat there talking and she was giving me ideas on what to do and where to go. Then we headed for Pinxin but
Stopped in Jingtong where we had sine lunch. I tried the local favorite stinky tofo and as you know by now I can usually choke down just about everything. However this was one of the worst things I have ever had. First of it smells like old underwear and gym socks and a diaper combined and amazingly it didn't taste much different. I tried hot sauce and garlic to cover it up but nothing helped. Man ping finished it off for me with a smile. Then we briefly walked this small quaint old mining town. We took part in one of the towns old traditions. Where you write your dreams/goals/wishes on this big lantern then light a small fire inside it heats up then you let it fly away like a hot air balloon. It was really neat they say it's the way to get your dreams to heaven. After that we headed back to Taipei because she had plans for later. I just headed back to the house to relax.

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Comments

[farra]

tofu
love your description of the tofu...i don't like it either.