fort san domingo diy

i finally decided to make my fort san domingo diy (a gift from taoyuan tour buddies, which we picked out together at taiwan storyland!). it was basically a postcard sized piece of tag board with the fort san domingo pattern on it. when i started, i realized, it was a bit more hard/complicated than i had imagined O_O ! tools i used included: scissors and box cutter, metal ruler to make straight creases, elmer's glue and q tip for glue application, PATIENCE! it's not perfect...but i thought it turned out decent. hopefully the resemblance to the real fort san domingo (bottom picture) is apparent. more pictures at picasa!

cute stuff from taiwan

on my picasa, i posted pictures of a sample of the cute stuff i got in taiwan. check it out!

day19: shilin, danshui

wednesday, 4/16/2008:

this was my last day in taiwan! it has been a great trip. i went to some interesting places, ate some amazing foods, and did some great shopping. and i met so many interesting people along the way. and, for the first time, i can really say i have become friends with my cousins. i am going to miss EVERYTHING and EVERYONE! anyway, getting along with the activities of my last day...

the plan was to go to my uncle and aunt's familymart convenience store in danshui to visit my cousin (who was working there) and eat the most amazing steamed dumplings ever. before i left, i ate some ore of my pudding. on the way to danshui, i shopped the shilin traditional market, bought some stuff (like a vegetable peeler and a REALLY cute pig watch for 100NT/$3!) and basically ate my way to danshui. first, at the traditional market i got a shuang bao tai (twins), basically fried dough with sugar...delicious! then outside the mrt station i bought a zhuabing (kind of like a scallion pancake, but more fluffed up) with basil and an egg on top! the most important goal for the day was eating the steamed dumplings (picture) that are sold right outside my uncle and aunt's convenience store...i have been waiting to eat them my whole trip! last time i was in taiwan, i ate them, and they were the absolute most amazing! but before even making it to danshui, i was already REALLY full! i took the mrt to danshui, then transferred to the red38 bus and got off at zhenli university (aletheia university) stop, right in front of the convenience store. first order of business was the steamed dumplings. it was the height of lunch time and there was a huge line! last time i was there, the owner told me the two tricks for making his dumplings. 1) the cabbage must be dehydrated by mixing them with salt, incubate, then wash the salt off, and spin the water off the cabbage. this makes the cabbage crisp! 2) steaming the dumplings in high heat so they are done really quick! tada...the best dumplings ever. by now i am beyond full.

for the rest of the afternoon, i kept browsing the small convenience store, and basically ate whenever my stomach didn't feel like it was going to explode. this was my last chance before coming back to minnesota!! first, i had a milk flavored pudding, it was white! [and now i will rate all the puddings i've had in the past few days: (1) milk pudding (weiquan), (2) egg pudding (imei), (3) red bean pudding (carrefour/generic), (4) egg pudding (weiquan). 1 = best] to drink i had a winter melon tea, pretty average thing to drink in taiwan, but pretty refreshing, i like winter melon tea a lot. then i was hanging out behind the counter with my cousin, not the widest of places, and i walked by the espresso machine and all of a sudden *shshshshhshhhh!!* !! the machine just started apparently i had brushed the mocha button! apparently this happens a lot, my cousin quickly grabbed a cup to catch my mocha...it was actually pretty good!! a mr. brown espresso machine! then, while browsing the store, i came across some REALLY interesting snacks, tiny sugar coated crabs. i tried one...it tasted like a mouth full of harbor! the most disgusting "food" i ate during my entire trip (maybe entire life!). my cousin seemed to enjoy them and ate the rest of the package. later my cousin had kfc for lunch, and of course i had a piece, whoa the spicy chicken is REALLY good! taiwan's kfc also has egg tarts! finally, my last accomplishment at the familymart was drinking a row of yangleduo! once during the trip when i was walking on the streets of taipei, i saw someone was drinking a row of yangleduo. they weren't drinking just one of the tiny yangleduos, and they weren't drinking one of the big bottles, but a row of tiny ones (usually the tiny yangleduos are packaged together in shrink wrap in rows of 5). it never occurred to me to drink a row still stuck together! what a cool idea!! so i had to try that. because, one tiny yangleduo is never enough. but somehow i think it's not the same to drink the big bottles of yangleduo...this was the perfect way. anyway, the afternoon i spent at familymart was really productive in terms of eating. i also saw some interesting snacks: a package of cheese singles that came with a plastic cheese singles man figure, "crispy mint" m&m's (is this novel? or do i not shop the candy aisle enough?), sushi flavored chips, seaweed flavored chips, cartons of iced lattes that advertised latte art on the front (too bad it doesn't look like that inside!). as it was approaching dinner time, i was still completely stuffed!

next my aunt took me to buy some xi bing (chinese people's equivalent of wedding cakes) to take home. they are meant to be given away to celebrate weddings, but are tasty whether you have occasion to eat them or not! they kind of remind me of mooncakes, but are flatter, bigger, and way tastier. my favorite one had a hmong bean and salty egg yolk filling, but there were a lot of different fillings. even though i was so full, the store owner kept encouraging us to sample everything...this stuff is really rich!

back at home i'm about to explode, but we are supposed to go to dinner, my last meal in taiwan! first i do most of my packing, hoping that i'll digest some of the food i ate, but no such luck! it was SO HOT i thought i was going to melt. about an hour later, it was time to head out for dinner. we had planned on going to hot pot (my favorite type of meal), but we could tell my grandpa really want to go to steak, since he KEPT being like, ellen you should try the steak. so, despite being grossly full, we went to eat steak. it had a buffet salad bar, but it was really all i could do to just eat the steak...and drink lots of tea to wash it down. but i felt like my grandpa would be upset if it appeared i didn't like the steak, so i worked really hard at it. all i can say is, it wasn't a pleasant experience. it would have been pretty good. after dinner, my aunt took me on a quick trip to buy some pineapple cakes and it was home to finish packing.

the next morning, my flight would leave shilin at 5am to catch a 7:30am flight back to osaka, detroit, then minnesota. an end to the most amazing 3 weeks!

WORTH EATING: milk pudding, imei egg pudding, shuangbaotai, zhuabing with basil and egg, steamed dumplings, row of yangleduo

full set of pictures at picasa!

day18: yehliu, keelung

tuesday, 4/15/2008:

tuesday morning i ate another two pudding cups and an ice cream bar for breakfast! and then hurried on my way to yehliu. the fastest way is to take a bus from taipei directly to yehliu, but for some reason i insisted on taking a train to keelung first... from taipei train station i took a train to keelung train station, which had a helpful tourist information center, which told me to take the keelung <--> jinshan bus to yehliu. 45NT ($1.50) gets you the ~40 minute ride to yehliu. when i got on the bus, i asked the driver to let me know when to get off for yehliu. but as we were riding along, it seemed to be already more than 40 minutes and the bus driver hadn't said anything! but the view out the window was especially spectacular after 40 minutes, so i was busy looking at the great view of taiwan's north shore. i love rocky coastlines! finally it seemed to be too long and the route was getting away from the coast, so i asked the driver if we had passed yehliu. he was like, o no i forgot!! he was like, don't pay, just get off and cross the street, and take the return bus a couple stops, be careful when cross the street!! lol...he could tell i was a total tourist i guess. so i got on the next bus, which came pretty soon, there's a bus like every 10 minutes. and a couple of stops and only 22NT (~75 cents) later, i was at the yehliu stop! despite taking the bus past my stop, i thought the whole experience was a good deal: half price to yehliu and i saw some great views of the ocean! from the bus stop there were signs to yehliu geopark, but i still had to ask directions a few times. on the way there i passed yehliu harbor, which smelled GROSS. after a short walk, i arrived at yehliu geopark!

yehliu geopark is a small peninsula on taiwan's north shore. the small area is full of interesting rock formations, and is most famous for a rock formation in the shape of a queen's head (picture)! i had heard that, due to natural weathering, the neck of the queen's head is getting thinner and thinner and will one day break, so i made a point of going to check her out during this trip. basically the rocks at yehliu are harder on top than on the bottom, so erosion makes them thinner on the bottom than on top, which makes them look like enormous mushrooms (picture). there are some footpaths on the peninsula, but for the most part you are free to walk off the footpaths and into the formations and touch them. the only formation that was off limits was the queen's head. past the main rock formations, you can continue to make a loop around the peninsula. i made it almost to the tip of the peninsula, but then came back around the same way since there was no one else there and i got a little scared. there is no designated route, no footpath, only large rocks and large waves... but according to the brochure, you can make the loop. i found the whole peninsula to be a spectacular, mysterious, even magical place! the rock formations themselves are pretty strange looking, the areas with water pools and mossy rocks are quite beautiful, and the peninsula is a great balance of vegetation, rock, and waves! even though i was at the park in the early afternoon and it was VERY sunny and hot, i really enjoyed the 2-3 hours i spent walking around the peninsula. i felt like a fantastic story full of pixies and elves could definitely be set there. at the end of my taiwan vacation, this was definitely one of the highlights of my trip! on my way out of yehliu i walked through a very touristy market that sold a lot of seafood products like dried squid. there were a couple vendors that sold fried seaweed! i tried a sample, was pretty good. then i took the bus back to keelung.

next i took a bus to reifang train station (faster than train) to take a train to pingxi. the pingxi line is another small tourist rail line (like jiji). but when i got to reifang, the information center person told me not to go because it was too late in the day, and that i wouldn't be able to see anything by the time i caught the next train. disappointed, i turned around and went back to keelung. (although, one good thing is...now i feel like i really know how to take the bus in and out of keelung...)

the next destination was keelung's miaokou night market, famous for it's foooood! by the time i got to miaokou (a short walk from keelung train station) it was 6:30pm, and i hadn't eaten since breakfast! unfortunately, the whole experience wasn't as expected. night market food really requires experience. when i ate at danshui, my cousin knew what was good, what was not. at miaokou i was on my own, and i had varied luck. first i had an oyster omelet, which is supposed to be really good at miaokou (being by the ocean and all). i sat down and ordered, and as i was eating, i realized that i had sat down right in front of the vat of oysters waiting to be cooked...the smell was totally unappetizing! but the oyster omelet was decent, but not really one of my favorite foods. i tried to look for food that i hadn't eaten before. i saw these interesting fried buns. all i can say is...it turned out to be a total waste of stomach space. i think mine had tuna and green onions inside. next i saw these fried crabs, which was REALLY tasty! but difficult to eat in a night market setting. that food vendor didn't have any tables to sit at, so i looked for something to eat that had tables so i could also eat my crabs. i sat down at a dessert stand and had another shu bing, this time with peanut soup in it. the one i had at taiwan storyland was way better, too much peanut soup in this one. finally, i got in line to buy my taro flavored pao pao bing (bubble ice), ice shaved so fine it's like ice cream. miaokou is also famous for its pao pao bing, and it was decent. two things i should have eaten but didn't: ding bian cu (some kind of soup with flat stuff in it?) and an quan sanmingzi (some kind of sandwich). well, i got to save some stuff to eat for the next time i go to taiwan!

finally i walked back to the train station and took a train back to taipei and went back home to shilin. on the way back, i finally took pictures of the two checker board stores near the shilin mrt station. these stores have become popular all over taiwan. basically the stores are full of cubbies, which are rented out, so that anyone can rent one or two cubbies and sell anything they want! there is always a lot of random and interesting things in those stores!

what i thought was interesting was that, on the day i went to national palace museum i didn't eat lunch and was unbearably hungry by 4pm, while traipsing around keelung area until 6:30pm without lunch was completely bearable...i guess the national palace museum is not sufficient to take my mind off hunger...

WORTH SEEING: yehliu

WORTH EATING: fried crabs

full set of pictures at picasa!

day17: shilin

monday, 4/14/2008:

again, my cousin was still sleeping when i got up in the morning, so more ktv homework! we were planning on going again later in the day, so it was cram time.

as we were getting ready to leave, we started eating the lao tien lu stuff. OMG SO GOOD! seriously, how do they get the spices so just right?? the duck wing was exceptional! and so was the stomach thing, i'm not sure what animal it is of, but it was very crisp!

after breakfast we went to carrefour, kind of like a super walmart. i had hoped to get some handy kitchen supplies (i really wanted to get some metal chinese style spoons) and stationary and candy and other miscellaneous things. turns out i was pretty disappointed. i didn't find any kitchen supplies i liked and the stationary section was too small to have any good choices. i did get some pretty good gum, airwaves, my favorite gum!! i don't even like gum, but i always stock up on airwaves when i go to taiwan. we don't have good gum in the states! i also got a pack of this really good japanese grape hard candy that has a gooey filling and tastes EXACTLY like a grape. but the most important thing is that i realized i hadn't eaten my fair share of ice cream / popsicles and pudding! my first choice was a box of morinaga milk caramel ice cream bars (picture). packaged in small yellow boxes, morinaga milk caramels were a staple for me growing up. every trip to taiwan involved stocking up on this candy! this was the first time i saw ice cream bars of that flavor! there were also ovaltine ice cream bars, which i thought would be really good! but i opted to get taro flavored ice cream bars instead. i figured two boxes of ice cream bars was enough for the last 3 days i had left in taiwan. my cousin also picked out some more muoji ice cream. and then i also picked some yangleduo popsicles, kind of like a chubby mr. freezey. then it was to the pudding section! i picked a strip of weiquan brand and a strip of imei brand pudding. then i also decided to try a strip of the carrefour generic brand pudding in red bean flavor. each strip had 3 pudding cups! next, my cousin and i picked out some food for lunch in the deli section. they were selling various yan shuei ji (salty chicken?) parts. my favorite part of the chicken is its back, and you could just buy the strip of the chicken that is its spine! purchases in hand, we went back home to eat! ...mainly i wanted to try my desserts ;)

after lunch, my cousin went to take a nap and i continued my ktv homework.

then, my two cousins and their bfs and i met up at the holiday ktv again! we got right down to business, here are some of the songs i sang:

rainie's yu shang ai
rainie's jie muo qiao ke li
ariel lin's fei ni muo shu
danson's zao fei ji
danson's zui ai hai shi ni
SHE's wu yue tian
SHE's lao po
jordan chen's wo ai de ren

again, the songs are not picked because i necessarily like them the most, but because i found them easy to pick up!

after 5 hours of ktv, we left and strolled through shilin night market on our way home. i had a "da bing bao xiao bing" (big bread wraps small bread), which is one of the famous food vendor products at shilin night market. the "small bread" is fried, and then crushed, then flavor added, then wrapped in the "big bread", which is a large moist flat bread. i had black pepper flavored, my cousin had taro flavored. pretty good! then home, and more ice cream bars later, sleep.

WORTH EATING: morinaga milk caramel ice cream bars, taro ice cream bars, imei pudding, chicken spine, da bing bao xiao bing

full set of pictures at picasa!

day16: ximending, shilin

sunday, 4/13/2008:

so as my cousin and i were planning to go see sharon li, i asked if we could see any other celebrities...ones that i actually like! my cousin searched a while online and found that yoga lin (too bad that vcr clip doesn't show clips of him crying because that is always my favorite he looks like he's in kindergarten and you just want to hold his hand and help him cross the street!) was going to go to ximending!! i LOVED the first season of one million star and yoga was definitely my favorite contestant...and the winner! anyway, sunday was the day we were going to go see yoga! but my cousin hadn't gotten up yet, so i started my ktv homework, by first trying to think up songs that i knew. i had a whole list of them before my cousin got up!

we left around 12:30pm to go to ximending, and yoga was supposed to show up at 2:00pm. when we got to the spot, there was a small crowd (picture) in front of a small stage. the crowd was much smaller than i had imagined. all these girls were sitting in front of the stage, holding little signs that were buns and said "yoga". a few people had big signs. some people had signs of lcd lights! and one person even had a peter pan sign! my cousin and i tried to squeeze in from the side, but i think we were not appreciated, hehe. they were broadcasting some of the songs he sang on the show, about 5 songs, and they kept looping. yoga, was of course, late. a dj went up on the stage and started talking and then was saying how yoga had this surprise new look. we waited patiently. finally this van drives up, and then tries to back up right next to the stage, but has to make a turn to do that, seriously almost ran us down. of course we didn't want to move and lose our spot so the van just really slowly backed up next to us, and we were basically squeezed as much as possible. somewhat frightening, but taiwan drivers have really good technique (if not courteous), right? anyway, then yoga POPPED out of the van and OMG O_O what happened to him?!?!?! purple satin shirt and purple belt, hair slicked back, all because he decided to sing an elvis song, his only song. i was pretty shocked. i come all this way to see him and he turns himself into a cheap elvis impersonator (and a really bad one at that)! the whole event was supposed to be to advertise for his concert...not so we could hear him sing, hehe. but seriously, he was always so good at picking songs in one million star. and now he's turned into a monster singing an elvis song. omg i can't believe it. i don't have words for how upset i was (and still am). anyway, i still took a lot of pictures.

after the yoga fiasco, my cousin took me to this japanese restaurant (he ming?) i think still in ximending. but first, she took me to a papaya milk shop! papaya milk is one of my favorite foods! i can't believe i hadn't had any yet my whole trip! anyway, onto the japanese restaurant. probably the best thing i had there was my kiwi cocktail! lots of kiwi chunks in it! i had a beef dish that was raw when it came and the waitress lighted the pot so that it cooked on the table. it was okay, more of a show than tasty. my cousin had this sticky pancake thing, pretty good. she also got these other sticky cake things as appetizers, not too impressive. anyway, after some slight shopping in ximending, it was time for dinner! my cousin was meeting her bf and his uncle+family for dinner and insisted on dragging me along. but before leaving ximending, my cousin took me to lao tien lu, the best place to get "lu wei", which is basically all sorts of things cooked in soy sauce and spices. we got duck wings, chicken wings, duck eggs, some kind of stomach, tofu, and there were so many different things there and a million different kinds of tofu. we didn't eat it until the next day, but i will just say now, OMG IT WAS SO GOOD! usually i'm not a huge lu wei fan because i'm not a big soy sauce fan, but seriously it was really good.

o yeah and on the way out of ximending we stopped in a convenience store and there was an incubator for warm drinks...it was all cans in there! lots of canned coffee in there, but there was also canned ovaltine! AND SUPAU! who drinks supau warm?!?!

anyway, my cousin's bf's uncle+family we went to eat sizzling steak plus salad bar. the steak was a lot like the steak my cousin took me to the other day. the salad bar was pretty normal, but had some interesting chinese dishes, for example chicken feet that still looked like chicken feet but already had the bones removed! SO FULL! especially because we just ate not too long ago...

but then on the way back home, walking back from the mrt stop, my cousin is like, omg the minced meat on rice is SO GOOD at this one stand, so she convinces me i have to try it, so a bowl of rice with minced meat later, my cousin is like, omg the "yan shu" (basically where there's lots of choices but everything is fried) at this other stand is SO GOOD, so then somehow we are standing there picking stuff out... my favorite is chicken butts on a skewer (usually 5), and we also picked squid, chicken chunks, and chicken skins (yeah just the skins, fried...). so then the food vendor fries it, and right before being done, throws in some basil (the best part!). the chicken butts and chicken skins are SO GOOD!

in case you haven't noticed, i have now entered the phase in my trip where i crazily eat everything in sight...not many days left and so many things left to eat!

anyway, back at home, my other cousin takes me into her room and she watches me as i do my ktv homework, practice practice practice. what i found is that, it's not about necessarily picking songs you like (because of the short practice time), but picking songs that you, for whatever reason, are better at singing, both lyric and melody -wise. i couldn't possibly memorize the lyrics, but i had to get really used to reading the words fast and how the melody goes, because at ktv, when the singer's voice is gone, sometimes it's pretty hard to figure out how you are actually supposed to sing, it depends on the song. what is cool is that on youtube, you can get a lot of the mvs in the ktv version, so that the words are really big and you can follow them as they turn blue! in these videos the singer's voice is still there, which is important for initial practicing, but then i also found a really good youtube account that has ktv videos in which the singer's voice is muted!

WORTH EATING: papaya milk, lao tien lu, yan shu

full set of pictures at picasa!

day15: din tai fung, guang nan, bulk earrings, ktv

saturday, 4/12/08:

again a late start to the day! i called my aunt and we decided to meet at the sogo at the zhongxiao fuxing mrt stop. when i got there, i wait and waited for about 15 minutes, which wasn't that long...but then my aunt called and was like, omg there are 2 sogos! when exiting the zhongxiao fuxing mrt stop, if you take one exit, you go into a sogo, if you take a different exit, you go into another completely separate sogo! anyway, then my aunt and i found each other. then we walked a small ways and she took me to din tai fung, a restaurant known for its xiaolongbao, which has very thin skin but does not rip (apparently a huge feat). the restaurant was packed and there was a line waiting outside (it's a pretty famous restaurant i think), but we used the wait time to decide what to order. here's what we ate (keep in mind that it's just my aunt and i): 10 xiaolongbao (picture), 10 steamed vegetable dumplings, 1 vegetable baozi, a plate of wontons, 1 order of drunken chicken, 1 black pepper pork steak, 1 taro baozi. the food was GOOOD. my favorite was the vegetable steamed dumplings. the wontons, which were not in a soup, were actually very good. i had never had them like that before! i thought the xiaolongbao were pretty good, but i actually like thicker skinned xiaolongbao (like what i had in hualien), so it was hard to appreciate the effort they put in to make the skins so thin. when ordering, my aunt keeps being like, omg should we order more, omg pick more stuff. so i'm thinking she's got a big appetite. then we are already eating and she keeps being like, omg do you want to order more? so i'm eating eating and it's like so much food, and she's like, eat more! i'm like, omg help me! she's like, i can't eat a lot because my doctor says i have a little diabetes. O_O well it was really tasty. actually the best was the ginger that they kept on serving, which was sliced into super thin slivers. you eat the xiaolongbao by dipping it in black vinegar and ginger. besides the food, ding tai fung is really very crowded, you sit pretty close to the next table. another thing that contributes to the crowded atmosphere is that the servers are checking on you every 5 minutes, bringing you ginger, or taking away empty steamers and plates. since the place is so crowded, it is really cool that there is a big pouch next to your table where you can put your purses, and then cover it with a cloth. finally, i thought the bathroom experience was pretty unique at ding tai fung. the toilet has an armrest kind of thing on the right with a lot of buttons knobs...i wasn't really sure, except that it appears there is some butt washing functions. the flushing was not on the armrest, but in a normal spot on the toilet (thank god). then after i noticed another thing that looked like a soap dispenser, but it was a dispenser for toilet seat cleaner!

anyway, after going to the bathroom, my aunt and i left ding tai fung to shop a bit on the streets outside of sogo. this area had okay street shopping, but it's overpriced because this is a more expensive area. but then you have a better chance of coming across better stuff, although i thought the gong guan area shopping was still better.

at around 3:30pm, i said goodbye to my aunt and met up with my cousin at taipei train station mrt to accomplish goal (2) from the day before: go to the area near taipei train station for some shopping. again, the goals for this shopping trip were 1) stationary and 2) bulk earrings. but, before starting our goals, we saw a small crowd outside the station, and checked out what was all the fuss. at the time i had no idea who this random guy was that everyone was watching, but my cousin said he was pretty famous, so i took pictures of him. turns out...he is jordan chan, a famous singer from hong kong who was the original singer for wo ai de ren, a song which yoga lin sang so well on one million star!!

anyway, last time after coming home from guang nan, my cousin explained to me the usefulness of crayons! she uses them as highlighters in her textbook! it works great because they don't bleed, you can definitely see through it, and also come in lots of colors!! so this trip back to guang nan (now with my other cousin) was to purchase some crayons! you might wonder why i would make a trip just to buy crayons, but i can only say that taiwan crayons are way better than american crayons!! when we got to guang nan, i first went to the notebook section and discovered that, in the week i was gone, guang nan had put out a whole host of new little notebooks! so i picked out 4 more little notebooks that had nice plastic covers, before going to the pen section to pick out a crayon of each color! again guang nan was incredibly crowded, but since i had experience and knew exactly what i wanted, the trip was relatively quick. plus, we were in a huge hurry! next stop was the bulk earring place again. last time i had only shopped in one store, and this time, basically we only had time to shop in two stores. the main mission was to buy some earring hooks so that i could change the hooks on my earrings if i had a pair that had bad hooks. more earrings and hooks purchased, my cousin and i rushed back to shilin for the main event of the day!

my two girl cousins (about my age), their bfs, a boy cousin (middle school), and i had a 4 hour session at holiday ktv! initially i had asked them to take me to ktv because i wanted to experience it, but then after, i realized that, going to ktv is about the most fun one can have! the music blasting and the microphone in your hands, singing your heart out...that has to be the reason for living! the place is a lot like a hotel, and you get a room, with a number like 487 on the door. inside are couches and a big tv and the ktv equipment including 2 mics. there is a little touch screen used for picking songs. the room is dark and the music is loud! also, each room has a private bathroom (which later i found out was really important since there is lots of drinking). all ktv also comes with a buffet, which, isn't that great, but important since you have to drink at ktv! also ktv is fun with a large group, but that means you aren't constantly singing, so eating is a good alternate pastime, and a good way to replenish energy between songs. since we sang all chinese songs (you can pick english songs, but then where is the fun?), my main goal was to get at least enough words to make the songs recognizable. it was fortunate that i had been listening to much taiwan music in the past year, but still not enough. i still couldn't get most of the words for most songs, even ones that i listen to regularly. the words just flash by so fast, and i just don't recognize enough chinese characters. i realized that going to ktv is a game. if you can sing popular songs, well that's good. but, the winner is the one who can sing songs no one else knows! in that respect, i was actually doing well! because of my compulsive idol drama watching, i was listening to a lot of music that probably is mainly listened to by preteen kids in taiwan. my cousins were laughing at me because i like rainie yang and cyndi wang's super cutsie songs! (in my defense, i also really like bands like 1976 and tizzy bac.) one song i sang that no one seemed to know was rainie's jie muo qiao ke li. the last song i sang was fahrenheit's meet on february 30th. my girl cousins and their bfs (all in their 20's like me!) were like, omg we have no idea how this even goes! so i was the only one singing (trying), but then my middle school boy cousin pipes up and is like, o i know this one! they all laughed! ha! in any case, they all told me that people practice before they go to ktv and that i should have done my homework! although i was leaving taiwan soon, i begged them to go with me again! it was just too much fun and 4 hours was way not enough!

between the 6 of us, we each payed 500NT (~$17) for 4 hours, the buffet is included but the beer was extra, and the 500NT per person included the beer we ordered. since it was saturday night, it was a relatively expensive time period, but we had the middle school cousin's student id and some other member card or something from one of my cousins' bf. all in all, it came out to be cheaper than going to a movie, considering it's twice as along, there is a buffet, and beer. and WAY MORE FUN than a movie!

WORTH SEEING: ktv!!!

WORTH EATING: ding tai fung steamed vegetable dumplings

full set of pictures at picasa!

day14: national palace museum, gong guan

friday, 4/11/2008:

friday morning i noticed my cousin had these marshmallows that were pudding flavored and had a filling!! i ate 1/3 of the bag...hehe.

after the long day on thursday, friday was another late start to the day. by the time my cousin and i got out the door, it was quickly approaching noon. we wanted to accomplish two things that day before 5pm: 1) national palace museum, and 2) go to the area near taipei train station for some shopping.

in our rush to accomplish these two tasks, it didn't occur to us to have lunch before going to the national palace museum. touring the museum was nice, lots of old stuff, mostly replicas, but our time there can only be described in one word: hungry. i guess 1/3 bag of pudding marshmallows was not enough to sustain me. by about 4pm, my cousin and i were at our limit. (it's not that i have to have meals so regularly, it's that the national palace museum wasn't sufficient to keep my mind off of hunger. okay i admit it, i'm not the most patient for museums.)

my cousin took me to this amazing sizzling steak dinner for only 180NT ($6). the restaurant, "da kuai" (big piece), is a chain, and was very modest. the steak was delicious, but the corn soup was pretty not delicious. the steak, 3 pieces of tender (and fatty) steak, came out on a sizzling platter with some pasta and mixed vegetables (pasta and veggies were pretty boring) and an egg cracked onto the the hot plate. the egg is a little excessive? but admittedly delicious. they also had melon soda and apple soda! which at first sounded really good, but turns out is more novel than tasty. and then we didn't have time to go shopping near taipei train station, since at the national palace museum we had decided it was better to do the national palace museum trip well than to do both the museum and the shopping but only half well for both.

after dinner, my cousin had to go meet up with her boyfriend, so i decided to go back to the gong guan area outside of national taiwan university to do some shopping. as i was walking by the ntu campus, i noticed a double decker row of VERY neatly organized bicycles (picture)! the double decker bicycle rack was accompanied by a sign with diagrammed instructions (which seemed like they might be much needed!). i guess even though bikes are small, space is still a premium. again most, if not all, of my purchases in the gong guan area were earrings. there was one vendor, a woman right outside of the face shop, who sells very good silver earrings. i had bought two pairs of earrings from her the week before when shopping in the area with my uncle, but then bought four more pairs this time! walking along the street i saw another vendor with similar earrings. turns out the two women are basically the same, but have separated to two spots. i bought two more pairs from her! and then a few more pairs of earrings later, my friend bonnie came to meet me at the gong guan mrt stop around 8:30pm. bonnie is my taiwan indie music exchanging buddy! we had planned on having dinner together, but i was still incredibly full from that steak, so we went to a japanese restaurant, where she had dinner, and i had this really good baked sweet potato cake topped with ice cream and red beans. bonnie and i parted at the mrt stop and i went back home to shilin. on the walk back home from the mrt station, i went to the convenience store to buy a yangleduo. they usually come in these tiny 2 inch high bottles and you always drink a few but never feel it is enough, but this time i decided, if i'm going to drink yangleduo, i'm going to drink yangleduo! so i bought a huge bottle! hehe.

full set of pictures at picasa!

day13: checheng, jiji

thursday, 4/10/08:

got up again at 4:30am to catch the 6:05 train from taichung to ershuei. this is a "qu jian" train, which means it's really slow. the train finally gets to ershuei at 7:09am (over an hour later!) and ershuei is not really that far from taichung! at ershuei i bought a oneday pass train ticket for the jiji line.

the ticket guy suggested i take the train all the way to the last stop, checheng, and make that my first stop, since it was so early in the morning and not much was going on yet. (man, and i had made such an effort to get an early start to the day!) the next train on the jiji line left ershuei at 7:55am, and it took about an hour to get to checheng.

very few people were on the train, and by checheng there were even fewer people, and none of them looked like tourists. checheng was dead. i walked around. the train station is made of beautiful wood boards, and the surrounding view is beautiful too. the town seems to be built on a hill and surrounded by mountains. i walked up the narrow, steep streets and looked at all the homes and small food shops that were packed together. there was no one on the streets, and the homes and stores had no sign of people. the town seemed to be from another time. then i saw a little path that went into some trees and decided to take it. the path was basically a lot of stairs through trees, and by the time i got to the end, i had gotten two misquote bites, one right below an eyebrow and one on a knuckle, both were incredibly itchy spots. the end of the path was a large road that was winding up the mountain, so i turned around and went back down the path, this time trying to avoid more bites. walking back toward the train station, i finally saw an information center, next to what looked like a pond. the lady at the information center suggested i go see the big water reservoir, which apparently is a really nice view, but its way is back through the path of steps and a little farther, and i decided the risk of mosquitoes was not worth the view. checheng is an old logging town, so there are a lot of woodcraft diy shops and wood souvenirs. apparently in checheng you can get lunch in a wooden bucket, so i set out to find a place to get my wooden bucket. the information center lady said there were two restaurants, and one of them appeared to be closed, so i went to the open one, which of course was dead at 10am. they were still able to make me up a lunch to go. the lunch was 300NT (~$10)!!! and later i was to find out it was definitely not worth it! instead of going to see the water reservoir, i toured the plum winery in checheng, which was basically me walking through some halls with rooms of distillation equipment on one side, then walking through a bar, where i tasted plum wine and plum vinegar, and then walked through the gift shop. by now it was about time to wait for the next train. i didn't want to miss it because there was only one every two hours. i'll be honest, checheng wasn't thrilling, but i can see how it is a nice place to go to get out of the city.

i got to the jiji train station (the oldest train station in taiwan) and ate my wooden bucket lunch in front of the train station, not because i was hungry, but because i figured that would make it lighter. jiji wasn't lively either, since it was a weekday. there are at least two bike rental places right across the street from the train station, and as i was peering at them, one of the bike rental owners came and guided me to her shop. it was 100NT (~$3) for the whole day. the lady set me up with a bike, a lock, and a map. and she let me leave my wooden bucket at her shop. by then it was pretty sunny, and although i had been drinking water all day, i decided to be careful on this biking experience. i asked if there was a more shady place to bike and she directed me toward the green tunnel, basically a road with trees lining both sides. turns it it would all involve biking on roads...with cars again. in fact, while jiji is known for its biking, the majority of its biking is still on roads. the bicycle shop lady assured me that since it was a weekday and there were very few people and very few cars, i would be okay. and so off i went. after the hualien biking experience, i was less afraid. and now i have found the trick to biking on the road. when i hear a car coming, i just try to bike really straight and let the car do what it needs to to avoid me. and since there isn't too much traffic in jiji, looking both ways is sufficient at the intersections. the lady at the bike shop said that there would be a small hill, but in reality, the green tunnel (at least from the jiji side) starts as a very steep, winding road up a mountain/hill. i couldn't go very long before i got off the bike to walk it, and then didn't go for much longer before i realized i would be too scared to bike down the hill too. so i turned around and skidded my way back down, giving up on the green tunnel. (there's plenty of roads in the states with large trees lining both sides anyway!) i biked onward and saw the jiji weir, a big watershed. then biked back toward jiji train station, along the way enjoying jiji's countryside and agricultural type scenery (picture). as i was biking past these guys fishing by a river created by the jiji weir, i heard a large flopping near the ground and yelped and came to a stop! the fishing guy had a chuckle. i looked down and saw that he had caught a fish, and just put it by the side of the road for the moment! later, his friend came and put the fish in a bucket...there were two fish total in the bucket! i was biking and trying to look at my map at the same time, but i did arrive back near the jiji train station smoothly, as the town is pretty small. near the train station is the start of a bike path that runs along the train tracks (and cars cannot enter). as i was biking by the tracks, i noticed that every once in a while there was a shop or a cafe that was across from the tracks. one was a seashell shop, which i visited. one of the destinations along this path is an old confucian school, which looks like a temple. as tourists (including me) were checking out the confucian school, right next door is a normal middle school. i could have just walked right off the confucian school and into the kids having recess in the middle school... seems like a lot of tourist destinations in taiwan have schools right next to them! shortly after the confucian school, i started biking back to the train station. by now, midafternoon, the area was slightly more lively. i went to return my bike, and i think the bike shop owners were happy to see me back in one piece after my uneasy start. although the bike trip may sound unexciting, it was actually very nice to just bike along and notice the agriculture and people along the way. there were interesting crops and interesting people, which i haven't listed, but have to be experienced on your own. after returning the bike, i walked along the street next to the train station. one of the stands i walked by was selling banana egg rolls, that they were making right there on the spot. after the really nice owners encouraged me to eat at least 5 pieces of their sample egg rolls, i realized the egg rolls really were quite good (i usually like banana flavored things, but not things that have multiple flavors including banana), and i bought some to eat while waiting for the train and a box to bring home to the states and a box to bring to my relatives in shilin. since jiji is known for bananas, i also bought a bunch of tiny bananas...worst bananas i have ever had...completely no flavor! then i went to wait for the next train back to ershuei, i had spent about 4 hours in jiji. then from ershuei another train back to taichung, and called me uncle who came to pick me up from that station.

my grandma, uncle, aunt, and two cousins, and i went to dinner. then my uncle to took me to the high speed rail station. the station looks a lot like a small version of a large airport. everything is very efficient. you go in, there is a big lobby, and then escalators on both sides that go up to the platform, depending on what car your ticket is for. they don't want you going up to the platform too early, clogging the way. so i waited in the lobby area until about 10 minutes before my train, which is at 9:58pm. in each car of the train there is a luggage compartment, which was handy because i had a very big piece of luggage with me! the seats and the whole feeling of the train is a lot like a plane, and the whole atmosphere is very different from taking a normal train, probably because it is so much more expensive. on the back of the seat in from of me there was a map of all the cars and what they had inside. some cars even have public telephones and vending machines! and there is even a business class car on the train! the lunch boxes and snacks they sell on the high speed train are also way better than on the normal train, but that is also reflected in the prices. the whole experience was beyond comfortable and relaxing. exactly one hour later, the whole idea is that the train is fast but it's so comfortable i wouldn't have minded more time on that ride, i was back in taipei train station. (taipei is the only high speed rail station that is in the same building as the normal train station.) to get from the high speed rail to the mrt part of taipei train station seemed ridiculously long with my VERY heavy luggage, but i got there okay. when i got to shilin, thankfully my uncled called me and came to pick me up from the mrt station so i didn't have to drag my luggage all the way back home. an end to another long day!

WORTH SEEING: checheng and jiji countryside scenery

full set of pictures at picasa!

day12: alishan, taichung

wednesday, 4/9/08:

after going to bed at 10pm the night before, i woke up (not)bright and early at 3am (pretty good, i still got 5 hours of sleep!) to take a shower before meeting the sunrise tour in front of the hotel at 4am. i had signed up for this tour, 300NT (~$10), with my hotel the day before. the tour was a caravan of vans that picked up at many hotels and then started on the way to yushan national park. on the way there, when it was still very dark, we stopped at a clearing and the tour guide (the driver of the van at the front of the caravan) pointed out a lot of constellations to us. then we were back in the vans and on to yushan. this young girl (maybe middle school?) threw up the whole way, i guess because it was really early in the morning and the trip was quite winding. finally we got to the spot, and by now, it was already pretty bright out. i always thought that it would be really dark before seeing the sunrise, but i guess it's light spreads out to us way before it peaks out from the mountaintops. we all lined up, basically at the side of the road, and the tour guide started talking, and told us not to worry, he would tell us when to watch out for the sunrise when the time came. the tour guide taught us how to take pictures of the sunrise (which would have come in handy the night before at the sunset...) and then took out some postcards to show as examples of what he meant, and then was like, "and you can talk to the photographer of the postcards if you want!", and then he's like, "it's me!", and then he sold us the postcards (tricky!!) for 100NT (~$3) for 16 postcards. before the sunrise the sky was really beautiful, kind of like the sunset, with the multicolored clouds, but i didn't get many pictures of that because the tour guide telling us not to take pictures yet because it was not the sunrise yet. finally it was the sunrise and the sun popped out from behind the mountains (picture), and that was that. and then after a very short while, went into some clouds.

AFTER i had seen the sunrise, i realized it was not necessarily that easy to see it! right after we saw the sunrise, this woman asked me, "is this your first time to alishan?" i'm like, "yes." she's like, "my friend came to alishan 5 times and didn't see the sunrise 5 times! you are so lucky!" i'm like, "huh?" i had never thought that i would have gotten up at 3am to NOT see the sunrise... the tour guide had explained to us earlier that the chance of seeing the sunrise that day was 70%, and that as we got closer to yushan, he would decide a place to watch (he has a few that he regularly takes people) that would give us the best chance. in fact, the day before, the people did not see the sunrise. if there are clouds blocking then there is no sunrise. we were fortunate that there was a distance between the top of the mountain and where the clouds started, so that we could see the sun pop up before it traveled into clouds.

ALSO, later i was randomly watching tv in taiwan and there was a commercial for 7-eleven that's theme is the alishan 7-eleven (yeah, there's a 7 in the shopping/restaurant area of alishan and the moment i saw that i was like, "omg that 7 must make so much money!). anyway the commercial features all these random people that work on alishan (for example a train driver) and shows how long they have been there, implying that they are reliable...like 7-eleven, ha! anyway, the tour guide for my sunrise tour was one of the people featured in the commercial! he was a pretty good tour guide, good knowledge, enough humor without being annoying.

after actually seeing the sunrise, i felt the whole group sigh with relief. it was before 7am and we had all accomplished the primary goal of our day, hehe. on the way back to alishan, we stopped at a few yushan national park sights. one was these two, dead, large trees... on another stop, we looked out onto beautiful rolling mountains and also a rolling sea of clouds! the "cloud sea" was way more beautiful than the sunrise, i thought! but, i'm not sure that my pictures did it justice. we also stopped at a spot where we had to take a million, really steep and scary, no handrail stairs to the base of another giant tree...and then take all those stairs back up. the stairs and altitude made me panty, hehe. then it was finally back to alishan.

when the tour dropped us off back at the hotel it was just before 8am. i got my stuff together and checked out of the hotel and then went to the 7-eleven, where the city bus tickets are sold. i bought a ticket for the 9am bus back to chiayi, it was 214NT (~$7). then went to the restaurant where i could use my breakfast voucher from the hotel. i got the breakfast to go and then went back to wait for the bus. as i wound down the mountain, i decided i would go to jiji the next day and then head back to taipei in the evening. the trip down the mountain by city bus only took about 2 hours. at the chiayi train station, i bought the next ticket to taichung. then at the chiayi train station, i ate my breakfast for lunch: daikon patties, half a salted egg, a mantou, some stir-fried cabbage. there, i also went to the info center to inquire about my trip to jiji for the next day. i didn't get much information, but did get a handy backpackers guide to traveling taiwan by rail, which i got for free, but i think it's supposed to cost money.

when i got to taichung, i decided to check out stockyard 20, which is an art gallery in an abandoned warehouse next to the taichung train station, before calling my uncle. i had read about it in my little taiwan by rail guide on my way to taichung, but the gallery was overrated. i guess i mainly didn't like it because there was only one artist on display, and i really did not enjoy his art: part psychedelic, part gross. he was actually there talking about his painting and people (normal looking but probably in their midlife crisis and wanting to feel open and cultured) were asking all these questions and taking pictures of him.

my uncle picked me up from the train station, and brought me to what he thought was the best place to get bawan, this meatball that is ground pork with a thick stick clear skin that is fried and then steamed (or something like that). i had a bawan and a bowl of cellophane noodle soup. the bawan was pretty good, even though i thought i didn't like bawans. changhua, a city close to taichung, is actually famous for their bawans, but i guess taichung thinks it's got some pretty good ones too.

i had told my uncle my plans for the next day, and before he had insisted that i take the high speed rail back to taipei, so we decided to go to the high speed rail station and check it out and buy my ticket ahead of time. the station is slightly outside of taichung, but still not too far by car. we bought a ticket for the 9:58pm train from taichung to taipei. there were assigned seats tickets (which is what i bought) and free seating tickets (which you are not guaranteed a seat, but may have to stand, but is discounted), but then there was also some discount because it was going to be a thursday. the ticket turned out to be something like 560NT (~$19).

then we went back home, ate dinner with the family, and then i went out to shop jing ming first street, which is really close to my grandma's apartment. there were some nice things on the street, i liked the earrings there on the whole, but didn't end up seeing anything that i liked exactly, sos didn't buying any earrings. then i came across a sanrio store and ended up buying the cutest sanrio calculator!

and then it was back home by 10pm. i was SO TIRED, and then i realized i had gotten up at 3am...so i was immediately to sleep! (and my plan was to get up at 4:30am again to begin my adventures the next day!)

WORTH SEEING: yushan sunrise, yushan cloud sea

full set of pictures at picasa!

day11: alishan

tuesday, 4/8/2008:

i got up at 4:30am, caught a train around 6:30am from taichung to chiayi, and at around 7:50am rushed to ticket window no.5 at the chiayi train station to buy my train ticket to alishan. there was only two trains for the day: 9:00am and 1:30pm. in fact, usually there are only two trains on the weekends, and just the 1:30pm train on weekdays, but now is an exception because it was cherry blossom season. i wanted to take the 9:00am train, but the guy at the ticket window said there were no more seats left (but i could buy a standing ticket). who knew so many people would be going to alishan on a tuesday, but i guess cherry blossoms really change things. but then the ticket guy told me to go outside and to the right, and see if there were any tickets. so then i go out there, and there's actually another ticket window, which was closed, but then this guy comes up and is like, "are you going to alishan?" i'm like, "yeah." "do you want to take a little bus?" (you can take a city bus or little private buses up to alishan, but the train is definitely part of the alishan experience.) i'm like, "no i want to take the train." finally he takes out a pair of tickets from his pocket and sells me one, 399NT (~$13), same price as what the tickets actually sell for.

the alishan forest railway is one of only 3 alpine railways in the world, taking about 3.5 hours to run from the tropical (banana and betel nut trees) chiayi city through temperate forests (bamboo) and finally stopping in the alpine (giant cypress) climate of alishan. the back of my train ticket (picture) had a map of the train's route, which goes through a big knot as the train circles its way up the mountains, and then zigzags as the train goes forwards and then backwards to go up the steep final ascent. in the middle of the route is a stop at the town of fenchihu, which is famous for its lunch boxes. the train didn't stop long, but a lady came on the train selling lunch boxes (100NT/~$3, kind of expensive for lunch boxes in taiwan), and i bought one. the lunch had a lot of tiny servings of different dishes, they were okay, but the coolest thing about the lunch box was the plastic sheet that separated the rice and the dishes so that the rice was still as white and pure as new!

my seat on the train (a window seat!) happened to be next to another guy the same age as me. (so random again!) he was a masters student in taiwan, and had taken a week to circle all of taiwan (taoyuan --> keelung --> taitung --> kaoshiung/kenting --> alishan --> jiji --> hsinchu/neiwan --> back to taoyuan), sleeping in parks and train stations along the way! again, i felt that my traveling was very not efficient, but thinking back, i enjoyed each part of my three week trip, even if it was not the most straight of routes. i think there is so much fun in the traveling part (navigating public transportation, walking, getting lost) of sight seeing, and the part where i talk to random people (sitting next to me on trains, or to ask directions, or when buying things). anyway, we chatted and wound our way up the mountain together. i can only say he is quite unique.

when we got to alishan train station, i called my hotel, 青山別館 (qing shan bie guan), which came to pick me up. to even exit the train station, you have to buy a ticket to the alishan forest recreation area, 100NT (~$3), student price, yeah my mit id still serves me well! i left my stuff in the hotel room. it was small, but clean, and only $1800NT (~$60). when i was getting ready to leave, i realized that the area right below the back of my neck was peeling like nothing else, i guess i forgot to apply sunscreen there in hualien, this is already day6 since the bicycling in hualien. anyway, then i went back to the front desk of the modest hotel, where they equipped me with chinese and english maps and sent me on my way.

everything in the alishan forest recreation area is within walking distance of each other. from the train station, you can walk to the shopping/restaurant area and the hotel area, from there you can walk to the trails. i set out from the hotel at about 1:30pm and spent about 4 hours slowly walking through the trails, which for the most part make a loop. the trails were pretty crowded because of cherry blossom season...even on a tuesday! i started the loop from the right, and the majority of the beginning was looking at cherry blossoms and plum tree flowers. the paths are very well groomed and it was all pretty easy going. as i got to the left side of the loop, i started entering the giant tree portion of the trails. while the cherry blossom part was sunny, this part was very shady and nice. i thought the two complemented each other so well and i had such a pleasant walk that afternoon. as i was entering in the more foresty part of the trails, i came to a temple and some shopping, and an elementary school! here i am touristing my way through these trails and i can just walk right up to some kids dribbling a ball during recess outside their school... anyway, one of the things grown on alishan is wasabi! so i bought two small roots, and the lady taught me how to prepare it to be brought back to the us, take off the whiskers, clean it, soak it in water, wrap it in wet newspaper, and package in some plastic bags. she let me try the wasabi, you just grind the root and eat! anyway, then i entered the giant tree trail, somehow from the end, and it started with a sign that said, "giant tree no. 36", and there was an especially big tree, and then you walk a while and then a sign said, "giant tree no. 35"...and this went on for quite a while, for like a million stairs up and down. sometimes it's like SO MANY stairs and then all you see is this really big tree... 36 giant trees was the first giant tree trail. then i went on the other giant tree trail and it was another 20-some trees. but in the end, i thought it was a really nice walk. after the giant trees, there was an area with all these random tree trunks that looked like various things. i thought the golden pig tree trunk looked A LOT like a pig!

finally it was back to the shopping area. i walked up a lot of stairs to the train station to scope it out, where the hotel told me to watch the sunset. but, it was still pretty sunny, so i walked back down to the shopping area and ate at a small food stall: bamboo shoot soup and dragon whisker veggies. then back up the stairs to wait for the sunset. i'm not experienced with taking pictures that are not in the best possible light, so i had no idea what to do. but, the good thing about digital cameras is that you can take a million pictures, and after trying a lot of different settings, i think i might i have come out of it with one halfway decent picture. then there wasn't much to do on alishan, since the shopping area is pretty small, and everyone sells the same stuff, and it's all food anyway, so i walked the lots of stairs to the hotel, then back up to the shopping area, then back up to the train station, then back down, back and forth quite a few times. the stairs made my legs pretty tired and the altitude made me somewhat panty. i was afraid i wouldn't be able to get to sleep right away (did i forget that i had gotten up at 4:30am that morning?), and knew i had to get up early the next morning (to see the sunrise!), so kept on taking the stairs. at one point, in front of the train station, was an aborigine guy singing and these older ladies dancing, it was pretty cute. i finally went back to the hotel and went to sleep around 10pm, and fell asleep right away.

it had been so muggy in taipei, and so hot in taichung, finally the air was so nice clear and cool on alishan! that night i turned on the ac (to be sure) and got in the giant blanket and had a GREAT night of sleep!

WORTH SEEING: alishan forest railway, alishan

WORTH EATING: dragon whisker veggies

full set of pictures at picasa!