day7: guang nan, bulk earrings, shilin night market

friday, 4/4/2008:

i wanted to buy stationary, so my cousin took me to guang nan, near taipei train station. that place is amazing: cheaper prices and selection, selection, selection! mainly i wanted to buy little planners and notebooks that i can carry with me always to jot notes and contact information of strangers. (i was starting to think i had made a habit of it, since i always made sure to take notes of what i did everyday during my vacation, and i would often need to take out my little notebook to exchange emails with strangers...but, since coming back to reality, i have found that, once again, i talk to the same people everyday.) and of course i wanted to buy pens! o yes...and RULERS! as for notebooks and planners, i had a few criteria: 1) a plastic protective cover. 2) some sort of pocket that i could stick scraps like contact info or train tickets. 3) cute. after a lot of searching, i did find a few models that met my demands! and the searching was quite painstaking, partly because there was a great selection, and partly because all the customers in that store are packed like sardines, saying "excuse me" all the time, trying to get to the next section of the aisle. it wasn't the beginning of a school year or semester or anything, yet there were SO MANY students in that store! taiwanese people must LOVE stationary, which is why their stationary is SO AWESOME! the pens always write SO WELL (picture), i don't know how white people in the states can stand their severely inferior pens! ALSO! in minnesota, i have been tutoring these two boys from taiwan, and one of the boys carries a ruler in his pencil case. and the moment i saw his ruler, I FELL IN LOVE WITH IT! it's a clear plastic ruler (which is helpful when you are trying to line up the ruler, opaque rulers are a pain), BUT it also has a wide metal strip wrapped around one side so that the ticks are in metal on one side and plastic on the other. it's amazing because i have had plastic rulers break, but this is so well protected by the sheet of metal! anyway, of course at guang nan, i found rulers like that!! i probably spent at least 2 hours sifting through every inch of guang nan. my cousin was done after like 30 minutes, and had to wait for me. she was about to kill me as i was finally checking out.

i wanted to continue to the next stop on our shopping trip, but my cousin absolutely could not go one more step, so we took a break and had lunch at a small cluster of food vendors. the duck blood and stinky tofu soup was pretty standout, something i didn't think i'd like, but ended up liking quite a lot. i didn't really like the duck blood, but the soup and vegetables were tasty, and the stinky tofu was also surprisingly tasty. stinky tofu is an acquired taste, and i have somehow acquired it, because i know i didn't like it when i was younger. also, everywhere is advertised these "frog eggs" vendors, which i had to try because i work with frog eggs in my research. well, i was disappointed because the drink looked nothing like the frog eggs i work with. the "frog eggs" are basically tapioca balls, but it's the big kind, so way too big to look like the frog eggs i work with, also they just don't look anything like frog eggs. if anyone has ever had those basil seed drinks, they look EXACTLY like the frog eggs i work with in my research. and on the topic of drinks, in taiwan, they are SO GOOD at designing awesome things that are perfect at what they do. for example, most drink places have these plastic bags that are exactly the right shape to fit around the drink cup so that you really can carry around your drink in a plastic bag without worrying that it's going to spill. also, there are these drink "bags" that don't have a bottom. it's basically a plastic handle to carry your drink! i really wanted to take a picture of one of these, and my cousin was like, okay we'll just get a drink. but i thought it was somewhat ridiculous to buy a drink to take a picture, but i wanted the picture, so we were going to. but then this random guy had one, and i was like, let's just ask if we can borrow his for a picture, but my cousin wouldn't (was too embarrassed) and so we didn't ask. but then when he left, he just left his drink + plastic handle! so you can check out the picture in picasa!

anyway, next stop was near the back of taipei train station. my other cousin had told us about the place that all the street vendors buy their earrings and such to sell! all i can say is that, it's not very good quality, and you wouldn't want to pay more than these discount prices for these earrings. but they can get pretty cheap there, so it was definitely a worthwhile shopping trip! some stores make you buy at least 10 pairs of earrings to get the discount price. (for instance, the discount price might be 30NT (~$1) and the "regular price (WAY OVER PRICED)" would be 150NT.) some stores were like, if you buy 5 pairs of earrings it is 50% off, if you buy 3 pairs of earrings it is 25% off. this is the "bulk price", but my guess is that people who actually sell earrings and buy A LOT would get an even lower price. the great thing about this place is the selection. usually when you buy earrings on the street, it's a really random selection, but here, there's every color of every style. (so good jewelry is a little like this in a more expensive, less big, kind of way.) again, i spent quite a bit more time here than my cousin had patience for.

after basically only two stops on our shopping trip, my cousin looked like she was about to die, so we head back toward home, but then met up with her bf at shilin night market for dinner. when eating night market and street vendor type food, it actually is pretty important to have a tour guide. they knew which of the million vendors selling shui jian bao (pan fried meat buns) was the best. and it really was VERY GOOD! i had the veggie one, that had a cabbage filling. the line was extremely long, but very worth the wait. we also had these some-kind-of-dried-seafood-put-in-a-batter balls. i wasn't a huge fan. and another popular night market food we had was seafood, meat, tofu, or vegetables on a skewer and grilled. the squid is REALLY good. finally we had this awesome ice that was ice covered with grass jelly, then topped with tapioca, pearl barley, and candied sweet potato. the ice was completely hidden by the grass jelly! with all that sweet stuff on top, the ice was SO tasty!

then we went home and watched jay chou's secret, which i thought was fairly entertaining, but nothing special. i always think jay chou is really full of himself, so i'm never too impressed.

WORTH SHOPPING: guang nan, bulk street vendor jewelry area

WORTH EATING: duck blood and stinky tofu soup, shilin night market shui jian bao, skewered and grilled squid, grass jelly tapioca pearl barley candied sweet potato ice

full set of pictures at picasa!