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!