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!
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