day9: ximending, children's recreation center, modern toilet

sunday, 4/6/2008:

i spent sunday with my other cousin, the one who took me down danshui old street the night before. first we went to ximending, a popular and youthful shopping area in taipei, and the site of the movie exit no. 6. after some shopping, we happened across a mos burger, and i had a sudden urge for mos burger, so we entered! mos burger, the mcdonalds of asia, is known for its burger buns that are made of rice. i had some kind of beef rice burger and my cousin had the fried seafood one. i was so busy taking pictures of my burger that my cousin was finally like, don't you want to include me in a picture? i guess i'm always so into taking pictures of food that i forget people want to be in pictures too. my favorite part about mos burger is the sink that is next to the trash, so you can wash your hands (without having to go all the way to the bathroom) after you eat and throw away your garbage. after mos burger, we passed this popular noodle shop, which had a ridiculous line and all these people standing and squatting right outside eating the noodles. in taiwan, people really know what's good and what's not good to eat. the really good places always have so many people willing to wait in line forever. then we passed the famous old theater in ximending, before getting back on the mrt to our next destination.

there were two important preplanned goals for the day, and the first was to go to taipei's children's recreation center to see sharon li, one of the contestants in the first season of one of taiwan's singing competition shows, one million star. i LOVED the first season of that show (never did watch the second or third season), but actually disliked sharon li. her singing is never very inspired, almost boring, but you can tell she works really hard at her dancing and singing. but, since i loved the show and thought it would be fun to see taiwan celebrities that i had been watching on my computer, i insisted on going and started to work up an enthusiasm for sharon li! actually, the truth is, sharon li isn't much of a celebrity, since she wasn't even one of the more popular contestants on the show, but she did make it to the final 10. we got to the children's recreation center just as the show was about to start. it was mostly little kids and their parents, and there wasn't very many people. there were two singers that sang before sharon li. the first, a guy, named zhi xiang, apparently has an album coming out. the second, a girl named wa wa. i had no idea who they were, but tried to act really into it and took a lot of pictures, to get the full experience. i wanted to act totally crazy, partly to get the full experience, and partly because the singers were singing to a really cold audience and i wanted to see how the singers would react if they thought someone in the audience was actually obsessed with them. my cousin, though, was less amused by this idea, and then i didn't have the guts to go through with it. finally sharon li came on and started singing. this whole time i'm loving my 10x optical zoom camera (btw, my camera is black, not silver), because all my pictures are SO close up! anyway, sharon li was sharon li, nothing has really changed since the competition. she had a few fans (people that didn't just happen to be there with their kids) and one person holding a sign. the last song she sang was without any accompanying music, and i remembered the movie function on my camera, so i decided to try it out! too bad i started it after the song began, but whatever. also too bad that i decided to shoot it vertically and now i can't figure out how to rotate the video so sharon li is right-side-up. other than that, my camera faired surprisingly well! the video is clear and the sound is really clear too! i was pleasantly surprised! anyway, after her singing was the autograph session. it was really sunny and sharon li's mom had come (sharon li is famous for always bringing her mom everywhere. her mom was at all the tapings for one million star.) and held an umbrella for sharon li to block the sun as she walked the 2 minutes to the autographing table. there was a pathetically short line to get an autograph from her, maybe 40 people? anyway, after an autograph and a picture with sharon li, my cousin and i had accomplished the first mission of the day.

the reason i had wanted to go to the children's recreation center was to see sharon li, but my cousin had wanted someone to go do the kiddie rides with her. so we walked around the place, ate some food (quail eggs again, a watermelon popsicle that was actually a pink wedge with a green rind and chocolate spots for the seeds, and then this ice cream that looked really cool but then turned out not to look like the picture but then actually tasted pretty good it was melon flavored, among other stuff i can't remember), and then went on three kiddie rides (swings, twirly things, carousel). btw, there are no melon flavored anything in the us, but in taiwan many things come in melon flavor! i like melon flavored things even more than melons themselves! my cousin wanted to go on the bumper cars, but the line was ridiculously long. then we were too tired of the long lines, so we decided to be done with the children's recreation center.

then we shopped around shilin night market briefly before we went to accomplish the second important preplanned goal of the day: EAT AT MODERN TOILET! my cousin and i met up with her bf (he was a good sport. he wasn't really amused with the place.) and went to the shilin modern toilet, a restaurant that has a bathroom theme, where you eat sitting on toilets and eat out of toilets. i had a spicy hotpot, which came in a toilet bowl (picture). when i tried to move the toilet, a little of the spicy soup spilled over the edge, which made the whole thing look even grosser...HAHA! all the meals come with a drink, which mine came in a plastic bed urinal (extra 30NT/~$1) but i had them not put the drink actually in it so it wouldn't get sticky, and a dessert, which is a poop-shaped ice cream in a little squat toilet. the various meatballs in my hotpot were not the tastiest, but each had a unique look and filling. when the ice cream came, i was so busy taking pictures that my ice cream was half melted by the time i finally ate it. the table next to us was two very not skinny girls and they each got the extra big dessert (extra money) which was ridiculous and actually did look kind of gross when it came out in squat toilets. and their squat toilets were much bigger than our squat toilets. we wondered if they'd be able to finish...and they did. all in all, it was overpriced food, but a fun experience and a cute idea. and i'm glad i went!

after modern toilet, my cousin and i shopped around shilin night market some more. seeing all these girls in taiwan carrying around bucket purses, i wanted to get one too, so i got a cheap one on the street. actually, i had no idea they were called bucket purses, but i was explaining to my cousin, "you know those purses that look like a bucket?", and she's like, "you mean bucket purses?", "no way!"...hehe. then we headed home, where i caught the very end of tka!! and some of a rerun of why why love! on an actual tv!!

WORTH SEEING: modern toilet

full set of pictures at picasa!

day8: bali, danshui

saturday, 4/5/2008:

saturday was my second seriously sunny day since i had been in taiwan (the first being when i got burned in hualien). after the very patchy experience in hualien, i spent a long time and applied sunscreen REALLY well and thoroughly. then, my cousin and her bf took me to bali. last time i was in taiwan, i had gone to bali on my own, saw this egg on the grass in the park, took a picture, but then lost my pictures from the trip. i had been thinking about that egg and curious about why it's there ever since. (i still don't know anything about it.) luckily, this time, we easily found the egg again (picture). the bali and danshui area is also really good for biking, and i saw lots of bike rentals, but my cousin and her bf didn't seem to be interested. my next trip to taiwan i am definitely going to spend a day biking in bali/danshui (and drink lots of water!). after the bali mission was accomplished, we took a ferry back across the river to danshui. and now began my personal one day tour of danshui, at least half of which, was a food tour!!

first stop was a ma's plum tea, taiwan's most famous plum tea. it was pretty refreshing on a hot day, and pretty good as far as plum teas go. next stop was danshui's famous fishball soup. danshui is famous for its fishballs. we each had a bowl of fishball+wonton soup and a meatbun. first i was eating my fishballs and i was like, "AHH!", and quickly grabbed my camera! and my cousin and her bf were laughing at me. all the fishballs i have ever eaten are just solid fishballs, but these fishballs had a ground pork filling! i bit into my first fishball and was SO SURPRISED! anyway, i usually don't like fishballs, but these were pretty good, and the soup was pretty good, the wontons were average. next i started eating my meatbun, which was pretty average, until my cousin explained that the meatbun is supposed to be eaten with the special red sauce (seriously that is the name of the sauce). generally i don't like sauces, and i almost always try things without their sauce first, but i tried the red sauce and it was SO GOOD, kind of sweet and ever so slightly spicy.

next mission on our tour of danshui was to the "niu dan" (literally: twist egg) store. my cousin kept talking about it before so i just had to go! the store is filled with lots of machines, which you can put in 50NT (~$1.50), and then twist the knob, and out pops a plastic egg that has some cute figure inside! each machine has a theme, and about 6 different possibilities that can come out with the egg. i wanted to get a mini shaved ice figure that can actually shave a tiny ice cube, but that machine was no longer at the store! instead, i finally decided to twist the machine that was dispensing figures of mini niu dan machines...apparently the little figure will actually work too, it comes with lots of little eggs, i have yet to put mine together! then on my way out of the store, i saw another machine that was dispensing cute nintendo ds styluses, so i twisted one for my brother.

next we were on our way to fort san domingo. on the way we passed an old, western style church, which of course everyone who passed by wanted to take pictures with. then we went to the bathroom at a phone company (or something?)'s building. in taiwan, there are many toilets with the two function flush, like shauna had blogged about previously. they come in all different kinds (buttons and levers), but all the ones i have seen were well labeled. this one was kind of like a normal lever flusher, but there were two levers. the smaller flush (for after peeing) was the bigger lever, since it's used more frequently, but also labeled with the character "small", which in chinese can also mean peeing. the bigger flush (for after pooing) was the smaller lever, and also labeled with the character "big". outside the building, was the mascot for the phone company, which was pretty cute!

on the way to fort san domingo, we also passed streets by the danshui river that i think were in jay chou's secret (which we saw the night before). my cousin and her bf said that the big tree that almost touches the water was in the movie. (they are slightly obsessed with this movie.)

fort san domingo, a fort that has been occupied by the spanish, dutch, and british, was not the most exciting of stops on my tour of taiwan. it's basically looking at old western style buildings and rooms, which is not wildly fascinating for me. i think i would have liked to go there alone, though, so that i could read all the placards and learn some history. instead, we basically walked through and looked at / took pictures of everything. i thought it was ironic that i took pictures with some giant dutch clogs, because i had originally planned on going to the netherlands to visit shauna this spring. when leaving the place, we walked through a nice, well-groomed path, and noticed some cute tiny flowers. they reminded me of the lego flowers i used to have when i was younger. somehow, the three of us (each with our own cameras) became obsessed with taking giant pictures of these flowers, and this is where i realized/discovered the macro function on my camera! (okay, i'm not the most experienced photographer.)

after fort san domingo, we walked through aletheia university, which my cousin and her bf said was also part of the filming location of the movie secret. the campus is large, so we couldn't really make out what was in the movie, but it's a nice campus to walk through. what i thought was strange was that, within the college's campus, there were also elementary and middle schools. is there no drunken streaking on this college campus? the campus was more like a park (at least the section we were in) and there were a lot of families with kids there, and a lot of pigeons. these kids were feeding the pigeons, and i finally made good use of the 10x optical zoom on my camera (mine is black, i feel that is important to note) to sneak pictures of the feeding, without scaring away the pigeons (or letting the kids know i was spying). i made a good choice with the camera! the zoom is great and the image stabilization definitely works well!

and then my cousin and her bf took me to eat a gei, of course at the best shop for it. i had never even heard of a gei before! but it was soooo goooood! it is basically a big fried tofu, with cellophane noodles inside, and then the tofu is sealed shut with fish paste. on top is a special red sauce, i couldn't tell if it was the same sauce, probably not, but similar, less sweet, slightly more spicy.

at this point i was passed off to my other cousin, who had just finished taking an exam for getting into a masters program. she and her bf met up with us. they hadn't eaten all day, so now begins our food tour of danshui old street: a whirlwind of eating! first of all, danshui is famous for it's very tall and cheap ice cream, that is not necessarily good, just cheap (well it wasn't too bad). they come in pretty tall for 10NT (~30cents) or REALLY tall for 20NT (~60cents). it's difficult to finish the REALLY tall one, but i wanted to take a picture of it!!! so i got the mango and taro twist REALLY tall cone and my cousin broke off the top part and helped me eat it ;) next we ate grilled stinky tofu...OMG SURPRISINGLY SO TASTY!!! then we had some seafood sausages. and then candied and roasted taro, sweet potato, and some REALLY purple potato-y thing that was a taro crossed with a sweet potato (literally). then we had quail eggs on a stick, again really tasty. the quail egg vendor has this (basically a) frying pan that has all these impressions in it, basically just big enough to crack in a quail egg. that fries a while, then gets turned, and the result looks like a meatball, but tastes like a bite sized fried egg. the quail egg vendor strings 5 on a stick and sells them for about 15NT (~50cents). i also tried part of my cousin's corn dog, surprisingly, REALLY tasty, but i guess i've never really had a state fair corn dog in the states, only the gross ones you microwave or bake from frozen at home. and we had the famous danshui shrimp rolls. they were okay, nothing special. then we had these fried shrimp balls, what a waste of stomach space. then the eating was finally over.

my cousin and her bf went home on his motorcycle, but i stuck around danshui and walked the old street toward the mrt station. while the day was hot, it was getting to be quite breezy at night and by the danshui river. there was an occasional singer trying to perform. i enjoyed walking by the river, feeling the breeze, and slowly trying to digest. there was also a woman playing the guzheng, a traditional chinese string instrument. i watched a while and then rode the mrt back to shilin.

WORTH SEEING: danshui

WORTH EATING: fishball soup, special red sauce, a gei, grilled stinky tofu, quail eggs on a stick

full set of pictures at picasa!

spending money

i'm going to taiwan!

i've seriously spent like no money since starting my job one and a half years ago. now, i'm finally planning a vacation! here's what i spent in the last week:

00847.76 plane ticket to taipei (mar27-apr17)
00249.99 sony cybershot dsc-h3 (black)
00039.99 sony np-bg1 lithium-ion rechargeable battery pack
00014.99 lowepro rezo 50 camera pouch
-0025.00 best buy gift card from coupon for buying camera!
---------
$1127.73