Taiwan Day 1-3: Parents in Taiwan!

Wow!  It's been a busy last 3 days with my parents!  I think we didn't waste any time breaking them in to the culture shock.

I'll write here a brief summary of what we've done :)

Day 1:

We started the trip off with a trip to Xinbeitou hotspring area.  We checked out the thermal park with steaming 90 degree green hotspring water.  The water drained into a creek and the water was cool enough (but still hot) to stick our feet in and relax.  It was very nice.

Then it was off to the coastal city of Danshuei.  We checked out the place and bought lots of yummy drinks such as mango and honey green tea.  I bought my parents some bbq stinky tofu.  It's still an aquired taste for them :P

After Danshuei it started to get dark so we went to Longhshan Temple in Taipei city and awalked around the place with incense.  After the temple we went through the tourist Night Market.  Lots of weird things for sale and we even saw a cockroach on the end of a string (it was alive)  weeeird.

It had been a long day so we headed back to the hotel to meet with Ali's family the next day.


Day2:
We took the 9:30 HSR train to Taoyuan and Ali & Niki picked us up.  I showed my parents my house and then we left for Yingee.  We walked around the old ceramics district and finally found some glass painted snuff bottles for my mom.  We also found these neat little bottles carved from Cow bone.

After Yingee we went to Sanxia which has a really old traditional street and a super old temple.  THe street was cool and we had a buritto filled with icecream and cilantro and peanut powder.  It was yummy and a bit confusing to eat.

After Sanxia we went back to Toayuan City to meet with Ali's parents at their house.  THey gave us tea and some gifts such as persimmons and pineapple moon cake.  We then left for a fancy restaurant.

The meal must have been 10 courses and most of the stuff was traditional non-western style chinese food.  So much good stuff and my parents were overwhelmed at simply how much food there was!  Everything tasted great :D :D  Thank you Ali's family for the wonderful visit!

We then went back to the house and ran to catch the HSR back to Taipei.

Day 3:
We woke early and met Ali and Niki at Taipei Main station.  We then took a bus to Jiufen which is on the northern part of Taiwan.  The bus ride was about 1.5 hours long.

When we arrived in Jiufen, we took the bus a bit further to see an old gold museum park area.  It had a really cool historic Japanese presence and we walked up some really old stone steps into the mountains to check out this open air temple thing.  It was really cool.

We then took another bus down to check out the "golden waterfall" which is named that because it's rich in iron deposits.

I had a taro icecream and then we took the bus back to Jiufen.  Jiufen is where Miyazaki got inspiration for the movie Spirited Away.  The place was awesome!  Many small narrow streets packed full of people shopping for different food and gift stuff.  We stopped for lunch at a tofu and fish ball soup place.  Yum!

Then we walked to the top of the city and had a famous QQ shaved ice desert and sat inside a restaurant that overlooked the valley and coastline.  Absolutely beautiful view!

We left Jiufen as the sun was setting and took the train back to Taipei (the train was full so we had to sit on the floor for 40 min or so).

In Taipei we took the MRT to Jiantao station and went to Shilin Night Market, the most famous night market in Taiwan.  We wandered the packed streets and my parents I think were probably a bit overwhelmed from all the people.  We tried some different foods including asparagus wrapped in bacon and bbq'd, and a taiwanese sausage hotdog, where instead of a bun made of bread, it was a bun made of rice :)

We had a great time but it was getting late so we headed back to the hotel, but not before saying goodbye to our Taiwan buddies Ali and Niki.  They were such gracious hosts for us for the past 2 days and they will be much missed!  Hopefully they come to canada so that we can show them our hospitality in return :P  (yes niki I know you read this blog ;P)

And now I'm writing this email in the basement of the hotel, where most of the lights are out, and theres a whole table of japanese people speaking japanese loudly smoking cigarettes.  I feel like i'm intruding on some sort of secret meeting. lol.  So i think I'll sign off :P  Off to Hualien and Taroko Gorge tomorrow!  Ciao! :D