Productive and uneventful day

Well not too much to blog about today.  For breakfast Johan and I tried to go to this steam dumpling/gyoza place but it was closed for the second morning in a row (gaah!)  So we went to the same place as yesterday.  I tried to rice wrapped in bamboo.  It was tasty :)

After breakfast we went home and I pretty much was working all day until now with a few breaks and meals :)  I got a lot done and am very happy with the progress, but of course work productivity is directly linked to me not doing interesting stuff ;) so it's no surprise that while I got lots done, i didn't do much to talk about!

Tomorrow Johan and I are going up to Taipei for a Hans Christian Andersen exhibit and meeting some of his friends there.  Then after that we're heading to Taoyuan for all-you-can-eat family style sukiyaki hot pot!  Ali's family wants to treat me so I'm very excited about it :D

Details to come tomorrow!

Crazy Taiwanese News...

This just in on the evening news tonight:

Husband loses family dog!
Wife threatens with divorce if dog is not found
Policeman finds dog and returns it to the family
End of story!

National Geographic

wow!  We got quite the nature show last night when Johan and I stepped outside for some fresh air.  Just maybe 20 feet away from the garage door there was an army of ants trying to carry away a large dead grasshopper.  The grasshopper was about the size of my index finger, and the ants were quite small.  It was a frenzy of activity!

Then shortly after, this large cricket bug (the same species as the one that I took a picture of at the baseball game) started flying around the light pole that was close to us.  I think it was confused or something because it kept running into the building wall.  Eventually it hit the wall and fell to the ground right close to where the ants were.  The ants saw this big piece of steak fall from the sky and rushed to claim their prize!  There was a bit of a fight as the cricket tried to evade the ants, but it was no use, the ants swarmed mr.cricket and there was nothing he could do.  Over the next 15 minutes he pretty much made this really loud chirping sound and then it went silent.... rip.   or so we thought.  After about 5 minutes of silence the cricket woke up and started going crazy spinning all around the ground.  It was the crickets second wind, but it was short lived because the ants quickly pounced and it was all over.

I filmed 3 videos of this and put them onto the web album.  The second (http://picasaweb.google.com/justinliebregts/Taiwan2010Week34#5499522767277604898) one is probably the most disturbing. lol.  After watching this whole scene unfold I kept having delusions that ants were crawling on me. lol.

Kimchi and Pork on Rice with Miso Soup

Nikki was driving to the mall to pick up some dog food for the stray dogs and asked if I wanted to go.  I hadn't had lunch yet so I thought it'd be a good chance for me to eat.  We went to the food court and she helped me order.  I asked her what her favorite thing to eat was and she pointed me towards a Japanese food outlet.  I picked the Kimchi and pork with egg on rice with a side of miso soup!  It was really tasty and filled me up :D  $4.50.  I had it to go so no picture unfortunately!  But I thought it was noteworthy.  Also, the guy who I ordered food from last time (who spoke no english and we had a laugh with me trying to order) saw me and waved.  I waved back.  Looks like I'm slowly making friends with the food court staff ;)

Local Breakfast

Johan took me to another morning cafe restaurant for breakfast.  They had a whole bunch of things on the menu (of which I couldn't read anything).  Johan ordered rice wrapped in bamboo with some special sauce on top (50 cents) , while I ordered some minced pork with haufan noodled (rice noodles) for $1.  She cooked it up right in front of us.  It was delicious and everything on the menu was less than $1.50.  Johan suggested next time I come to just randomly point at a menu entry because nothing on the menu was really "weird" or would be a surprise.

Shilin Night Market for the evening!

Well!  I was pretty much ready to go home after Danshui because I was pretty tired, but I had noticed earlier in the day that the most famous night market in Taiwan, The Shilin Night Market, was along my trip home.  I figured who knows when I'm gonna be in this area at night again by myself (sometimes exploring is best done alone so you can "get lost" in the area and be fully absorbed in your surroundings).  So I got off at the Shilin MRT stop.

I bought some iced green tea from a mini-mart in the MRT and headed towards the market.  According to the map it looked about a 5-10 minute walk so I started off :)

Now... as I'm thinking about how to describe the night market.  It's quite difficult to put down into words.  It's something you sort of need to experience.  The bustle of the people, all the loud noises, body heat, navigating crowds, and of course all the different aromas (probably one of the most memorable parts of any night market is the smells).  You really need to experience it to fully understand it!  So in lieu of words I'm going to post some pics!  And keep in mind this is on a Wednesday evening.  I hear on the weekends the volume of people is ridiculous :P

And the food...  Actually one thing that was funny is that there was a "pizza/burrito" place (only one i saw) and it had a huge lineup!

Now, I'm not trying to brag, but I've been told that I have a pretty good sense of direction and I rarely get lost when walking.  To give you another idea of the size and confusingness of this night market; I got lost!  Well I didn't actually get lost.  But I got turned around quite a bit while going through the maze and ended up walking quite a distance in the opposite direction I was supposed to be.  It was quite a surprise to me when I saw an MRT station, and it ended up being the exact same station that I had come from.  It felt like I was in groundhog day or something!  I even went back to the mini-mart to where I bought the drink to make sure I was really where I was (the same clerk was working the till).  Though being lost had it's benefits!  I got a better idea of the area and I have some nice pictures from the exploration!

Now that I knew where I was again, I went back into the Shilin Night market via a different entrance and proceeded to find more and more mazes and areas of the market that I didn't see last time.  I wanted to get a good idea of the layout of the place for when I take my parents and eliza, I can show them the cool stuff and not get us lost ;)

After my second round at exploring the night market, it really was time to go home so I headed back to Jintao MRT station (the correct station this time) and headed back to Taipei Main station to catch the HSR back to ChingPu.  What a great day!

Danshui for the afternoon :)

What a great day! (I'm going to write this blog as if I wrote it yesterday when I got home).  Johan was heading up to Taipei to meet some friends so I decided to come up to Taipei with him on the HSR and then we split our ways after he did some errands.  What I type here will be an abridged version because I saw so many cool things that it's just too much to type out :P

As soon as we split, I decided to head up north to Danshui, which is a popular tourist destination at the northern-most point of the Taipei MRT line.  It's located right along the entrance of an inlet to the South China Sea.  The MRT ride took me through several stops that had beautiful scenery of rich and lush jungle covered hills with a few small buildings and temples poking out from the trees.  Unfortunately no pictures because I was on the other side of the train and I figured I'll take pictures the second time around.  Though here's a pic I snapped later on in the MRT trip.

Some of the views in Danshui are quite beautiful and a "seawall" has been built along the water to walk along.  Along the walkway are many food vendors and little arcades to lose your money in the hopes of wining a small stuffed animal.

Along the wall if you look down into the wet sand, there's tons of little crabs running around with their neighboring mud skippers and birds

I stopped at one of the popular vendors and ordered some Deep fried breaded squid tentacles.  The lady quickly proceeded to pick one off the top of her pile and quickly cut it into small pieces with a large pair of scissors.

Sprinkled on top was the traditional Taiwanese spice that they seem to put on a lot of deep friend night market food.  It was a bit pricey ($3) compared to what I've been paying for food lately but I'm in a tourist spot so it's to be expected.

I walked for probably an hour along the water until I could no longer walk any further due to more construction.  So I headed up a big hill to Hongmao Castle (aka. San Domingo Castle).  Unfortunately different maps and street signs would either refer to this as Hongmao or San Domingo, and it took me a while to realize they were the same thing :P  Here's a picture of the castle, and then a picture of me from the terrace overlooking the inlet.  You can go inside of the buildings but I didn't end up taking many pics cause it wasn't really that interesting and I wasn't in the "museum reading" mood.

After the castle I climbed back down the hill and headed back through the historic street district.  It was maybe 5:30pm and it was starting to get a bit busier.  There's many many shops along this street offering the standard variety of food/desserts and souvenirs.  There was this one souvenir shop that had some really neat looking sculptured stuff.  I chatted with the store owner for a bit and unfortunately she would not let me take any pictures so I guess you'll have to see it if you ever go to Danshui :P

I had ended up making a big loop along the water and coming back through the historic street area.  I had a bit of time before it started getting dark so I started wandering into some of the back street areas and checking out the local life.  I also found another mini night market and a really reasonable shaved ice place (mental note to take mom there if she's feeling like shaved ice).

It started getting dark and I wanted to see the sunset on the water so I made my way back through this night market to go watch the sun set and take some photos.  On my way to the water I bought some "Frog Egg" juice.  Though it's not as scary as it sounds because I think "Frog Egg" is just a brand name.  I didn't see anything that resembled frog eggs in the actual drink.  The drink (pictured below) tastes sort of like a light tea, with lime flavour, sugar, and then this jelly stuff in it.  The jelly was pretty flavourless but the drink was really refreshing!

And here's some sun setting pics

After the long day of walking my dogs were barking and it was time to get onto the MRT and head home :)  And now for some gratuitous doggie pics for dog fans :)

Blog post coming...

K the images from yesterdays outing are uploaded onto my web album if you're impatient.  The blog post is in the making but I need to get some work done first ;)

Long Day Out!

Well it's almost 1am and I was out exploring Taipei for a good 9 hours today.  I'd post but I think it's going to be a bit of a long one, and it's getting late so I'll save it for tomorrow ;)  Lots of great pictures!  Stay tuned ;D

omg...

ha. note to self.  Don't rename Picasa Web Albums.  I just spent the last 45min re-linking all my blog images because of the Web Album renaming I did yesterday :P

Black Tea Cake Roll and a familiar taste

Along with the Oscar the Grouch Pretzel, Nikki bought a Black Tea Cake Roll.  It looked like a swiss roll which had some sort of cream filling.  Anyways, it actually tasted like sweet black tea and was really tasty.

Last night Ali bought some Bubble Tea from Johan's cousins newly opened bubble tea place and also some pretty good Beef Noodle Soup.  I wasn't hungry last night (because I had the late lunch/diner) so I had the noodle soup for lunch and diner today.  I'm drinking the bubble tea right now and I found out it's a Green Tea/Plum flavour (there's actually a few plums at the bottom that at first I thought were olives).

Oh yah!  And I also cracked into the "Original Yogurt Drink."  Wow the taste is not what I would have guessed.  As I drank it, the flavour reminded me of something but I couldn't put my finger on it until I was half way done the cup.  I realized it tastes very similar to my Grandma's Lemon pie filling except a bit more creamier/yogurty!  Quite unusual for a drink flavour!  I like it :D

Other than that, nothing really happened today.  I was going to go and bike to Jhong Li but it started raining and I didn't feel like venturing into the rain and clouds so I've just stayed home all day banging my head on the desk trying to solve some programming problems.

Google Maps can be wrong!

It was getting late in the afternoon, no one was home, we have no food in the house, and I was getting hungry.  I had been looking around on Google Maps earlier in the day to get a better idea of the area and I noticed a new and shorter way to get to the Metro Walk Mall through some back alleys!  I thought this would be a fun opportunity to take a different and perhaps shorter/safer route.  I memorized the route and headed out.

Boy was Google Maps wrong!  I have a feeling that someone just traced what looked like "dirt paths" from the satellite view of the area.  When I reached some of the roads, they were actually just dirt roads leading to construction sites.  I kept biking around, fully aware that probably none of the roads led to the mall, but I felt like exploring and wanted to get some exercise so I kept riding around in the back roads.  There were plenty of great photo ops so here's a sample (with the rest on my Web Album.  I've re-organized it so here's the new link: http://picasaweb.google.com/justinliebregts)

So after biking around in the sticks for the better part of an hour I went back and took the route I normally take to go to the mall (because I was really getting hungry by then).  It's a rush every time I bike along here. lol!

When I arrived at the mall I walked around a bit to cool off in the air conditioning and then headed down to the food court.  Each food vendor has these plastic/wax displays of their menu so it's quite easy to browse and pick what to eat.  This was the first time I ordered something to eat by myself (other than 7-11) but I thought I was up to the task.  I pointed at the wax food model, and started getting out my wallet to pay, but then I had to answer a series of 3 questions (the guy taking my order knew no english).  So we played this sort of guessing game back and forth.  The first two questions I actually think I understood (1.  chicken or beef  2.rice or... some other side dish), but the third question I had no idea and I just ended up saying "Soi Bien La" which means "whatever" in Mandarin. lol.  I think it was for the type of sauce.  We had a laugh and the guy took my money.  Then a few minutes later I thought someone called out my number and I went up to grab my food and almost took this other guy's food by mistake (a bit embarrassing) but I quickly figured out where the food was coming out and waited another few minutes for this beauty food court dish to appear.  It was $4.25.  Most dishes in the food court are between $4-$5.

After the meal I went to the Carrefour (walmart) to shop for a snack or something to have around the house for when I get hungry.  I ended up buying these Pumpkin and Walnut Steam Buns.  The pack was about $3.50.  And I also bought this "Original Yogurt Drink" which was the ingredient in the delicious bubble tea I had at the night market on Saturday.  This "yogurt" drink doesn't really have a north american counter part.  You might think of Yop, but yop is more like... watered down yogurt, whereas this Yogurt Drink is more like a... sort of yogurt-sourness milk.  It's quite refreshing :D  It was $2.25 and came with a free Lemon Ice Tea.

ps - I ended up biking home as the sun went down, which I don't think is the best time to bike because all the swarms of bugs come out and one stretch of the road on my way home had so many "walls" of bugs, I had to keep my mouth closed because they kept hitting my face.  When I got in the door the first thing I did was go up to the washroom and wash my face to get the bugs off.  not so pleasant! :P  Though the sky was looking beautiful.

Third Mom Hot Pot

For diner we went to a small "hole in the wall" hot pot restaurant about 15 min drive away.  The place really doesn't look like much, and it's a bit grungy but you can't argue with the price and the food :)  First of all, the kitchen is at the front of the restaurant facing the street, and then the dinning area is at the back (this is actually quite typical).  The kitchen area had an "L" shape of burners with small individual sized metal woks containing a myriad of different ingredients which were boiling in their respective broths.

When we entered the dinning area to sit down, I noticed all the tables and chairs were mini!  It felt like we were giants sitting down for diner with our knees above the top edge of the table.

Johan ordered the House Special Stinky Tofu Hot Pot for himself and me, while Nikki had the Kimchi Hot Pot, and I didn't catch what Ali had, but it looked similar to our hot pot.  Before the hot pot came, we could self-serve ourselves with a few different drinks, and different sauces to dip our food in.  The favorite sauce seems to be the satay sauce (oriental bbq sauce) mixed with a spicy garlic sauce.

When the food arrived, they placed these metal holders down in front of us and filled a small chamber inside with this clear gel, which they then lit on fire to keep our hotpots boiling.

Starting from 9 o'clock and moving clockwise here is what I can remember as being the ingredients:  Green onions, clams, 3 types of bean curd, cocktail weiner, beef ball, beef slices, mushrooms, cabbage, pig blood, pig blood/rice mixture (the black cubes near the bottom).  There's also 2 large pieces of firm stinky tofu underneath the whole thing.  The whole meal came to $3 per person!  Now that's value :)

Now you may be wondering where "Stinky Tofu" gets it's name from (I was wondering as we were eating) so I thought I'd look it up.  According to Wikipedia:

"Stinky tofu is a form of fermented tofu that has a strong odor. It is a popular snack in East and Southeast Asia, particularly Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Mainland China, where it is usually found at night markets or roadside stands, or as a side dish in lunch bars."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stinky_tofu

The smell is a bit hard to describe, but it smells like... sweaty/wet socks that have been left under the sink for a month and then put in the microwave.  lol.  K i'm not sure if that's the exact smell, but the smell is very pungent and probably something most westerners would not want to even get close to.  The taste is definitely acquired and it tastes much better than it smells.  To get an idea for how bad it smells, they had a challenge on the 3rd season of The Amazing Race Asia to eat a bowl of Stinky Tofu :P

Tropical Rain Storm with Lunch and Shaved Ice for Dessert

Can you see the size of those rain drops?  Geez we got out of the car and were instantly soaked.  Looks like Ali and Nikki came to lunch prepared with an umbrella.  Luckily we found a parking spot nearly right in front of the restaurant.  I'm not sure where we were or the name of the restaurant, but they served some fairly traditional Taiwanese dishes.

From left to right we have goose (tasted like juicy turkey), then there's pig blood at the back (actually didn't taste like much.  The sauce is what I found really gave it the flavour.), and then there's squid on the right with some wasabi and shoyu.

Here's this interesting dish.. imagine a pizza except the dough is egg like a whipped and fried, the tomatoe sauce is... garlic sauce, and the pepperoni is oysters.

And to top off the meal I had some clam soup.  I haven't had it since the last time I was in Taiwan (2007) so it was a real treat!   It's pretty much a really simple broth cooked with clams and ginger.  The flavour is really simple but tastes great!

After the lunch, we drove back into Jhong Li to get my key fob replaced (we had bought an extra pair the other day so that I can get through the gate at our apartment and into the house but unfortunately it didn't work).  The guy's shop wasn't opened, so to make ourselves feel better we went to a shaved ice dessert place around the corner ;)  Mom you'd love this place!  And I know Eliza would really like the mango shaved ice I had!  Everything was pretty much between $1 and $1.50.  You could either order specific shaved ice concoctions or you could do a self service thing and pick between a ton of different ingredients (which were then weighed on a scale).  I ended up ordering their specialty mango shaved ice which was delicious.  They first shave down a block of ice, then they pour a brown sugar syrup on top of the ice, then drizzle some condensed milk on top (for sweetness and texture) and then pile it with fresh mangoes!  Hopefully I can take you guys here :D