Art, Shit, and Shrimp

 Today was our first full day in Taiwan, and more importantly, Aaron's only day to sightsee. We're here for business. Well, Aaron is anyway. My business is fun. And mischief. The #1 thing I had read about in Taipei was the National Palace Museum. It's filled with a ton of Chinese pieces and if we hadn't gone, I know people would've given us the side eye....so we got it out of the way first. It was a nice museum and we only stayed about 2 hours. We saw the jade, bronze, and even a whole wing on snuff bottles. Aaron wants to bring the snuff bottle back into fashion. We couldn't take ANY pictures inside....so sad. So the only photo I have is of me outside the building.

 We then took a cab (cabs are SO cheap here) to a temple in the old town. It was hilarious because it looked like half temple, half bus depot. Very tacky but very Chinese. I'm sure we'll be seeing many more of these little temples. This was on the roof. We then walked around the little shops and found lunch at Modern Toilet. I shit you not, it's a shit themed restaurant. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to stomach it, but I was with 2 guys....and the curiosity was too huge. The menus were in the shape of shit, and all the food came in toilet bowls.

 I can't believe I saw this giant shit in the entry way and still went in.

 Even my tea came in a toilet mug. My hot pot was tasty and the funniest thing was that Aaron and Alex both got beef curry in a shitter. We took a cab back to the hotel so they could both get some work done and I only mention it because the cabbie started asking me questions and saying how beautiful I was....and it became apparent that he thought I was a prostitute. He kept asking me "how much?" and saying that Alex was "big" and Aaron was "long." I tried to telling him I wasn't for sale. Very awkward to be confused for a prostitute, but more so in front of your husband.

 For dinner and night activity, we went shrimp fishing. This was the 1 thing I read about that I HAD to do. It's a cement pond indoors, and you rent a fishing pole by the hour. Aaron was by far the best fisherman catching 5 shrimp. Alex caught 2 and I caught 1. (Mine was the largest of any though so that has to count for something, right?) We rented the poles for an hour and when they came to retrieve the poles we decided that 1 hour wasn't enough. It was strangely therapeutic. The water was calming and really the only stressful thing was having to pull the shrimp off the hook (which I didn't even do because I was chicken)

 Aaron then helped the woman put the shrimp in a basket to be cooked.  The boys were very excited to see the shrimps cook.

 Here's the pond. I was the only female fishing there. I think it's a male activity. They usually drink beer and eat junk food while fishing. The other ponds there had fish and lobster.

 Here's our finished, ready to eat shrimp. It was by far the freshest shrimp I've ever eaten and tasted good knowing that we caught them ourselves, but I was terrified, since I don't like dealing with animals still looking like animals. But I managed. Aaron was so proud of me being brave. Here's a picture of me with my sole shrimp all cooked.