Nougat, Tofu, and Noodles.

 Thought you'd like to see how I'm getting around the city, speaking no chinese. This is exactly what concierges are for; scribbling code for the taxi drivers. I feel bad that I'm not really using the MRT to its full potential, but I only have 3 days total here and taxis are so cheap. First stop today was the nougat museum. When I arrived, no one spoke English except one woman who could say 'mango' and 'almond' because there was both almond nougat and mango nougat for sale. None of the diagrams were in English so literally all I could understand was pictures. I GUESS nougat is made with sugar and peanuts, and since cows were everywhere, I assume milk is added at some point. Either way, I bought some delicious nougat candies (which are already half gone as I write this)

 The outside of the building looks like a unicorn threw up.

I then went on a very unsuccessful hunt for vintage clothing. It's not popular here (at least not anything pre 1970's) and the only luck I had was with an art deco jewelry store, but the owner was too knowledgeable and knew what he had. Most of his pieces were from the 10's and 20's and were priced VERY accordingly. Sad for me, as I wanted to buy something. I did buy a 1930's hat from a nunnery charity second hand store as well as 2 boxes of trouser fabric, but nothing remarkable.

 Aaron and Alex along with a group of game developers/hosts took us to the Shilin Night Market, something I've been very excited to do. It was filled with lots of carnival games (mostly the balloon popping type but with guns or bows and arrows, or mahjong type tiles that you had to make a BINGO) and unknown foods in stalls.

 Aaron's accuracy in these games impressed the other game developers.

"Were you in the military?"
"Does he play a lot of first person shooter games?"

Needless to say, I was both impressed as well as proud of my hubby, knowing now that if a balloon tries to rob us, he'll protect me.

 I was mostly excited to eat here. Everyone talks about the food; how yummy it is, how weird it is, how there is no guarantee that you won't get sick unless you don't eat anything....I like those odds. We ate fried eggs with shrimp which was tame, but Aaron went a whole football field's length further by trying STINKY TOFU! If you've never had the displeasure of eating or smelling stinky tofu, you are a lucky soul. Here are some things we thought to describe the smell.

1. A marathon runner's asshole after mile 20 and he's just shit himself
2. A pig trough and a pig has died there
3. A homeless subway man who pissed on himself and is drooling in the corner
4. A man's asshole after wading in the ocean all day

Needless to say, it's a pretty heinous smell. Everytime we walked by, I couldn't bare it, rushing past the group. I even had the displeasure of eating something and passed by the smell, which then made my food taste like stinky tofu. Nearly threw up.

 Some of the nicer foods in the market were the peanut ice cream wrap which Alex got. He picked the weirdest ice creams; taro and plum.

 Aaron enjoyed the jelly drink which is essentially jell-o pieces wading in lemon tea. He loved the consistency.

"Faust, what's that?"
"It's cake.....cake of cow tongue."
"What what?!"

We laughed about this exchange all night. It's actually just a sweet pastry but it's called cow tongue based on its shape. I also bought a cookie called a "pig's ear" so you can see where we'd be double taking at every weird name.

 Some of the more crazy stalls had interesting meats (not trying this as I don't want to get sick).

 Yummy fruits are more my style.

After the market, the boys wanted to try some beef noodles since it's one of Taiwan's best dishes. Both exclaimed that it tasted "homemade" and "just like grammy's" so that must mean it was delicious!