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!

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.