So we've been incredibly busy and wifi has been sketchy at night, so updating has been tough.
The day started with a visit to Starbucks and 7-eleven with my roommate. We pretty much had snacks from 7-eleven every day (there's one on every corner...like sometimes across the street from each other) and we've been testing all kinds of different flavors of things. The seaweed chips were underwhelming, but the garlic pea chips were quite tasty. Starbucks has the most amazing tea drink I've ever had which I may have already mentioned, but I literally got one every day in Taipei. It's a black tea with ruby grapefruit and honey, iced. They have a deal here where you can buy two grande or venti of the same drink and get the second one half off, so we kept doing that and enjoying it! The tea is sweet and tastes exactly like a super fresh ruby grapefruit. Everyone in the group started drinking it after I let them all try it, I'll miss it so much!
Our lecture today was on the Development of Taiwan Democracy, given by Professor Mei-Chuan Wei, Associate Professor at NCCU and National Chengchi University. She got her Ph.D. at the London School of Economics and Political Science and was incredible. My biggest take away was definitely figuring out the goal of the KMT party (how did I never figure out that reunification does not mean being absorbed by the PRC, it means taking back control of the mainland? 😲).
After another lunch on campus, we went to Dihua Street and Dadaocheng for a tour. This is a historic street market where they still sell a lot of wholesale spices and supplies.
We saw the first of many Buddhist temples, this was a really big one. We learned about the history of the temple and how people worship at them. The smells of incense is so nice, and it's always burning in temples.
We went down some little alleys and saw some cool houses, there's lot of little details that pop out and plants everywhere. This is about the greenest place I think I've even been, there's plants on every balcony and patio. Some are so pretty!
Scooter life terrifies me and we aren't even in Vietnam yet. The number of scooters I've seen with 3 people, and kids just standing up between their parents legs...so nerve wracking. But everyone wears helmets and obeys traffic laws so it's fairly safe. The amount of traffic is a lot less too since there aren't all the extra cars everywhere. The scooters have special zones at each light were they all gather and then get to the front of the lines, so they stay ahead of the cars and move out all at once. It's like a dance watching it happen.
This building is owned by the descendents of the family that built it during the days of the tea trade. The tiles are from England and it's a historic building at this point. Lots of famous people have stayed there on trips to Taiwan including Western politicians.
I love seeing street food and how it's prepared here. This was a giant roasting oven and the wares nearby...lots of chicken heads and feet here!
This was our first visit to the harbor and it was really pretty. It's hard to get good photos sometimes because the light is a little flat when it's cloudy, but you can see how there are mountains everywhere. There's very few spots so far where we haven't been able to see at least one mountain.
I'm not entirely sure what this model ship represents because I was off taking photos when the guide was talking, but I'd guess it represents the tea and fabric trade that was very important to the area.
This is a songwriter, Li Lin-Chiu. He was known for sitting in this spot and writing songs for people. He wrote some of the most famous Taiwanese folk songs, and at the top of each hour they are played on speakers near him. The piece we heard was beautiful!
I've been on a bird hunt. I'm pretty I found a stork and a heron of some sort here, maybe a cattle heron? It looks different than the night herons I've been seeing.
I love the turtles, they're everywhere and so curious about the world. They will pop out and watch you as you want by (probably just looking for food).
Taipei 101 is the largest building in Taiwan, I'll post more about it later when we visit.
Remember that banner from yesterday's post? Here it is in action! We have to unroll it, take photos, and roll it back up. It's made of a thick paper so it's pretty sturdy, but it is quickly becoming a running joke with the group.
After our tour we had a little time to wander but I was stupid hot again, so I found this adorable shop all painted with scenes that apparently are from a popular kid's book or show here. There's selfie stations everywhere, and so many cats...I've become known in the group as the cat-lady and everyone expects me to be taking pictures of them everywhere. I'll probably have a whole separate post some day about the cats and cat drawings I've been seeing just because. As you can tell, I'm disgustingly hot again here. Patrick made fun of me for buying the fan around my neck (it blows air up so my head feels it moving around, it's not usually cool but at least it's moving) but it's been the best thing I brought with me. People are so jealous they're looking out for ones to buy now!
After the tour, we went out with the old roommate of one of our group members. They took us on the subway to Raohe Night Market. The subways are quite easy to negotiate and are pretty cheap. Everything here is pretty cheap, actually. The token I've got here is used to get into the station, then you deposit it to get out. You load it with the amount you need for one trip, and the cost depends on how far you are going. This one cost $25 New Taiwan Dollars, which is about $.90 US. $30 NTD = $1 USD. Night Markets are like street markets in South Korea or many other Asian countries...lots of little stands to buy just about anything you want plus amazing food.
This temple is outside the night market and we took a little walk though. It was huge!
I love street food so very much, it's my favorite thing in the world. Luke's friend gave us some great suggestions. I'm trying to take lots of food pictures, I'll probably have another full post on those at some point (food and cats...I'm in heaven here). This was a donut, but it was almost more of a cronut...crunchy on the outside and doughy inside, and so tasty. I got the strawberry and the chocolate, the strawberry was the best. I also bought a small change purse (I only use cash as much as possible when traveling to help me track how much I spend, but I always forget that I should be prepared for lots of coins. Hence my coin purse collection) and lots of food. The stuffed rice balls are also very good, but the watermelon juice was meh. The watermelon wasn't very sweet so it wasn't awesome.
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