Taiwan (II) - Food

I concluded that Taiwanese food didn't appeal to my tastebuds as much as sg/hk cuisine, even though there were maybe a hundred and one xiao1 chis1 to choose from ;P. I attribute it to the oiliness and perhaps queerness of things they eat! As such, I wasn't all THAT adventurous with trying the food at the night market. When dining out with the parents one day at a family restaurant kinda chain, E's mum was also half-horrified that I didn't seem to fancy most of the things on the menu. Felt rather paiseh, but I really couldn't force myself to happily ingest pig innards/trotters and all... And Taiwanese seem to like bamboo shoots quite a bit, which I unfortunately find stinky leh. However, I loved the selection of drinks in Taiwan... yummy green tea, strawberry milk teas/milk coffee/fruit milks were readily available in the convenience stores. I bought a new drink everyday, but didn't manage to try all...

The wide selection of yummy drinks at 7-eleven...

Something called 'Guan1 Cai2 Ban3' I tried at Shilin Night Market... Guess it's named this cos it visually resembles a coffin, but the chinese characters used were certainly auspicious- 'Official' for guan1 and 'Wealth/Money' for cai2... The bread was very well done, very crispy and I chose the shrimp filling for my coffin bread :P.
Uhm... a weirdly dressed vendor I spotted at Jiufen, selling taiwan sausages. I suppose with the keen competition from other food vendors, you have to do something to 'stand out' eh. But think for her case backfire, cos ppl just gawk at her then walk away....

Found out that the Taiwanese also have this bento culture, but the contents of their bian4 dang1s were quite different from the Japanese bentos I'm used to. This was a 'railroad bento' we got near the Hualien train station before boarding...

Had this on my last day in Danshui at this supposedly American ice cream cafe named 'Bigtom'... Red wine ice cream teppanyaki! Sticky vanilla ice cream on choc sponge cake drenched in red wine (the waitress pours wine onto the hot teppanyaki plate when this dessert is served, creating a mini sizzling effect)... quite cool and very satisfying :)

Mountainous Taiwan

I don't really know the breakdown of hilly and flat ground in Taiwan, but green mountains were omnipresent in Taipei and its surroundings. And so even though Taipei is very urbanised, scenic spots were also frequently but a stone's throw away. It amused me how houses (and temples too) could just pop up at random spots in the hills. It was also quite common to see cemeteries in the hills when driving past on the highway. City planning can appear to be haphazhard, but yet spontaneous in a way. In comparison S'pore really seems like a well-planned colourful Disneyland...
On my second day, I decided to be healthy and bused to Yangmingshan National Park in the morning. On our way up to a viewing spot, we encountered quite a few butterflies :) It's been a while, really.

Somehow this brown butterfly just stopped in front of me... and stayed on the fern for a long time, as if it knew that I was shooting it :)

I really liked this butterfly, cos I've never seen any with such huge white spots. Unfortunately it was really restless and kept fluttering around. I only managed a quick shot from far when it settled down for a few seconds... There were some orange and blue ones, but didn't manage to get any shot of these fleeting free-spirited creatures :)

An attempt to make fallen petals look artistic haha. This was taken alongside this long bench where you could get a pretty good view of the city after a short walk uphill. Nothing very spectacular, but just felt peaceful. Here, we also saw a loving old couple taking their morning stroll with their dog. It rained rather heavily just after we decided to break for lunch, so felt pretty lucky to have had a pocket of fairly good weather for the morning walk.

Hungry fat koi in a pond outside the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

Evening view from a cafe at the historic gold mining town of Jiufen, abt an hour's drive west of Taipei. It's tucked away in the hills and offered good views of the coast! I realised I really love sitting at some cafe at high altitudes and looking down at everything else below me. This place reminded me of Lijiang, though the latter is still nicer :)

But of course, Jiufen was also pretty touristy. Starbucks in the hills....

Back!

Cos I have to work tmr, can't really afford to type a detailed entry. But this was where I stayed (the middle floor) for 4 out of 5 nights in Taiwan :) Well the exterior of this building might look quite run-down, but cos E's dad refurbished their unit it really wasn't as unliveable as it might appear to be :P. And it gave me the unique opportunity to experience living like a local, opening the red metal door and walking up the narrow flight of stairs and all whenever we came back... With convenience stores and little eateries open till late at night scattered all over the city, Taipei has to be one of the most convenient places to live in. Even more so than Hong Kong and Singapore in my opinion...