Archive for 2009
Taiwan Day 5: Family food
Day 5! Big family dinner. Everyone came out, except for one of my aunts’ husbands and one cousin, who is in the compulsory army right now. The food was yummy. My little cousin, Karen, was a pretty good girl, but still very lively. My other younger cousin, Stina, who is a few years younger than me, wanted me to go to her university to go to the night market there, but I had told my older cousin, Nathan, that I would go watch his soccer game. It’s the kind of thing I usually do.
It had been raining so the field was muddy and had puddles in some bare spots of grass so everyone got pretty dirty. The other team wasn’t much of a competition and my cousin’s team had beat them before and this game was a rematch. Not much of a rematch @_@.
Then, after going back to Nathan’s house and cleaning up, we, my parents, and his parents took a bus for about 15 minutes to go to some awesome place to eat….sometimes great, but it was closed because it was a sunday! So we went to a nearby noodle house to eat. It wasn’t so bad. I took these with my camcorder, and I realize now that I can’t take pictures up too close with it @_@.
Taiwan Day 3 and 4: Food
Day 2 wasn’t much. We ended up going into the mountains again to eat at the same chicken restaurant with a different set of people because it was soooo good that we had to share this restaurant. We ended up ordering something new though. It’s kind of like hearts of palm, and you peel the outer layer, and dip the fleshy soft part in soy sauce and eat it. It was reeeally good. Kind of bamboo-like.
Then, my eye surgery was at 6:30 and that took about an hour and half of prep (pills to calm me down, more info and what to expect) and eye’s hurting, I quickly went home and my dad bought a sammich for me and I knocked myself out in bed without taking a shower or brushing my teeth. It was pretty bad. See my eye surgery post!
Day 3!
The morning after the surgery was much better and I went out to eat with my parents are family friends. The restaurant was called “I Love My Home.” and it was french cuisine. It was pretty good. Full courses with dessert and everything. Some of the pictures didn’t upload because they are more than 2mb and I’m too lazy to upload them all. But you get the gist. Then we went back to our house and hung out for a bit before going back out to eat at all you can eat hot pot! for only 198 NT! That’s…about 6 bucks. A lot of the all you can eat here is 198 now. The meats and other ingredients like fishballs come in the escalator above and you can just take the dishes. Other ingredients, like veggies, you have to walk over to the section to get it. They had a big drink section, and desserts, popcorn, chocolate fountain, and assorted toast you spread yourself.
Yes, Taiwan has a lot to do with food.
Taiwan Day 2
On my second full day, my parents and my aunt and cousin, Nathan, took a trip to Yang Ming Mountain to eat some really good chicken. Omg it was good. I don’t usually like chicken. It’s such a common flavor. Everything can taste like chicken. But the chicken here taste soooo good. I don’t know what they feed them but it’s amazing. We had this taro stuff too that was sooooo good. I’m so glad that I like eating taro now when I used to dislike it. Food is so much more fun to eat when you’re less picky. Currently, I’m working on liking bitter melon and assorted beans. Then I think I’ll be done (insects and other exotic animals aside).
Then we went to Dharma Drum Mountain, a Buddhist school for monks to drum? The place didn’t look overbearing at all and was quiet peaceful. None of that, swooping roofs, red and gold dragons or colorful sculptures. It was really modern, sleek, and minimal.
The Center was inaugurated on October 21, 2005. The buildings in the Center were designed in harmony with contours of the mountain, with brown, gray, and white as their main color, reflecting a humanistic spirit while merging with nature, and featuring a simple and moderate architectural style, making the whole environment and the complex itself a means of teaching.
In addition, in effort to realize environmental protection, ecological construction methods were adopted in constructing the buildings, so as to show respect to, preserve, and protect life and natural resources.
This was taken by someone else. Pictures aren’t allow inside the building.
The picture doesn’t do the place justice. There is a glass window behind the statue that you can look through to see the running water on the wall behind it. There is also a pool of water running around her.
Regardless of religion, it’s a really calming place and the design is really nice.
I bought this awesome mug from the gift shop.
The sillhouette is filled with silver foil and lines eminate from him. Totally my favorite cup now.
Later we went to Black Store, a restaurant my brother keeps raving about. It was good. But I felt so guilty in the end. Which is just about every night now for the past 4 days I’ve been here.
