Guest poster--Andrew's adventure

Hello! This is Andrew sneakily hijacking Beth's blog. So Beth may have told you about dragonfire fruits--they're vividly purple, taste like kiwis, and stain like you won't believe. So in essence they're delicious but one would never, under any circumstance, drop them.

Right? Right? ;)

You know where this is going.

So last night we were about to cozy up on a couch to watch The Godfather: Part II. I prepare some dragonfire fruit because I am a loving boyfriend. The MOMENT I turn around I hear the dreaded *SPLORT* of the fruit hitting the ground, followed by Beth's wail of apology. So thankfully it landed on the tile floor and now Beth's learned her lesson, right? Right??

Tiny grasshopper, you know nothing.

We had a few pieces of dragonfire fruit left, which turned out to be a curse. We sit down and NOW we're ready to watch The God--
SPLAT. Seriously, blood's spilled in the Godfather series, but that's pretty mild compared to what was going on at this point. THIS time it gets on the couch, but you know what? I love my girlfriend very much and so it's no biggie. It's not like this would happen a third time, right? That'd be ridiculous! The couch is old as hell anyway.

We manage to get through the movie without any more shenanigans. I suggest (because I enjoy mocking the fates much more than is safe) that we enjoy some sun cakes before going to bed.

Has Beth told you about sun cakes? They're this delicious pastry thing, with a soft crust and soft, sugary insides. The only problem is that they flake about as badly dragonfire fruits stain. Guess what happens?

Moral of the story: fate is like a caged gorilla. If you mock it too much it pelts poop at you.

Jiufen and update

So I probably should have mentioned this a few weeks ago, but I found out shortly after I got to Taiwan that I wasn't going to Seoul after all because of the MERS outbreak. But that just means I am staying an extra week in Taipei, which I can't complain about.

Earlier this week, Andrew and I went to Jiufen, a city near Taipei that was the inspiration for the Miyazaki movie Spirited Away.

Thankfully, Jiufen had fewer ghosts

To get to Jiufen, you take an hour-long bus from one of the Taipei metro stations. We were a little fuzzy on the specifics, but figured that the public transportation system in Taipei is clear enough we'd be able to find the bus stop easily.

We found a vegetarian buffet in the metro.

ah, America.....

"How did you spend your time in Taiwan?"
"Mostly by surreptitiously taking pictures of pugs in diapers on the metro"

The metro is SO NICE

It even has light up murals

As soon as we got off the metro, we were accosted by a man who tried to persuade us to get on his private bus to Jiufen. He promised that for only 1000NT (about $33) we would be able to get there a lot faster. He said that the city buses were all full, and also that they didn't work.This conversation was all in Mandarin, so I couldn't understand any of it, but his demeanor made me immediately suspicious.


Unfortunately for him, we decided to go around the corner and get on the local bus to Jiufen which a) wasn't full, b) wasn't broken, and c) only cost $3.

So in addition to taking our first day trip outside Taipei, we also met our first scammer!

After about an hour long bus ride, we started winding up a mountain.

Soon, we arrived at Jiufen. The town is nestled in the mountains, and overlooks the Pacific Ocean.

After stopping in a 7/11 (they are everywhere) for a drink, we headed towards the old street.

Pocari sweat is a Gatorade-like drink with a very unfortunate name. Andrew told
me they came out with a version for dogs called "pet sweat" (this was less popular)

The main attraction of Jiufen is the old street, which functions kind of like a daytime night market with different stalls and restaurants.

There were a lot of specialty shops that sold things like tea, candy, or souvenirs.

I know there's a story behind this sign and it makes me sad

There was also a visitor's center, which we wandered around for half an hour trying to find.  The maps posted around the area didn't really help, because they seemed to prioritize looking cute over representing the topography to scale.

We even got lost and stumbled on a temple.

There was a cat here

Finally we gave up and started walking up the mountain back to the old street, at which point I saw a giant sign on a building we'd passed five times that said "visitor's center."

Victory!!!!

They were closed.

In between afternoon tea and dinner (2 of the hobbits' most important meals), we wandered around the old street. Mostly what we found were cats. In addition to the cat outside the first temple, there was:

Cat #1

(Sleeping) Cat #2

Cat #3

(Sleeping) Cat #4. The shop owner poked and jiggled him.

There were three more cats down these stairs

 There were things to do there besides look at cats. There was a shop with a long line where you could learn how to make mochi. There were several very pricy teahouses for tea connoisseurs. Or you could:

look at this giant vat of tea-boiled eggs

or this wall of famous politicians outside the mask museum

or this shop of round glass objects

or this temple

We weren't sure if we were allowed in so we stayed out

There was also a store with Miyazaki merch, but I don't think we were allowed to take pictures.

Eventually, it got dark.

 We got on the bus to go home, but not before appreciating the sunset.

 Our box of mochi got a little squished on the journey home, but it tasted delicious.

The dark brown one (peanut mochi) was my favorite. It was the most wonderful thing I've eaten.

Other loot: sun cakes (flaky buttery pastries), green bean cake (tastes like green tea), and an amber lollipop shaped like a bear. It's been three days and we're still working on the lollipop.

Bitan paddle boats

Hello! I can't believe it's been a week since I last blogged on here. Yesterday most of the city was shut down because of a typhoon. It turned out to be not too bad--mostly just rain throughout the day--but schools and businesses will often shut down preemptively in case it turns dangerous.

Andrew and I had lunch with his extended family, and it was really weird to travel through the city and see it so empty.

A couple days before that, we took a bus to Bitan, a river where you can rent paddle boats.

A view of the river

giant bridge!

These boats were benched for poor conduct

There were a lot of tiny lapdogs on this jogging path

It cost about $5 USD per person to go into a paddleboat. We got life jackets and went down to the dock.

it was a whale of a time

According to Andrew, the guy who was in charge of the boats lectured everyone in Chinese about how they run a safe operation and we shouldn't do anything to jeopardize that safety. We spent part of our boat ride speculating about what boneheaded stunt some other tourist had probably pulled today to make him give us that speech.

our swan boat, being pulled out by a superior boat

the couple in this boat immediately pulled over to take a bunch of selfies

we had no selfie stick so we could not be like Selfie Couple

There were a few other boats out on the water with us, including some that looked like they were a little stuck by the shore.

Paddle boats are harder than they look to maneuver. The steering was easy but it took a lot of furious pedaling to go anywhere, especially when there's a strong current.

But the scenery was pleasant, and you could stop pedaling and let yourself float around without too much of a problem.

We paid for an hour in the paddle boats, and at first I was afraid we wouldn't be able to fill the time. 

We could only spy on Selfie Couple for so long, and there weren't that many different rocks to look at...

But the time flew by. There was a man diving for clams who looked around sixty years old, which was fun to watch.

Also, adventure struck--we saw a plastic bottle floating in the water. Environmental Science major that he was, Andrew could not let this slide. We eventually managed to paddle over to rescue the bottle so it could be properly recycled.

it took a lot of leg strength to get us to this moment of victory

Then we saw a swan on a rock. We tried three times to paddle over to it, but the current was too strong.

Of course, there is one foolproof way to spend an afternoon....

we gave this up pretty quickly when we
realized people in other boats could see us playing fire emblem

After paddle boats, we grabbed some dinner on the boardwalk.

Andrew making a very creepy friend

One restaurant had fake food displays out front....
i wonder if you have to pay extra to get a ghost to feed you pasta

a very fancy restaurant on the boardwalk (we did not eat here)

 We wound up at a restaurant with a view of the river.

 

I ordered hot pot, which was the only vegetarian option. Actually, a lot of the restaurants I've been to in Taipei have had a fairly small selection of vegetarian food, which is similar to the states. But unlike a lot of restaurants in the U.S., the vegetarian selections generally have a lot of protein and are not eggplant parmesean. 

You cook this stuff in the pot

This is the pot! It has a tomato broth. You can control the flame.

Our food came with the most giant bubble teas I had ever seen.

 

Seriously, they were the size of my forearm.

Here's a picture of Andrew's food, in case you are an omnivore.

ok even i have to admit this looks pretty good

Tara, Andrew held up a tomato to the camera just for you!

After dinner we walked along the bridge over the river. It was a pedestrian bridge only, and it swayed a little bit, though not enough to be scary.

Unfortunately my camera doesn't do nighttime very well.

Yeah, this is the best nighttime picture I got

...So here are some dusk pictures!

The bridges at Bitan light up rainbow at night. Sometimes they change color.

 

The last interesting thing of the day was that we saw a falcon! It was perched on the side of the bridge.

At first we thought it had just landed there, and were concerned for the safety of the man standing next to it.

But then, when we walked back along the boardwalk, we saw him take the falcon into a restaurant. So he was probably a falconer, or was on the weirdest date of his life.

I'll have the penne a la pesto, and Gerome would like your finest bowl of worms

we should do this more often, Gerome