i went shopping around my neighborhood yesterday and little did i know, i lived right by technology central. literally street after street, building after building is devoted to computers, laptops, cell phones, you name it, it's here.
there's this huge building with a million floors (i exaggerate but theres a shit ton of floors) and each floor is just shop after shop selling anything your heart desires. need a new motherboard? we got it! need a new screw for this random awkward part? yup it's here. need that replacement battery that's hard to find? yeah, upstairs. ridic! i ended up buying nothing since i dont really need anything but it was still really cool to watch.
we then went to get some grub. i love late night grub. always delicious... had a bowl of noodles, steamed stinky tofu, and a beer. it's awkward seeing american beers in taiwan but ehh. but let me tell you, for those of you who've had stinky tofu, you know how great it is. well, steamed stinky tofu is even better. it's like an orgasm in your mouth in the form of rotten goodness, lol. on the way home, we passed a street vender selling...
yup. chicken hearts. on the right. and... rectum (?) on the left. i think that's what my mom said. translationing is quite hard. anyway, fried to order. gross, didnt have any. but it totally reminded me of cat disection in high school. yeah vivi, lovely aint it?ooh before i forget, and because it's in the title, there are 7-elevens EVERYWHERE! like everywhere. you know how there's a starbucks on every block in new york? well, there's a 7-eleven on every block here. and theyre like really good too because they sell delicious food as well. not to mention the assortment of beverages capable of satisfying your every desire. ok ok, back to adventures.
so on the way home in the stairwell/hallway of our apartment, we saw... mutant cockroaches! ok theyre not mutant, they're just this big here, but still! they are ungodly big. like if cockroaches back home were the size of a penny, cockroaches here are like 2-3 quarters. theyre colossal. which means extra gross and extra scary. writing about them is giving me goosebumps so i wont anymore.
ok, so that was all last night. now on to today. everytime im in taiwan, i have to go to 2 places for breakfast/brunch. like it's a requirement. i would literally fly from new york to taiwan just to eat at these 2 places. then i would fly back. ok ive never done that but i would imagine that i would. the first place is for noodles and wontons. the most delicious mouth-watering noodles and wontons known to man. like couldnt be more heaven-on-earth better. and the best thing is noodles and wontons combined costs NT$70 which is like $2 in the U.S... nothing at all! it's probably one of the very very few things i crave in taiwan. the second place is congee and cha-sow (i have no idea how to spell it). it's pretty much just pork that's been roasted to perfection and then lightly fried so that's it's crispy on the outside. and the dipping sauce is phenomenal too. the congee is pretty special... not that white crap. it's called "farmer's congee" (i think) because it's got all this other gunk (delicious awesomeness) in it that makes it soo tasty. ugh, now i wanna get them again...
then we went to the outskirts of taipei where the coast is. it's a pretty beautiful place, not quite beach-y but at least there's water and where there's water, there's breeze. there were lots of little shops selling random local stuff like chinese medicine, pig's snout, and literally a fresh chicken. like the chicken are in cages underneath this table where the chicken is butchered. kinda cruel if you think about your kin being killed in such close proximity but i guess that's how you get fresh chicken? ehh... and they had these like foot long ice cream cones. not sure how that works for clumsy people like me so i didnt get any. but candid strangers pics - awesome!
it's a pretty long coastline so we saw this bike / motor-bike renting place so we rented motorbikes. it was fun - never rode on a motorbike before. or any two-wheeler with a motor for that matter. lol i got stopped by police because i wasnt wearing a helmet (wasnt given any) and apparently the motorbike required a license plate but didnt have one (uhh... tourist rentals?) luckily he let me go because i didnt have any ID on me nor was i taiwanese. foreigners can get away with things sometimes. i guess the rental place was pretty sketch but not my problem.
took some pics of nature (haha). these crab are about the size of your pinky. and the fish travelled in swarms. like literally i feel like if i stuck my hand in the water, it would come out hand-less. oh and the mountain view was nice so i took a pic of the peak hiding in the clouds...
i had to take a pic of this. so every american movie is played in taiwan theaters. but no taiwan movies are played in american theaters. oh well, too bad. but the point is that first 3 characters - that's vin diesel's chinese name. and the next four are paul walkers... sweetlast two stops were a shopping area which is pretty soho equivalent, for the young hipster crowd but i didnt buy anything. i have enough luggage as is to bring to india... and for dinner, we had this coal-heated hot pot which was super good.
ok gotta go. post more once i get to india (if i have internet that is)
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