Kenny and Annemarie Come to Taiwan: Episode IV - Taichung & Farewells

Our last two days with Annemarie and Kenny went by way too quickly. In Taichung we all refueled our energy – Brett and I needed to mentally prepare to go back to work at the height of our busy season, and our wonderful guests needed to brace themselves for a flight back across the Pacific. We took them to some of our most beloved restaurants in Taichung – Din Tai Feng for a beautiful meal, Hong Kong Manual Style Desserts for dim sum, and Bollywood for some naan and curry. We enjoyed cold tea drinks, our rooftop view, and a brief trip to the jade market. My favourite part, though, was taking them to Fengjia Night Market. We fed them fruit juice, tea, fried chicken, yams, French fries, and then shopped! Annemarie picked up some excellent Chinglish t-shirts for a steal of a deal. It was a perfect, relaxing end to our wonderful visit. 

On Saturday morning while they were still getting ready to head back to Canada, I unfortunately had to return to work. It wasn’t as bad as I expected, though. I was so refreshed and happy after such a wonderful visit that the huge pile of work I came back to seemed like a piece of cake. It’s funny – I cried when they arrived, but when they left I felt so happy and relaxed by our time together that I forgot to feel sad. I suppose it helps that I knew I’d see them again in another three months! 

When Brett and I both went back to work on Monday, we landed right in performance and final reports season for each of our most time-consuming classes. It’s been hectic ever since!

Kenny tucks right into the pork buns while Annemarie contemplates where to begin

Kenny & Annemarie

Relaxing on the roof of our condo building with some tea drinks

At Fengjia Night Market with some finger-lickin' fried chicken

Riding twosies.

Bollywood farewell dinner

Aloha!

Chinese New Year Vacation in Kaohsiung

On May 18th 2011, I put up a blog post called “You scream, I scream, we all scream for... garbage anyone?”. In that post, I mentioned how happy we were to be changing accommodations because for six mornings out of seven, we woke to the not-so-pleasant sound of jack-hammers being operated not-more-than 20 meters from where we were sleeping. I was pretty bitter by the end of that week. Pretty bitter, pretty jaded, pretty grumpy, pretty soured, and pretty cantankerous... BUT IT WAS ALL FOR A REASON!!! 

Eight months later, Amanda and I decided to return to Kaohsiung for the week of Chinese New Year. We get a week off for CNY and neither Amanda nor I have taken any vacation days since we started in teaching in August, so the break from work is most welcome! 

When searching for accommodation in KH I found a new hostel listing that looked to be just what we were looking for and in an area with which we are familiar. The website seemed to suggest that it was very near to the hostel which we had stayed at in May 2011, but it wasn’t until we got here and saw it with our own eyes that we realized it was in fact the very building that was being constructed right next to us as we slept just a little less than a year ago. 

We are currently staying at Harbor 60 Hostel and it is beautiful. Being abruptly woken by those jack-hammers now seems strangely worthwhile. Eric, the hostel owner is incredibly friendly and helpful. The hostel is clean, new, well furnished, modern. We really can’t say enough good things about it and we have already agreed that when we next return to KH overnight we will plan to stay here again. 

Our first day in KH, we immediately set about trying to find a scooter rental store that we would be able to rent us a scooter. We were able to arrange something through FAST Scooter Rentals, which we located on the website English in Taiwan. 

We also stopped in at some of our favorite haunts for lunch (Muddy Waters - next to Āozǐdǐ Forest Park 凹仔底森林公園) and dinner (Amy’s Taiwanese Cuisine). 

At the end of the night, we met up with our good friend Stanley who showed us around Sanfonzon Street Night Market - a special night market that is open for only five days during Chinese New Years week. 

The night market was absolutely bustling and easily as busy as Fongjia in Taichung or Shilin in Taipei on a Friday or Saturday night. There was a veritable plethora of different sweets, snacks, spices, teas, meats and toys available at Sanfonzon. With so many vendors selling the same traditional items in one place, the many booths had varying degrees of advertising tactics, like free samples and balloon animals. One sweet jelly booth even went so far as to hire two young women to shriek and drag people over to their shop - the girls went absolutely crazy when they saw Stanley with a pair of foreigners! There were also lots of New Years charms and decorations available to purchase, and though we were warned by Stanley that we won’t be rolling in riches this year (because we disrespected the God of Fortune by asking “Who’s that funny little man meant to be?”) we still managed to have a great time.  

After the night market, Stanley took us to a nice quiet café, Donutes, where we enjoyed something to drink, a slice of cake, and some Chinese jokes, very well told to us by Stanley in both Chinese and English.

Amanda at Aozidi Forest Park

Lunch at Muddy Waters

Smoked chicken & gouda on ciabatta with vegetables and a reduced red wine dressing.

Orea Cheesecake

Amanda at Jhongjeng Park

Imperial Spring Rolls

Beef & Vegetables Fried Rice

Sweet & Sour Pork

Kung Pao Chicken

After Dinner, we went for a walk along the Love River

The Water Dragon, Love River & Ambassador Hotel.

Sanfonzon Street New Years Night Market

Apparently people go candy crazy during Chinese New Years!

Assortments of fried cookies, dipped in honey and covered with seeds or nuts.

A little similar to Turkish delight, but much more gelatinous.

Various roots, herbs and spices.

The night market was absolutely bustling.

Yes?

Our good friend Stanley!

National Museum of Natural Science (國立自然科學博物館), night markets, and new friends

Sorry we’re lagging so far behind on the updates - I promise we’ll do better? It’s been a crazy week for both of us with some more training and making up classes missed on the typhoon day. Last weekend we took a bit of time for sight seeing and after I came home from my Saturday class we went for a little walk (read: hour-long march in the hot sun with no water) to the National Museum of Natural Science (國立自然科學博物館). 

We stopped on the way at a restaurant famous among the Taichung expat community for its delicious Western food and exorbitant prices. Finga’s Base Camp is not far from our apartment, and offers a huge selection of burgers, sandwiches, pastas, and hot entrees. Its menu features many items I’ve never seen elsewhere in Taiwan, like roast beef and lamb with Yorkshire pudding, Roquefort cheese, and chili dogs! When we had dinner with some American and Canadian friends later that night, one of the guys at the table described Finga’s as having all of Taichung’s foreigners “by the balls”. I get where he’s coming from. We had smoothies and tasty grilled chicken burgers with bacon and avocado. It was our first taste of avocado since a memorable batch of avo and chicken sandwiches shared in Brett’s parents’ kitchen the day we left Calgary. Go into any convenience store in Taiwan and you’ll find avocado milk, (blurgh?) but I’ve yet to actually see a real avocado in a grocery store.

After lunch, we slogged the rest of the way to the Science Museum. The facility is huge. Huge. We stumbled to the ticket counter, still digesting the huge chicken sandwiches, and were immediately comforted to see clear price listings for the museum overhead. The whole reason we’d gone was to check out the special exhibit I mentioned in my last post, the Silk Road! The lady behind the counter took one look at us and asked in English, “Special Exhibit?” We nodded. I gave a thumbs up. Boje let out a confident “Dui!” So far so good. She billed us and handed us the tickets, but they seemed to be a good $300 cheaper than what we’d planned. Maybe it was a special family day? She pointed us in the direction of a building across the courtyard and we headed off.

When we got our tickets stamped at the new building, things immediately seemed wrong. We were clearly in a space/energy exhibit. We approached the people at the door and asked them “Special Exhibit? Silk Road?” They got out an English map and pointed at the room for special exhibits back in the building we’d just bought our ticket in. Ohh! We walked back, but by this point I was already starting to get that familiar feeling of being shuffled around by staff who simply didn’t want to deal with the stupid people who couldn’t even speak Chinese. At the next building, we were let in without a problem and walked into what was apparently some sort of televised conference that had attracted a large crowd. We walked around the area trying to figure out what was going on until we saw a sign for the Silk Road! Yay! We walked up to the exhibit, handed our tickets to the girl at the door with a sigh of relief, and were told “No. You must buy another ticket.” WHAT?! The tickets we had were general admission for entry to every part of the museum except for the Silk Road. Guh. We decided to make the best of it and check out some of the other stuff at the museum. I started out pretty grumpy, but by the time we’d been in the “Stages of Life” room for about five minutes I had already perked right up. The Natural Science museum had stuff on evolution, dinosaurs, (including a scary, camo-clad dinosaur that turned and yelled at us in Chinese when Boje took a photo of it), tons of stuff about aboriginal Taiwanese peoples, Chinese spiritual beliefs (including a collection of paintings of hell), Chinese and Taiwanese agricultural history, prehistoric man and his ancestors, space, etc. My favourite was a section on human life and death. There was an Egyptian mummy and information about death and burial rituals from lots of different cultures. Apparently in the old days, important Chinese people were buried in suits made of jade beads and they had all of their 9 “openings” sealed with pieces of carved jade. Ears, eyes, nostrils, mouth, anus and genitals! I realize I sound like a preteen here, but my eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling when I read the caption next to that little jade cylinder!

That night we went out for dinner at a nice little restaurant with a girl from my branch, her boyfriend, and another Canadian couple. Afterwards we went to my colleague’s building where Boje got a chance to try driving a couple different scooters to get a feel for it. I was encouraged to try as well, but was way too chicken. I think when I see Boje getting the hang of it in the future it will be easier to wrap my head around the idea, but for now I’m just not ready!

After that, our friends showed us around a night market near their house. I am keen to go back. They had lots of English signage which was a nice change! B and I agreed it had been way too long since we’d done a night market - the smell of stinky tofu was so jarring! The smell was just so much more a part of our routine in Kaohsiung, I guess!

Since this is a long weekend, our goal is to post three more entries before we return to work on Tuesday! Stay tuned!

Random Alley

We suspect this shop is undergoing renovations

Amanda and the T-Rex

The museum had a number of half bird half dinosaur creatures. I'm guessing that these are supposed to be depictions of some of the evolutionary stages between dinosaurs and modern birds. Whatever the case may be, the person that got to make these must have had a lot of fun.

"Angry Birds" suddenly has a new meaning

Beetle versus Elephant. Which will win!?!?

Hanging out

Some funny ideas about what to do with the deceased.

A depiction of hell

This is Ludao the platypus, a national hero. Ludao is credited with saving more than 100,000 lives when, in 1993, he managed to find his way into the storage pool of spent nuclear waste at a nuclear power plant. Ludao's presence was noticed via monitoring equipment and, after an investigation as to how he he gotten there, it was revealed that there were severe cracks in the storage pool containment walls as well as main reactor casing. It was determined that if Ludao had not prompted the investigation, a meltdown very likely would have occurred within weeks, potentially killing more than 100,000 people that lived in close proximity to the nuclear power plant.

 

By the way. That thing I (Brett) wrote about Ludao isn't entirely true... as in it is completely untrue. I actually have no idea why there was a taxidermied platypus lying on a satin green bed in a display case. I like to think of him/her as "Ludao the platypus" and I like to think that they did something heroic to deserve such a fancy mausoleum.

 

Rueifeng Night Market (瑞豐夜市) with Stanley & Vicky

On Monday Amanda & I met with another Taiwanese couple for tea and a light lunch. Stanley & Vicky are another couple that contacted us for a language exchange after we posted an advertisement on tealit.com.

We arranged to meet Stanley & Vicky at an MRT Station where they would collect us. Stanley & Vicky arrived in a car and drove us a to cute little shop called “A Coffee Shop with Brokenhearted” or “Sad Cafe” (傷心咖啡店). Over tea, soup and dumplings, we discovered that Stanley had learned English mostly by watching HBO and movies, initially with Chinese subtitles but eventually without. This was truly amazing because Stanley’s spoken English is very good. Stanley owns and operates a restaurant that serves “Malaysian Hot Pot” and Vicky is a dance and Kung Fu instructor. We had a some really good food at the cafe and a great time with our new friends.

The following day, Tuesday, Amanda & I were asked by Stanley & Vicky if we would like to go to the Rueifeng Night Market (瑞豐夜市) a little ways north of our apartment. We very happily accepted and agreed to meet Stanley & Vicky by our building as they had offered to give us a ride to the night market. We were quite surprised when they arrived on two scooters! We had already contemplated that at some point it would be necessary to be a passenger on the back of a scooter in Taiwan but the first time is always the most nerve-wracking. We both had helmets and probably held on to Stanley and Vicky far too tightly as this was our first time on a scooter, but they were both excellent drivers and there really was no need for us to be so worried!

Rueifeng Night Market is fairly large and popular with young people. It also has a reputation as being less touristy than some other famous night markets in Kaohsiung such as Liuhe Night Market. The owner of Hostel Hamasen once told us that a night market must have three things in order for it to be good: food, clothes and games. Rueifeng certainly had plenty of all three!

Stanley & Vicky were very kind hosts and bought a variety of different foods for us to sample.

• We ate a type of fried pancake that was mixed with egg, green vegetables and a homemade ketchup (tomato sauce).
• Cubed roast beef with onions and cucumber in. The meat was succulent and in a very nice gravy.
• “QQ Balls” were yam that had been mixed with sugar and deep fried, a delicious and sweet snack.
• We also had chicken wings that were de-boned, stuffed with rice and seasoning, sealed, skewered on a stick like a corn dog, then deep fried. Very tasty indeed.
• Papaya Milk. Stanley aptly explained this to us as being... papaya plus milk!!  :)  

After wandering around the night market for a while, Vicky suggested we find a cafe where we could get a piece of cake and tea and sit down for a while. Amanda and I shared a piece of chocolate cake and an interesting sweet and salty iced green tea. On a side note, wherever you can buy tea in Taiwan you have the option of getting it iced or hot. If you do not specify then the standard is iced. While we sat for a while, Stanley told us about how Mandarin can be a very tricky language to learn because words can have so many different meaning depending on their tone or the context. He gave us the example that if you try to say to someone “I want fried rice” you may be surprised because you are actually saying to them “I want sex”. Fried rice and sex sound the same and so it is necessary to qualify you statement by saying “I want to eat fried rice” or better yet “I want to eat beef/pork/chicken fried rice”.

We had a lot of fun with Stanley & Vicky and both Amanda & I are very happy that we are now beginning to have a normal social life where we are seeing people on a regular basis. Everyone we have met in Taiwan has been so friendly and helpful. Stanley & Vicky are another excellent example of this. 


Rueifeng Night Market 

“While for the most part Liouhe Night Market belongs to tourists, Rueifeng Night Market belongs to Kaohsiung locals. In recent years, Rueifeng’s popularity has caught up with the well-known Liouhe Night Market. Many foods and drinks here have been reported in newspapers, magazines and even on TV programs. Don’t know what to eat? Just have a look at the media recommendations stuck on the sides of the stalls.

At Yucheng Road and Nanping Road, Zuoying District
18:30-01:00 Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday”

- Kaohsiung Travel Guide

Stanley's Malaysian Hot Pot Restaurant

Stanley & Amanda!

Fried batter pancake with egg, green vegetables and a homemade tomato sauce.

Amanda about to sample a "QQ Ball", yam and sugar deep fried.

Vicky & Stanley buying papaya milk.

Rueifeng Night Market is popular with the locals in Kaohsiung and has an large assortment of food, clothing and games.

Vicky!

Brett, Amanda and Vicky

Kaohsiung Liuhe Night Market (高雄六合夜市)

Today we met up with another couple who had contacted us via email after we had posted a language exchange personal on a popular Taiwanese website.

Milton & Jenny met up with us at the exit of an MRT station and we walked a short distance to a restaurant they had selected especially knowing that we were not strong on our Chinese language skills just yet. Another consideration that led them to choose this restaurant was that when they asked via email what kinds of food we do and do not like, our response (after consultation) was that we are happy to try anything but we would prefer to avoid internal organs!!

Our restaurant, “BAGEL BAGEL Western RESTAURANT” serves up spaghetti, pizza, Chinese food, salads, coffee and of course, bagels. It is one of a number of places we have encountered where a married couple own the restaurant and one is a foreigner and the other is local, so consequently the menu is a fusion of two cultures. The food was inexpensive and delicious. I opted for Gong bao ji ding (Kung pao chicken) and Amanda chose a vegetable spaghetti. Milton & Jenny spoke very good English and it was a really enjoyable meal where we were able to learn about Taiwan, practice pronouncing some key Chinese food vocabulary, and offered a few facts about Canada in what is best described as a cultural exchange.

After dinner we went to Liuhe Night Market (六合夜市) right next to Formosa Boulevard where Milton & Jenny offered to show us through the market and explain to us the different foods that were available while answering any of our questions.

I absolutely loved this as did Amanda. We have had a few opportunities to wander through night markets and we have even eaten at some of them, but it has always been a very cautious experience with a lot of worried looks exchanged between us. Encountering foods that look and smell strange, as compared to our experiences in Canada, is always interesting, but not nearly as enjoyable as when you have someone with you explaining exactly what everything is, where it comes from and how it is made.

Now I must apologise that I didn’t take any pictures of all the intriguing foods we were shown as we strolled up and down the night market. The next time we go I will definitely take my camera. For now, if you would like to see some of the foods that were being sold then I would refer you to a blogger called Jasonmumbles who has taken quite a few pictures of Liuhe Night Market foods and posted them here.

It was fairly crowded at the market - as to be expected for a Saturday - and so Milton and I stuck together while Jenny and Amanda were not far away. I will try my best to recount in the list below all the different things that we saw and with a little luck I can post some pictures of all these things at a later date:

• Rice cake soaked in duck blood. Sometimes soaked in cow blood or pig blood. Apparently this is considered to be one of the most disgusting foods in Taiwan by westerners but Milton assured me that he eats it - though it is an acquired taste. I will definitely try this sometime and I’m sure Amanda will be happy to capture it on camera when it happens.

• Deep fried octopus tentacle. I not talking about little rings here, I mean the whole tentacle, equivalent in size and volume to a 10-year-old’s forearm.

• Gutted frogs on ice. They will cook them fresh in front of you. Another interesting fact, apparently frogs are also referred to as “four-legged fish” in Chinese.

•  Chicken’s balls. Not to be mistaken for balls of chicken meat or chicken nuggets. These are chicken’s testicles we’re talking about. Milton very politely explained - with a wry smile on his face - that this is meat that you can only get from the male chicken...

• Sugar cane juice. Amanda and I both tried this and we enjoyed it very much.

• Pork intestine stuffed with rice and nuts. This is self-explanatory.

• Coffin bread. This is a piece of thick, toasted bread cut open and filled with a variety of ingredients - sometimes savoury with things like mushrooms or sweet with ice cream. The piece of bread that is cut out is then put back on top of the filling as the “coffin lid”.

• Lots of fresh fruit juice stands. See Jasonmumbles for more on the juice and fruit stands.

• Lime flavoured jelly. This is a gelatinous dessert / drink. We’ve encountered this in bottles at convenience stores.

• Lots of dumplings and meat filled buns.

• Oyster and shrimp omelette. A Taiwanese specialty.

• So much fresh seafood, a lot of it still alive and wriggling.

• One stall specialized in duck products only and it seemed to have every last part of the duck for sale.

• Mullet roe. Jenny told us this is a popular gift to give family at Chinese New Year.

• Snakes! There was a street-side open restaurant that had an enormous sign depicting a cobra with glowing red eyes. As you can guess they were in the snake meat business and had cages of live snakes at the store front which we went and glanced into. Also drying in the air above the cages were rows of a small organ that had been removed from each snake.

The whole evening was the most extended social interaction Amanda and I have had with anyone but for each other since we have left Canada and we are looking forward to spending more time with Milton & Jenny and other friendly Taiwanese people we might meet through a language exchange.

IKEA: Kaohsiung

Today Brett and I went to IKEA to start doing some price comparisons for things to put in our new apartment! It was exactly like Canadian IKEA (super cheap hot dogs included) except for the Chinese signage, of course. It's going to be a little tricky figuring out how to buy bed linens as none of the packages confirm in English what's in them (is this a comforter? a fitted sheet? a set of pillow cases?) but we'll get there eventually.

Last night we found a really huge night market next to the Kaohsiung Arena, and we're definitely going back there soon to take lots of new exciting food photos for you all to see! There were actually lots of things we both thought looked edible, which is a change from the usual night market fare we've become accustomed to seeing and smelling. I saw quite a few pretty things I wouldn't mind going back for, either.

Another exciting shopping-related news item, for the girls anyways: I bought shirts today for only $100 NT each (about $3 CAD). Also I was allowed to try the shirts on before buying which is usually not the case around here! It was a lovely experience.

Tonight at dinner we were at one of our favourite eateries when we overheard/eavesdropped on four girls doing what seemed to be an English/Japanese/Spanish/Chinese/confusing language exchange. This was really exciting for us as we've advertised ourselves on Tealit for a similar thing and we've been getting a few responses! We're really looking forward to meeting some local people and learning how to do things like order tea in Chinese without insulting anyone.

That's all we've really been up to the past couple of days! We're getting the keys for the apartment on Friday or Saturday (depending on when a typhoon hits this week) and we're looking forward to showing off our new digs!