Maokong Mountain

Weary of the hustle and bustle of the city, Amber and I decided to trek out to Maokong Mountain with her coworker Jesse.  Just outside the city, at the end of the brown MRT line, we boarded a gondola to ride to the top in style.  

Gondola with Taipei 101 in background

The gondola ride was smooth and picturesque.  I could do a lot of describing, but I think I’ll just post pictures instead.  That will save me at least 1000 words. 

Taipei from Gondola 

More Taipei

Gondola

Taipei 101 towering above city

Maokong Mountain

At the end of the line, we walked down some random road in search of tea.  Maokong has a history of growing tea, but these days I think the big money is in selling tea and tranquil views to the tourists.  Happy to play right into their hand, we settled into a tea shop and ordered up some oolong tea, tea-infused rice, and a radish omelet.  

View from the tea shop 

Tea!

I'm too tall for this table

After drinking our weight in oolong, we hiked further up the road to a Tianen Temple.  This is where we discovered the mammoth spiders that have haunted me ever since.  I swear, these arachnids are stealthy suckers.  I easily could have walked into several webs and been eaten alive, had I not been on hyper-alert the rest of the trip on the mountain.  Stephanie, you might not want to continue reading this blog.... pictures to follow. 

Along the road on Maokong 

Tianen Temple

Check out those fangs!!

Not an illusion.  It's really that big.

On the way back down the mountain, we stopped at the Zhinan Temple.  Also known as the “Temple of a Thousand Steps,” this temple used to only be accessible by walking up 1200 steps.  Luckily, we took the new-fangled gondola and then walked up a ramp. 

Zhinan Temple from the gondola 

Zhinan Temple

Zhinan Temple

More Zhinan Temple

As we were about to leave, I noticed that people were getting blessed inside the temple.  Feeling guilty about my heathen life, I hopped in line to be cleansed.  I sat down in the chair and closed my eyes while the Taoist man whipped something like horse hair all around me and then flicked water at me from a plant. 

Gettin' blessed

After a few moments, he called someone else over and asked him to translate a message to me: “Your body is unclean and you need to pray to be purified.”  Whaaaaaaat?!?  I thought for sure he was going to comment on how wonderful and bright my aura was, not that I was basically dead and rotting inside.  Why, Buddha, why??

He sent me over to another lady, who again prayed over me, and instructed me to drink some holy water.  Oh, and she said to be clean, I’d need to drink the water everyday and pray three times.  

Second cleansing.  Is that lady laughing at my impurities??

They blessed me again (this time it was more like a massage, so already, I was feeling more sun-shiny inside) and sent me on my way with the holy water.  

Be gone, demons! 

Holy water

I haven’t once remembered to drink my holy water.  I think I’d be more inspired if it tasted more like beer, and less like the sad sad reminder of my dark and scary heart. 

Taiwan Tailgate

Thanks to the autumnal equinox, Taiwan has a national holiday, called Mid-Autumn Festival, or Mooncake Festival.  They’ve got plenty of celebrating (and a day off school!).  So far, my favorite part of the shindig is the BBQ.

My boss, FuHo, invited me to a BBQ at her house, with lots of people from her church.  Here in Taiwan, there are no Little Smokeys or gas grills.  These grills are basically camping equipment.  But they get the job done. 

Grillin'

All weekend, I have seen groups of family and friends out on the sidewalk grilling happily away.  The grills are covered in meat.  So. Much. Meat.

Lots o' meat

I brought my pal Amber and her coworker Jesse along for the BBQ festivities.  One particularly delectable edible fired up was the Chicken Ass.  Yes, ass.  The Taiwanese teenagers who offered us this tidbit of “meat” giggled as they answered my favorite question, “What is it?”  One of the boys corrected the others, and called it “chicken bottom.”  But come on, we all know the truth.  

The chicken ass tasted like (duh) chicken.  However, it had little crunchy bits in it that nearly made me gag.  I can only hope they were small pieces of cartilage.  Any other option it too gross to consider.  I probably won’t eat any more ass. 

Amber eats some chicken ass.  Mmmm

Another traditional food is the pomelo.  The locals peel the rind off in a certain way, eat the fruit, and then wear the rind as a hat.  The fruit is delicious -- like a grapefruit, but not as juicy.  

Pomelo Hat.  A good look, I think.

My roommate Abi also introduced me to the sarsaparilla drink, HeySong Sarsi.  It’s kinda like root beer, but more like you’re drinking it in an Old West saloon.  Except in the Far East.   Yeah, kinda like that. 

Sassy Sarsaparilla

We all know how much we Wisconsinites like to tailgate, so all this grilling and eating was right up my alley.  There was a significant lack of beer (although I could have run on down to the 7/Eleven to remedy that situation), and no one was playing bean bag toss.  But overall, I was quite pleased with my first Taiwan Tailgate.  Now, if only the Brewers game had been on.....

Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

The oldest night market in Taipei, Huaxi Street, is also known as Snake Alley.  Once a legal red-light district, the two-block pedestrian walk is now home to shops, street food stands, and massage parlors.  Oh, and snake specialty restaurants.  

After wandering up and down the street a couple times, we decided to sample the local delicacy at the only shop that appeared to be selling snake.  “Snake Alley” didn’t really seem to live up to the name.  Maybe because we were visiting in the afternoon instead of after dark (this is a “night market” after all), but the place wasn’t all that lively.  No shop owners were baiting, killing, and draining snakes of their blood, as was promised in my travel guide.  Booo.  Not that I’m into seeing animals die, but when you have expectations.....

Anyways, the shop that DID have snakes out front also had a sign demanding “No Photo! No Photo!”  Actually, I think it just said, “No Pictures Please,” but in my head, I was back at the Sistine Chapel being yelled at by angry Catholics for taking pictures of the ceiling (right, Lani???).  I think maybe killing snakes for show is illegal, so they don’t want evidence?  I don’t know, but they didn’t care about me taking pictures of the results once we were inside the restaurant at the table.

We ordered the sampler platters of snake and turtle excretions.  Yum.   We were served a smorgasbord of snake blood, snake bile, snake venom, snake soup, snake oil pills, and some other unidentifiable snake concoctions.  I think one was vodka made from snakes.  It burned.  One may or may not have been snake urine.  

Mmmmm, snake juice.

The snake soup was interesting.  The actual snake meat tasted, excuse the cliche, like chicken.  But it was riddled with bones, which made it nearly impossible to eat.  I spent more times picking snake cartilage out of my teeth than actually eating the snake. 

Check out those chopstick skills

The snake blood tasted like hawaiian punch.  I think the whole thing was a bit of a tourist trap.  Oh, and I didn’t die from the snake venom, so that’s a plus.  Guess I’m immune now. 

Pinkies up with the snake blood

The turtle soup was a little sad to eat; the little turtle bits floating in the broth were too recognizable as a once-living animal.  They also served us turtle blood (again, hawaiian punch), turtle mystery juice, and small balls that could have been turtle eyeballs, testicles, or poop.  Not sure which.

Turtle death plate

As we sat enjoying the novelty of the reptilian meal, I thought for sure this place was intended for other Westerners looking to live on the edge with some sketchy consumables.  But looking around, I noticed a couple Taiwanese people sitting at the tables with trays of snake dishes and drinks as well.  So, maybe this was authentic?  

I don’t think I’ll be itching to go back to Snake Alley for another round of snake shots in the immediate future, but perhaps the place is more impressive at night.  Good thing I have a year in Taiwan to journey back and find out!

Little Victories

For the past two weeks, I’ve been relying exclusively on Chinese-speaking friends, pointing, English-translated menus, and 7/Eleven for sustenance.  It’s difficult to order food when you have NO idea what’s being served.  I don’t even know a few words that could get me by.  Oh, and I don’t know how to say “I don’t speak Chinese.”

Unfortunately, here in Wugu, the district of Taipei where I’m living, there aren’t many other English-speakers.  In fact, in the week or so that I’ve been in this neighborhood, I’m the only foreigner I’ve seen.  Yeah, the kids stop and stare when I walk down the street.  Who am I kidding, the adults stare too.  Needless to say, English-translated menus are few and far-between, and I haven’t come across picture menus, except of course at McDonald’s.  But even I have not been THAT hungry.  Yet.

My roommates had to take me to dinner the other night so that I wouldn’t starve to death.  On the way over, I was telling them how I needed to learn a few key words so I didn’t have to wait around for someone else to come along and make sure I got fed.  It’s not a good feeling, being so helpless.  While we were waiting for our food, I pointed to the tea stand across the street.   

“What do I say if I want black tea?” I asked, noticing there were no pictures to guide me.

“Hongcha,” Abi replied.  

Easy enough.  I practiced all the way home, and then immediately wrote it down.  I so badly wanted to be able to order a fricken drink without help!

And so the next morning, I got up, got ready for work, reviewed my Chinese notes, and headed down the street to work.  As I neared the tea stand, I began again to mutter hongcha, hongcha, hongcha under my breath.  I was sweating; was it nerves?  No, silly, it’s like 98 degrees outside.

“Ni hao!  Hongcha,” I said with a proud smile.  I don’t know how to say “please,” so it came out as more of a command.  But, the lady got the idea.  She nodded and started scooping ice into a cup.  Ohmygod, she understood me!  As she handed me my ginormous black tea, my heart skipped a beat.  It worked!!  I did it!  All by myself!  Look, Mom, no hands!

I wanted to skip down the rest of the block, but I didn’t want more people to stare and point than already do.  But you can be sure there was a little pep in my step.

All that over some iced tea?  Yes!  One more baby step to maybe being able to actually eat a meal in my ‘hood independently.....

The sweet taste of freedom

I felt so I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T (do you know what that mean), I decided to venture out on my own for lunch.  And by “on my own,” I mean I grilled my Taiwanese coworkers on how to order noodles, practiced the phrase over and over, and had one of them write it down.  Then I walked down the street, stepped up to the noodle stand, and placed my order with confidence.

Well, of course they didn’t make that kind of noodle dish.  Now what?  Luckily, the girl behind the counter new enough English to help me understand what kind of noodles they could make for me.  So, even though it didn’t work out exactly according to plan, I still got recognizable food all by myself! 

Seafood noodles

Just don’t ask me if the restaurant would have passed a health code inspection.