Bodyworld visits Taipei

For those that don't know, Gunther von Hagen's Bodyworlds is an exhibit about the body's organs, bones, muscles and health. All the display models use real human tissue and muscles donated to science. It would be a little disgusting to some people, but I have no issue with it. It's been so plasticized that it looks fake anyways. Cost was $250 NT with my student discount. The exhibit was very interesting. You get to see cut outs of the human body in various areas. The liver, the heart, the brain, the bones, the spine. you can see the structure of all the ligaments and muscles and where they attach and how they work. It was a very educational exhibit about health and how the body is formed. Our human body is really a perfect miracle all working in harmony. Reading a lot of the placards, they all tell you about what your looking at and how to best keep it healthy. The overall conclusion I got was; eat healthy (low fat, more vegetables), red wine, constant exercise throughout your life, no cigarettes or excessive alcohol, lots of love and laughter and sex. If this exhibit ever visits your town, take some time out to see this exhibit. It's so unique! In addition to seeing Bodyworlds, I got to discover a new place. The National Taiwan Science Education Center. It's a 10 floor tall building with a huge atrium in the center. They had several exhibits on different floors that I did not get a chance to visit. It also has a small food court so you can grab lunch or dinner too. It's definitely the largest museum i've seen so far in Taiwan. I'll have to make a return visit to see what other exhibits it has to offer. However seeing this museum makes me want to go to the Washington Smithsonians or Chicago for their world class museums. The pictures attached are from Google, since there was no photography allowed inside.

National Taiwan Science Education Center
No.189 Shihshang Road, Shihlin, Taipei, Taiwan 111

Gunther von Hagen's Bodyworlds

Kuo Yuan Ye Museum of Cake and Pastry

So today, two of my favorite MTC teachers collaborated to take a field trip out to the Kuo Yuan Ye Museum of Cake and Pastry. Not only is this place a museum, but it also houses a cooking school to teach you how to make your own pineapple cakes. I was looking forward to this the entire week. From what i've been told, you need at least 15 registered in order to reserve a cooking class. So I may not get another chance to do this with my friends. We arrived around 12:30 PM at the Shilin MRT station because it's just a short walk from it. We were greeted at the door and immediately wisked up to the 4th floor. We were apparently a bit late. Oops! The class was actually pretty simple. No fancy dough needing, no ingredients. You could barely call it a cooking class. But it was fun anyways, especially with fellow classmates. Anywho, they already supply the pastry dough. All you have to do is roll it into a cigar shape and size, then cut it into thumb-sized cubes. Then flatten it and place a pre-cut pineapple jam cube in it, then wrap the dough around it. The final part is the fun part. They give you these plastic paddles with various animal molds in it. Traditionally it would have been wood. You dust your dough ball with a little flour and then pack it into the plastic paddle molds. Then you hit it against the table several times, very hard, on each side. Then flip it mold side down and give it a really HARD whack on the table to release it from it's mold. After everyone was done, they shuffled us into the museum section to learn a bit more of the history and tradition, while they took what we made and bake them in the ovens. They played fortune telling games and bouquet tossing. Apparently I'm getting married next year. First, the fortune telling. You ask a question and throw two red crescent shaped wood pieces on the ground. One up and One down means yes, everything else means no. Similar to the ancestral ceremony my family performed in Miaoli. Well the crescent pieces answered Yes. Then while I was taking pictures of the bouquet toss, it landed between my feet. And then once again, I was picked by the crowd to be the husband and throw the bouquet (I guess in chinese culture there is a male version too) to select my wife. Haha. Three times! Is someone trying to send me a message from above? We'll see next year. IF it comes true, it'll certainly make this day much more coincidentally significant!

郭元益糕餅博物館
No. 546號, WénLín Road, Shihlin District
Taipei City, Taiwan 111

Breaded & fried mushrooms at Shilin

The return to Shilin night market. Finally I got to return back to Shilin night market. It's been a long time since i've been there. Somewhere over a month. Some of the food booths have already changed. Just a few…majority are still the same. I did find some new foods I didn't know existed though. First, I finally found a semi-proper deep fried King Oyster Mushroom. It's along one of the food stands in the back on the main road (where the cars pass you by). It's definitely battered, but not as battered as what we found in Kaohsiung. Kaohsiung still beats this hands down. But at least this one is in Taipei and has breading, making it crispy golden brown delicious. Second, we found grilled scallops shish kabobs. The whole thing, not just the muscle portion. There were 8 flavors to choose from. The order took a while to make and it was expensive, considering. $40 for a kabob of 4. But it was delicious! I wish they gave more for my money, but I guess scallops are just plain expensive even on a fishing island. Yuki and I were also in search for fried giant squid arms. We had that in Kaohsiung and it was awesome. Little chopped bite size pieces of flavored chewy squid arms. I swear I saw it at one of the Taipei night markets, mainly Shilin. But alas we didn't find it. Perhaps Raohe has it. Well, I have tons of homework tonight, so back to it.

Peanut shaved "snow ice"

Nothing much today. But I did get a chance to visit my friend's favorite dessert place at the Shilin night market. It has peanut (huasheng,花生) shaved "snow ice" or xue bing (雪冰). They take a flavored milk and freeze it into a giant cube. Then they shave that cube into a bowl and add topping on it for dessert. What makes it really stand out from the normal shaved ice, is that it's made from milk. So the ice is not only flavored, but it has a smoother texture similar to frozen yogurt. I know of other places that serve this, but given that this place was crowded, I'm guessing other believe this place makes it the best. I've never seen this in the US, so this may be a Asia only thing. I wouldn't imagine it being too difficult to duplicate at home though. But for now, if your in Taiwan, you need to try this for desert. They have other flavors too, like green tea, milk, lychee, coffee, mango...

Coffin bread

Tonight I went to the Shilin night market to get some dinner and do a little jean shopping. I ended up finally trying out the Coffin Bread. I ordered the lamb. Conclusions...ehh, It's OK. Although the bread was crunchy and toasted, the meaty part tastes normal, nothing too special. It's like eating campbell's soup with toasted bread, but constructed differently. It was so mild, I didn't bother taking a picture. But after dinner, I did find a black and grey Houndstooth scarf in the night market. Just in time to protect my neck from the cold days the Taiwanese weatherman is forecasting. Houndstooth pattern for the win! Recently though, it's been hot. 18C hot. So I've been sweating walking to class. I hope we get some of that cold weather back so I can use my new scarf. Also, I'm more of a cold weather person. Thicker coat and your OK, but too hot and there's just nothing you can do but duck into an A/C'ed store.

New leather jacket

I finally bought a leather jacket after looking for several months. Of course I saw a few I liked, but not for a student budget. I finally purchased one off a street vender at the Shilin night market. I scouted it out on 1/1, but wanted to think about it over the weekend in Hsingchu. I also wanted to see if the Hsingchu markets had anything to offer. Anyways, short and simple entry, I'm happy and warm now, finally!
Random photo from yesterday that I couldn't fit in. It's Jia Jiang Mien (炸醬麵). Well probably not that authentic because it wasn't very thick and dark. But it was still delicious! Enjoy the photo.

Playboy fashion!?

I took it pretty relaxed today. Well, at least it started slow and relaxed. After sleeping in until the afternoon, I woke up and immediately headed over to the Shipai market for a curry hot pot lunch. Then I went to the photography district to send in my first roll of 120mm film to be developed. This little Konica film developer place a few stores east of the KFC offered to convert it to digital for $150. Then I met up with Lucy and Hatuyen at the Taipei underground mall. We shopped around a little underground and outside in the Tong Lin shopping area. I tried on two leather jackets from the Playboy store. Yes, Playboy. Oddly enough the Playboy brand has a lot of nice and fashionable clothing. Unfortunately also very expensive. Nothing but high class for ol' Heff right? So skipping on the overpriced jacket, we had a quick dinner and did some new years shopping around Shilin. Shilin was slightly more busier than normal. Which means it went from shoulder to shoulder, to a push and shove stand still. It was close to 11 o'clock when we decided to call it quits for the evening because we had to take the Taiwan High Speed Rail train down to Hsingchu. We ended up getting on the last or second to last train out of Taipei. Next post is from Hsingchu!

The Grand Palace - Taipei

Today, I went with my aunt to The Grand Palace for a noodles lunch. They are very famous around Taiwan. Apparently a few of the items on the menu were influenced by the royal families favorite. The noodles are pretty darn good. I'd definitely go again, given the opportunity. Afterwards we spent alot of time looking at flowers at the Shilin Presidential Garden. There were tons of rose bushes there. However, these are not just normal rose bushes. They're unique in that there are 100's of flowers blooming all at once and all growing from a single stem. They are engineered to only grown from one thin stem and of course supported by wire otherwise it would collapse. They trim any branches and only allow it to grow straight. The largest bush there was around 650 roses and the stem it grows from was tiny! Like pencil thickness tiny! Anyways, thats about all I can say. I'm not really into flowers and roses. The garden is definitely large and perfect for a long stroll with a significant other if your looking for ideas and don't mind the crowds. Finally, I got my new camera sd1400is shipped in from the USA. Copper color for the win!

Crispy, fried and spicey chicken!

Pretty much most markets have this. But the only one I see a line for is the one at the Shilin night market. I don't know what the chinese name is for it, but the company that cooks it, is Hot Star Large Fried Chicken. They're not kidding about large. For $45NT, I got a massive foot-long breaded chicken cutlet. Despite the bones you have to pick out, it is heart pounding artery clogging crunch-fest. At least for me, it was so good and felt so heavy in my stomach, I dare not try it again. But that doesn't stop the 50+ people lining up for this every night.

Takoyaki!!!

Takoyaki!!! They usually sell this all over the place, but it's not taht easy to find. This one was from Shida night market, but i definitly saw it at Shilin night market too. The one at Shilin tastes better though. According to my japanese classmate, it's not the traditional way of serving it either. The Shilin one doesn't include Nori seasoning, while the Shida one does. But both offer wasabi sauce which is a big No-No (Sacrilege!). I'm still not sure which one I prefer more, so I'll just have to eat try it again, over and over. Lucky me! Takoyaki!!!

OKso the picture isn't that good, you can't see the takoyaki underneath all those bonito flakes. If i get a better picture later, I'll replace it :)

Taiwanese sausage wrap

Today was another droopy day in Taipei. After the typhoon, there was alot of cleanup to do. On the way to class, there are alot of giant leaves (palm leaves, bamboo leaves leaves?) gathered up on the side of the road. So the rain persists making it a dark, droopy walk back home. On the train ride back, I remember that I haven't taken a picture of the Taiwanese small sausage wrapped by big sausage (大腸包小腸). I stopped by the Shilin market to buy some dinner to take home. I couldn't decide what else to get though. steak, oyster noodles, stinky tofu, stuffed chicken, okonomiyaki. So at the last stall, out of indecision, I took home a bowl of mala stinky tofu. It's different than the one I got from the Shipai market. It doesn't have the small black dots in the tofu. Speaking of tofu, as soon as I get home I turned on the TV so I can watch something while eating my dinner. Just my luck, they're having an Initial D marathon. Score!! Next time, for something new, I'll try some Ba-wan (肉圓) or coffin bread (棺材板) or okonomiyaki. You guys will love the coffin bread. Think curry chicken stuffed in a deep fried french bread coffin.

I'm so fat my belt broke!

Today is the first time I cooked at home. Well, not exactly cooked, just a fancier version of instant noodles. I cooked some instant Oyster noodles (蚵仔面线) minus the oysters. Boil some water, add dry noodles and seasoning, then mix some corn starch in a seperate bowl of cold water. Then combine. See..fancy instant noodles :)

Anyways, a few hours later my belt busted. Was it the fancy instant noodles or because it was made in china? Yes, thats right, it's not my belly's fault and I'm not fat! I tried going to the neighborhood tailer to see if he can fix it. No dice. So being Friday and all, I decided to head back to ShihLin night market for a new belt. But first, a haircut.

I've been procrastinating on cutting my hair because of the language barrier. Now or never right? Well after some very bad chinese, i got it cut. Not the style I was looking for, but I think the hairstylist gave up and just did her thing. Umm...what did you do to my hair!? haha just kidding. It took me 30 minutes in front of a mirror to get used to it.

So back to the ShihLin night market and my search for a new belt. I finally found one I liked, and bargained it down from $1080 to $600. Later I learned that i probably could have bargained down to $300. oh well, $10 to help the Taiwan economy. Continuing with some window shopping, I discovered there are a lot of T-shirt stores. They have some pretty cool T-shirts to offer. Mostly english gibberish with a picture of an anonymous hip-hop looking dude posing like a ganster. I ended up purchasing a turqoise Pringles mockery for $7.50.

After an hour or two of shopping, I decided to head back to the MRT station. On the way back, I paid closer attention to the food they were selling, well.. because I was hungry. With all the awesome food Taiwan has to offer, I'm always hungry! I noticed a small japanese grandma selling Okonomiyaki from a stand. Okonomiyaki is a japanese omlette or pancake containing various ingredients. It's mainly asociated with the Hiroshima region of Japan. I've got to try this next visit. Walking on, I also noticed a stand selling fresh squeezed passion fruit juice (百香果). One of my favorite fruits. I love nibbling on the little seeds floating in the drink like pearls in milk tea. So I purchased a big cup for $40 TWD and promptly headed home before my eyes spy more food to make me fat. There really is still so many food options yet to be discovered. And you can always look forward to be blogging about it.

Taiwanese crepe thing

Just picked this up from the ShihLin night market. There was a long line of people waiting for it, so i figured it's gotta be good. Turn out to be a deep fried cake, crushed and rolled up in a thin flour crepe. They come in several flavors. I chose curry. When they make it, they roll it up, then whack it a few times with a mallet. Tastes awesome! Does anyone know what this is?

Edit: My cousin says it's 大饼包小饼