Macha shaved snow ice red bean

Went out with a new friend that arrived to Taiwan a few weeks ago. We had a simple and quick dinner with a shaved snow ice dessert at the Lehua night market (樂華夜市). This one is one of the cheaper shaved ice places, so it tasted more like green tea than macha. Despite the neon coloring, it was just fine. I don't feel irradiated :). My friend was fine too. I don't have much else to say...haha. I just wanted to share the picture as it came out really nice with it's glossy condensed milk and melting snow ice. Enjoy with your eyes!

Kaohsiung, day 2

I intended to wake up at 8:30am, but still ended up sleeping in until 10:30. Well thats my idea of sleeping in, heh. Once everyone was wakey wakey, we went to Cijin island （旗津） via ferry. Cost, a mere $15 ($12 with student rate). Once we got there, we were all hungry. So we headed to the seafood market (Fisherman's Wharf) which is just a short walk away. We ate lunch at one of the famous seafood restaurants along the street. Most of the restaurants just have a long shelf of ice lined with freshly caught fish and shellfish. You just pick what you want out front, then head in and seat yourself as they cook it for you. I added some deep fried oysters which happen to be the favorite of the table in my opinion :). Afterwards we rented 2 bikes and a 4 seater bike/car aka a flintstone-mobile LOL. We rode up and down the shore and ate some ice cream floats at a store next to the beach. We rented it the bikes for two hours, and before we knew it, it as time to turn back. So we headed back into town to return them. Afterwards we immediately went to a shaved ice place for some R&R and dessert. To our surprise, every shaved ice place was crowded as it was a hot day. Once we found a seat and enjoyed our snow ice, we headed back to the 85 building/condo to pick up our stuff and head to the bullet-train station (高鐵).

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...

Expressive Erhu on the Yellow Earth concert

Today, I got a chance to go to my first concert in Taiwan. Also it's been a very long time since I've been to a concert. I mean, a REAL concert, not a rock band. Out of spontaneity during a walk with friends around Ximending, we heard a single street performer playing the Erhu. From there, we decided to search for a Erhu concert we could attend. I googled it, first result, the following weekend. So easy! So as the days grew closer, we tried to decipher the chinese characters so we could order our tickets online. I finally found out that you can purchase tickets through 7-11's iBon service. Pretty much any ticket you want for anything in Taipei can be purchased from 7-11, 24-hours a day, at any of the thousands of locations. Heck you can almost purchase anything short of a house/vehicle at 7-11. So convienant and no surcharge. Why isn't USA this efficient?

The concert was sublime. The sound was amazing. The music and instrument is so uniquely chinese. You could really hear the emotions and expressions through the Erhu. Having an orchestra of about 50 erhu's just amplifies that. One of my favorites was Feng Tang playing Love from Suite Grand Courtyard of Qiao Family. The Great Wall Capriccio and Erhu Rhapsody were also great. Mom and Dad, maybe you heard of these songs? I wish there was a way to post a video or better pictures, but they did not allow cameras. So these were sneaked in from a small camera. We were still caught and promptly given the X symbol made by the usher's arms. LOL. Oh and the seats were great and so cheap too ($300 NTD). The Ximen MRT station exit 5 puts you right in front of the building. The whole evening was just awesome! If you ever get a chance to listen to an Erhu orchestra, don't pass it up. Better yet, come and experience it here in Taiwan. :)

Oh and after the erhu concert we were still hungry. So being that we were already at Ximending, we walked around and shared food from various food stalls. We even went to my favorite tsua bing (剉冰) dessert restaurant. The one with everyone's signature on the wall. Mine from 2006 and 2008 should be there somewhere. I leave you tonight with a picture of happy chicken monster from a popcorn chicken place right at the entrance of the Ximending night market.

Break for holiday!

Just got back from dinner with some classmates after class let out. Tomorrow is the moon festival (mid-autumn) so today is an unofficial Friday. We headed over to a Korean restuarant on the westerner side of Shida market. [insert rolling eyes]. I've had better in America. Which is a pretty sad statement. Anyways, afterwards I headed home for an early evening. Loser, right? haha. Well I figure i have some luandry to do and I want to finish my homework early. So it'll leave tomorrow, the holiday, all free to do whatever I want!! I leave you with a photo of my desert. Jelly Mango Icey (加立芒果冰) in a knock-off Hello Kitty cup. LOL

Escape from plumber island

Today I had to fix the plumbing in the condo again. Everytime I used the washing machine it would overflow the drains and flood out muddy/soapy water. It kinda left the floors a mess, so before taking on that daunting task, I decided to escape from this disaster for at least 1 hour and get some lunch.

My relative, Hong-Mei and her son, Bob, brought me out to an old food court in a small mall next to Takashimaya. It's called Shi Dong Market. The history according to Bob is, the market used to be outdoors, but now they built a roof over it and that's how it stayed. The first floor is the traditional market and the second floor has two food court "wings". This is where I had some stinky tofu wonton. I think it's the steamed kind, mixed with some mala sauce and peas. Soo good! This is a must try when looking for food around Takashimaya and you don't want to pay department store food prices.

To round out the evening, I headed back to the Shilin night market to try out the curry bbq chicken (咖哩雞) wrapped in roti. It's pretty good, but not amazing. Perhaps the curry chicken is the wrong flavor. However they do redeam themselves with the dough tossing show. The guy out front tosses the roti dough about 20 feet into the air and catches it, much like they do for shows in a pizzeria. I was feeling a bit warm, so I decided to finish with something ice cold. I leave you with a photo of my strawberry, Kiwi, Mango bao bing (刨冰) dessert.

Bitan bridge over Xindian river

I took some time out today to meet up with a family friend. We took a long MRT train ride down the Xindian line. Xindian is the last stop. The location is famous for it's 75 year old wood suspension bridge. It used to swing way more years ago, but now it's been strengthened with cables and metal support beams. Maybe because of too many complaints from people with weak stomaches. There is a legend that several swimmers have been sucked under and disappeared into the whirlpools in the river. I didn't feel like hauling my big DSLR out...a mistake. So my point-n-shoot sufficed.


This is a wall made out of personalized bricks. One for each person that donated. At least that what i assume. Here's one of two little piggies :)

For a 3pm snack we ate some peanut crumble covered blood cakes (豬血糕) and sour cabbage stuffed stinky tofu (臭豆腐, Shou Dou Fu). The tofu is actually fried then grilled and basted. Yumm! And for desert some shaved ice with red bean and other deliceous toppings. I think that about rounds it off. I'm heading out to the ShinLin nightmarket again suckers!