Little Lees Diary: Taiwan!

We had a very memorable, food-filled, humidity-filled time with Props-filled trip to Taiwan. 10 days were spent walking, taking public transportation, going in to Family Mart for gum, water, lattes, candy, chips, seaweed rice wraps, and seasoned hard boiled eggs, visiting every food stall type we could think of, visiting two night markets, hanging out in our air conditioned pad.

Funny Taiwan observations:

There are so few garbage cans. I would be holding my trash what felt like forever.
The napkins at restaurants were pitifully small tissue paper pieces!
Not as many people wearing sunglasses as in America. We found that in Japan as well.
Metro costs 20 New Taiwanese Dollars (about 67 cents)
Bus costs 8 New Taiwanese Dollars (about 25 cents)
Full breakfasts at food stands cost around $9-15 for 6 of us. So cheap!
People eat with their food or straw right up to their mouth. Very efficient, looks very strange from a Westerner's standpoint. haha.

I don't remember the name of this memorial but puops got a special laminated picture of the war memorial with her dad's name on it. These guards stood still in this punishing heat for hourlong shifts, sweating through their uniforms.

Taipei Costco (we rode bus 204 which was our favorite) sold lots of Chinese items, like fruits, vegetables, and frozen goods. Their food court had a bulgogi bake, a fish sandwich, a chili covered potato wedges and another item I can't remember. All were decent.

Filling in mom's brows

Since we arrived at 5am our first meal was at the airport. It was, as all our meals were, delicious

Very hot and sweaty

Grandfather's memorial

Great grandparents' memorial

Costco food court

These fruits - two types of mango, gold kiwi, mangosteen (!) were so delicious

I love this motorized scooter luggage

Raohe night market

Taipei 101 building had lots of photo ops at the top floor

One of our biggest purchases were these RainSky UV umbrellas. We all got one except mom and love them

Breakfast place that Hubert had taken us to. Was delicious and cheap. I can't remember the name but I have a photo of the storefront later on...

These black pepper buns were very popular at Raohe night market. They cook them on the side of an oven, looks like a kiln

Taipei 101 building in background

The nonsensical sign "King of mango sips" was cracking us up the entire time. This was at Macu smoothie store. They finally got their 'mango sips' and enjoyed them but seemingly not as much as they had anticipated. I thought they were delicious!

"Pin de Skewer" restaurant had a huge line so we got in line. You pick out all your skewers and they cook them in delicious flavorings. It was so good we went twice.

Cab rides were a treat (we only took them a couple times) and the kids were so excited every time we did.

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial

Constantly guzzling water out there

Constantly seeking a/c...anywhere

Releasing red lanterns at Shifen town

Tamsui (Danshui?) city at the north of the red MRT line

Here's the breakfast place - second most famous breakfast place after Fu Hang soy milk

Chiang Kai-Shek memorial inside

Adjusting our false lashes. hahaha

Waterfall near Shifen

Was just as good at US DTF, about 40% cheaper, had some different options like appetizers as well as a delicious sticky rice dessert

I told them to make their faces express how they felt on a particularly punishingly hot day

Had them pack their books for a longer MRT ride

Ev and I got 1 hour cupping and foot massage for 1100 NT (about $35). It hurt but it was good.

YouTube famous beef noodle soup place. There was a line around 3pm. The noodle soup was delicious but after we got our soups we noticed all the seeming locals had the thin noodles and we had ordered the thick unknowingly.

In addition to our umbrellas, Ev's suitcase handle broke so the entire trip was spent researching and looking for suitcases. Finally settled on this Eminent brand suitcase for $165 or so and a 15% discount because its as a floor model! We got this at SOGO shopping mall, I think. We loved SOGO shopping mall and anywhere with air conditioning, a food court, and fun shopping.

Shrimp fishing! 350 NT ($10) per rod per hour. We got about 7 shrimp total between the three of our rides over 1.5 hours. It was fun and kind of strange. You have to firmly handle the shrimp and either move its front claws or push them down while you remove the hook. You then place them I a net in the water until you are done. He grilled them up for us and added 5 shrimp to our meal.

The famous meat stone at the National Palace Museum. The famous cabbage was on loan to another branch of the museum!

National Palace Museum

Ximenting neighborhood. Pedestrian only streets - very fun

Bubble tea at ximenting - they made their own boba there and they were big and good

Smoothie house - always. Their prices were way higher than last time we went. $8 vs. $2.50 last time

Shrimp fishing

We couldn't believe how Puops would pass out in the middle of whatever she was doing, at any time

Black Xiao long baos!

Puops dyeing her hair while checking out Ev's half face with setting powder, half face without

LinJiang night market - home of the delicious tang yuans over ice

They shot at balloons. Christian the sharpshooter didn't miss one (15/15) on his first go so they got stuffed animals. All of them went twice.

So good

Met up with Uncle Charles at Kaifun Restaurant on one of the lower levels of the Taiwan Main Station. The food was really good and the winter melon tea was delicious.