Chinese New Year: Taiwan Version

So, as you know, I spent Chinese New Year in Taiwan this year with my family.  I'm so glad that we did because it really made up for the lack of Thanksgiving and Christmas last year.  However, I did learn one big lesson, I left my a/c off for two weeks and when I got home...there was mold growing on all of my wicker baskets....ICK!  Guess I have to figure something out next time.

Anyway, on to happier things, here's a recap of my visit to Taiwan.  I went a week earlier than Andy and spent time hanging out with Grandma, my aunts, uncle, and cousins.  I got to relax, go shopping, and eat a ton of food.  Grandma made all the dishes I wanted to eat and my aunts bought me all my favorite breads, pastries, and cakes.

Me and my aunt enjoying some yummy pasta.

It's been awhile since I've been back to Taiwan, 9 years to be exact....I forgot how deliciously good and wonderfully cheap all the food is!  Some of you are probably wondering how I could possibly do that??  I don't know either.  So for for the two weeks, I just ate, ate, and ate some more.

When Andy arrived, I got to show him around all the cool places in Taipei.  Starting with...the local market!  Most people would hate going here, it's crowded, smelly, dirty, and loud.  But, if you know me and my family, we never get tired of browsing the market - every day.  There are always different vendors each day and wonderful deals to be found.  My best deal of the trip?  I picked up a pair of pants, a jersey knit summer dress, and a cardigan for US$5! Score!

Andy in front of the chicken slaughter booth.
We now know more about killing chickens than we ever wanted to.

You can find some really strange items for sale at the market....like a pig's face...

Do people seriously eat this??

I also took Andy to a different kind of market - Taiwan's famous night markets!  We went to the largest and perhaps most famous one called Shilin Night Market.  There we met up with our friends, the Tings who were also visiting Taipei.  It was so much fun catching up with them, meeting some new friends, and eating some great food!

Shilin Night Market

The smelly tofu lady.  Wonder if she's wearing the mask because of the stinky smell...:-) This stuff is smelly, but so tasty!

Owa Misua (or however you spell it) - basically rice noodle soup with some unrecognizable "spare parts". I ate all the noodles, leaving Andy to down the spare parts.  What a great wife I am! (more like what a great husband he is...haha!)

The Tings - the (relatively) newlyweds!

Next up - The National Palace Museum.  This is my first time visiting and we had a fun time browsing the collection.  We got to see the famous jadeite cabbage - which is a cabbage carved out of jade.  It's really popular amongst the Chinese and they sell every souvenir you can think of with a cabbage attached in the gift shop.  For example, cabbage bottle opener, cabbage cell phone charms, cabbage keychains, and even cabbage ear pickers! 

We are ready to take on the museum!  I'm trying to put on an extra peppy face here because undoubtedly a couple hours into the museum, I will because tired, hungry, and grumpy....happens every time.  Luckily the museum had a cafe :-)

Jumping in front of the museum.  This picture was not a great pic since it's kind of blurry and the color is kind of washed out.  So, I decided to make it black and white - it makes a decent picture this way!

Hopefully, people don't think I'm disrespecting the great Chiang Kai Shek.  While I was taking this picture, I half expected a guard to come running out yelling at me.

Self portrait in front of the museum.

Me and one of the decorations on the roof.

On another day, my friend Burch came up from Kaoshiung and we explored Danshui together.  We stopped at a restaurant for lunch and this was their solution to napkin dispensers:

Kinda reminiscent of a cow....

We walked along the streets of Danshui until we came to Fort San Domingo.  It's kind of funny that a fort would have a Spanish name in Taiwan, but I guess at one point, the fort was occupied by the Spanish.  It was also occupied by the Dutch, hence these:

We could probably sail to Holland in these!

Here we are having some fun:

The funniest part of the day was that we randomly ran into someone we knew from NJ in Danshui:

So, BCTC friends - extra points if you recognize this guy!  

It's Da Yie Lang Shu Shu (a.k.a. the Big Bad Wolf Uncle)!  When we were little, this uncle would chase us around church and play with us.  I don't think I've seen him in over 10 years and he still looks exactly the same!  It was so crazy that we just randomly ran into him in Taiwan.

Well, I tried to combine the whole trip into one post, but this is really getting to be another epic post.  It's getting late (for me) and so I'm off to bed.  Sometimes, it just takes me forever to post because I take way too many pictures and have difficulty narrowing them down.  So, that's it for now, I'll finish up later!