TAIWAN - Day Three: Godzilla!

That evening Lance and I were kind of tired of doing the touristy thing, so we decided to go see a movie.  The new Godzilla seemed an appropriate choice.  We found a really big movie/mall complex down kind of by Taipei 101.  It was a very Americanized mall - it even had a California Pizza Kitchen!  (The website said this is where teenagers go to experience what it's like to live in America.  Hmm... kind of. It was American with a very Taiwanese influence.)

Finding the theater was easy.  Trying to buy tickets?  A lot harder.  The theater was laid out in a weird way; there didn't seem to be any central location or entrance.  There were lots and lots of cash registers,  but none were open! (At least, none that we could see at first.)  With no signs in English to help us out, we were happy to find kiosks to buy tickets.  We put all the info and everything in only to find out you had to have special credit card to actually purchase the tickets. Dang!

So then we got into a line that looked promising.  We had no idea what it was for, but we figured it was a line in the movie theater - it had to be to buy tickets, right?  Wrong.  Lance did a little more scouting and found the real line for tickets. (I think the first line we were in might have been for IMAX tickets.) It was super long and partly outside, which meant it was super hot and muggy, too.  We finally got to the front and were able get our tickets.  Fun fact: in Taiwan you choose and reserve what seats you want in the theater, which I think is a fabulous idea.  You also buy your concession items while you buy your tickets and always as a combo.  Interesting.

We had some time before the movie started, so we decided to stroll around the open-format mall. Lots of American and international brands, so nothing too exciting.  There were lots of people around, and several musicians in the square around which the mall was situated.  We saw this cool wall covered in plants. (Turns out it was ad for Samsung.)

At one point a mid-sized black dog started following us.  He had a collar and was obviously owned by someone, but as of then he was on the lam!  We tried to get rid of him and told him to get away, but he ignored us.  It occurred to me that this dog had no clue what we were saying because he only spoke Mandarin!

We decided to head back to the theater and the dog followed or led most of the way.  It was pretty funny.  He kept looking over his shoulder at us as if to say "You're still there, right?!  Follow me, I know the way!"  I was starting to get a little nervous about this - how were we going to get rid of this dog?  But we eventually lost him when we crossed a big street with a ton of other people.

The inside of the theater was pretty big and I don't know... flashy?  There was this big statue in the middle.  We had to go up to the third floor just to get to our theater.  (There were lots of theaters and I'm pretty sure the whole place was open 24 hours a day.)

Borrowed image.

So we watched Godzilla and it was alright.  I mean, it was a monster movie - I wasn't expecting academy award winning performances.  There was too much back story and not enough Godzilla for my taste.  Also, I was sad that they destroyed San Francisco.  Couldn't the monsters have gone across the bay and destroyed Richmond or Oakland instead?  Just sayin'...  I have to admit that the jet lag caught up with me in that theater and I dozed just a little.

After the movie we decided we should just eat in the food court there since we didn't' want to spend a lot of time looking for food and then taking so long that the MRT would be closed when we were done.  (I'm pretty sure it closed at 10pm.)  We skipped the American choices and went to a hot pot place.  Well, Lance had the actual hot pot; mine was more like bi bim bap. (Complete with raw egg and all. You know what?  Not so bad!)

Lance had this fancy flower thingy in his bowl that he let me have.  We thought it was tofu, but my friend Yi-Chou (who is from Taiwan) said it was probably a fish cake.  Either way, it tasted pretty good!

After dinner we stopped at a local Family Mart for some ice cream.  (Family Marts are even more ubiquitous than 7-11's in Taipei!) ((Also, Lance and I tend to eat a lot of ice cream on vacation.  It's like an unspoken rule or something.) My stomach was hurting again, and it was at this point that I started to wonder if I had issues with MSG.  At any rate, just the thought of ice cream made me feel better, so I had to have it.  And it made me feel better. :)

We were standing in line when this kid, probably around 11 years old, totally just cut in line in front of us!  Like it was no big thing - didn't even acknowledge our existence.  We got a good kick out it.

Chopsticks

This evening I tried to teach the kids how to use chopsticks. Spencer refused to try. Josh tried for a while. Tess poked herself. Cole was the only one to give it the ol' college try.

(For the record, I still have the mad chopsticks skillz.)

((Also for the record, Lance is still out of town until tonight, which is why we had ramen noodles for dinner.  But in my defense I also included chicken, cucumbers, and an awesome peanut sauce along with it. Although I was the only one who ate any of that goodness.))

You Get To Choose?!?!

An actual conversation I had with Josh while in the car this evening.

Josh: Mommy, I bet after you had me you didn't think you'd have any other babies.

Me: Actually, I knew we'd have two more babies.

Josh: What?!  But how would you know?

Me: Um, because Daddy and I knew we wanted to have four kids.

Josh: Wait - but how did you know you'd have four kids?!

Me (not really sure where this is going): Because we planned on having four kids.

Josh (dramatic pause - lightbulb moment): Wait - YOU GET TO CHOOSE HOW MANY KIDS YOU HAVE??!?!!

Me (trying - and failing - not to laugh): Well, yeah.  Most people do.

Josh: Really?  You really get to CHOOSE?

Me: Um, yeah.  Who did you think chose how many kids you had?  Who else would be in charge of that?  Wait - where you do you think babies come from?  We've talked about this...

Josh (amazed beyond words): But wait, you CHOOSE?!  REALLY?  REALLY?! 

Me: Yeah.  I mean, some people don't get to choose because of medical conditions, so they don't get to have babies.  And some people have, um, extra babies.  But yes, parents get to basically choose how many kids they have.  Seriously, who did you think decided that?

Josh: But... HOW did you choose?  HOW did you know you'd have four kids?!

Spencer (embarrassed in only the way a 10 year old boy can be when anything of this subject comes up): Josh!!!  Just leave it alone!!!

Me: Josh, remember?  Mommies and Daddies make the babies.  So they get to choose how many kids they have.

Josh then sat in stunned silence for several minutes, contemplating this new revelation.  Spencer sunk down in his seat and rolled his eyes.

Man, I love this kid.

TAIWAN - Day Three: National Palace Museum

On my third day in Taiwan I was finally setting foot in a museum!  (I'm a lover of museums, and waiting three days to go to one seemed a bit crazy to me.)

The National Palace Museum is THE museum as far as Chinese antiquities go.  You'd think all of these things would be in mainland China, but due to the Chinese civil war and the impending Japanese invasion in the 1930's, all of the great stuff that used to be housed in the Forbidden City in Beijing was moved to Taipei, where it has stayed ever since.  I'm not sure how the Chinese feel about this, but since they all seriously consider Taiwan as just another part of China, I don't know that they really care.  I'm sure Taiwan is happy to have it and not willing to give it back even though they don't really think they are a part of China. 

Anyways.  

Getting to the museum was a little different because it involved my beloved MRT and a ride on a bus.  I was a little nervous about this because getting on a bus in a foreign place can be a little tricky.  Get on the wrong bus and who knows where you'll end up!  And it's not like you can just ask anyone around you to help - in my experience very few people spoke enough English to help you with that.  But I figured if worse came to worse I could always flag down a cabby and hope he could get me where I wanted to go!

So I got off at the right MRT station and was studying a big map outside, which provided all of the bus numbers I needed to get to the museum.  I had just figured out which buses I could take and was trying to figure out where the bus stop was when this little old Taiwanese lady came up to me and was like "Museum!" and pointed to where I needed to go.  She was very animated about it, so I followed her to the bus stop and thanked her. 

Then this bus pulled up, and although it said on the scrolling sign that it went to the museum, I wasn't sure because it hadn't been listed on the sign.  But then the same lady pointed at the bus, and it was understood that I HAD to get on there or totally offend her.  Gulp.  So I did. 

I have to say, I am thoroughly impressed with Taiwan's public transportation system.  This was seriously the cleanest city bus I have ever been on!  I got on and found myself surrounded by a good 20 high school aged kids, all taking pictures of themselves and each other with their phones.  (I think this is what all teenagers in Taiwan do all the time, because that's all I saw them do!)  It was more fun for me to watch them and watch the city go by than to actually take a picture myself.  Google images to the rescue!

Borrowed from the interwebs.

The ride was only about 15-20 minutes.  I had to pay particular attention, though, because unlike on the MRT, the English translations for the stops only came up every once in a while.

Not to worry, though - it would have been really hard to miss this GIANT museum!

Borrowed from the web.

Also from the web.  Also, imagine a ton more people out front.

First, there are these huge gates that you have to go through.  (I think the Asian culture is particularly fond of big gates for big places.)

Then you walk up this big plaza, flanked on each side by some beautiful gardens.  And of course you take an odd selfie.

Then another odd selfie.

Then you climb to the very top and take a bunch of pictures of the scenery.  I knew I had to do this because that's what everyone else was doing.

I *think* that building over there is the national library.

So just trying to get into the museum was a lesson in culture shock!  First, there were a TON of people there.  Literally thousands and thousands.  Seriously, it felt like half of Taipei was there.  So I eventually found the line for admission, which was something like $4.50. Isn't that crazy cheap?!  But then, even though the counter was shared with admissions, I had to get in a different line for my audio tour headset and pay another $3 for that.  Why they couldn't combine these two things, I'll never know.  I also had to leave my passport as insurance that I'd return the audio set, which was a little disconcerting.

Then I got in a big line to go through security, only to realize halfway through that I couldn't take in my backpack.  Dang it.  So I finally found my way to the bag check area and checked my bag.  Then back through security and FINALLY I was ready to start museuming.

This is a BIG museum.  They have something crazy like 600,000 artifacts, although at any time there's only around 3,000-4,000 on display.  They did a great job of having the museum displays in Mandarin, Japanese, and English.  But the audio headset was the BEST.  It was about the size of a universal remote and hung around your neck. It had a rotating touchscreen on it.  You'd put in the number on certain exhibits (there'd be sticker numbers on the display) and then a description of the artifact would be read to you.  I found these descriptions to be a bit dramatic and dry; they focused 90% on the artifact itself, describing it in detail even though it was right in front of you.  I guess I like more of the history and sociology behind it.  Not sure if this was a cultural thing or just a National Palace museum thing.  Oh well, it got the basic job done.

I was there for about 2 hours and started feeling pretty gross.  My stomach hurt and my legs were tired and shaky.  It took me awhile to realize I was probably hungry.  Der... It was weird, but on this trip I would never get really starved; my stomach would never rumble.  I would get too involved with stuff and forget to eat.  But then I'd start feeling weird or tired or grouchy and then realize "Oh yeah, I should probably eat something."  (That's one good thing about having kids around - they sure keep you on a tight feeding schedule!) ((This does NOT mean I wanted them on my trip, though.))

Anyways, I went down to the museum cafe. First I ordered a milk bubble drink.  See, bubble tea is all the rage in Taiwan and I reeeaaaally wanted to try one, but without the tea since I don't drink that.  I had read that at some places you could get one without tea, and since the menu said "Bubble Milk" I figured I might as well try it. I asked the waitress (who seemed to know a little English) and I said "No tea?" and she kept saying "No tea!  No tea!"  But when I took a big slurp of the drink I'm pretty sure the tapioca pearls had been soaked in some sort of tea.  It took me a few slurps to really think this, since it was very subtle and I thought that maybe it was just the flavor of the tapioca pearls. But the more I drank, the more I thought it was tea.  Oops.  And then the flavor came on strong and I started to not really like the gummy texture of the tapioca, so I left the rest.  Now I wonder if the waitress thought I didn't want any hot tea on the side, like everyone else was having. Hmm...

I also ordered a vegetable sandwich, which I know sounds lame, but it sounded so good to me! And it was.  It was very vegetable-y and had a random slice of apple in the middle, which was actually quite tasty.

Finally - I know this is weird - I had a slice of black forest cake.  Or what Taiwan thinks is black forest cake.  Which is exactly why I ordered it.  I wanted to see what they thought it was like.  It had chocolate cake and chocolate frosting, but instead of cherries in the middle it had like a cherry kind of whipped cream-like substance.  And a vanilla creamy substance in a another layer.  It was very light, not dense at all.  It was good, and I definitely needed that sugar kick for the rest of the afternoon!

Okay.  So.  I walked and looked and read and walked and looked and read.  I sat a little and then did it some more.  There was So Much To Look At!  And So Many People!  Seriously, I hated all of those dang tour groups, with their flags and herds of people moving around, always standing forever in front of the very thing I wanted to see!

I really liked seeing all of the old books.  And the paintings and calligraphy were gorgeous.  It was while looking at the scroll paintings that I had the epiphany that this was the Chinese equivalent of being at the Louvre - it just didn't seem like it at first because everything was on scrolls instead of in ornate frames.  This one very famous artist did several scrolls that had poem couplets in beautiful calligraphy.  They were very pretty, but there was never any translation for the poetry, which drove me nuts!  (Lance later suggested I learn Mandarin and go back so I can translate it myself and that I would probably by disappointed because the poetry would be mediocre. Har har.)

There were lots of docents around who held round signs that looked kinda like paddles.  Which is what they were used for, because if the saw someone doing something they shouldn't (taking pictures, talking on a phone) they'd go up to them and swat them a little.  The offenders would never lash out or make excuses; they would look contrite and stop what they were doing and apologize.  I totally loved everything about this.

I finally got to the top floor, which I guess is where they keep all of the most famous stuff.  This is where I realized that there is a big difference in Asian and American customs as far as lines and looking at stuff goes.  They do not believe in lines or personal body space when it comes to looking at museum stuff - it's every person for themselves!  I had to put aside my whole "I hate crowds of people jostling me" phobia.

The ivory carvings were really cool because they were all so delicate.  This ball has FOURTEEN other separate balls inside of it, all carved from ONE piece of ivory.  Amazing.

Taken from the web because there's no photography allowed!

It was while at the ivory exhibit that I met my biggest fan.  It was a little girl, probably around four or five, and as soon as she saw me her face lit up and she started pointing and loudly calling for her mom's attention and tugging on her hand.  Her mom was a little distracted at first, but then realized what the girl was doing and you could tell she was not happy about it! (It's very rude to point in Taiwan; you should use your whole hand, kinda like Vanna White.  It wasn't until we got there that I realized just how much pointing I do on a daily basis!) She swatted at the little girl, gave her a few choice words, and pulled her away to another exhibit.  But I saw her again, and this time the little girl shyly waved to me, so I waved back and she was SO EXCITED!  (Like jumping up and down excited.)  Who was this mysterious white lady at the museum who was willing to wave to her?!?!  I saw her a couple of more times and each time we exchanged waves and smiles; it was very, very cute.

Okay, so after this I found a good sized "line" (more like an impatient herd of people trying to all get through a small door... which is exactly what it was) going into the jade carving display area .  There were no signs for what the line was for, but I figured it was probably good.  I got in line and did some research on my head set and came to the realization that I was about to see two of the museum's most famous pieces.  I listened to the descriptions on my headset and almost laughed at the dramatic solemnity with which they were discussed.  So important!  (I shouldn't laugh.  I know.  I'm an ugly American.)

The first was a piece of jade that was carved to look like a piece of raw pork.  Apparently the artist didn't have to do much because this piece of jade already looked so much like pork; I think he might have had to do something to the top.  Whatever, I don't know.  It was cool to look at and it really did look like a piece of pork.

Mmm... tasty. (Also - borrowed image.)

But the item that everyone went completely nutso over was this jade cabbage.  You read that right: a cabbage.  You'd have thought it was Michaelangolo's David, the way everyone was going crazy over it.  I mean, okay, it really does look like a real cabbage.  And apparently the jade was colored just in that way, so even though it was an imperfect piece of jade the artist really made something great out of it.  (It was the property of some emperor, who loved it.)  But the way the headset kept glorifying it and the way the other museum patrons jostled and pushed to be right next to it - it was all very, very amusing.  

The sculpture was only about 8" tall. (Borrowed image - I didn't want to get swatted!)

I know.  I know.  I'm awful.  Who am I to judge?  I guess I just don't know great art when I see it.  (It was great.  I just don't know if it was worth all the fuss!)

Anywho, I finished seeing everything there was to see and made a trip to the gift shop.  Holy cow, have I mentioned how much people in Taiwan like to shop?!  They love it!  Baskets full of stuff no matter where I was at.  This was no exception.  I, however, decided to just stick with this awesome cabbage keychain, because it made me laugh.  (I found out later that it's glow-in-the-dark.  Bonus!)  I also got a Ming vase magnet for the fridge, because I'm kitschy like that.

Completely exhausted, I found a bus to take me back to the MRT station and then finally made by way back to the hotel, where I lounged in bed and Facebooked and read until Lance got back for the evening.

Meanwhile, Back in Indiana...

(Copied with permission from the wonderful Janene & David Silvers, whom Josh now wishes were his real parents.)  ((After yesterday, I kinda wish they were his parents, too, the rotgut kid!))

A week and a half ago, 31 May 2014—a  date which will live in the past—the Madsen household was suddenly and deliberately invaded by the combined forces of David and Janene.  The Madsen family was already well-acquainted with the Silvers, and, at the solicitation of the Madsen parents, had, only the night before, had the Silvers over for dinner, looking toward maintaining those good relations.

 

Indeed, 30 minutes after David and Janene invaded the household, the Madsen parents delivered the Orange Binder of All Things To Do With the Children.  And while this binder gave great knowledge of the favorite meals of the children, it contained no threat, or hint of tantrum if said meals included vegetables.

 

It will be recorded that the thickness of the Orange Binder of All Things To Do With the Children makes it obvious that the babysitting scheme was deliberately planned many days, or even weeks, ago.  During the intervening time, the Madsen parents continually expressed hope for continuing peace to their kids while the parents were away.  The invasion, which ended scarcely three days ago, has caused severe short-term consequences.  I regret to tell you that many cheesy goldfish have been lost.

 

On Saturday, one squirt toy was broken, and yet remained functional.

 

On Sunday, one squirt toy was broken and found to be non-functional.

 

On Monday, the first squirt toy was damaged beyond repair, and both had to be retired.

 

On Tuesday, the tanks had to be called in.  (Mostly) Literally.

 

With confidence in the Madsen children, with the unbounding determination of the parents' love, we are sure the kids will recover from The Week The Silvers Stayed Over – so help them God.

 

 

Well, that was fun.  We won't ask for a declaration of war.  Now, to change gears for those of you who don't keep up with famous speeches, we'll move on to children's stories.

 

 

The Very Hungry Cole-erpillar: an eating log for Thursday

 

For breakfast, Cole ate through 4 pancakes

For after-breakfast-snack, Cole ate through 1 fruit bar

For lunch, Cole ate through 6 chicken nuggets and 2 bowls of applesauce

For after-lunch-but-not-quite-snack-time-snack, Cole ate through 1 ½ bananas

For snack, Cole ate through ½ a banana and 1 bowl of pretzels

For after-snack-but-not-quite-dinner, Cole ate through ½ of a graham cracker (and would have eaten more if I had let him)

For dinner, Cole ate through a small serving of green beans, and ignored the main course

 

He has not yet become a butterfly.  Instead, we visited butterflies on Friday.

 

 

But we get ahead of ourselves.  Here is a bit more detail, in chronological order.

 

On Saturday, we showed up before lunch.  Tess was being particularly clingy.  It was only the promise of being pushed on the swing that would convince her to release her firm grip on her mother.  (Aside: You may recall that last time we watched the Madsen kids, David perfected the art of pushing a two-year-old in the swing while reading a book.  He surmised that someday, that book would be replaced with a smartphone.  He finally learned how to do it this trip!)  Saturday was a pretty laid-back day.  Spencer and Josh enjoyed computer games, and Tess and Cole played outside.  No hamburgers were burnt.

 

On Sunday, the kids were so well-behaved that they elicited comments from many church members.  There were also a number of friends who were amused at seeing us with four kids in our row.  This week, Tess put a bunch of stickers into a coloring book instead of her trademark face-stickering.  Tess even let David put a sticker into the book.  Truly, he has found favor with the three-year-old crowd.

 

The Madsens have a nice Sunday tradition of putting the kids in pajamas when they get home.  Then, we ate popcorn for lunch, with a little bit of healthy stuff, and relaxed for an afternoon of wholesome recreational activities, watching "Bica Me 2."  This sequel to Despicable Me was quite funny.  And Tess liked to remind us that she was a purple minion for Halloween, and Cole and Josh were yellow minions.

 

All of dinner was eaten!  I suppose it helped that Sunday is breakfast-for-dinner night, and the kids do better at eating things with syrup on top.  (Maybe I should have put syrup on Josh's vegetables.)

 

On Monday, David went off to work.  Janene made the mistake of pouring milk into Josh's cold cereal.  He pouted and didn't eat any of it.  She also made the mistake of giving Josh his swim goggles at the house, where he proceeded to lose them in plain sight, and announce that he couldn't find his goggles as we were needing to leave for swim lessons.  Other than that, Janene survived the day alone with four kids.  That evening, we had a surprisingly successful Family Home Evening!  While no one paid attention to Spencer's lesson, the game of Go Fish, which none of the kids had played before, managed to keep everyone entertained!  Janene lost, horribly.  David won, spectacularly.  And everybody had at least one match.

 

Tuesday morning was much like Monday, except that Janene didn't pour milk on Josh's cold cereal.  Only because we didn't have cold cereal; we had pancakes.  Tuesday afternoon, we "called in the tanks."  Meaning we drove down to Crawfordsville (40 minute drive) to the Ropkey Armor Museum.  As you can see, everyone was thrilled to be going to the Tank Museum.  Seriously though, cool place, right?  Climbing in a tank with a gun that shoots bullets the sizeof your head . . . pretty awesome.  Even Tess thought so after a little while.  And there are more than just tanks; there are also some airplanes, and model airplanes.  Overall, a good use of an afternoon.  (Make sure to click on the links!)

 

Wednesday was fairly low-key.  We could do that after a Tank Museum trip.  You've already read about the amount of eating that happened on Thursday.  Mostly, we let the kids entertain themselves when they didn't want to be around us, and we played games when they did want us to entertain them.  We learned that Life is a really complicated game for kids who are still learning to count.  Particularly in handling money.  We learned that Janene is really bad at Mario Kart on Wii.  (Let it be known, however, that she used to be good at Super Mario Kart on SNES.)  And, we learned that, in the Madsen household, when playing a game of War, the ace counts as number 1, and is beaten by everything; it does not beat a king.

 

After two low-key days, we had to do something on Friday.  So, we visited the butterflies.  And monkeys.  And wallabys.  And river otters (although they were hiding).  And prairie dogs (although they were hiding, too).  And goats, which are a hazard to children under 4 feet tall when they think you have food in your hand.  The best line of the day does go to Shelly, who joined us at the zoo, and who, as we were having the children leave the goat area, said "only kids, no goats."

 

Afterwards, we went swimming.  Josh was fine with us going swimming.  (Aside: Last year, he was angry with us for making him go swimming, and was not sad to see us leave.)  Sources reveal that this year, Josh would be happy to have us return; he thinks we were fun.  And it doesn't hurt that Janene made pancakes for breakfast multiple times.

 

And David didn't change any diapers.

TAIWAN - Day Two: Jackie Chan Lunch, Longshan Temple, & Ningxia Night Market

Jackie Chan told me where I should eat lunch that day.

And since Jackie has never steered me wrong before (or at all), I decided to follow his advice.

So, yeah.  I was walking around the neighborhood in the area of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial MRT station, looking for a place to eat. I could probably never find the place again, since I came to it on accident. (I wasn't worried about getting lost - I created a sixth sense about where I was in relation to any MRT station.  If I ever got lost or couldn't find what I wanted, I knew I'd be okay if I could find the MRT station!)

Anywho, it was hot and muggy and I was hungry and thirsty. It was a pretty typical part of Taipei - not super fancy or touristy, but not scary or sketchy.  I saw a few chain places (like MOS Burger, a Japanese chain, and Sushi Express, which was everywhere), but I wasn't interested in those.  Not that I have anything against trying local food chains when in a foreign country; I just wanted something more authentic.  Then I realized I hadn't had Taiwan's national dish yet: beef noodle soup.

It was not exactly a soup day.  (Hot and muggy days rarely are.)  But I had noticed that most of the locals ate hot meals for lunch and dinner, no matter how miserable the day was.  Maybe they knew something I didn't know?  Maybe it helped them deal with the heat?  It did seem like I was the only sweating person in the heat.  How were they not affected by it, while I was a sweaty, hot mess?

Thinking these deep, important thoughts, I walked by a little shop that had lots of random snapshots of people in the window. But one of those people wasn't so random: one of them was Jackie Chan!  Not that I can claim to be any sort of Chan fan.  It's not that I don't like him, it's just that I don't care.  You know, he's not my favorite or anything.  I'm kinda surprised I recognized him. I looked at his picture and I looked at the pictures of the food (there's always pictures of food) and my tummy growled and I went right in.

The owner was very nice, very kind and patient.  He didn't speak any English beyond "Hello!" and "Thank you!", which, coincidentally, is all of the Mandarin I know. (Nie Hao and Xie Xie)  He showed me a picture menu (which I found almost all restaurants in Taiwan have - very handy) and I chose a good looking beef noodle soup.

He somehow told me to select a cold drink from the little fridge, which I was very grateful for.  I had noticed most of the locals didn't drink anything with their meals, but it just feels weird to me not to have a drink.  (He must have known that about Americans.)  The place was small, with communal tables. It was late for lunch, but there were probably 8 people in there.  It smelled heavenly.

I didn't take any pictures because it would have been a little awkward.  But omigosh, guys. I did a little Googling and I found the place online!  With pictures! Holy cow!  It must not be as much of a hole-in-the-wall as I thought.

Here's the outside. Apparently it's called Lao Zhang Beef Noodles Shop.  The red poster on the left side is where I saw Jackie's picture.  (Yeah, we're on first name basis.)

This picture totally could have been taken from where I was sitting.  And I was at the table closest to the kitchen.  Like I said, small place.

Lunch was delicious.  The meat a little fattier than I like, but I think that's an Asian thing.  I slurped my noodles with the rest of the diners and gave the owner a thumbs up as he hovered around.  It really was good, but it didn't help me handle the heat outside.  I was still a sweaty mess after lunch.  Dang.

Lunch cost all of around $3.  Can't beat that!

After lunch I headed over to my second temple of the day: the Longshan Buddhist Temple.  I've seen a lot of churches and cathedrals and temples and whathaveyous in my day.  (I spent a couple of months in Israel, where churches are a dime a dozen.)  But this was my first real Asian temple, so I had no idea what to expect.

I certainly did not expect a digital scrolling sign on the front gate.

I went inside, where there was a really pretty waterfall.  Which was kinda weird at first, because its in the heart of a very busy city. But it was still cool.  The koi in the pond were HUGE!  (Because they were in Taiwan, where everything apparently seems huge to me!)

The architecture was really interesting and beautiful. This temple is by no means ancient; apparently it has been destroyed several times over it's long history, most recently during WWII.  But the Buddha statue inside stayed miraculously safe, making it very important to the locals.

The details on the building were incredible.  The temple is guarded by several dragons.

Another "borrowed" image from the interwebs.

Here's the inner courtyard of the temple complex.  As you can see, the incense was pretty powerful.  Almost overwhelming, really, for a hot, sweaty, soup-filled girl!  It felt a little weird to take pictures in there, even though tons of people were.  I kinda felt that even though we didn't share the same faith, this was still a sacred and special place to these worshipers and I didn't want to intrude.

I took a few surreptitious shots, though.  (But nothing inside; that would have felt really weird to me.)

 But apparently not to someone else!

Borrowed from the interwebs.

I stood around and watched for quite a while.  Outside of the temple there were tons of little old ladies selling stuff for offerings inside. People would buys packs of incense (7 sticks, because 7 is symbolic or lucky or something) or fruit or flowers, and then go inside and offer them.  They would light the incense and bow up and down for several minutes.  Here's one of the very few videos I took in Taiwan.  (I am KICKING  myself for not taking more. Oh well.)

There was traditional Chinese music playing in the background, but as you can tell it was a noisy, bustling place.

After a while I sat on the front steps with all of the old people and tried to plan what I was going to do next.  There were a couple more temples in the area and a store that came very highly recommended in my guide book.  Map in hand, MRT station-sense switched on, I made my way out of the temple and into the streets of the Wanhua district.  (Taipei is huge and made of several districts. Our hotel was in the Da'an.)

This was a pretty busy area, with lots of people, lots of cars and scooters, lots of ads.  There were even several vans that drove by with pictures of someone on the side, flags, and a recording blasting out.  I can only assume they were for some sort of political campaign.  All of them sounded angry, but that's because Mandarin often sounds angry to my ugly American ears.

I walked and walked and walked, happily following my map.  I knew right where I was.  Until I didn't.

Oh, here's a typical Taipei walkway.  Generally right next to shops.  Lots of goods and restaurant seating out and about.

Parked scooters take up most of the room on the outer sidewalks.

So at some point I found myself to be where I was SURE the store was supposed to be.  Only it wasn't there.  It was a sketchy little stretch of road full of what seemed to be appliance and restaurant supply stores.  People looked at me strangely; I'm pretty sure they didn't get many tourists in the area!  So I skedaddled out as quickly as I could without looking like I was fleeing.

Happily, I discovered I was on the same road as one of the temples I wanted to visit: the Qingshan Temple.  Unhappily, the inside was under construction, so there wasn't much to see other than the front. It's kind of cool that in the middle of all these high rises there's this little temple, minding it's own business.

So I walked some more and realized that I was in the area of Snake Alley.  This is an area that has had a very shady past; a real red light district.  However, I had read that in the last decade or so the government had cleaned it up and made it more of a tourist attraction. (Rather, more of an appropriate tourist attraction.)  It's more of a night time attraction, with lots of snake-product related shops and such.  In the daytime?  Not so impressive.  I knew that the road I needed was just down that block-long strip of stores and restaurants, most of which were not open. I really needed to get to that road, and was worried that I wouldn't be able to find it otherwise.  (Taiwan is great about putting English translations on their street signs; not so great at consistently spelling those translations!) I decided I'd be fine and rushed down, feeling eyes on me, knowing full well I was out of place.  I wasn't scared, but I wasn't exactly comfortable.  Pretty sure I saw some day-time hookers, or at least women who dressed the part!

I quickly found my way back to the Longshan temple and the MRT station.  It was still fairly early in the afternoon, so I decided to check out the underground mall at the Taipei Main Station.  You read that right - an underground mall.  Taipei is totally packed and crowded, so they're apparently all about underground malls! (We visited several on this trip.)  The one at the Taipei Main Station is HUGE!  Tons of stores selling all kinds of stuff.

The biggest part was like this - mom & pop shops and convenience stores.  Lots of neat things to look at, but nothing I really had to have.  (Cute teapots and tea sets, and I almost bought one, but then I was like "Hey, I don't drink tea.  Why would I ever need this?!")  Notice the 7-11 stripes on the right.

Borrowed image.

One part of the mall was more upscale; it was nice, but not hoighty-toighty like that Taipei 101 mall.  It even had a frozen yogurt place just like our Pink Walrus in Lafayette!  I window shopped for a while and ended up buying a cute wallet.  I know, I'm a super exciting shopper on this trip. (Lance was grateful for this; I was surprised by it.)

Borrowed image.

I eventually made my way back to the hotel, where Lance was napping.  That weirdo.  That tired, tired weirdo.  Things had gone really well for him that day at Computex, but if you want to hear all about it you will have read about it on his non-existent blog.  Or ask him, one of the two.  

We eventually headed out of the hotel in search of some dinner.  Neither of us were terribly hungry, so we were in no hurry.  First we went to the Taipiei Main Station mall, because I was so impressed with the idea of a huge underground mall and thought Lance would be, too. (I was wrong.  I think to guys it's all just shopping.)  So then we went rode up one stop to the Zhongshan station, I can't remember why. But it also had underground shopping.  This is where we ran into these fancy bathroom signs.

Now let's just stop for a moment and talk about Taiwan bathrooms.  On the whole, they were pretty typical public bathrooms, if maybe even a bit cleaner than most American ones.  And there were always little signs on the stalls, so I was never surprised to discover a squat toilet when what I very much needed was a Western toilet. (Old dog, new tricks?  No thanks.)  But... BUT...

TRUE STORY: in Taiwan they don't flush toilet paper.  You throw it away in a garbage can next to the toilet.  I know.  I know. (It has something to do with the island's ancient sewer system.)  I was pretty grossed out by this concept before our trip, but you know what?  It wasn't as gross as I thought it would be.  I mean, it was still kinda gross.  We're talking about used toilet paper in the garbage can.  But it wasn't that bad.

Okay, so back to our quest for dinner.  We decided to walk down the underground mall at Zhongshan station, which turned out to be only book sellers; thousands and thousands of books all in Mandarin.  Are e-readers big in Taiwan?  I never saw anyone with one.  We walked and walked and walked and finally found ourselves at the Shonglian MRT station, a good half-mile from where we started!  That's a lot of book stores!

By this point we were starting to get hungry.  We happily discovered we were close to a night market that was recommended to us by someone who lives in Taiwan, so we made our way to it.

And by made our way I mean we got out of the MRT station and blindly tried to find it.  (I swear I'm good with maps on my own, but when I'm with someone else I lose all map sense!)  Luckily, it was just a little further than we thought and we found the market.

It. Was. Packed.

It was all we could do to get through.  Lots and lots of people, lots of yummy smells, some yucky smells (stinky tofu again!), and lots of things to see.

We saw a meat kabob stall that smelled and looked promising - until we saw the English translations: lots of  internal organs for chickens.  And, I kid you not, chicken butts.  It said Chicken Butts.  I like to try new things, but not butt things.  We were both a little disappointed and agreed that we would have eaten them - and probably enjoyed them - had we not know what they were.

Right after this we were stopped by a group of what appeared to be middle-school girls, all cute in their school uniforms, giggling and awkward.  They asked if we spoke English and if we would mind being interviewed.  (Pretty sure they got extra credit or something for doing this.)  We chatted for a bit; they seemed surprised that we considered the night market crowded.  How was the night market different from restaurants in America?  Again, they were surprised that all of our eating establishments were inside because it gets cold in the winter.  It was fun talking to them, although I'm not quite sure how much of our responses they really understood.

Having been through the entire night market and not really wanting to go through it again we walked back towards the MRT station.  I decided that what I really wanted was something from a bakery we had seen along the way.  No more hot meals for me that day - I wanted carbs!

We stopped and each bought a few things, including this super yummy sandwich.  I know it included tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and a fried egg.  It had a meat paddy of some sort and some yummy spices.  Delicious.

We ate and dragged our exhausted selves back to the the MRT station, where I took a random picture of this movie poster I had seen all around town.  It's of some old lady rubbing a bald man's head.  It tickled me.

And then, because I had been craving it all day and because we were on vacation and you should always have dessert while on vacation, we hunted down and bought some chocolate ice cream cones while in the Taipai Main Station mall.  They were made all the more awesome because the servers were so very polite and friendly and kept bowing to us and saying "Xie Xie!"  (McDonald's could learn a thing or two, I'm just sayin'.)

It had been a good day.

Summer Science: Kids Meal Ratings - Igloo

Once again we are rating kids meals around town, all in the name of science.  "Science".  Yeah, the quotations marks make that statement more accurate.

This week we made a list of all the possible places we wanted to have for lunch.  We even made an Excel spreadsheet and created a ranking system, 1-10 for four different parameters: taste, variety, toy, and convenience.  We talked about how ranking is not very scientific, but that's okay.  We also talked about averages.  I think Spencer got it - Josh just kinda smiled and nodded. Tess and Cole were just happy to be going out for lunch!

We originally thought we'd go to Wendy's today, but at the last minute we went to Igloo, a local burger/frozen custard place.  I'm so glad we did - it was really yummy!

The kids really liked sitting at the lunch counter.

They weren't so thrilled there'd be no toys with the kids meals, but this secretly made me quite happy. (This fact got a higher score from me!)

I got a cheeseburger and onions rings.  Totally healthy, I know. I don't usually get onions rings, but Lance does and since he's gone this week I got them in his honor.  They were alright; nothing special. The french fries I kept stealing from my kids?  SO GOOD.  Extra crispy and yummy and not too fat and not too thin.  Just right.  Good job, Igloo.

Spencer and Josh had the chicken tenders (actually, it only came with one tender each, which was a little weird) and Tess and Cole both got corn dogs, which they were very happy about.

We ended the meal with some kid cones of frozen custard.  I had dark chocolate peanut butter, which was quite yummy but not peanut-buttery enough for my taste.  Eating at Igloo is probably a bit more expensive than at other local fast food joints (we spent just under $30 for the five of us), but the food was really good, the service great (the owner was super friendly), and I like supporting local business.

TOTALLY SCIENTIFIC SCORE: 28/40

I suspect the score is a bit low due to a lack of toys.  My personal score was 33/40, and since I'm the one paying for lunch I think my vote is a little more heavily weighted. :)