Taiwan 2018 - Day 2 - Pingxi Line

So Lance had originally thought he'd have meetings on that Monday, but didn't so we got to tour a bit together! (We invited Randy on all our adventures, but he just preferred hanging out in his hotel room. I did not understand this, but respected it.) ((No I didn't. Randy! For the love - get out there and enjoy being in this awesome place!!))

So there's this touristy train line you can take to several little towns up in the mountains just east of Taipei. It's called the Pingxi Line, and you take this little old fashioned train out of a city called Ruifang. So first we had to get to Ruifang.

This was a new adventure, because last time we were in Taiwan I stuck to the MRT and buses. But to get to Ruifang we had to take a train. We went up to the ticket agent and I said Ruifang? And the guy sold us our tickets, so that wasn't hard! (And I'm pretty sure I mispronounced Ruifang.) But the tickets? All in Mandarin. No info we could use!

Looking at signs and such around the station we figured out what platform we needed to be on, but not which side. So we asked this girl who spoke a little English, and she told us one side. But then we figured out that it was actually the other side, so we found a seat to wait. And then that same girl came back to tell us she had been wrong, which I thought was super nice!

The train ride to Ruifang took about an hour and cost about $2.80. Crazy, right?! It was neat to see the countryside.

Then we got to Ruifang and figured out pretty easily how to get tickets for the Pingxi line. (As I said, it was pretty touristy.) We were lucky enough to get on the train early enough to get seats. As you can see, it was pretty crowded!

We decided to get off at Shifen. We had some friends who had been in the same place a couple of months earlier and they said it wasn't worth going all the way down to Pingxi, and that Shifen was basically the same as Pingxi only less crowded. Sold.

Trip tip - I'd take pictures of the train/bus schedules so I could check them as needed. Came in handy more than once!

Shifen is just this little coal mining town up in the mountains. It wasn't much until the Pingxi Line became all touristy. Now it's thriving!

The line runs straight through the middle of town.

Like, literally through town. When the train is not there, tourists do the whole paper sky lantern thing. It's cool to watch, but I didn't want to spend money on something that would just trash up the neighboring forests. (Let me just step off this high horse now... but seriously, lots of trashy paper lanterns around. Sad.)

We hiked out to the famous Shifen waterfall. Taiwan is all about random art installations in random spots. I tried to pull off the peace sign everyone flashes when taking pictures. I did not pull it off.

We got to cross a couple of pretty cool suspension bridges. Scenic!

Prayer ribbons in the trees. So pretty! Could I pull this off on my trees in the back yard? Probably not.

The falls were maybe a mile or two away? All I know is that my Chacos sandals, which I had worn all the previous summer with no problem, suddenly started giving me grief. They gave me grief the rest of the trip, much to my dismay! Lots of blisters and rubbing. I still can't figure out why. Ouch.

Anyways, the falls. They're known as the "Niagara of Taiwan".

I mean, they're pretty and all. But comparing them to Niagara might be a little... grandiose. :)

Also. It was HOT. So very hot. Even up in the mountains!

Lance and I wandered back into town and found this little hole in the wall place for lunch. So in Taiwan and lot of these mom-and-pop places have the kitchen out front by the street and then a room to eat behind the kitchen. There was this older gentleman cooking out front and two little old grandmas seating people and serving food. No one spoke English, so we just pointed on the menu. We ordered a bowl of rice with pork on top and a plate of fried dumplings. We had been so hot and the room we were in was deliciously air conditioned. We shared a table with a Taiwanese family. (Looked to me like a mom and dad, teenage daughter, and grandma.) They kept looking at us with interest. This whole atmosphere, plus the fact that we had lunch for two for a grand total of $3, made the food taste all the better.

We walked around Shifen and bought some souvenirs, and then bought something I had read about and really wanted to try.

I'm not sure what it's really called (the English always said something like "Peanut Ice Cream), but it was basically a thin crepe with a healthy sprinkling of shaved peanut brittle. (See the block there by the guy in red? That's the peanut brittle, and the thing on top shaved it.) On top of the peanut brittle was 2 scoops of ice cream and then some chopped cilantro. It was all wrapped up into a neat little dessert wrap.

Sounds weird, but it was DELICIOUS. Rivaling the mango snow ice, and that's saying something. SO YUMMY.

After a couple of hours in Shifen we decided to head back to Taipei.

We especially like the cartoons used in public service posters. Taiwan really likes to use cute cartoons for stuff like this! When Lance mentioned "Press, Push, Run", I thought he meant if there was an emergency you should push people out of the way and then run to safety. We were definitely the stereotypical loud Americans laughing over that on the train!

We made it back to the Taipei Main Station. I took a picture of this sign because it took me a while to figure out what they were advertising here. (Not sugar. Cell phones.)

The thing I've learned about traveling is that you have to have down time. You can't just go-go-go all day or you won't have fun because you'll just be so worn out. So each afternoon we'd head back to the hotel for a little siesta. A couple of hours in the AC dozing while watching terrible American movies always did just the trick. (Seriously, the English movies were almost always super stupid. Oy.)

That night we decided to hit the famous Shilin Night Market. There was this super cool building under construction right by. I still don't know what that building is, but I really like that ball coming out of it!

Sometimes I take good selfies. Sometimes I don't.

The thing about Shilin Night Market is that it is HUGE. Most night markets are a couple of streets at most. Shilin is blocks of streets and alleys, all jumbled together to make a huge maze. We got turned around and "lost" more than once!

Lots of delicious food, lots of weird t-shirts.

This was new - I'd never seen a whole suckling pig at a night market before!

I knew my kids would appreciate a dabbing dog.

I tried my first peppery pork bun here. They're cooked in these giant, ceramic, tandori-style ovens. Lava on the inside, crispy bun on the out. Once it cooled down it was delicious! Ground pork, peppercorns, scallions, and secret goodness on the inside.

*nom*nom*nom*

We also got some bao bing, or mango sno ice. It was good, but not as heavenly as we remembered. (Later in the trip we realized that this was because this one was just made with regular ice. What you want to get is Milk Ice. So much tastier!) Still, it's not like this was gross - anything with huge chunks of fresh mango, sweetened condensed milk, and mango ice cream can be bad, right?

 This market is just so huge. And crowded. The picture doesn't do it justice.

We also had some beef chunks, cooked on a really hot stove and with a blow torch. Pretty tasty!

The "shoes" sign made me giggle. There's actually a lot of shoe shops in night markets, and often the shoes are shrink wrapped, I'm assuming to keep them clean and dry.

The arrow on the sign is pointing down because Shilin actually has a basement level, which is unusual.

It was a fantastic way to end a fantastic day!

Taiwan 2018 - Day 1 - Jet Lag Tour

Lance and I went to Taiwan - again - and it was AMAZING!! So amazing that it's taken me 2 weeks to get around to blogging about it. Oops. But in my defense, I came home to swim lessons and summer gym and tons of other kid activities, plus some pretty wicked jet lag, accompanied by all the chores that come along with running a busy household, which I had been able to ignore for 10 days while in Taiwan.

What I'm say is, I've been busy. And sleepy. But also, in all honesty, the other day I was feeling frustrated because I don't wanna be that person who just talks all the time about their great trips. I just don't feel like I can bring them up a bunch without sounding all braggy or whatever. But then I realized - I can talk about it all I want on my blog! So here we go.

Lance needed to go to Computex for Aimpad again. (Computex is a big tech convention help in Taipei every year.) I acted as travel agent, figuring out tickets, hotel, transportation, etc. We lucked out and found direct flights from Chicago to Taipei for a good price. It was only after I had booked them that I realized - this was a Hello Kitty flight! As in, all things Hello Kitty themed. It was pretty awesome and odd all at once. Our boarding passes had Hello Kitty.

As did our plane.

And pillow.

And in-flight entertainment.

Even the barf bags!

And ear phones! And utensils! And all sorts of stuff. You get the idea.

Our flight left Chicago at 12:30am Saturday, June 2nd and arrived in Taipei 15ish hours later on Sunday, June 3rd at 4:30am. It was... grueling. It's hard to sleep on a plane. And to sit for that long. Especially in steerage, where we were. This is how we looked just before take off.

And this is in the Taipei airport at 5am. Granted, I had just washed my face and put on new make-up. Guys, 15 hours on a plane is SO LONG. But worth it. But SO LONG.

And here's some random savory congee (like a stew) I saw in a vending machine. Yum?

We were at the airport so early the train ticket vending machines weren't even open. I didn't even know that was a possibility? I try to plan my trips to cover every possibility, but sometimes You still run into snags. No matter, the train from the airport ran every 7 minutes, so it's not like we had to wait forever. Plus, it was super early in the morning and we couldn't check into our hotel until later that afternoon, so we had plenty of time to kill.

It was nice to be back on the MRT - it was like visiting an old friend! Seriously, though, public transportation in Taiwan? FANTASTIC. Clean, cheap, easy to use, all the good adjectives. I love the MRT!

So being in a foreign country is always eye opening. And Taiwan is very foreign. But this time around it didn't feel quite as foreign. It's hard to explain. But it felt good.

So I had read about this place called "The Soy Milk King" that was supposed to serve a really good traditional Taiwanese breakfast and was within walking distance of our hotel. (We dropped our luggage off there for the day.) But when we got to the King it was closed, even though the website said it would be open!! (Again, all you can do is plan and hope for the best.) But Randy, Lance's work associate and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet) would not be deterred and kept finding random people on the street and asking them where we should eat. We even met a guy who had been to Indiana on business. (What are the chances?!) They all recommended this place - I have no clue of the name, but here it is.

The line was about 30 minutes long, which is always a good sign.

We had no clue what to order, but at the last minute we found a menu with pictures. *phew!*

So you'd order and then go eat in this communal area, which was really crowded. We were very much the minority there - also a good sign.

So in Taiwan they like to stuff food with similar food. Like stuffing carbs with more carbs, or meat with more meat. The long brown thing is called a Chinese doughnut - just long fried bread, light and crispy and delish. It's stuffed into some thickish flat bread. You can have it with just that, but I also had scallion eggs added to mine, and it was a little piece of heaven.

In Taiwan they like to drink soy or rice milk in the morning, salted or sweet. I've had the salted soy milk - no thanks. So I decided to try the sweet rice milk. It has some sort of peanut sauce in it and was sweet and very rich. I could only finish about half the bowl. (Yeah, it doesn't come in a cup if you're not getting it to go.)

I also got a caramel filled bun - hard to see in the bag. It was... okay. And this whole meal for me? Less than $3. It's expensive to get to Taiwan, but super cheap once you're there!

So, I had a whole itinerary planned for that first day. I called it the "Jet Lag Tour", with the idea that we'd wander the city and keep ourselves busy to stave off the inevitable jet lag. It mostly worked, although by about 2pm we were pretty much zombies. Still, I got over the jet lag within a day or two, so I guess there's something to be said for basically staying up for 48 hours straight and then crashing...

Here's the inside of an MRT station. They are all SO CLEAN.

I showed Randy and Lance the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. Just as big as I remembered it!

And just as hot. Seriously, it gets hot and humid in Indiana, right? I don't love it, but I can handle it. But in Taiwan? I don't know, it's just... oppressive. SO HOT. SO HUMID. I don't know how or why it's worse, it just is. I suspect it's like this all over southeast Asia. Between the rain and the humidity you're just never truly dry. Ever.

Unless you're a local - they didn't seem affected by the heat at all!

The changing of the guard - only I didn't bother forcing myself through the crowd since I'd seen it before.

We were heading towards some temples when we stumbled upon the Taipei Farmer's market. It was pretty cool! Pretty much like any other farmer's market, only more exotic food.

There was some band playing for a festival nearby, so it was also pretty noisy.

We stopped at this Confucious temple, which was interesting. Pretty, but not as ornate or elaborate as Buddhist or Taoist temples. Much more simple.

Ficus trees grow so big in Taiwan. Actually, think of any tropical houseplant you can buy here in the states. In Taiwan they grown wild everywhere! It's just so lush and tropical.

Then we went to the Dalongdong Bao’an Buddhist temple. Much bigger, much more ornate.

It's just all so ornate and colorful. I love it.

The smell of incense was strong and everywhere. But I like it.

People would come, make offerings, genuflect at certain spots in the temple, and then chat and visit with others.

Every temple has a little spot where you can buy your offerings - fruit, incense, flowers, prayer papers, that sort of thing. Then you leave the offerings or burn them (the paper stuff at least).

So these temples are usually compounds - the temple in the middle, with a long building surrounding it on all sides. Lots of open porches and porticos. Very peaceful and beautiful.

Here's another part of the temple, where all the ancestor names are kept. (Pictures of that later on.) I felt a little weird taking pictures at certain parts of the temples because I didn't want to see disrespectful, but later in my trip I realized that no one really cared. (Although I never got comfortable enough to take pictures of people actually worshiping. They might not care, but I do!)

I really like paper lanterns. They're even cooler at night when they're lit up!

So we walked and wandered and walked and just about died. The last hour before we could check in was spent on a bench in a park across the street from the hotel. We were WASTED!! But we were finally able to check in.

This sign was out, explaining the air raid drill that was happening the next day. (Spoiler alert - we never heard the drill. Bummer.)

So we napped a bit that afternoon and then decided to hit a nearby night market for dinner. Night markets are THE BEST. I just love them! There's so much to see and hear and eat and... smell. Most smells are pleasant and yummy. But the stinky tofu? No. No way. SO STINKY.

There was a line for whatever this guy was cooking. It looked promising, so we decided to get some.

It took a while to cook. He'd put some oil and then some batter into these little cast iron holes, and as the batter cooked he'd turn it around, add some filling (like cabbage and I *think* squid) and then add more batter and spin it into little cooked balls.

So he put 6 balls into this little paper boat, then sprinkled them with some spices and a sauce, and then sprinkled shredded fried salmon on top. (Took me a few days to figure out what the salmon was - I recognized it at a store.) It was really good! The balls were crispy on the outside, creamy in the middle. We also remembered that night that night market food is always served at roughly volcanic temperature. The best thing to do is walk around with it for 10-15 minutes to let it cool. Sometimes we'd remember to do this, other times we were too hungry and would risk melting our tongues. It was always worth it.

I loved wandering the markets and looking at poorly worded or translated English.

Most people at the market spoke enough English for our transactions, or at least had a calculator nearby to show us how much we owed them. And everyone was always super friendly. Actually, pretty much anywhere in Taiwan people were super friendly!

I remember collapsing into bed that night, feeling so happy and grateful to have this chance to visit Taiwan again. It's such an amazing place!

New Couch!

For YEARS we have bemoaned the awful couch we had in the basement.

It didn't start out awful - no one sits on a couch at the store and thinks "This thing is terribly uncomfortable - let's buy it!" That old couch of ours used to be one of the nicest pieces of furniture we owned. It used to be so comfy! When I was pregnant with Tess and Cole, I would have an afternoon nap on the couch because it supported me in all the right places. I loved that couch during those naps! But moving and 4 destructive children really took a toll. It got to the point that I just couldn't handle sitting on the dang thing for any length of time.

We came into a bit unexpected money after my Grandpa John's estate was taken care of after his death. And I can't remember who brought it up - my dad or Lance, but it wasn't me (but it should have been!) - but when asked he said we should buy a new couch. And I was like "YES. THAT IS WHAT WE SHOULD BUY."

And so back in February Lance and I went on a couch shopping date. And ordered a couch. And were told it wouldn't be in stock until late April.

It was a long two months.

But... today we FINALLY got our couch!

And it is glorious. Real leather. Four recliners. Electronic controls with USB charge ports.

I am sitting on it right now and am in a little piece of heaven.

The children have all been threatened with death warned that this is not to be jumped on, climbed on, played with, messed with, broken or hurt in any way. I *think* they're old enough to treat it correctly. I hope they are. I... assume they are.

I guess time will tell.

And in that time, I will be comfy.