A building...yes, sorry about the lack of touristy pictures! This is a typical neighborhood in Taiwan. My favorite thing about Taiwan is the food. My second favorite is the night markets (which also have a lot of food).
Over the past two days, I went to two of them. First, I when to Jing Mei night market to eat with relatives. There, I had sweet potato fries (better than american ones, since they put cinnamon and sugar on it), roasted chicken butt and chicken skin, Taiwanese sausage, stinky tofu, and bubble tea. I didn't get a chance to do a lot of shopping there, since I was with my grandmother. The food however, was awesome. I will probably try to go back to do some shopping.
The next day, I when to She Da night market, which mostly had clothing. In the past, most night markets that I went to did not sell a lot of clothing, but this market had more stores for young people. As a result, I got to see what is trendy in Taiwan today. Since it is winter, it was mostly sweaters, but the Victorian look seems to be really popular. There were lots of things with lace, and little wool hats, and more muted colors. I kept refraining from trying on stuff but could not remember why--they I finally tried on a jacket, and remembered. Trying stuff on in Taiwan makes me feel enormously fat. I can't button up anything! The sales ladies try to be nice, and say things like, "oh, it's because you have such beautiful big boobs!", but their eyes widen a bit before they are able to properly conceal how appalled they are by my fatness. Of course, I don't actually think I'm fat, since I live in America, where I happen to be a size small...I forget that I'm the Taiwanese equivalent of Queen Latifah.
Of course, after not fitting into multiple pieces of clothing, I bought a bunch of earrings and necklaces (mismatched earrings seem to be in now) and headed for the food section, where I had oyster pancake!
Since it's almost New Year, there are certain Taiwanese specialties. For example, Gua Bao--this is a sandwich made with pork belly, sour vegetables, peanut powder, and cilantro. It is amazing. There is also a New Year market, which I will go to on Wednesday. I also had amazing chicken butt near my aunt's house.
A word on chicken butt, since it is one of my favorite allegedly gross foods. It was sold all over the place, but for a while it was banned because cooking it causes too much smoke and is bad for the environment. Now I think people either fry it or boil it first before putting it one the grill, to eliminate the smoke issue.
As for Taiwanese night clubs--well, I only went to one bar and one club. The bar, called "fourplay," had amazing drinks. You can tell them a fruit that you like, and they will design a drink with that fruit. They also have a series of drinks called the drug series (which I did not see). The only place that I've seen white people in Taiwan is in the bar and the club I went to. The club was called Myst. It is very nice, and bigger than any club I have ever seen, even in New York. It probably is an enormous fire hazard, especially since smoking is allowed inside. The people inside the night clubs are all really, really good looking, more so than in New York. I guess the door policy there is really strict. There are some weird fashion choices, like men wearing uggs. Apparently girls never pay for anything, since guys, even guy friends, are responsible for the entire tab because they are men. It was an interesting experience, but the smoke inside was too much for me, so I left early.
