Moonlit Walks and Snake Blood Shots.

Hard to believe it's only been a week since we came back from the Green Island, as it seems so far away and so long ago, like it exists in its own alternate dimension or something! The past week has been chill, relaxing and fun.

It starts on the Monday after Green Island. We decided that since we didn't get back from Green Island until 2 in the morning and none of us had prepared or done homework, we deserved another day off. So we took Monday off (don't worry, mom and dad, we are allowed five absences before they start counting against us) and ate some dim sum, and sang some kareoke.

Went to er hu class later in the night, did some moon gazing on the fifth floor. The rest of the week is a bit of a blur but it did involve a lot of bug bites, moon watching, etc. A great deal of Tuesday was spent doing homework indoors to avoid the bugs, but they were out full force again on Wednesday when we decided to go back to Xi Men Ding and walk around the school library a bit to avoid the confines of Guo Qing.

Thursday was the day of the epic tea failure. We decided we wanted to go to some place in Taipei for tea. It was off some stop on the Red Line of the MRT, so off we went after class to find some tea. We missed our stop and decided to go to Shi Ling, where we went last time for the incredible, cloud-like shaved ice. However, when we got there, we decided to just go all the way to Dan Shui (a good 45 minutes away) on a whim, so off to Dan Shui we went.

Thanks to Brian Chow for this very awesome long exposure of Jenn and I at Dan Shui. He tried recreating this picture but it only worked for Jenn and I, cuz we're just that awesome.

There we walked around, bought some fireworks, ate some good, good hot pot, and went nuts with sticky pics. It was a fun, spontaeous night with the "S4" (Jenn, Tiff, Chow De Kai and me = Spontaneous 4, I know right?) And on the way back from Dan Shui, we did, finally, get our shaved ice fix; three whole bowls of it, in fact. We devoured that heavenly goodness. Then we played with some fireworks on the top of Guo Qing. All in all an awesome day!

Two more pictures from the camera of Brian Chow. That mien mien bing place is TO DIE FOR, apparently there's a store in Rowland Heights that sells similar stuff. I am going to that place when I get home.

Friday was the day of the epic ice bar failure. We decided we wanted to go to this so-called "Ice Bar" somewhere in Taipei, where apparently everything, from the seats to the shot glasses, are made of ice. So off we went to get firstly get some food from THE BEST dumpling place I've been to both in Taipei and ever in my life. It's this small, small dumpling place and apparently it's quite famous from all the news articles, plaques and medals on the wall. In my opinion, this place totally deserves all those medals; that place rocked my taste buds.

AWESOME food here. Legendary stuff. I will come here again (if I can find it).

We looked for the ice bar after that. On the way we found about 10 really awesome restaurants because we had to keep asking for directions and everyone pointed us down different alleys and streets. We would keep finding really cool looking restaurants but never the actual ice bar. Finally, we got there, and it was called 'Salt and Bread,' and seriously it was the most depressing ice bar ever. You know that "ice bar" I described, a whole bar with ice seats and ice cups and all that stuff? It's actually just a meat freezer with a bunch of alcohol in it, the size of my closet, and a few metal stools.

Safe to say, we left, depressed, and decided to go to Tiff's favorite ice cream place, Movenpick. However, Movenpick was closed by then (Tiff resolutely freaked out, haha), so we decided to go to Shen Yu Shen, a shaved-ice chain here in Taipei that is pretty darn awesome. And that, my friends, is the story of the ice bar failure.

Today we went to Yi Lian, which is our EAP-sponsored trip. Compared to what last year's EAP group did (river rafting in Hua Lan), Yi Lian was 100% lame; it's basically an old Taiwnese town you sorta saunter around for a day. However, we made the best of our time there and it turned out to be a very relaxing and peaceful (albeit HOT!) day.

Ok so there wasn't much to do there, but there were a bunch of cool posed statues to take pictures with. This one with Laura and Tiff was just one of several.

Our tour guide only spoke Chinese, which was unfortunate for all the people who spoke English, ie me.

We made dolls at the end of the day. A few of them turned out kinda scary. In fact, pretty much all the guys' dolls turned out scary, whereas all the girls' dolls were pretty much perfect. Go figure.

We got back at around 6pm for the start of our MAN DAY. The girls in our group had planned a girls night/day for Saturday night and Sunday morning, so us men decided we had to retaliate with an awesome, awesome Man Day. Tonight we went to an awesome steak place called Ponderosa, and it was the most expensive, but also the most filling meal I have had in Taiwan. I use expensive lightly; the meal was 500 NT, or about 15$. Still, enough to be called the most expensive meal I've had here yet. Afterwards, we went to "Snake Alley" to drink some snake blood.

The white cup is snake venom. The green cup is snake stomach acid. And the red cup is snake blood. The pills are, according to the Lao Ban, for making your skin better. Also, they are anti-venom, but apparently that's just a small side effect to the much more important skin-healing properties. You can imagine the build up to drinking the snake, especially after watching the Lao Ban squeeze the juice out of the snake, but it ended up tasting (and feeling) like very weak alcohol. Still, we were -juiced- up from conquering SNAKE BLOOD on MAN DAY.

Afterwards, we watched Max Payne at the movie theatre. The theatres here are pretty cool in that all the seats are assigned; no bum rushing the theatres or lining up. The other cool thing is that they are freaking HUGE. At least the theatre we were in was... it was seriously IMAX status or something. The movie... not so great, but still sufficiently MANLY.

Today, man day continued with a hike up Yang Mi Shan mountain. Unfortunately we got completely lost so it wasn't until 2:30 we found ourselves at the bottom of Yang Mi Shan mountain looking for a way up. We decided to follow a road, any road, that went in an upward fashion, and took it. Then on the side of the road we found a small and very, very steep stairway, so we took that too. This stairway was seriously dangerous; I didn't take any pictures because I was concentrating on not slipping and falling to my demise. It was covered in moss and was slippery, small, and unmaintained. Regardless, the six of us (Cris, David, Romin, Chow De Kai, Tsay and I) made it to the end of that stairway, where we happened upon a randomly placed temple.

Romin was thirsty, so we decided to go ask the people at the temple if they had anything to drink. They asked us where we were going, and we said to the top of the mountain! They told us they would take us, so they gave us some awesome tea and set off. This guy is 60 years old but he was literally running through the trail and we were seriously struggling to keep up. And he was wearing sandals too: what a man.

We got to the main trail (apparently we had walked past this nice, marked and non-slippery set of stairs that lead you straight to the top) where he said that we didnt' have enough time to go to the top. Given that this man has climbed this mountain several times and we were hardpressed to keep up with him already, we believed him. We wanted to make it down the mountain before the sun set, so we headed back down the mountain. We had some time to kill, so we went to a pagoda that overlooked the view from where we were. It was pretty spectacular.

The guy we met at the temple lived next to Tai Da, so we caught the bus with him back home. We treated him to dinner for taking us around, and made plans to climb Yang Mi Shan, for real, next week. He was an awesome, friendly, and helpful guy, and it's pretty amazing what kind of people you'll find randomly if you just ask around. It's also amazing how friendly Taiwanese people are, and how willing not only he but people around here in general are to help a foreigner out. Good stuff.

Now it's time to soak in a hot, hot shower. Until next time, zai jian!

-Justin

PS
Taiwan Part 十一.
Taiwan Part 十二.
Taiwan Part 十三.