Yesterday a couple of us walked to Starbucks. I got a drip coffee with the Pikes place blend, had the same blends thousands of miles away from Seattle! Afterwards we walked back to our dorms. We went on another, much longer walk for a couple of hours. On the walk went to an indoor market place which had meat stands that reminded me a lot of the open air meat markets in Mexico. Some of the ways the meat is prepared and sold are very different than in the US. All of the smells, foods, and people are such a new experience here. One of the seafood markets had crabs that were at least 3 feet wide from the tips of the legs, they were huge! We kept going along on our walk, and the more I see of this town the more I am amazed by it. Each building has it's own unique characteristics. A lot of the buildings have very intricate balcony railings and gated entrances, they're beautiful.
Last night was such a unique experience. Kyleigh, Kristin, and I were invited to a midwive's home in Central Taipei. Our hosptial dorm is located in another district, so she drove us about 30 minutes into more central (downtown) Taipei. We met her husband, daughter, and two sons. They were each so inviting us into their home. The host's brother and his two children came over too. They explained to us that Chinese New Year is a big celebration centered around family and it's important to have family all together. We were served dinner and I have never seen so many dishes on one table! A lot of the dishes had specific meanings to being served at Chinese New Year and the host read them to us (In English!). I tried almost all of the foods on the table, they were very traditional Taiwanese foods and most of them were various seafoods. The shrimp still had eyes on it and it's full shell (had to learn how to take it off on my own), the full lobster also sat next to me with his eyes still there too. There was a "hot pot" in the middle that had a lot of things thrown into it including duck eggs, crab legs, dumplings (i think...), and other things I'm not sure what they were. There were also listtle fish (the entire thing) was breaded and you were supposed to eat them whole. I ate a lot of rice, fruit, and pork to fill myself up but I'm proud of myself for trying more than I thought I could! My hand didn't cramp this time during dinner while using chopsticks which is good but the kids were making fun of us for our lack of chopstick skills.
I added lots of new photos to my Taiwan album on Facebook! Check them out:) I added a link to them in my "about me" section here. Today we are going to church and then going to an Orchid display.
Xin Dian kuai le! (Happy New Year!)
Chinese Lantern
Chinese Temple
Meat Market
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