Thailand first night

 The flight was long but not as long as the flight to Taiwan. My host mother Elisa was so scared of the flight there. The hotel was very beautiful and very large. On the taxi ride to the hotel I was amazed how big all the streets were. I guess I was use to the tiny streets of Taiwan.

  The lobby of the hotel was very pretty and had many restaurants. I have never stayed in such a fancy restaurant before.

 We had to find a adapter to be able to charge out phones.

 The view outside of our hotel.

 Elisa and me were very tired but we meet with two of Elisa's friends that invited us to go eat at a night club near to the hotel.

This is me and my new friend. His nickname sounds like "egg". He was super nice to us!

Thai food is extremely spicy!!!

Huge nightmarket in Kaosiong

Today Sylvia and I were off to Kaosiong to meet up with her friends. We decided to take a bus going from Toayuan to Kaosiong. It was about a five hour bus ride to get there. Sylvia's mom had told us to  be careful since this month is ghost months and many accidents happen to people. Hearing about a girl that was killed riding a scooter on the news made me start worrying about this superstition the Taiwanese had. After going through some traffic we made it to our stop where Sylvia's friends pick us up and drove us to their other friends house.

After dropping off our bags at A sao's house we went to a huge night market. I was told it was three night markets put together. Finding a parking space was almost impossible we parked maybe 4 blocks away and walked towards the night market.

This is one of the many rows of food stalls. They were very crowded and its hard to move around. It smelled very good though since most stalls had fans that fans out the smell of the food right into your face.

The first thing we ate was Taiwan's famous stinky tofu. I have since grown fown of the taste and really love to eat it any chance I get. It smells awful!!! but the texture is crunch and soft inside like a sponge that adsorbs all the sauce. Nothing is better then stinky tofu and some milk tea.

I see this game in almost every night market. There are many bottles and you throw rings and if you get the ring around the bottle's neck you win the prize! I have never seen anyone one and the big prizes are almost impossible to win.

Here we got some french fries. They are not as tasty as McDonald's fries but still very good with a strange sauce that I found very delicious. I wish North Carolina had night markets it would be so much fun.

Along with food most night markets have games you can play. This one is a popular one where with a airsoft  gun you shot balloons to win prizes. Sylvia wanted to try her luck shooting to see if she could win something.

Although it was almost 11pm all the light in the sky from the night market you could almost see the blue sky. We went back home super tired but excited to head to kenting the next morning.

Here are two videos of the night market so you can get a better feel of how it was like to be in it.

South of Taiwan Part 2

 Today the whole family went to Kaohsiung(this is how they spell it) we went to the mountains to see monkeys and a beautiful park. I really like Kaohsiung it is such a nice city I would not mind living here at all.

 Here we were just getting inside the city. Like with everywhere else in Taiwan there was a traffic jam. I love how you can see the blue sky. In Taipei it is permanently cloudy.

 This was the entrance to the metro. It is new and looked really pretty. You can see the little red lanterns on the trees for Chinese New Years.

More big buildings. A lot more were just being built so this city is very new and modern.

 We drove all through the city to get to the entrance of the mountain. This was a small temple where people can come to pray.

Here are two monkeys. They were everywhere running around. You could pet them if you are so brave. I am scared of these monkeys. I just tyred to avoid them as much as possible. When I sat down to eat a snack they come toward me I got scared and ran away.

 This is another temple at the start of the mountain trail. They were playing Chinese worshiping music.

 A baby monkey climbing on the sign. The 5 nos for peace. haha I think signs in Taiwan are funny to read if they are in English. The sign told us not to attack or hit the monkeys, not to feed them, not to bring our dogs or pets to the mountains, and not to look the monkeys in the eyes.

 This is a picture halfway up the mountain. It looks so beautiful. Almost like the movie Jurassic Park according to my host dad.

Climb, climb and climb some more. We did not even make it to the top. We took a rest on the stairs and then headed back down again.

 We then headed to the park. Here they had massage therapist giving massages. All the massage therapist are blind.

 Pretty lake

 Pretty flower

 I though this was cute. The Chinese character for love and the word love in English inside of it.

 I really like this picture

More funny signs in English. This one it says no releasing any animals like babies.

 This one says no worshiping here. I guess to many people came to pray and now it is not allowed.

This one says no pole dancing. My host mother said girls would come and pole dance on the light poles for money.

This was my lunch. Fried rice and fish soup. It was soooo good. The best fried rice I have ever had.

A video of the Parrots flying around and one landing on a girl by accident : o.