Korean food and Taiwanese snacks.

Today Sylvia and I went to eat Korean food for Chinese Valentine's Day <3. The legend for Chinese Valentines Day is a romantic story of two lovers Zhinu the weaver maid and Niulang the cow herder. Their love was forbidden and were forced to go to the opposite side of the Silver River (the Milky Way). On the 7th day of 7th lunar month magpies form a bridge to reunite the lovers for one single day. There are many variations of this story my favorite is when Zhinu is the daughter of a God and has a forbidden love with Niulang a mortal.

This is Korean BBQ you cook the meat in the center of the table till it is ready.

Then you make a "taco" by using the lettuce to put the meat and other condiments inside of it and eat it. It tasted very good and was very spicy! Korean food is very spicy much more spicier then Mexican food.

We also ordered Korean fried rice. This is one of my favorite types of Korean food it is soooo good and super spicy!!! It was a great meal!

These are typical Taiwanese snacks you can buy at food stands almost anywhere. This is stinky tofu and some chicken on a stick. Very tasty food I really love stinky tofu now! I wish I could find it in the USA.

I also love to eat chicken hearts! They taste much better then how they look.

And this is chicken with spicy sauce its very good and very cheap.

This is a typical menu in Taiwan. Almost all restaurants you will find a sheet like this and you will mark what you want to eat and give it to the cook to make. Instead of marking numbers like we do in USA either by putting the number or using 1=I, 2=II, 3=III. In Taiwan they use the character "正". So 1= 一, 2=丁, 3=下,

In Taiwan again!

I am currently in Taiwan again!! I am so happy to be back I was very bored in my house waiting for the day that I could go to the airport again. I did however have a great time with my family and friends. I even got to take a trip to the mountains and New York. I feel very jet lagged and will wake up very early in the morning and then at around 1 or 2pm crash and have to go to bed again. I hope that soon I will get use to the time change and start sleeping at a normal schedule.

The plane ride from North Carolina to Taiwan was very long and tiring I woke up at 3am and was in the air for around 29 hours before arriving to Taiwan. The worst ride was the flight from San Francisco to Japan. Even though it was around 12 hours I could not wait for this one to end. Finally on the way to Taiwan I fell asleep on the plane and didn't get a immigration card to fill out. After going through immigration and customs I got my suit cases and was ready to meet my ride. I was just thinking about sleeping at this point I had been awake for too long to want for anything else. Stepping out of the airport I could feel the Taiwanese heat hit me very hard I had forgotten how hot it was in Taiwan!!!

With the weekend coming to an end I need to start to look for an apartment to live in.  

Chinese New Year's Dinner

Today we went to another city (I forgot what it was called : ( ) to eat dinner with my host mother's mother. It was about a 30 minute drive with a lot of traffic on the way like everyday. This city was much smaller then the other places I have been to. This looked A LOT like Colombia. It was weird the similarities in both countries. Here are some pictures of the city.

My mother told me that was a temple and since Chinese New Years is coming everyone is going to temple to pray and make offering to the Gods. I love the trees in the background.












We finally found a parking space!! There is very little space in these narrow roads and it is dangerous to walk because there are no sidewalks and cars and scooters come flying down the road.











This is the way up to my mother's mothers house. It is still dangerous because scooters drive though this narrow walk way. You have to use your ears to know when a scooter is coming behind you. If not the scooters are nice enough to beep at you and then yell "XIN XIAN KUAI LE"!!

I am not use what this is but it looked pretty.













Those two cars almost crashed into each other. It was sorta scary to watch.









When we got to to my mother's moms house I got to meet my moms younger brother and his wife. Everyone was so nice to me. They spoke some English but like most people in Taiwan do have a lot of trouble understanding when English is spoken. So if I wanted to talk I had to use all Chinese. I liked hearing my (host grandmother?) speaking Taiwanese. It sounds like the language they spoke in the movie "Code talkers".

Here is a picture of the temple in my host grandmothers house. It looked very pretty. We put the food under the temple before we eat it to give food to the Gods.

In this picture we give money to the Gods. We have paper money and throw it into the fire to give up as an offering. Everyone in this city was doing the same thing. It was so cool I have never heard of this before.














This is the lottery ticket cover. It is very pretty.















I bough two lottery tickets. I think the jackpot is 4 billion Taiwanese dollars : D. Everyone is buying lottery tickets so that is why the jackpot is so big! There are lines to buy these things. Each ticket cost about 50 NTD. I hope I win XD!!







My host sister playing the scratch off game. She wins just 100 NTD. She was so happy to win.













I bought this snack from the store. It is seaweed and it taste so good. I loved it so much I ate two packs! NOM NOM!!










I watched a lot of T.V here while everyone was cooking and getting ready. I think Taiwanese news is pretty cool. But Taiwanese commercials are so cute and funny. They make me laugh a lot! Soon it was time to eat!


 There was so much food!! Most of it I have no idea what it was. I just ate and ate and drank and drank till I was so full!! My host  grandmother could not speak Mandarin but she keep telling me to eat more and kept filling my bowl and glass with more food.








The chicken still has the head on it. It was so funny to watch my host uncle making it talk. The chicken tasted so GOOD! Nothing like you can find in America.









Taiwanese wine. But it was so strong I think it is liquor!













I had a lot of fun today! I really enjoyed trying all these different foods even if I don't know their English names or even if they have an English name. I was so sleepy when I got home I went straight to sleep. I could hear fireworks going off in the city all night long. But I slept so well!