Saturday August 30th 2008

Today our friend Patty came over with her boyfriend Pei (pronounced Pay and I accidentally called him Pie) to come and swim in our awesome pool. It was the first time we used the pool and found out that you cannot swim without a swimming cap on (which I was not happy about) I look like a penis in it which is why I am frowning in the picture. Some of our friendly neighbors heard what was going on and they said they were going to the store and offered to pick us up some of the embarrassing caps. As we are waiting to get the caps I noticed that all of the women in the pool are wearing one pieces. So of course I am thinking to myself "great they are all going to be looking at me like I am some kind of hussy wearing my two piece." I felt pretty uncomfortable so I may be purchasing a one piece but there will be no pictures of that being posted!!

After we were done swimming the four of us took a trip down to the Shilin night market. The Shilin night market is the biggest and most famous in Taiwan. It is an amazing thing to experience and see. The streets are so crowded, I don't really have anything to compare it to because I've never seen anything like it. There are hundreds of stands and stores set up of anyhting you can think of to buy. Patty and Pei took us in this building which kind of reminded me of the West Side Market. It had a bunch of different food stations set up selling everything from fruit to God knows what. The first food we tried was an Oyster omelet (Pei's favorite food) and some squid soup. We didn't like the omelette at all, the oyster was good but there was this gooey stuff in the omelet it looked like clear slime and the texture was yuck. They said it was made from rice but it looked and tasted like something Slimer from ghostbusters shat out. The squid soup was prety good because it wasn't the squid's tentacles it was a lot less chewy from when we tried it the night before. The next thing we tried was really good, it was like a fried pastry wrapped in some kind of tortilla bread. Then we sat down to eat what they call coffin bread. They call it coffin bread because they take a piece of bread and then fill it in with whatever you order so it is enclosed like a coffin. Mike and I chose chicken and it was really good. We got scared at first because we saw more gooey stuff but we couldn't taste it. It tasted like french toast with a little cinamon hint to it. We both really liked that. As we were walking around the market Pei suggested we try what looked like a barbeque stand. So we picked out the one that they told us was pork. I ate the first piece off the stick then Mike devoured the remaining 5 pieces. It was so good. So then Pei asks us if we know what we just ate. Immediately I thought "SHIT WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST EAT" and Mike replied, "yeah it was pork." As soon as Pei started laughing, I braced myself for what he was about to tell us. So in his Taiwanese accent he said, "you just ate chicken," well that's not bad, oh but he wasn't finished. Still laughing he said, "you just ate chicken ASS." After pausing a minute to reflect on what just happened then I replied with, "well that was a good piece of ass." I have to admit the chicken butt was good. When we were done eating we just waked around for awhile and then headed home. On our way home we stopped at this dessert place called Monster Ice. It is so freaking good. They have sugar flavored ice and then they top it with fresh fruit and a scoop of sherbet. It is addicting. It was a very fun and interesting day.