Hello!

Preface

I'm not one to document travels but this trip feels like it will be too interesting not to share. At the same time, I don't want the mass of voyeurs on the Facebook to piggyback on this train. This trip is an experience that I (and for all intensive purposes in these posts probably means Sharon as well) want to share personally with you. Feel free to pass any of this onward to people you know and care about if you feel they would enjoy/benefit from it.

Sooooooo to those whom we have shared this with and to those you choose to share this with:

Hello! We are in Taiwan!

Just so you know, we're here for 5 reasons: eat food, teach english, see cool things, and eat food (in that order).

So today lets discuss...

... Food

Food = Good. "Hen how che" = "That was very good". That ended up being my first strung together phrase because I'm using it quite often. Some things are OK and something are an absolute slam dunk. Half the fun of eating here is looking at all of your options as you walk down the street. Sharon and I are one subway stop away from the main subway station (it would be like living at Bathurst to Spadina), so there is a ton going on near our place.

Ximen Station area

Just outside our current place down small side streets and back alleys are all sorts of fun street foods to explore. I've been caught getting my nose awkwardly close to the stands only to get starred at. I know I'm getting too close when Sharon stares at me along with the locals. Here's a quick vid:

Presentation from the street is a necessity for places to eat here in Taipei. If it's not coming from an actual street vender, restaurants will commonly cook their food out in the open right at the front door:

...more on this place next time...

Here's a place that is not exactly "Taiwanese" cuisine, but its presentation certainly caught our attention:

Sharon: "I want to know how much that is" ...we never found out...

Sometimes ordering food is a bit of a guessing game but is always exciting. Food is fairly cheap here so you can never be too afraid to order blindly. Today for example, we ordered breakfast with a total of 3 eggs, 3 sausages, 2 hashbrowns, 1 coffee, and 6 pieces of toast (oops!), which came up to a total of... *drum roll*..... $220! That would be a major buzzkill in Canadian dollars but here that works out to be approximately $8.25 Canadian. Not bad considering we ordered too much toast and was our most expensive breakfast to date. Oh, and no tip.

So in the spirit of breakfast, this is a picture of a neckless that cracked me up. 

- RS=T