Taipei Songshan Airport is much older in comparison. V described it as sort of rundown, but it's not at all. Just a bit aged. It's super convenient to get to and from, and since taxis are cheap we totally just grabbed one with all of our luggage.
Both of us were wiped out, but we made it out to dinner with some of the family. Everyone spent a decent amount of time figuring out what to eat. I think that since it's the holiday season, restaurants get super booked all the time. V and her parents finally decided on Chinese food (figures), and then we met up with V's sister and brother in law. The place we went was totally empty when we walked in, and I was a little bit worried about how good it might be. By the end of the night though, the place was packed.
I have marginal knowledge on the differences in Chinese food, but I have no idea what we ate. We actually went to this place for the stinky tofu. Previously, I've had it fried with pickled cabbage on top. Said preparation is quite good even though it smells. The one below is steamed I think and tastes considerably smellier. A little bit too much for me to handle.
The restaurant has a real name, but everyone just called it "Big Beard." This is of course because the guy who runs the joint has this crazy big beard. The real name? It's more interesting if I just leave it at "Big Beard" I think. I tried to take a candid picture of him, but he was too fast. Everyone's favorite dish of the day was the goat stew.
Looks kind of like beef stew; doesn't taste like it at all. The white things that look like potatoes are actually water chestnuts. Really good. My favorite dish of the night was the fried eggplant dish I specifically ordered. I love fried eggplants. Stuffed and wanting to die, we stopped by a street cart on the way back to get 豆花 - douhua. Douhua is basically tofu pudding, and this specific preparation of it is hot and syrupy with peanuts.
Yeah, I ate one too... We pretty much passed out from exhaustion and food coma when we got back. When we finally woke up it was something like 2 PM. I'm not sure why I forgot how cold Taiwan can be in the winter. Even if it's relatively warm outside (50 F or so), the house is always cold. There is no heating and we solely rely on a space heater. Want to know what the worst thing about a cold house is? Sitting on the frozen toilet. How I dread going to the bathroom...
First order of business: cut my hair. Before:
After:
I lost so much hair. I thought my head would feel lighter, but it just felt colder instead. We met up with Irene at the salon and V got the signature hair wash and blow-out with her cousin. Hair gone and time running out, we decided to go shopping for a bit. Nothing exciting happened there, but we stopped by Starbucks to fuel and tried this new "Christmas Bread Roll."
Chocolate with walnuts and raisins inside...yep, tastes like Christmas. V asked if I wanted to stop by Flavorfield, but I didn't think I really needed to. We did anyway and lo and behold, Flavorfield had evolved a bit. These new breads are the Chocolate Brioche and Chocolate Castle. Didn't love either of them, though. Let the carbfest begin!
Our second full day was beautiful out. We didn't need our coats at all, and I felt warm just wearing long sleeves. Perfect conditions to check out the Taipei International Flora Expo. This giant outdoor flower exhibit lasts from November to April and takes up an enormous amount of space in the city. It's even separated into three different sections that are so large, I would just call them campuses. Some of the indoor exhibits are ticketed, and we arrived too late to really have a chance at tickets. Instead we decided to focus on most of the outdoor displays and come back another day to get tickets early.
Anyone who knows my wife knows how much she loves flowers. This place was perfect for her. Too bad there were a billion other people there to share her joy. School children on field trips everywhere and old people in tour groups were blockading all paths.
We waded through the rolling hills of poinsettias as we tried to figure out what was open and available. I can't begin to imagine how much money they spent putting this thing together. They built a bunch of buildings to house exhibits and maintaining all the outdoor fields must take a ridiculous amount of resources.
For how much effort the city put into all the tiny details, I can't imagine this is a one year thing. The flowers outside even get rotated as seasons change supposedly. The last part of the first campus had individual exhibits for forty or so countries and this is probably where we spent the most amount of time.
The first one we went into was Canada. Apparently houses in Canada have living rooms full of orchids and even have extra side rooms for neon-purple narcotics production.
Stopped by Thailand which didn't have many flowers on display. Actually Korea didn't have many flowers on display either. Instead they grow pumpkins on the roof and hang persimmons from the ceiling.
Both of those things are true by the way, it's just almost stereotypical. That's really how most of the exhibits were, though. America looked more like the Southwest than anything I'm used to with cactus galore. The Japan exhibit was fairly large and included a zen garden and a lady who can't read Chinese or English.
Bhutan was kind of cool with a buddha statue and these turning wheel things. I don't think I know any Bhutanese people, but V says you turn the wheels to spin away your bad luck. We spun away a whole lot of bad luck.
Of course the token Taiwan exhibit had to be grand. They constructed this huge bamboo dome amidst a bamboo thicket. V gazed through the top of the dome as she pondered something, something obscure and reflective I'm sure.
The other side of the dome exits you into a zen-like pond. Peaceful but a little less peaceful than desired with a billion people around you. The over-under on the number of pictures I walked through that day is probably like 34. I'm gracing another hundred or so with my presence in the background.
We skipped past a lot of the different countries and finally headed to the second campus. Notably, Hong Kong had an exhibit while China did not. But of course. A tunnel connects you to the second area and part of the space right outside the tunnel use to be a part of a children's amusement park. V got all nostalgic about the amusement park and this tree.
Apparently this tree used to be part of the old attractions and was somehow preserved when they converted everything to the flora expo. Near the crazy old tree, you finally meet the mascots of the expo:
With children hanging all over them, V couldn't get a chance to sneak in and snap a shot with Pinky. Luckily she's an all-star and stands all by herself in a different section.
It's a good thing the freaky London Olympics mascots will be this cute and not creepy cyclops. I was really hoping we would see people walking around in flower mascot suits, but alas, no live action. So the second campus is mostly a bunch of pavilions with awesome names like the Pavilion of Regimen and the Pavilion of Angel Life. Most of these require tickets as well, but we made our rounds trying to find one we could make it into.
We headed to this crazy wooden structure to see what it was all about. Turned out it's just an entrance to the expo... They seriously have to have spent a crapload of money making this place. Moving on is this giant deformed whale. It's back must be totally bent out of shape for the tail to come out at that angle.
Just kidding, there's another whale behind it. Clever photography, I know. The second campus in general is more landscaped than the first. The first area has these huge outdoor exhibits, but the second feels more like a park. V took a break to look out at the glory of Taiwan.
Past these paths are the Pavilion of Dreams, the Pavilion of Future, and the Pavilion of Angel Life. The Pavilion of Future had the shortest line we had seen all day, so we waited for less than half an hour to get inside. This is where we found another glory of Taiwan.
How forced was that joke? I pat myself on the back for that one. Never knew there was a plant called Taiwania. I'm not even sure which one it was. I think that the Pavilion of Future was supposed to explain how the world is going to be green in the future and how plant life is part of that. By the way, we call it "green" in the US. In Japan they always say "eco" this, "eco" that. Not sure what they call it in Taiwan yet.
I did learn that I've never eaten a female papaya, only hermaphroditic ones.
Which leads me to wonder if I have ever eaten a female fruit at all. The Pavilion of Future mostly had nothing to do with the future I think. There were a bunch of rareish flowers and a room full of cactus. The exhibit ended with a giant wall full of all sorts of different orchids.
This is just a small sampling. V loved that last bunch of flowers. Once you get out of the Pavilion of Future, there's a relatively short line for the Pavilion of Angel Life. We could not figure out what the Pavilion of Angel Life was. I got the feeling it was some spiritual place that promotes tranquility and whatnot. We went inside and it turned out to be a short film.
I did not feel tranquil at all after being tripped out by dancing cats.
By the time we got out it was getting dark. We decided to call it a day and check the rest of it out some other time. The Taipei International Flora Expo definitely requires more than one day. I'm positive our second day isn't even going to be enough to cover what we missed. Overall, the expo lacks some focus, but the city obviously went all out putting it together and it shows with all its splendor.
We met up with Ba and Mama for dinner at everyone's favorite Peking Duck place. Like I said, everyone seems to be eating out these days, as the place was completely booked and we only got a table since we were eating at 6 PM.
It was awesome. This jellyfish salad type thing we ordered was really good, and I monopolized the snow pea tips. I love snow pea tips. We ordered like six dishes for four people and packed most of it to go. Whenever I eat with V's parents, we invariably order ridiculous amounts of food. Somehow most of that food gets eaten, but it's difficult not to eat when there's so many good things just sitting there in front of you. Additionally, everyone's talking in Mandarin and the best way to feed my blank boredom sometimes is with food of course. So yeah, I ate too much.
We got home and wanted to die from having overeaten...again. Meanwhile, Popo did his best guard-dog impression. He looks healthier and more youthful than in the summer.
Yay, Popo. Coming up: another food adventure.
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