For the first time in our career as travelers, we arrived at the airport early. We did so for one sole reason.
No, not ice cream. The Hello Kitty Japan store in Haneda of course. Honestly, I'm not sure exactly what went on in there. I was carrying a bunch of luggage and dodging children and crazy women. Eventually, I had to leave the premises for fear of my life. Still, V bought a couple of things; I just can't quite remember what.
Not too much to say about the flight. We landed, got picked up, and then went out for dinner at this place:
I don't know how to say that name, but it was pretty damn good. Do you know how sad it is being in Taiwan and being unable to eat? Do you?!
Actually, at this point I still had my appetite, but I was pacing myself for the week to follow. If I had known beforehand, I would've just eaten the crap out of everything. Those fried bean curd above were pretty damn delicious.
There were a whole bunch of dishes as usual, and I'm not going to bother posting them all. Also, this time around people were too hungry to let us take pictures, so only a handful of dishes were available for photography before chunks had been removed from them. Admittedly, I am also guilty of this.
Once we got home from dinner, we opened up one of the gifts we had bought at Haneda.
This matcha baumkutchen had actually been sold out the last time we wanted to try it, so we pounced on the opportunity this time around. Turns out we didn't need to... It didn't taste bad at all; it was just really really dry. Supremely disappointed.
Another one of my favorite parts of Taiwan is the fruit and this time around, I tried something that I'd only heard about in legend: buddha head.
On the inside it looks like this:
The fruit part of it just peels away and is of a sort of mushy consistency. The taste is almost impossible to describe. If forced to, I would say it has kind of a sweet and tangy, coconutty flavor. A million people would disagree with that assessment. Not something I need to eat everyday, but certainly enjoyable every once in a while.
The following day (or the day after, like I said, I was sick and can't remember), V took me to some of the pre-New Year's street markets.
First up was the craziness of Dihua Street (迪化街). This street just goes on forever. It was kind of the same stuff over and over, but somehow we ended up traveling the whole length of it. First thing we saw though was a lottery of lucky bags. Pay 10 NT to pick a bag and win up to 2000 NT! We won the consolation prize of V's favorite winter melon juice. Sheeet, we woulda bought that for 10 NT anyway!
Also, I ate a crazy spiral potato chip. In high spirits over our marginal victory, I took in the sights and sounds while V started snapping away with her fancy new camera.
There was all sorts of stuff everywhere, and apparently since Chinese New Years is a family holiday, everyone hits up the market to buy this and that and take it home for their New Years Eve dinner. More on this later. We skipped most of this kind of stuff in favor of snacks and street food.
We stumbled upon a handicapped man selling instant lottery tickets, and so we decided to play one for 100 NT. Lo and behold, we immediately won 200 and the old man was asking if we wanted to buy another. I could tell V was kinda thinking about it, and told her to keep her winnings and walk away. I think the vendor was a little miffed that we could resist his temptations. Nothing like stealing money from the disabled...
It wasn't long until we found something we've never seen before: fried oyster pancakes.
Usually, these suckers are cooked up on a flattop, but this stand was rolling them into balls and deep-frying them. V and I just couldn't pass it up; and you know what? It was pretty damn delicious.
Tastes like what it looks like...to me anyway. We continued looking for the next thing to eat as V got increasingly artsy with her photos. Before coming to Japan, my camera had logged something just under 3000 photos. So far, that number has increased into the 7000 range. Basically, I have taken more pictures in the last six months than the entirety of the three years prior. V is on pace to crush that record.
Stand after stand was like this though: piles and piles of snacks and goods. Most of the various stalls sold pretty much the same things actually. I feel like there's a supplier in the background that makes all this crap in bulk and then the street markets turn it around. Everybody's products looked exactly the same.
That didn't stop us from buying some apple chips and some of the red sticky something chips below.
Some foods in Taiwan scare me in their mysteriousness. Other foods are less frightening even though you don't know what they are. Red sticky something chips are the latter. Btw, V didn't know either. Tasty is tasty I tell you.
Stores not selling food products were usually vending holiday items.
I dunno what this is all about actually, but it sure looks festive. Makes me feel like dancing. Mmhmm. Done with the street market, we headed over to the New Year's flower market.
One thing we haven't figured out how to do well with V's camera is take pictures in the dark. It can handle high exposure, but without a tripod, those pictures always blur. Using flash never seems to turn out the way you like either. This is a disclaimer about the following pictures, by the way.
The flower market was large, but not spectacular. Similar to the street market, a lot of the flower vendors seemed to be selling the same things. Orchids especially were the hot items. Must have been orchid season.
V of course was excited about seeing peonies for the first time since summer. Mostly we found peony lookalikes (camellias) until we hit the middle section of the market. I took this sweet panoramic of the peony display from the only place in the world that grows them year round: Japan.
I'm proud of myself. That's pretty much all we managed to do before Chinese New Year. Unfortunately, it only got worse as the Lunar Calendar turned a page, but more on that in Part II.
Instead here's cabbage flower!
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