Scoot Scoot Scootin' Round Formosa

         

       Thursday, August 16th finally arrived!  The day Anthony, Abe, Victoria and I were to embark on our scooter trip!  Originally we had planned to camp most of the trip, but after some issues of getting tents and them being super small and having to lug along sleeping bags and such, we decided to rough it in cheap-ish hotels.  For the trip Anthony rented a scooter from a place in Taipei so we wouldn't have to ride twosies.
DAY ONE   Jhongli-Yilan-Hualien   
       We got out of Jhongli on Thursday morning around 6:15 am and were heading for Yilan.  At first it was quite traffic-y, but once we got into the mountains, it was very mountain-y.  At one point it got super cloudy and we were driving through pure mist.  I was a bit frightened.  There's a beach in Yilan Abe used to frequent and he wanted to make one last stop.  I had never been before, and it was a lovely beach.  Before the beach though, we stopped and had an outrageous meal of seafood at a restaurant not far from the shore.  Victoria doesn't like seafood, but she was kind enough to let us indulge and just had fried rice and vegetables.

        Once we ate and beached for a while, we were headed for Hualien.  It was a long trip down, extremely mountainous.  The air was sooo dirty, our skin was filthy.  Covered in black dirt and nasty pollution.  At one pit stop to the Family Mart, Victoria came back from the bathroom explaining that she almost started crying when she saw herself in the mirror!  We looked like dirty homeless people.

    We made it to Hualien around 7:00, a 12 hour day of driving and adventuring!  The scenery was very pretty, super curvy and lots of trucks and buses driving around us.  A bit scary at times, but I didn't plummet off the side of a mountain as had been my fear.

DAY TWO    Hualien-Taitung
          The next day we left for Taroko Gorge early.   We spent a great Friday driving around the Gorge and exploring some new things.  Anthony and I went to Taroko last October, but one time is definitely not enough to see everything.  Two times isn't even enough.  As last time, it rained while we were there, but only for a bit and then quit.  The sun even came out!

Here we're waiting for the break in construction to be able to pass by.  They were working on the road damage from previous landslides.

        We left Hualien a little later than planned, and were next on to Taitung.  After Hualien the roads turn from mountain to sea side.  It's absolutely gorgeous.  So blue and beautiful forever.  There's a ton of pretty places to stop and see the ocean in different ways.  There's also the Tropic of Cancer marker, and a cave that looks like a vagina.  This is really a land mark, there's even signs for it, called the Basian Gove.  However, we reached this special spot during a heavy downpour.  I didn't even notice it, but sure enough Abe stops (he was the leader, so then we all stopped).  He says with a huge grin on his face to us "Guys did you see it?  The vagina cave!  That was it!"  I lifted my helmet visor and gave him a death glare.... really?  It's pouring around me, I don't care about a vagina cave! I turned to Victoria and said "Abe's just excited because he's never one before!" haha.  Still, we turned around to get a view of it.  Abe encouraged Victoria to get our her waterproof camera, but she declined.  Everyone else was not amused, due to the rain and having to drive through it, but good thing Abe was!
      

This is the Tropic of Cancer marker

We saw a lot of places that would have been fun to camp at, but lack of equipment stopped us from doing so.  After too many stops for pictures, coffee from the 7, and massive amounts of sunscreen applications we finally arrived in Taitung!  We had to drive in the dark for a bit, and missed one stop at a bridge that would have been nice, but what can ya do.  We got a hotel in Taitung, and sleeeep.
DAY THREE    Green Island
         Saturday's plan was Green Island. We got to the Ferry Pier expecting an 8 am boat, but there wasn't one until 9, so we had to wait around a little.  Victoria and I discovered a room of fish the fishermen were pulling in from the ocean.  The boys played War on the seats.

I was utterly terrified of getting on this boat as Victoria has ventured to Green Island multiple times.  She warned us that nearly 70 percent of the passengers on the boat throw up.  After my last experience taking a boat into the ocean off the East Coast of Taiwan, I just knew I'd be apart of that 70%.  We boarded and found seats on the bottom level, inside, in the middle of the boat.  We all were super tired and were able to fall asleep pretty easily.  About 3 minutes into the ride, I heard people start to vom.  Not a welcoming sound.  Soon, I was fast asleep and before I knew it the 50 minute boat ride to Green Island was over!  I made it!!

         Once we got off the boat, we needed to rent scooters.  Summer is peak season for trips to Green Island, so the first lady I saw with scooters I approached.  She turned out to be nuts, babbling on and on in Chinese.  So lucky to have Victoria on this trip, she knows the most Chinese of us all, and was able to get it mostly sorted.  She wanted license's, so good thing I had mine.  They were very jenky scooters.  The breaks hardly worked, the speedometer was completely out, pretty banged up.  Anthony and I just shared one as it was 300 NT (about10 dollars) for one scooter.




         The loop around Green Island is 17 km, but there are many stops around it.  There's a light house, lots of rocks, tons of beaches, a Sleeping Beauty rock, Taiwan's (lame) version of a Great Wall, and hot springs.  We spent about an hour at the hot springs, enjoying the view and soaking (although it was very hot out).  We continued driving around, and wanted to fit in snorkeling.  It's common for people to go for the entire weekend, but we only had a day to spend here.

The last ferry back to Taiwan left at 4 30pm.  It was 2 pm, we could fit it.  Ohhh snorkeling.
          We stopped at a shop, there was tons of people getting ready to head out.  Wet suit, goggles, snorkel, life jacket.  Victoria inquired about going, and the lady didn't speak much English.  Victoria tried to ask (in Chinese) if we would be back by 4 to make it back on the boat.  The lady stared at her, checked her watch, and says "It's 2 o'clock."  Just a blank face.  We took that as a yes?  Next Victoria tried to ask about  the boat that would take us out to snorkel.  "No boat," the lady replied.  Then she asked if we could leave our scooters parked in front of the shop.  "...you need to drive them to the beach?" The lady responded.  Yea, she thought we were crazy.  So, we figured out it was off shore snorkeling.  Next up, Victoria showed her that we didn't want to wear wet suits.  She was worried that it was so hot already, and that would just make it unbearable.  The lady did a swimming motion, could we swim?  Well, yes we can.  Most Taiwanese are afraid of the water, thus they cannot swim.
          So, we got set up with our little snorkel boots, goggles, and a snorkel.  Forgetting about the wet suits and life jackets.  We followed the crowds down the road to a beach.  I felt very naked as everyone else was in full body suits.  There were groups of people around instructors speaking in Chinese, so clearly we bypassed that stage as well.  We just plunged right in.  It was very "rocky" and by that I mean tons of coral all over.  It was sharp and pierced our un-wet suited skin.  Ahhhhh!  That's why everyone was wearing them.  Silly white girls.  After being thrashed around by the ocean and cutting my hands and knees, and me screaming like a drowned cat, Victoria and I hopped on a scooter and went back to the shop.
          Uhh.. we pointed to our scrapes, then to a wet suit.  Smile!  The lady began to laugh.  She motioned some for us to take.  Then she went on to speak Chinese to everyone else there, most likely telling them how stupid we were for not getting wet suits, then coming back after realizing we need them.  They all were looking.  But no, we definitely did not need life jackets.  We got back to the beach, and in we went.  This time much smoother.





            I'd never snorkeled before, and boy was it wonderful.  Lots of interesting fish, such beautiful colors, so cool.  Once you got out further, the coral wasn't poking out as far, so not as much thrashing.  Victoria had a new waterproof camera and was able to take some neat photos.... until her new waterproof camera broke.  First time using it!! Luckily she's since been able to exchange it.
        We got back on the ferry at 430, after returning the scooters to the crazy lady, and also made it back without puking!  Double score.  We had decided to spend a second night in Taitung so we'd be able to get to the Hot Air Balloon Festival about 30 minutes away in the morning.
DAY FOUR    Taitung-Luye-Kenting
       Sooo we wanted to make it to the Hot Air Balloon Festival in Luye this morning.  We were told to arrive super early, so our alarms were set for 4 30 am.  Yea. That didn't work out so well.  I woke up to it, and thought.. oh, Abe will get us all up.  That also didn't work out as I had intended.  We eventually made it out of Taitung around 5 45.  After missing some signs, we made it to the Festival around 7.  Just in time to see about 5 balloons all coming down, and then deflating.  We found an English speaking worker, and learned that they were now taking a break from giving rides.  We would need to go wait in the line that was already forming to get tickets for when they started up again at 330pm.  8 hours?!  A little extreme for what would probably only be a ten minute ride, and they were anchored so it looked like you didn't get to go very far. I would have loved it, but just not worth waiting around in line all day.  After taking some pictures anyways, we left and pushed on toward Kenting!

      This was also a splendid drive.  Lots to see, and so gorgeous.  We wanted to stop at Jhihben Hot Springs along the way, but this also ended up not happening.  It took us a while to find a public one that wasn't at a fancy resort, and once we did, we realized it was so freaking hot out that it wouldn't be worth it.  Instead we found a pretty waterfall.


      Then we stopped in this small town for some lunch.  Along the way after eating, we all become a little drowsy.  Now, on this entire trip, Abe was the dad of the group.  Constantly rushing us along, not allowing the stops to be too long, allocating when we should put on our rain gear :)  Even he was getting sleepy, so a coffee break was allowed.  We stepped into the 7, he got some bottled coffee.  I brought my purse in, put it down at a table, cooled off.  Victoria went to the bathroom.  We were taking our time.  After having maybe 3 sips of caffeine, Abe was crazy and ready to go again!  We all had our drinks, but needed to take some time to apply sunscreen.  Abe with his Mexican skin felt above us "crackers" and had no use for such items (though he learned later that it was a poor choice!)  A few seconds later the 3 of us look outside and see Abe at his scooter, helmet on, and he throws his index finger into the air twirling it over his head, Top Gun style.  Eventually he came back inside and I explained how much of a lunatic he looked like.  "He gets a few sips of caffeine in him and he's freaking out!"  Victoria says.


       Now, along the way to Kenting, you can't just go all the way down at the very bottom East, you must cross over the Island, but it's such small land, that it took about 40 minutes to do so, although through a mountain.  When we got to Kenting, we knew right away finding a hotel would be a shit show.  Kenting is a beach town, and although the Taiwanese despise sun, heat, and water, they all flock to Kenting in the summer.  During the next hour I learned how to say a key phrase in Chinese.  "nee yo may yo si ren fang jin tien?" (Just awesome pinyin)  "Do you have a four person room for today?"  Most of the responses... "may yo." "I don't have" Victoria and I were in charge of searching for rooms at first, and she did most of the talking. Although we did find a few places with vacancy along the way.
   #1  We stopped at a hotel, they said no, but called another place they were friends with, and said someone would come pick us up to see it.  An old ass lady pulls up on her 50 cc scooter, just looking bat shit insane.  She smiles, and Victoria and I wonder how the hell the 3 of us are to fit on that thing.  We decided to get on Victoria's scooter, and followed the lady.  The room was quite old, and not so good, so we said no.
   #2   Yes, they had room.  The man continued speaking in Chinese to Victoria, I overhead "a little" and "water."  Then he explained in English that the room had some water leaks.. on the wall.  They still wanted nearly 100 USD for it.  We went to look.  It was musty, water leaking down the wall so it was all bubbled up with a bucket underneath.  Victoria tried to bargain the price waaay down.  The guy spoke English pretty well, and said it was already lowered because of the leak.  So ridiculous, so Victoria exclaims "This place is fucking gross, let's leave!"
   #3  We walk in and ask, the man says no and points to a sign in Chinese.  Like, ohhh we should have read the sign!  Victoria's response "Well I can't READ!" aaand we leave.
   #4  We make it down a side alley, off the main strip and come across a B&B that is like brand new.  They have a room!  A bit pricey, but so nice and homey, huge, comfortable, so we decided to splurge and take it.
   We booked it down to a beach to sit and watch the sunset and enjoy the cool breeze from the ocean.  The night was spent paroosing the strip and eating.

DAY FIVE    Kenting
    Still in Kenting, we went to Happy Panda Beach!!  We went here last time when Ariel was visiting, and it's one of my favorite places in Taiwan.  We just HAD to go again.  So we spent the whole day here.  Having some drinks, some food, lying in the sun, playing in the water, napping in the sand.  So fabulous.
    We stayed until around 7 30pm, and went back to get some food and wanted to go to the outdoor Reggae Bar.  Then it started torrential raining, and that plan was ruined. Earlier we decided to stay another night at the luxurious B&B so we could spend more time in Kenting. So, instead of Reggae Bar we eventually made it back to our room and enjoyed a night with English HBO!
DAY SIX    Kenting-Donggang-Kaohsiung
     There were some places around Kenting to visit, and it was Abe's first trip down here so we revisited a few things with him.

































Then we were headed North to Kaohsiung!  Along the way we had hopes of taking a trip to another island called Liuqiu.  We stopped in a dingy little town where it said we needed to go to take the ferry over.  We went the information center, and everyone was beyond helpful.  The ladies at the desk didn't speak English too well, so they made a call.  The next thing we see is this man sprinting across the yard and they're yelling "Gi oh"  "go go!" at him to run faster.  He speaks English, and is clearly an eager beaver to help us out.  After asking lots of questions, we realize it's about 2 30 pm, the last boat would come back at 6, so we'd need to spend the night there, but they tell us it's quite expensive to stay there.  Plus, there's a typhoon coming.  Like always.  We tell them we'll probably just wait for the next day to go.  Before we leave, the man asks timidly if we'd like to watch a video in their auditorium about Little Liuqiu.  We agree, and he seems very excited.  They show us this film, in English, about 20 minutes.  The Island looks like a neat place!  After the show's over, the staff asks to take a picture with all of us.  That's going on a billboard for their advertising for sure!
       Continuing on to Kaohsiung, you can see the air getting dirtier and blacker.  Our skin's becoming coated again.  Once finally making here, we again needed to hunt for a hotel.  Eventually we found a place, with breakfast, and all day free ice cream bar!! Holla! They also told us they had free laundry, which I'm sure they added after seeing how nasty and filthy we were.  We got set up and ready to head out to the night market.  Oh... torrential rains, again.  Subway next door it is then!  It rained and rained, silly typhoons.
DAY SEVEN    Kaohsiung-Pingtung
    After checking the weather it looked like 2 typhoons were now on their way, although the skies looked quite clear.  We decided it wouldn't be a good idea to go out to the Island.  Again, Abe had never been to this area, so I did some revisiting.  We went to see the monkeys at Monkey Mt and did Lotus Pond.  It took us a while to drive to these places and find them. So it was well in to the afternoon when we finished.  Next up.. we needed to send our scooters back to Jhongli/Taipei.  Victoria knew how to do it and where to go, so it was taken care of quite easily.  It cost 750 NT (about 25 USD) to send one scooter across the country.    So cray.
    Next we headed over to the Dream Mall, the largest shopping mall in East Asia.  We wanted to ride in the Hello Kitty Ferris Wheel!  However, this turned out not to be a totally Hello Kitty Ferris Wheel, more of an Asian character friends Ferris Wheel.  Still, we paid to ride around on it, it was super slow moving and took like 20 minutes.
   Our friend Dellie had recently relocated to Pingtung, a town not too far from Kaohsiung, and it was on our agenda to visit her after our scooter trip before heading back up North.  So with our scooters on their way back up, we took the train to Pingtung to go to her apartment!  When we arrived I found out that she happens to now work with another girl that was in my original training, Sunell.  So Sunell came over to have dinner and hang out with us.  Dellie was a dear and made us chicken caesar salad and spaghetti!  It was yummy and nice to catch up.  There was of course still news of the massive typhoon supposed to strike, and we read  that they activated 48,000 troops around Hualien to prepare for the landslides and evacuating people.  A bit scary.  But we went to sleep with no rain.
DAY EIGHT    Pingtung-Jhongli
    This morning we left when Dellie went to work and headed for Jhongli!  I slept on the train, the skies were dark when we got into Taoyuan county, but nothing bad.  And thus concluded our scooter adventures!  In total I drove 989 km on my scooter, or 615 miles.  Overall a really super amazing fantastic beautiful time and I would highly recommend anyone living in Taiwan to do it!!

What would YOU put on your scooter?

     
      Yesterday was my LAST day of teaching in Taiwan.  The year went by in such a rush, I can't believe it's over.  I'm really much more sad then I thought I might be, but at the same time I'm very ready to see what's next.. because honestly I have NO IDEA what's next.  Anthony and I will be traveling for the next month, living as homeless wanderers, and we're very excited.  Moving away from the depressing subject of "what do I want to DO with my life?" let's discuss scooters.  I've written a few posts about scooters, and there will be another one coming once we return from our week long scooter excursion around the island of Taiwan.  For now, however, I will stick to scooters from the Taiwanese perspective.  Well, still my perspective, but on how the Taiwanese utilize these majestic motorized mobiles.

      I knew before coming that they were a very common form of transportation.  Although that is indeed extremely true, I was surprised at the number of cars you can also find on the streets.  What's fabulous though, is that the cars know how to drive with all the hundreds of scooters.  Most of them anyways, are respectful of the scooter lane and keep their distance.  No one wants striking and majorly injuring a human on a conscious, I hope.  There is the occasional ass hat that tries to speed around cars on a two lane and does so by driving in the scooter lane, but that's why one must always use caution when driving.  On to scooters.
      After only a few months it became clear that the people will use scooters to transport anything.  Propane, sure!  Strap it on the back, 3 big canisters?  Why not try for 4.  All deliveries for that matter are made via scooter.  Pizza, lunch boxes, tea, errrthang.  Super zippy and quick!  Even the mail men go about on their scooters.  They wear all green, drive on a green scooter, and have a huge orange bin with all the mail strapped on back.  Usually they drive right up on the sidewalks in the shopping areas and just drop the mail right on the shelves or wherever they see space.

      Scooters are also used for managing large recyclables, such as massive amounts of flattened cardboard, huge sacks of plastic bottles, lots of shit they can bring and get money.  People also tote around large amounts of vegetables.  It's not uncommon for me to see old people carrying big bags of cabbage and sprouts dangling around by their legs, and exhaust.  
       People are included in this cramming crap on to the scooter as well.  It's not uncommon to see a family of 5 on 1 scooter.  Mom, dad, brother, sister, and a baby all wedged up in there.  If the whole family doesn't come along, maybe mom just brings the baby along, she slings it over her front in one of those Baby Bjorn things, just bouncing around on the roads with tons of traffic and dirt all over the place.  Suuuuper safe for baby!  Don't forget the dog either. Whether it be a little dog, which is what it tends to be as most Taiwanese are frightened of large dogs, chilling out in the open, or poking out of a purse.  If by rare occasion it's a larger dog, they ride by their feet with ass and head hanging over via wide load.

 Yea.. this guy for sure saw me taking this picture. Big deal. Check out their kid in a little chair at the bottom!

       Aside from things the Taiwanese carry on their scooters, the fashion when riding one is also pretty choice.  As I've said before, they don't like the sun to contact them, so measures must be taken to make sure this doesn't happen.  Well, it's super duper hot right now, but they still need to cover their arms when riding.  Usually they wear the jacket backwards with the zipper left unzipped in the back.  They also sell these sleeves that you slide on up to your shoulders to cover you entire arm.  Finally, there are these things that look like oven mitts that can be sewn on to the handle of the scooter so when you drive your hands are completely covered.  These are multidimensional as they are good to protect your hands from the cold wind and rain as well as the sun!

Even though she's not on a scooter, this lady on the far left is still sporting the removable sleeves to cover herself, because the hat and umbrella are not enough whilst being outside.  

Alright kids, that's it for now.  Stay tuned to the chapters that follow which will include my scooter trip down the East Coast!  That I leave for tomorrow.  At 6 am.  Aaand I haven't packed yet.  Peace!

At the Dentist!

      Have I said before how outlandishly cheap health care is in Taiwan?  Well, health care is outlandishly cheap in Taiwan.  All forms of it.  Today I went to the dentist.  I figured I'd get my yearly check up done before going back to the States where it'll cost over a hundred dollars.  Instead, I paid $5 dollars.  FIVE. DOLLARS. to go to the dentist!!!

     Another teacher recommended a dentist, Dr. Green's, located just a few blocks from where we live, and Greta went there a few months ago.  I had been badgering Anthony about going to get his teeth checked, but he has super sensitive gums so he despises visiting the dentist.  Finally, we both went to make appointments.  Anthony had his last Tuesday, and he was in and out in like 10 minutes.  Not too painful.  Mine was supposed to be last Tuesday as well, but since my mom was here I decided to change it to this week.  It was set for Wednesday morning at 930 am.  Well, the night before we went to Trivia night, and when my alarm went off at 830 am on Wednesday I must have turned it off because the next time I woke up it was 10.  They had my number, but didn't call to see if I was coming.  

      SO, I decided that instead of going in later that day to reschedule and feel bad about being a lazy bitch and missing my appointment and not calling to tell them I overslept, I had an idea.  I went in at 930am Thursday morning, "I'm here for my appointment!"  The receptionist looked through the computer for my name, said something to the other lady in Chinese and continued clicking.  Pretty sure she found my name from the day before, but didn't mention anything about having missed my actual appointment.  She just asked for my health card and gave me a form to fill out, with a smile!  

      I waited about 2 minutes, in a full waiting room, and someone was there to get me for x-rays.  I think they were shocked by my nose ring, and didn't really know how to ask me to take it out before snapping x-rays.  She looked quite interested when I removed it.  My x-rays were done, and I went straight to a larger room with just a bunch of the dental chairs and equipment around them.  I sat down, they put up my pictures, and the dentist was there to see me.  Her English seemed very fluent, and she was super friendly.  

      From there it was a pretty typical trip to the dentist.  She said my teeth looked great, shoved a mirror around in my mouth, the usual.  The big difference is that they don't really do the whole cleaning series as in they don't do fluoride or polish, just use the electric tool to scrap around the teeth and gum area.  They also covered my entire face with this towel except for a little hole over my mouth, there was water splashing around all over the place!   

    I was out by 945 am!  With no appointment, really, and I still spent about zero time waiting around to be seen by the dentist!  Holla. 

Mastering Douliou. Stinky Tofou. Return to SML.

     The second weekend spent with my mom we went to Douliou, located in the southern area, but not as far as Kaohsiung, and a little further in east.  My mom has a Taiwanese friend who used to be an international student at USD, the college in my hometown, who moved back to Taiwan and we went to see her.  Her name is Jane and we had a fabulous time.  It also turns out that Jane is now married to a guy from Vermillion, named Ryan, that happens to be the brother of Anthony's sister's roommate.  Pretty crazy!

    We took the train to Chiayi and Jane and Ryan came to collect us from the station.  Then we went to eat some goose!  I don't think I'd ever had goose before... apparently the area is popular for its goose and every shop was a goose restaurant.  Then we drove to a temple that Jane's family frequents and she was our little tour guide explaining a lot of things about the temple to us.  One section of the temple is for relationships, and they have some red string there that if you tie it in front of that God statue and put it around your wrist it will bring you good luck in relationships.  We had our mom do one, so let's see!  Outside the temple there was a parade going on, complete with guys wearing the costumes, and ya know sexy dancer girls with their butts hanging out, all dancing to pop Taiwanese music.  It was quite the show.  

      

Work it girl, while the guys take a rest next to their costumes.  

      Next we drove to Jane and Ryan's apartment.  They both teach at the University and live on campus in faculty apartments.  They have 3 cats that I wanted to play with, but they don't really like people :(   We relaxed a bit, watched some Olympics, and then went to make soap!  Jane has a student whose mom has this little shop where she makes and sells soap.  It was a lot of fun and really neat to make and see how she does everything.  We got to choose what scents and colors we wanted to use and even put some little flower type petals in to make it beautiful.  The shop is out in the country and it was so quiet and beautiful there, a really nice place.  Next to it were many pineapple fields.  Yes, fields!  Why did I always think pineapples grew on trees?  

Jane giving some soap making advice.  

She's a veteran in the soap making game.  

Greta chopping the coconut oil before

 it's boiled to be poured into the molds.  

                               

All of our new soaps!  Mine are the red and green at the lower left.   And the soap shop.  They all smell amazing!

   Then we continued on up in the countryside mountains to a coffee shop where Jane gets coffee from.  I tried some brown rice coffee, they put the rice right into the coffee and you can taste it.  It was a bit thicker, really good.

             

         

 Betel nut grows on these trees at the very top!

   From here we went to a bar where Jane and Ryan are friends with the owner and had supper there.  We also popped over the night market to try some other foods     

like wild boar, and finally.... stinky tofo!!                             

        Although it took me a year to get around to it, I finally tried one of Taiwan's most famous dishes.  Stinky tofu is tofu that is literally rotten.  They ferment it for months in some sort of broth of milk or vegetable juices.  The Taiwanese love it, of course not everyone. It was super stinky, but not as terrible when it was just a few pieces on my plate, the smell wasn't so strong.  They served it with a type of kimchi on the side and some brown sauce on top.  I go the fried stinky tofu, and it tasted like normal tofu, like nothing really, but it was much drier and did have a little different after taste.  I made it through 3 bites actually, before calling it quits.  Greta and my mom also had a taste, they only did 1 bite.  

 The tofu fermenting away in the tub, then it's fried to "enjoy."  

        Jane explaining what else it came with. 

Before leaving they played some games of Majong Bingo!  My mom even won a prize, but didn't take it due to suitcases and traveling.  Then we went to our hotel, conveniently right across from the train station, and tried to go to bed a little early as we would then embark for Sun Moon Lake at 645 the next morning.

        

     I visited Sun Moon Lake before when Tyler was here in April, but our original plans of taking my mom to Green Island cold not be fulfilled, so we went here instead.  Anthony didn't get to come when Tyler was here, and Abe still hadn't been either, so he and Abe left early from Jhongli to meet us in Taichung where we then all got on the bus to SML. From Douliou it took us an hour and 15 min. on the train to Taichung, then about an hour and half on the bus to the lake.  When we first arrived it was a little gray and cloudy, but the sun came out eventually.  We went to the temples, took a little boat ride, ate at an Aboriginal restaurant, saw what there was the see.  

 A great group shot where nearly everyone's eyes are closed.  Fantastic.  

 Temples and temples

 The typhoon took out a statue, and a tree!

 So beautiful, so peaceful.