Smoggy Thoughts: 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.