Excursions and Fun Food and ADVICE

Things have been pretty busy for us in our new home here in the DaZhi part of Taipei.  Todd has been hard at work, and the girls and I have been trying to explore this new area and do some fun things along the way.  On Saturdays, we have been able to enjoy exploring things together! Be sure to check out my important advice at the end too.  

Excursion #1  On the first Saturday we moved into DaZhi, we decided to explore a butterfly walk that Elli and I had stumbled upon but been unable to hike without some Daddy help.  It had a placard at the beginning of the hike touting the beauties and the great butterflies you can see.   We enjoyed the trees and the greenery, but the water areas and parts of the path were not really well maintained, but well maintained for Taiwan so that's something!  And in fact, taiwan is a fairly clean city as far as big cities go.   We did get to see a great view of our area of Taipei at the top of hike.   Elli enjoyed watching the roaming homeless dogs which were plentiful; however, we only spotted one butterfly.  Guess we should figure out when butterfly season is in and dog season out!

Sienna slept pretty much the whole time!

There were a ton of stairs and so Elli was pretty tuckered out by the time we got to the top.

In the picture below, our apartment is directly behind Todd in the first line of buildings you can see.  The picture doesn't do it justice because we forgot our camera and had to take pics via iphone. 

On the way down, Elli only wanted Mommy so here I am holding both girls- no sweat! (Actually, I was sweating a lot by the end!)  This is in front of a temple on the way down.  

These types of Buddhist temples are everywhere and it amazes me how ornate so many of them are. 

Excursion #2  The next Saturday, we took an excursion to the north end of Taipei to a part of the city known as Bali ... nw Danshui.  Not Bali, Indonesia, but a very nice area nonetheless.  I will tell you what was not nice though-- the two and a half hours it took us to get there via metro rail, ferry, and walking.  We were actually going there to help with a service project with our ward to clean up the area, but we severely underestimated the time to get there.  By the time we got there, the service project was over, we were all hot and sweaty, and Elli was pretty tired.  She was a trooper though and did get a second wind (after a few tantrums of course).

It was a gorgeous area and they have a carnival type feel all along the water front.  They also had an awesome street with tons of vendors with interesting things to buy and eat.  Todd thought we were just going to a service project and didn't bring any extra spending money, silly boy.  He said he would bring the money for this outing, and I mistakenly assumed he would know by now that a woman must always be ready to shop, but he barely brought enough for us to get home.  We look forward to going again when we have a car to take us there more speedily and money to enjoy the street.   Just be grateful we didn't test out how to get to Bali with any of you visiting.

Even though we missed the service project, we did enjoy the service project lunch.  There are probably upwards of 2000 members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints here in the Taipei area and almost 200 expats in the English speaking ward.  The turn out was fairly decent considering the location was far away.  The lunch was really good too and had so many courses that we were all stuffed by the end.

The stake president, President Liang, made sure that all the English ward members could sit together because we apparently were given less unique seafood dishes and more sweet and sour pork and the like.  Very considerate.

Our table didn't even touch this fish, since we were all so full by the other 7 courses of beef noodles, sweet pork, rice and soup, chicken, cabbage salad, mongolian beef, and shrimp.  We were there for over an hour and a half eating and we all had to get going.  As we were leaving, a woman from another table put our fish into a plastic bag to take home.  Many other tables were doing the same.  I was definitely okay with her taking it, since a whole fish in a bag with me for two hours on the way home did not sound pleasant at all.  And to be honest, I am still having a hard time finding a whole fish pleasant sounding to my palate in any circumstance.

Elli was sitting under the table for quite a while, which I realize wasn't the best, but she had had no nap and I was just happy that she seemed content down there.  I realized afterwards she was so content because she had found the roll-on sunscreen and had completely covered her face in it!  Well at least she didn't eat it-- I don't think.

Excursion #3-  This excursion I did solo.  I got a little lost on my way back from going to my Chinese class downtown and ended up in this nice big street market with tons of vendors.  I really enjoy these areas with all the unique foods and handicrafts on display.  On markets such as these, you can find diverse things from a sewing shop to an overly zealous umbrella salesman, to coagulated pig's blood for soups to live chickens in cages ready for the slaughter!  I had a great time especially because I was kidless and was able to look at everything without worrying what Elliana might be touching.  

CHICKEN FEET-  YUM!!!  These are a delicacy here.

Not sure what that hangy fat thing is- looks appetizing.

One IMPORTANT side note: I have 6 reasons why you should not buy and eat food from random street vendors if you don't know what you bought, even if you are really hungry.  

1. First off, in those situations, your body might have a certain sudden reaction to the street food, the speed of which might leave precious little time to find a restroom.  This could hit at any moment, such as shopping in a little toy store.

2. Second, because you are desperate to find a bathroom, you might have to mime the act of using a toilet to the toy store clerk because you can't find their restroom and because you don't have time to find the Chinese word for bathroom in your iphone (miming this is not a pretty picture).   This can be especially awkward if after your first miming attempt, the store clerk takes you to the section of training potties for toddlers.

3.Third, the bathroom that you finally make it to will probably be a sketchy, one-room bathroom where the trashcan is full of used toilet paper.  

4. Fourth, before you do your business, you might not notice that there is no toilet paper left in the bathroom.  This leads to some forced, and unpleasant, innovating.

5. Fifth, as you leave the store hastily, you might quickly purchase the toy you had your eye on before without looking closely at the price and calculating the cost in US dollars.

6.  Lastly, half a block away after leaving the store, you might realize you spent $23 on a random squeaky baby giraffe toy that looks like a dog chew toy.

Not that I know this by personal experience or anything...

With that last bit of advice- I will leave you to your thoughts of markets and butterfly hills and ocean views and... baby giraffe toys.