Taiwan, Day 11: Checheng & Back to Taipei

We started off the day by driving, I mean scooting, to Checheng to eat lunch at a more traditional Hakka restaurant. The food has some ups and some downs. I'll talk more about these in the pictures below. While we waited for the cab we went to a nearby temple and saw Buddhist worshippers. I was/am surprised that Tammy's whole family is Christian considering that most of Taiwan is Buddhist.

The taxi driver got us to Koahsiung in *an hour*. That is unheard of. Tammy said (I was asleep) he was driving at 160kph. We got on the train and headed back to Taipei. We got there just in time for dinner and then we rented a Stephen Chow movie, Shoalin Soccer, which if you haven't seen it... you definitely need to. It is a very very good movie. So funny.

We saw this statue after exiting the HSR (High Speed Rail) and heading to the MRT. This is frickin' weird. The caption that goes along with it is one of the pictures below and it is even weirder...

Pretty bad ass statue/engraving in front of the Buddhist temple.

Burning a *ton* of incense at the Buddhist temple.

Post-dinner picture from the Hakka restaurant. Note which dishes have leftovers...

Some clam/melon soup. Not sure of the name, but it was ok.

This is the frighteningly weird caption for that statue. You might need to click on it to make it larger.

Taiwanese chitlins. I kid you not. Pratcher and Patrina... I tried some. Have you?

Some kind of tofu and pork. Pretty good. Nothing fancy.

Very fatty stewed pork. The veggies were pretty good as well.

Spicy noodles and pork.

This... this is the bane of my whole trip to Taiwan. Rarely have I ever eaten something and decided that I refuse to ever eat it again, but this vegetable wins this award. Bitter melon is absolutely, positively the worst vegetable I have ever eaten. Asparagus *pales* in comparison. Asparagus is like eating Dove milk chocolate and bitter melon is cooking chocolate... no, no it's just shit that is the same color as chocolate and you eat it and then you immediately regret it. Even that isn't a good enough description. I put this in my mouth, thought it tasted like zucchini for a second and then I wanted to go gargle sea water. Never again.

By the last day, Tammy was getting very confident in riding on the back of the scooter and she started taking pictures.

Tammy, looking good and a little silly with that helmet on.

The common area of Anderson' place. There is a defunct arcade game in the background and a karaoke machine underneath the TV.

One of the highlights of my trip to Taiwan. This is the shit shower. Now this sounds disgustingly like I took a shower in shit... but no. I shit *while* taking a shower. Epic. I did this every morning. Haha.

The ACA saying, "See you later, definitely not goodbye!"

Tammy got really confident. If you listen closely you can hear her giving a verbal documentary of the ride.