Taiwan Day 1: Taipei & Jiufen

After a long flight we finally arrived in Taipei at 9:30PM local time. Abby handled the flight exceptionally well. She was awake and happy during the Nashville to Atlanta leg of the trip, she fussed for about 45 minutes for the Atlanta to Japan flight, and slept the entire flight from Japan to Taiwan. Tammy and I were fairly worried we would be bored out of our minds so I made a concerted effort to rip DVDs from Red Box. We wanted to be able watch movies and keep ourselves entertained. So we boarded the plane to Japan and to our surprise we found that Delta has an impressive database of movies and TV shows ready to be watched. Every movie that I ripped from Red Box was available to watch and much much more. 

Abby awake and cute while we wait for boarding in Japan.

The monitors were in the back of the seats in front of us. This was the new plane from Japan to Taiwan. Backlit LEDs show where the headphone jack is AND a USB charger for our phones.

We arrived! Not all of Taiwan is this clean, but many of the heavily trafficked areas are spotless. I will get some pictures of a food court and put them up. Trust me, it is impressive.

This escalator is nothing special (wait till you see one that is special), but I liked the lit lanterns and they're only there because it is Chinese New Year.

Tammy's family (grandmother, 2 aunts, 1 uncle, and 3 cousins) is very welcoming and accommodating. We rode from the airport with her uncle and Tammy mentioned wanting to go visit Jiufen. That is the first thing we did in Taiwan. Jiufen is the inspiration for the setting of Spirited Away. Jiufen is located east of Taipei, very close to Keelung, and it is a very mountainous area. The area grew because of a gold rush and has become a very popular day trip location. The tea houses are spectacular with beautiful ocean views.

Jishan Street. The main street for shopping and eating delicious snacks.

View from where we ate lunch. To the right is a temple.

Keelung Harbor.

One of the main methods of transportation around Taiwan is scooter. I love it.

On the balcony of the tea house we stopped in.

Shaved peanut brittle and ice cream wrapped in rice paper. Pretty good.

Abby loved it. She got upset when it was all gone.

This is how it was made. To the right is the block of peanut brittle. You can see that they aren't playing around with that block. It's huge. So rice paper, add shaved peanut brittle, add ice cream, and roll.

She's still loving it.

This. If I could only have one thing from Taiwan food stalls it would be meat on a stick.

I had a full Taiwanese sausage first (sorry I ate most of it before I took the picture).

Then I followed it up with Taiwanese Pearl Sausages.

Another shot of Jishan Street.

Chickens... Not ducks. Soon.

Juifen is located in a mountainous region so there are stairs everywhere. It feels very old and almost transports you back in time.

Tammy, Abby, and cousins Jenny and June.

Lunch was decent. I found out later that Tammy's family was not impressed. Salt & Pepper shrimp (bottom), some kind of chicken (middle) and cong ching tsai (a green vegetable, top)

Pig intestine.

Tofu, peanuts, and mushrooms. I'm still very adamant that peanuts should NOT be chewy. I want my peanuts crunchy!

Hillside homes. Watch out for landslides.

The tea that we had was great. We had a mango honey black tea, but I find the addition of pizza somewhat puzzling.

The main floor of the tea house. The seating is upstairs and they bring your tea to your table in individual tea kettles.

My mango honey black tea. Damn good.

A wide view of the surrounding scenery. 70 degrees. Ha.

Too bad I don't like coffee or I would totally have got the digestive tract processed coffee beans.

Strawberry ice cream between two pancakes. How this is technically an Asian treat I don't know, but it was good.

One of the things that Taiwan is famous for are the pineapple cakes. I'd never had one fresh. They are literally being made right in front of me.

Pineapple cakes getting individually wrapped by hand.

First picture of a hilariously named store front.

One of my favorite things about Taiwanese dinners (and also Southern dinners) is family style dining. All that means is ordering a bunch of food and sharing it for those of you not familiar with the concept. However, what makes Asian family style different is the lazy susan! Tammy's uncle took everyone to a Thai restaurant and we got a big table in the back. He ordered all the food and was buying beers for everyone. He asked if I wanted one and I told him that I don't drink beer. Tammy jokingly said, "Jason only drinks hard liquor." and he snuck next door to the liquor store and bought a bottle of whiskey. There were a lot of toasts done that night and I took a shot every time. It was a rough night. Thanks, Tammy...

Notice the whiskey in the middle of the lazy susan and the shot glass in front of me. The bottom dish was deep fried soft shelled crab, on the left is beef curry, to the right is a spicy fried chicken cutlet, thai noodles in the back left, and more greens in the back right.

Enough food was ordered that dishes had to be cleared out to make room for more. I didn't have any of the fish in the middle of the table. In front is a seafood dish with shrimp, clams, and squid. On the right is another curry with eggs, onions, and shrimp. All the shrimp was fully shelled and yes, I sucked the brains out of a shrimp head. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't something that I loved either.

Fried tofu, fried spring rolls, and sha bing (shrimp pancake). That shrimp pancake was amazing. I ate almost all of them.