Taiwan, Day 3: Nantou Day 2

Day 2 @ Shangrila. Due to our awesome adjustment to the time change, Tammy and I wake up at 4AM. Which is lucky for us because we caught a pretty awesome sunrise. Breakfast consisted of congee, fruit, and an odd attempt at a Western breakfast of scrambled eggs, ham, a sandwich?, a beef stick?, mushrooms, and some weird creamy cheese that I thought was butter.

After breakfast we went for a walk with Tammy's grandmother and enjoyed the cool mountain weather. The mountains were beautiful and it's just amazing how much variation there is in the terrain of such a small country. Tammy's aunt wanted to take us to Cingjing Farm. Daphne and June were *so* excited by this... sarcasm. So the highlight of the farm was watching a guy do a demonstration with a whip. He was basically just making it crack a lot and then a guy held a balloon and they blindfolded him. The whip guy was supposedly going to pop the balloon with the whip but what ended up happening is that a guy walked over and popped it with a thumbtack. The lady announcer kept going "Isn't this amazing!!!" There were horses that people were paying to get on and walk in a circle and then there were sheep.

The best part was when we were sitting in "Cowboy Town" and Tammy's grandmother said (in chinese), "This isn't fun at all." During the whip demonstration, June murmured, "This sucks." Everyone was enjoying the farm equally. I think Tammy and I were just enjoying the absurdity of the whole thing. We got some edibles at "Cowboy Town" though and that was fun. Then we ate lunch, took a nap, and went to dinner (back at the CartonKing place which also happened to be a Honey Museum?).

Tammy posing with the mascot of the Honey Museum.

My dinner. Spicy hot pot with whole shrimp, tofu, tofu skin, clams, sliced pork, sliced beef, mushrooms, cabbage, broccoli, and taro root.

Dessert from lunch. I got the blueberry popsicle which let me tell you... there was no sugar added. It was fairly tart and not a good tart. Tammy got a raspberry/mango mix and it was a good tart.

My lunch. It looks a lot more outlandish than it was.

Peach smoothie. Made from fresh peaches from the Cingjing Farm.

Some kind of wok-cooked mushroom that was tasty. There was this huge mushroom that was tubular and it was shredded.

The everything is made from cardboard restaurant... and I mean *everything*

Meat on a stick. Delicious. Nothing more to say.

Tammy tried to get a picture of the whip demonstration. Look at how intensely these people are watching it!

Entrance to the farm.

Before we disembarked to the farm.

Congee and fruit

Mountain Valley with some body of water in it.

Sunrise from our balcony.

Scrambled eggs, ham, beef stick?, mushrooms, sandwich, and cheese/butter.

Taiwan, Day 2: Nantou County

So Tammy's aunt wanted to take us on a family getaway and spend time together away from the city. We left Saturday morning and drove to Nantou County, four hours away. We went to stay at Shangrila, a bed & breakfast type hotel in the mountains high above sea level. The weather was great... but really that was it.

The ride there was nice because the countryside was pretty. We stopped for lunch at this place that the driver recommended. It was Chinese with Thai influences and it was pretty hilarious. Tammy forgot to take pictures, so I don't have any. We had a Lemongrass soup (which was meh), something that tasted like spicy pickled pig skin (it was pig skin) and it had peanuts on top, some kind of chicken dish, deep fried cow skin, sticky brown rice, and cabbage. The cabbage was the best part. *Everyone* hated the pig skin. I didn't think it was too bad, but it wasn't outstanding. Daphne told me I was pretty adventurous for a "white" guy. What a racist. The cow skin smelled like ass and the sticky brown rice had *absolutely* no taste.

Tammy's aunt is like my mother squared. My mom is *very* blunt and is not afraid to tell people at restaurants how she feels. She has a point, she is paying for a service and she knows what she likes. She told the people at the front that it was the worst meal she's ever had and she told people on the way out that they shouldn't waste their time. Hahaha. When we got to the hotel I was pretty impressed by the way it looked, but then I realized at dinner that the hotel, the restaurant associated with the hotel, and the nearby attractions were trying to give Taiwanese people a taste of Western culture and then it almost became a laughing stock to me. I'm glad that western culture is not this much of a joke.

We went to this CartonKing place where everything was made out of a paper and/or cardboard. It was pretty epically awful.

Despite all of this, spending time with Tammy's family was enjoyable. Her cousins are fun and it was nice that we could all make fun of the situation together. Day 2 in Nantou County coming next.

Pork ribs. Good, but just tasted like any pork chop that I can make at home.

Tammy got a New York strip. Take note of the great marbling.

Group photo @ dinner.

Rose flavored bread?

I defaulted to Sprite since I couldn't get Dr. Pepper.

Our room was pretty awesome. It was two floors with marble stairs and floors and a great balcony. Tammy and I got our own room.

Haha, the downstairs bed was really two beds put together.

This picture was taken after we arrived. I love how we're *all* on our phones and on the internet.

Tammy... always looking good.

View from the balcony.

Lunch on the way to the hotel.

Crazy Asians love gimmicky shit like this. This is all made out of paper/cardboard.

Pretty cool European architecture... in the mountains of Taiwan.

Another mountain view.

This was from the trip to the hotel. These are Betel Nut trees. Very nasty stuff.

There are no words.