Taiwan Day 5

On Tuesday, my aunt and her husband picked us up from the hotel and drove us to Yilan and Su-ao, on the eastern side of the country. On our way there, we drove through Taiwan’s longest tunnel – it takes a full 8 minutes to drive through it, which is quite scary! (I slept through it on the way to Su-ao and Yilan but was awake on the way home and it was kind of claustrophobic, especially when you couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel) We stopped by the Su-ao train station to stretch our legs after riding for about an hour and a half:

We saw a really cute dog sitting on his own picnic bench, so I snapped some pics with him:

After taking some pictures by the Su-ao train station, we headed to the village and saw a huge crowd by a woman serving a specialty only made in the Su-ao area. There was a large crowd around the vendor and my aunt jumped out of the car so we could get in line and buy some of their specialty burritos. The burritos made in Su-ao are really interesting; first, they freeze three scoops of ice cream (two pineapple surrounding one taro):

Next, they use a machine to shred peanut brittle into a fine powder:

Then they quickly place the ice cream on a very thin handmade burrito, pour lots of powdered peanut brittle on the ice cream, and finally place cilantro on top of everything before folding it up:

The end result is a sweet and fresh tasting burrito:

We ordered two and by the time we finished them, our faces were covered with bits of the sticky peanut brittle! Luckily, it was time to get out of the car again to take pictures of the Pacific ocean:

As usual, we spent the majority of the time taking pictures of us jumping:

After playing around the area for a while, we drove to the main strip of Su-ao and found a restaurant for lunch. Su-ao is known for their fresh fish (they begin selling it at 5am everyday) and all of the restaurants show off their fish for potential customers. Here’s one of the vendors showing us fish eggs and squid:

When you touch squid that’s still alive, their skin changes color to hide from predators:

Hey buddy! We’re going to eat you!!:

We also saw this crustacean walking around its container:

It looks like a lobster, but it also looks like it has eyes on its tails but also had eyes on the other side of its body. Not sure what it was, but the owner said it tasted just like lobster.

Hi, how are you:

More interesting crustacean:

We started making our choices for what to eat – first, the squid:

Do you see how one is white and the rest are red? One changed colors when you touched it because it felt violated!

Next, the owner picked a big fish out of the tank and let us get a good look at it by throwing it on the cement:

We tried to weigh the fish to see how much it would cost, but it kept flipping out of the scale and the owner didn’t want to kill it unless we purchased it. We told her we’d just buy it so she took a big hammer (the ones you see at fairs when guys try to impress girls by showing how much arm strength they have) and hit it once to kill it.

Here she is weighing the poor little dead fish:

To cook the squid, the owners quickly steamed it and served it with a light dipping sauce:

Our mouths were completely black from all of the ink! We were smiling to see who had the blackest mouth (I think David won).

After lunch, we walked around a little more and then got back into the car to find a small hot spring:

We stepped into the hot spring and it was REALLY hot (it was quite uncomfortable, actually) and then got in the car to go back to Taipei because my mom was teaching that evening.

My dad picked us up and took us to the new Sogo for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Me and one of their specialty dishes:

The restaurant also serves steamed buns (but they’re nowhere near as good as Din Tai Fung). Here’s their kitchen area, where they put everything together:

After dinner, we went to a night market and walked around and also picked up some shaved ice at Meet Fresh:

Meet Fresh was a popular franchise a year ago, but a lot of their stores have started to close because the quality is different at all of them (reminds me of Pinkberry). The Meet Fresh we went to was absolutely amazing – my dad ordered the grass jelly with grass ice, taro and yam jelly balls, and cream:

We really enjoyed the dessert because it was really refreshing and had a lot of interesting textures and flavors. I really want to recreate the dessert when I get back to New York because I definitely see myself craving it (I’ll tell you just how much we craved it in another post).

After eating grass jelly at the night market, my dad dropped us off at the hotel and I met up with my mom, who had just finished her first weeknight class. She hadn’t eaten dinner, so I accompanied her next door to eat some lamb:

I ended up having a second dinner because everything smelled so good! After dinner, we walked to a stand that sells really good breakfast buns so we could figure out how much time it takes to walk there from our hotel (dry run for the morning!)