I arrive in Taipei and lucky for me a familiar face is on my flight (one of the many new friends I have met on this adventure!) and she becomes my partner in crime for the day. After a 2 hour bus ride and swapping of our life stories we arrive in the heart of Taipei, Taiwan. Why Taipei? My dearest friend moved to this island (yes, it's an island) about 6 years ago and I have not made it out for a visit... so being that I was in Thailand for HER wedding it was kind of a no brainer that I would hop, skip, and jump over to the island and experience her life here. First impression... Taipei is like a ginormous Ranch 99 market, really, it is! It’s a fairly large bustling city with tall buildings everywhere and of course everything is written in Chinese. It is also an extremely friendly city with a gorgeous lush mountain range and food markets everywhere. Throughout my travels and my life for that matter I have adopted a "yes, let's do it" motto, you only live once so might as well explore and experiment. So when my new friend suggested we go to the largest night market (in mid afternoon) to eat lunch I was thrilled! I found myself in a hot and humid tented area surrounded by elaborately set up food stalls and the smells of oil, spices, and unidentifiable scents. Many people were selling the same foods but slightly different and their salesmanship consisted of staring at you with a spatula or, better yet, a chicken in hand and screaming loudly for you to eat at their stall. Eventually the stimuli of the atmosphere fade in the background and become ordinary.
We walk by skillet where I notice an omelet being cooked (I love my breakfast foods and haven’t have been slightly deprived of it here in Taipei, the omelets is filled with oysters and is a popular dish, sounds good to me. In a couple of minutes of us nodding our heads that we would like to order, we are ushered to a small table and seated and seconds later are presented with our dish and some chopsticks. I dug into it with my chopsticks and enjoyed my egg and oyster blend, my friend was pleased with the smile on my face, it was actually quite good and finished within minutes (small portions, something us Americans can learn from). Next stop… Stinky Tofu! This one might be hard to describe. The name is a bit misleading because the mound of tofu that appeared in front of us didn’t “smell” like anything. I took a bite and swallowed and then took a breath and WHAM!!! It hit me out of nowhere… the strongest most pungent smell taking over my palette and nasal cavity, the areas that normally are touched with the smells of fermented grapes were now drenched in fermented soy! Two bites later (yes I took more than one, just to make sure) I was done with the tofu experience.
Next… Chicken skewers. After only a couple of small plates we were getting full but I was eager to try to the chicken skewers that we walked by on our way to the stinky tofu and plus I needed a palette cleansing. Glo asked for the chicken in Chinese and they handed it to us with a few words that she interpreted as “I think the lady said this is chicken butt, but im not sure…” She looked over to the lady and repeated again the name of the item which was already in my mouth and I was chewing… “crunch, crunch, crack” we both confirmed… it was indeed Chicken butt! I will just leave it at that. Next… dessert. Finally, my close second favorite meal of the day. We headed over for shaved ice, a popular dish here. My concoction consisted of finely shredded ice topped with mango and some sweet syrup… it was good but definitely not dark chocolate. About an hour later and having spent only 4 dollars, we headed out of the market and off to do the next best thing… get a traditional foot massage! OUCH!
