Houshanpi Night Market

Sunday February 24^th, 2013

First half of the morning: breakfast, church, subway sandwich lunch and back home. Not very eventful except for seven seconds of ULTIMATE FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE! There I was, exiting the metro station when all of a sudden a strong force crashed into me head on. Hehe, the force is strong…Luke Skywalker. XD Wind. Wind up the wazoo! It was so intense that I literally went at a 45° angle to walk forward. It’s been very windy these past couple days, so much so that they have to shut down the gondola system in the southern part of Taipei due to these vicious winds. Fighting that wind was so much fun, especially when I thought it would actually push me backwards if I let up any power. XD

What was supposed to be a get-together of four people ended up with only two, Maxime and I. Even so, it was still a blast spending the night with a friend and at a night market close to Houshanpi MRT station. Predominately it included clothing both for males and females but also had several food stands along the perimeter.

Let’s just start with the food aspect of the night, shall we?

For my main course I got a rice bun sausage thing. I think they are quite good mostly because I like the sausage in Taiwan and rice buns aren’t half shabby. Something that’s nice is that rice buns are a little moist and not overly dry like some bread buns can be.

Maxime tried a corn dog for the first time though I warned him that it probably wasn’t the same as back in America where its roots lie. A friend told me that Taiwanese hot dogs don’t even come close to comparing with American ones. Maxime said he ended up liking it but I just wonder what he would say to an American one. I wonder...XD

In a little corner somewhat towards the center of the market, we found a peculiar stand showcasing a food we never seen before. Looking in a customer’s hand, a little child held a hard shell wrapped like a flatten cone with some contents inside. It seemed like a hard crepe. Maybe a French crepe married a crispy Mexican taco and may this sweet kid. XD Deciding to take a stab in the dark, we wanted to see whether or not it was any good. Thankfully there was a translated English menu that took the stabbing in the dark aspect out of it for the flavor. Just as we began reading it the man working the stand said something fast in Chinese and motioned to a bucket behind him. Neither of us understood what his words were but we at least knew he meant he couldn’t make any right now. So we walked around a little more, my mind aching from trying to figure out if he said something like ‘ran out of batter for the night’ or ‘need to cook, come back later.’

Doing a loop around the market, we checked back at the stand and several people were gathered around it as if customers. So Maxime and I grabbed a menu, chose a flavor and tried ordering. Success! Both of us individually ordered a strawberry banana flavored what-cha-ma-call-it.

Here the man is making one, folding over the pastry to form it’s flat cone-like shape on a circular stove.

Maxime and I with our strawberry banana what-cha-ma-call-it.

Final product! Viola! A crispy pastry with a thin layer of strawberry sauce with freshly cut bananas finishing the ensemble. Some of the bananas towards the top fell down to the bottom. I actually liked that because it gave my final few bites a beloved flooding of banana taste. Regarding the taste, twas very delicious. Nothing savory but a nice light treat to have. The pastry part smelled like pancakes and when the banana joined in the sniff fest, I felt back at home when my Dad made banana pancakes on Sunday mornings. Then the song “Banana Pancakes” pops into my head. Combined with bites from this dessert, it was heck of a culinary experience! XD

From hearing that this market was great for buying well-priced clothing, I thought I would be relinquished into a shopping craze, already developing in my mind items I wanted to buy based on clothes I’ve seen people wearing around Taipei. Unfortunately my expectations were higher than what was available. Something that I thought would be simple to buy, a solid color purple hoodie, was not anywhere to be found. Maxime and I walked up and down nearly every road, some several times and not once did we hit any kind of jackpot. Another article of clothing I was on the lookout for was a hoodie/jacket with bunny ears on the hood. I did come across one but it had a non-too-appealing style that seemed like I sewed it together. I don’t know how to sew…get my drift?

We did spot one long gray hoodie with fuzzy sheep ears on it. Since it wasn’t bunny ears I didn’t care for it but for some reason Maxime and I kept looking at it. The more we looked, the more we liked it. I was contemplating of buying it at 80% of doing so. Maxime completed the remaining 20% by convincing me it was cute and well priced at 380NT ($12.7US). We left the store, a bag in my hand that I didn’t come in with. ;)

Tada! Below the puffy sheep there’s the English of “Hello Dot Sheep!” A bit strange but the wittle ears make everything better especially when the hoodie is big enough to stuff my hair in as well as fuzzy soft. I may not find bunny ears but I’m happy I found some sort of animal-eared hoodie! Yay! ^_^

During our browsing through the market we were on the alert for jewelry rings. No luck until the very last shop we passed while heading out of the area. The shop had a selection of about twenty rings, which wasn’t very impressive and none grabbed my heart. One ring did get my interest nonetheless and I juggled the thought of whether or not to purchase it. After observing the price…that baby was mine! Muhahaha! For a mere 50NT ($1.7US) a new awesome ring is now in my possession!

Meet my claw ring! It’s so cool! Bird talons, dragon claw, it’s up to your imagination as to what this is. If I had two of them I would wear them on the same finger and pretend I had a birdie. Hehe…haha…uh…meep…*sigh*…birdies how I miss thee. But seriously this ring was so nifty that I liked it more and more as it continued to sit on my finger. Me gusta!

If you want to leave this market alive and breathing, take a helpful tip from me. Be paranoid. Extremely paranoid. Any corner you approach, any motor sound you hear, be prepared to leap out of the way. Chances are a scooter is trying to blaze down the road and if you’re in that road, there’ll be big problems. Several scooters were shooting through the market, which confused me because I wondered why they didn’t stay on the main road not too far away where motors should be. You know, safely away from humans? In Texas we have a law “Pedestrians have the right of way.” We have that for a reason. In Taiwan it seems like it’s the exact opposite. You better get out of that scooter’s way otherwise you’ll get more than a few bruises because they might not stop. I learned this the hard way and Maxime had to yank me hard out of the way a couple times because my paranoid scooter alarm hadn’t yet been set. By the end of the night, it was sure set and trustfully blared away when I heard the faintest approaching motor sound. I’m happy to say I’m alive and untouched. Victory is mine! >:D

At home my host father made desserts to which I tried out of curiosity and respect. There were two versions, one with an orange tint to it and the other with more of a purple coloring. The orange was comprised of water, sugar, oil and rice. For the purple it was water, sugar, oil and red beans. Both were very, very condensed and after only eating two felt really full and slightly sick to my stomach. It’s a sweet treat but I think you should only eat one at one sitting otherwise it’s too much.

An inside look at the rice one. If what my host father told me registered correctly in my brain, the heavy thick gooey middle is mainly just sugar and rice. To get it that dense, you really have to compress a lot of your ingredients together, which would explain why I felt so full afterwards.

University test tomorrow. I have no idea what it’ll be like nor do I know if I’m ready. *nervous laughter* We’ll see I guess…nighty night.