Saturday April 6th, 2013
Heading out for our new exploration, I was smart and brought
along two objects for the car. A big bottle of water and my laptop, The water
was for obvious hydration reasons because I need tons of it everyday but the
laptop was for making my life just a tad easier. During the hour long drive to
our first destination, I solely worked on writing Taffys because I still had
over half of Thursday’s and Friday’s to accomplish. Each day was so packed with
great stuff and returning home late tends to back up the workload. Plus I still
have to write a Rotary report for the month of March (which I’m nowhere near
finishing, whoops). I didn’t make an extraordinary amount of progress in the
car but every little bit helps. :)
Parking was extremely difficult to find at the location (called
Sanxia/三峽)
so host father and I bailed out while host mother battled to find a spot and
joined us later. We first went to a temple and as usual had a beautiful design.
Sure I’m a full-fledged Christian and Chinese temples are not of its nature,
but I still find beauty in the colors and designs of their structures. That
goes whole-heartedly for the roofs! Yes, they’re orange but also have a
fascinating horn-spike shape and stunning bright colors with attractive
sculptures of various types. Andrea likes! ^_^
The outside front of this temple. The temple’s name is ”三峽清水祖師.”
Inside facing the main shrine building
Carved pillars and golden roof undersides throughout the
temple
A unique feature to this temple was the addition of scenes
to the rooftops. Usually I see a dragon, phoenix or person but this place had settings
of different sorts almost as if snapshots from a drama. Pretty cool!
This is probably my favorite part about the whole temple, a
captivating design with equally captivating color choices. The roof it was
attached to was just as much of eye-candy for me. I could just eat its
deliciousness! ;D
More roof loveliness!
Sanxia is apparently well known for its bullhorn pastry
“Niujiao”/牛角.
Y’all have seen them once before when my host family bought some from our first
Huaxi Night Market visit. Well there was only one shop at that Night Market
with the bullhorn pastry. At Sanxia, the streets were FILLED with them! The
most famous company with numerous branches nearby was “Kang His Shuan
Crossiants” sporting a red and gold logo. We stopped by one shop to purchase a
box of their signature pastries. They gave out free samples that we tried. I
absolutely adored the lady’s bullhorn hat that you can kinda see in this
picture. ^_^ Host father said the end tip of the pastry was the best and handed
me one. Biting down, it had a definite crisp that was rigid yet managed to not
be a disgustingly crunchy kind of texture. Twas enjoyable in a sense.
Host father purchased a set box of ten bullhorn pastries
with different flavors. I know what will be for breakfast tomorrow. XD
Following this was strolling down an old street with both
sides lined with shops from food to pottery to various things. Indeed it was
raining. At this point, don’t even ask if it rained or not a certain day
because the answer will always be yes. Holy crud where does Taiwan store all
this continuous rain?! Even with my trusty umbrella (even more thankful I
invested in a good one), I still got wet from the rain being angled from more
than one direction. I had no idea where to tilt my umbrella to block it! So
when we found the car to meet up with host mother, I was horrified when host
father took my laptop bag from the car and slung it over his shoulder. First of
all I was wondering why the heck he didn’t leave it in the car since robbery is
not an issue and it was hidden anyway. Second, how could anyone possibly think
of taking an expensive electronic such as a MacBook Pro and haul it around in
the pouring rain when there’s no need to in the first place. I literally had to
beg him to leave it in the car because only being out of the car for less than
thirty seconds, I already spotted an obvious amount of water dripping down the
bag, which isn’t fully secure by the way (it’s only a messenger bag flap and
not a zipped up bag). Mommy is very protective of her nearly a year-old baby
Mac considering I use it everyday for Taffy, research, homework, communication
and more. My heart attack of the day. XD
With host mother joining us, we revisited the temple so she
could see its splendor and walked through the old street again. Afterwards we
grabbed lunch at two separate places.
First was stinky tofu at a small sit-down shop. I didn’t
find the stinky tofu impressive at all and host parents thought it to be only
ok quality. There wasn’t much taste at all to the tofu so I only liked the
pickled vegetables.
The second restaurant was on a second floor modeling an old
styled interior design. One dish was a bowl of rice, vegetables and pork steak
on top. Each vegetable type was relatively small in amount and had a selection
like potatoes, bamboo, green leaves and more. In my opinion, the pork steak was
the best part.
We finished with a bowl of thick rice noodles. It seemed to
lack flavor compared to the strong flavor of the pork steak. Not very hungry, I
ate very little of today’s three lunch foods though technically I had more if
factoring in the small food samples along the street. With my water bottle back
in the car, I was good for the afternoon.
Next was a car ride to Yingge, a place famous for its
pottery. Here it had a “New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum” that we
visited. There were about 10+ small exhibits, all free and all for the public.
Some were more history based and others art based. I took some pictures of the comely
artsy-fartsy ones that I’ll show you right now.
Awesome chessboard! For those of you who know, the checkered
pattern is my all time favorite so I obviously loved this. But it was also cool
how at one end you saw the black and white pieces on certain ends but then
flipped when on the other side. You can see why because of each piece being
spilt down the middle in color. Both sets of pieces were different in design
(some obvious and some subtle), which is how you can distinguish them from the
other. I just loved to look at this piece of art! ^_^
A camouflage army hat made out of toy army soldiers.
Interesting concept.
The hair. The hair is what caught my eye and demanded a
photo. Just look at that fantastic hairdo! If I were a male, I would probably
have such a hairstyle. XD
Simply cups but with a charming design and coloration.
ADORABLE WI-FI CUPS AND PLATES! SO INCREDIBLY CUTE! :D
Someone needs to get on selling this to the public!
A pot inspired by traditional Chinese women hair buns with
floral pins.
I think this was called “coexistence.” The name fits
perfectly, huh? Like the dishes and tiny underneath life forms living along
side one other in harmony. Very clever.
Coffee break! Or at least vending machine break! Host father
and mother shared a canned sports drink that tasted like it dreamed of being a
hybrid of Sprite and Powerade. My selection fell upon a can of Mr. Brown Coffee
because (1) its beloved Mr. Brown Coffee and (2) the vending machine had
flavors not offered in convenient stores. So I tried “Excellent Coffee” for
both the name and new experience. As usual with Mr. Brown Coffee products, it
was tasty and I enjoyed every sip! ^_^
For the rest of the day it was browsing numerous shops in
several different places with the occasional purchase here and there. Most of
it was pottery of some sort from tea sets to pots to dish ware to what not
else. One area looked like another old street as seen in the picture.
I came upon eight noteworthy little figurines. Ba Jia Jiang!
Each was unique with their own names and holding diverse objects. They were
pricey, heavy and not as appealing as the real thing but they still tugged at
my curiosity. ;D
Back at the house we ate dinner and two new foods were
introduced to me. One was what looks like small bananas but according to my
host family they are not actually bananas. Not sure about that because I think
it’s just a variation of a banana. They said I could try one tomorrow so I have
yet to see what it tastes like or what texture it has. Doing some research
trying to figure out its name, I didn’t get a definite answer. I fold names
like ‘plantain,’ ‘apple banana’ and ‘Cavendish banana’ with probably more
titles hiding in the Internet somewhere. We’ll just have to see what tomorrow
brings. ;)
Secondly was a small circular cake with the Chinese name of
“zhu2 qian4 bing3.” We have no idea what the English name is and I’m not sure
what it entirely encompasses within. They mentioned winter melon and pork,
which already sounds strange doesn't it? XD It was kinda like a chewy Asian
version of a cookie and not bad in flavor. I can’t say I love it but it’s
pretty ok.
Michael returned from his China trip to visit his girlfriend
and no I don’t know which city it was. He brought back some snacks as gifts
like dark chocolate, Asian peanut grain chunks and rice cake. All were tasty.
According to Michael, China is FILLED with smokers EVERYWHERE! Not a clean
place and not much to do. That’s what his experience was like anyway but it is most
likely different depending on which area of China you go see.
Trying to catch up with Taffy took up the rest of my night
and I’m left with half of Thurday’s to write. Then it’ll be Rotary Monthly
report then finally getting around to cleaning my room and trying to organize
all my stuff. Afterwards I need to start weighing in my luggage and things to
get a reference with how much leeway or lack of I have for the airplane weight
limit. That’ll be so much fun.
*cough* :P
Anywho, y’all have a good night/day! Catch ya later! :D
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