Taipei, Taiwan

Hello from Taipei!

Tina and I just got in yesterday on sunday after our 13 hour flight of which I slept a good 8 hours. THings are well, we’re staying at a hotel that one of her uncles “General” set us up with. It’s nice and has a western toilet which is nice, and a shower. The entire bathroom is tiled and is kind of like a big shower with no doors on the shower. We’ve had some great food, dumplings and the like. Yesterday was the first day we were here and her uncle Sam (I know hahaha) took us around.   We went to a geopark which was a beach with sandstone shores that have been eroded into really cool shapes, big rocks on top of small spires of sandstone. Little fish in the water and things like that. Nice plants and birds and stuff. It was like we were in another world when we were walking amongst the rock shapes…lots of picures to come when we set that up.

Then we went to get some sea food at a restaurant where her aunt ordered some lobster sashimi along with some other stuff. The lobster arrived in a bowl of ice with it’s body sticking out of the ice and it’s shelled tail sitting next to the tail meat that we ate with wasabi. The lobster was moving a bit because (I thought) of the cooling of it’s body was causing it to contract. So I poked it and the thing started waving its arms around and its antennae too IT WAS STILL ALIVE!!! Tina poked it and it started screaming at us for like fives seconds. Its eyes were moving around looking at us too as we were devouring its body. Then they took the dish away after we ate the meat and we saw him next in a soup that they cooked the rest of him in. It was like “oh hello, I remember you, you were delicious” craziest culinary experience I’ve ever had. I can’t really get over the dried fish smell and the dishes with the little fish in them that were dried whole. Reminds me of the beach smell…you know.   So things are good. We’re going up into 101 today, second tallest building in the world next to Dubai’s tower something or other. It’s raining a bit now, like it does in Seattle, not really enough to get wet and it’s misting mostly so perhaps we’ll wait on the 101 until a clear day will give us an unobstructed view. Be well and merry and I’ll keep these coming 🙂

~Jensen