Strange Food in Taiwan!

Taiwan was quite an experience. The American chain 7-11 is very popular out there, so we felt quite safe going in there for drinks and snacks. What I was not prepared for was the awful smell!!

In Taiwan they love boiled eggs, cooked in a really pungent 'brown water'. So every 7-11 has vats of brown bubbling water containing stinking boiled eggs!!

The eggs are treated as an on the go snack and people were just fishing them out and bagging them up, much like we might buy a hot dog.  It certainly made the shops very different to the 7-11 store in USA and Hong Kong!!!

Another delicacy is the aptly named 'Stinky Tofu' One evening we went to Shillin Night Market, it was a fantastic vibrant place with lots of interesting stalls and street food. We decided to eat out and choose whatever took our fancy. One thing that didn't was stinky tofu. It is the vilest smelling food in the whole wide world, how people actually eat it is beyond me. The tofu is marinated in brine made from fermented milk, They add all sorts of other stuff according to their own particular secret method. The closest I can come to describing the smell is a cross between week old spilt milk that has been festering in a warm car and sewage. It is vile.

It doesn't even look appetising !!I was glad to get out of close contact with that.

We did manage to find some lovely food and some very nice stall holders.

Sweet potatoes were big!, the potato balls were served with powdered peanut and cinnamon sugar. They were lovely.

Tom had an omelette kind of thing, he really enjoyed it and the lady was lovely, so he went back for another one!! 

We had a smoothie made to order to include whatever fruit we wanted!! I was surprised at just how many plastic bags were used, the smoothie was already in a cup but they put it in a bag as well!

Once we had finished our wandering around we spotted a stall selling toffee covered fruit. We decided to give it a go.

The skewers looked delicious, like our traditional toffee apples. It was a bit hard to understand exactly what was under the toffee. We did manage to identify, strawberries, plums, pears and grapes. We decided to go for strawberry.

They were very nice! Carl was a bit quicker to eat his and when he got to the very last fruit he had a bit of a surprise, it was a tomato!!! We all had a tomato! I love tomatoes, but I couldn't bring myself to eat it covered in toffee!

So my useful tip of the day - don't go near stinky tofu and be suspicious of toffee covered fruit!!!

Have a lovely week.

The next steps!!

We stayed for three nights in Hong Kong before flying out to Taiwan. I was looking forward to this part of our trip, we took a taxi to the airport with Carl for our early morning flight with China Airlines. I was really impressed with the airline, the journey was only a short hop on a par with an Easy Jet trip in Europe. The huge difference was that it was a fully serviced flight with tiny pillows and a meal and free drinks and everything!! It was great!!

As we touched down Taiwan experienced an earthquake. A fairly strong on 5.6 on the scale. The country seems to be fairly used to them and they weren't phased about it. We continued to feel the aftershocks later in the afternoon. 

We were so lucky to be able to meet up with our dear friend Raymonde who was spending the month in Taipei with her husband Colin. It felt really weird to go half way around the world to meet up with someone who lives two miles away!!!

Our hotel was in the Zhongxiao Xinsheng area of Taipei, which was dominated by the University of Taipei. It seemed that just about everyone had a motorbike/scooter of some sort. The hotel was in brilliant position right next door to one of the underground stations.

Raymonde took us on the underground and showed us around lots of the wonderful places. The buildings were fantastic. The city was spotlessly clean and really puts the UK to shame. 

It was  really good to have a 'local' guide. Raymonde had been to Taipei quite a few times and was able to show us all the dodges!

We went to a lovely little eatery where we ate like the locals, Bowls of Ramen Noodles with tempura prawns and vegetables. I was really impressed with the tempura sweet potatoes. It was a very nice meal, tested our novice chop stick capabilities though!!!

After dinner we took a look around the local shops and markets. There seemed to be loads to look at, I loved all the figures and cartoons which seem to be very big in Taiwan. 

For some reason EVERYONE out there insists on having their photos taken with this finger sign. It looks stupid but is clearly very big in Taiwan!! Well when in Taiwan, best do as the locals do!!

We really enjoyed our introduction to Taipei. Thank you Raymonde for getting us off to a fantastic start and for spending time with us!!

The next day we went up Taipei 101, the building you can see in the photo above. 

My little business venture is going well, I have landed a couple more commissions this week, its really exciting. I hope that it continues to gradually grow and then one day I will be able to give up work and become a millionaire!! (OK just to reduce my working hours would be a win!)

          Please check out my website - Here

          Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday !!

      xxxx