A Day in Tainan

This morning us girls decided to try and find breakfast, forgetting that we actually had to communicate/translate the orders, as well as actually find a place [besides 7-11] which served it. Luckily, the tea place has a great menu translated for us, however the breakfast stand doesn't. We stood there a bit perplexed.... "we're hungry... but we don't even know how to say 'egg' in mandarin... omg what are we going to do?" By the grace of God, lol, the man in front of us ordering a delicious looking breakfast wrap/burrito turns to us and says..."do you need some help ordering"-- in awe, and almost sounding rehearsed, we excitedly replied "YES, Xie Xie! (thank you!)"

The order was pronounced "Dahn Bee"- "egg", with "Pecon"- "bacon". And believe me, it was Hen Hao! (very good). This large filling breakfast wrap was only about $35NT or about 1 dollar US. Most of the foods here are very inexpensive and they come in abundance!

We traveled to the train station by taxi with the most obscure cab driver I have ever seen. Halfway through the 5 minute ride we heard a quiet belch, we looked at eachother, trying to ignore it, we immediately changed the subject. About 2 minutes later they started getting louder and louder, until finally the man was making noises with his mouth like a garbage disposal. It was ridiculously funny. Most of the taxi drivers here have little to no teeth. I'm talking the most I've seen is 5 teeth in one mouth.

From the station, we took the train about 30 minutes North to Tainan. We walked around the city for hours and found this 12 story high shopping mall. It was so awesome. The clothes here are just so unique, every store is so different!

For lunch we decided on Japanese Sushi. mmmm. It was some of the best Sushi ever! Each roll had such a variety of different flavors in it and for 6 pieces it cost about $3 US... so reasonable! In the US it would have easily cost 8 bucks+.

To celebrate Mother's Day, we took a bus from Tainan out to a very small town where Tin Man's in-laws reside. Walking around this town we were pretty much celebrities. Children were running up to us in the streets literally screaming because they had ever seen a Westerner before.


We went to a very traditional Taiwanese marketplace where fresh caught fish were still alive and the stinky tofu was in abundance [the smell is unlike anything I have ever experienced..wow horrible].

After the market, we had a wonderful meal prepared by Tin Man's family full of mushroom soups, octopus ball, shrimp, sausage, dumplings and delicious sticky rice.

Another pretty crazy thing that I noticed over the past few days, it the things people carry with them on scooters around the cities. Dogs, not just tiny lap dogs, but large full size canines! But it gets better... I've seen families of 4 on 1 scooter speeding through town. With tiny babies/toddlers aboard.