Day 6 and 7

Hey! SO I know I have lagged in my posting. Terribly sorry, it was due to a confluence of tiredness, general busy busy -ness, and then the power module on Sonny's laptop finally went (its always had issues, its why we were able to get it so cheap - at least it happened while in Taiwan, <200 bucks to fix the laptop flat rate, even if it needs a new logic board? we'll take it!) so I have had limited access to a computer and even less time/energy to sit down and download photos and write. However, today is raining and nasty and I stole the school's laptop from Sonny so I will post like crazy and get all caught up, I promise! Now travel back in time a week with me...

So Monday turned out to be a complete wash for me. When Sonny got up to go eat breakfast, I was so tired I just could not wake up. I told him to go on, planning to sleep for another hour or so then wake up. I rolled over and went back to sleep. Next thing I know, Sonny is waking me up because he got worried after he didn't see me come online and I didn't tell him where I was going all day. All day? I think, what time is it? Turns out it was 3 pm! I slept from 8 pm until 3 pm the next day. Guess it was a combination of jet lag backlog, possibly fighting off a virus as Sonny was sick when I arrived and just general exhaustion from all the go go go! Sonny went back to work, and I dragged myself out of bed and puttered around the apartment since it was late enough that there was not much point in going out. For dinner we went to a neighborhood roadside beef noodle joint. Its tiny, with an open air kitchen and tables all roadside. Beef noodles are a celebrated (there's even a festival!) staple in Taiwan, and everyone has their own version. We are on the hunt to find the best, and Sonny's colleagues said this was the best in the neighborhood. As we ate we compared and contrasted to our first selection, that tiny alley cafe in Xinmending. I am not sure which one was better, they were both nice for different reasons, but Sonny claimed the neighborhood joint better.

Tuesday however, I was busy. After breakfast I headed out to Longshan Temple. Originally built in 1738, it has been destroyed several times, from earthquakes and most recently by American bombers during WWII. Luckily, the main statue of Guanyin has survived it all intact. Aside from the Buddhist goddess of mercy, several other Taoist gods, including Matzu (protector of sailors), Wenchang Dijun and other gods of literature (also the one students pray to for exams - they were there in droves on the day I visited :), and several others including gods of war and some sort of cupid-esque matchmaker are all enshrined in the temple. All in all it is a very busy temple and coupled with the ornate decorations its easy to see why its on the tourist lists. I personally find taking pictures of people worshiping their gods distasteful, so I did not take as many photos as I could have, limiting myself to the exterior. Note the extremely decorated roof, with ceramic and glass statues and flowers on just about every possible place. When you first enter through the temple gate into the courtyard, there is a huge artificial waterfall that actually looks quite realistic, as long as you ignore the fact that you are in a temple :)

The square across from the temple and the surrounding streets were full of older folks, just sitting in the sun, playing mahjong, or purchasing various Buddhist accouterments from the stands and shops. I got a few stares, but I was too busy watching them back to mind. There were also "fortune tellers" with Chinese almanacs, each with a crowd wanting to know what their auspicious days in the new year would be. Once I had my fill, I decided to head back to the land of the young folk - Xinmending! While Sonny and I walked through this area on my first day, it was more a quick overview, and I was curious to go poking about in the small alleys and shop through the interesting looking stores. My main mission was to find the shop we had seen that first day, selling knock-off Birkenstock-type sandals as the ones I had ordered from the US arrived the day after I left (of course, thanks NZ Post) and I had no sandal-type shoes to wear in tropical Singapore. I ended up spending hours trying to find that shop, but eventually succeeded and head home exhausted. I snapped a few shots of some of the art/graffiti that covers large sections of the area.As it was early afternoon, it was not very crowded. Like most of Taipei, it only gets going in the evening. I managed to order myself some grapefruit green tea and street snacks using sign language and my meager Chinese. 

All in all it was a pretty successful day. I headed home, then met Sonny for dinner. We decided to eat at the campus MOS Burger, a Japanese chain that I had never tried. We were both tired and lazy :) and so forgot to take pictures, I stole some off the website though! I had the Teriyaki chicken burger, and Sonny had the Yakiniku rice burger which had two rice patties instead of buns. The sandwiches come with fries like you would expect, and tea to drink as the default, which you would not :)

It was a nice and easy dinner, and while sorta cheating on our quest to eat all Taiwan, all the time, was still something new to me. While we were eating, one of Sonny's colleagues walked in for his dinner so I got to meet him. His English name is (I kid you not) Silver Nitrate. Its because his full name in Chinese is only one syllable (and probably a few tones) off from how you say silver nitrate in Chinese. Thus, everyone just calls him Silver Nitrate! He is a really nice guy, and I got a kick out of his name. After some pleasantries, we let him get to his dinner and we exited. We walked back to the apartment and promptly fell asleep.