On Friday night, one of the Chinese teachers took us to the annual aborigine festival. This is the one time of year that most of the 12 aborigine tribes get together over an entire weekend, eat food, and dance. The costumes were very colorful and I was amazed at how alike they were to the Native American tribes of the US. Unlike one of the previous teachers that got tricked into dancing on stage on national television, we played it safe in the crowd.
I had some sugarcane drink, a fried chicken breast, a purple-colored rice patty, and some stinky tofu. Ever since I arrived in Taiwan, there's been one smell that I pick up every so often. It isn't the most pleasant of smells, but it's very distinctive. Once I bit into that stinky tofu, I realized that that was what I had been smelling. Lemme tell you, it tastes exactly how it smells. Once I had tried it, I gave it to the Chinese teacher, who absolutely loves the stuff. I may not have liked it, but I wasn't going to let it go to waste.
Yes, one of the women lent me their hat for this pic.
The purple rice patty. It was actually very good!
Apparently one of the popular ancient styles of the aborigine tribes was for women to wear lampshades over their heads. At least that's my interpretation of this pic. No longer are lampshades restricted to people who party too hard!
On Saturday Steph and I went to try and find the ocean. I figured as long as you went in the direction opposite of the mountains, you would have to run into the ocean eventually since the mountains are located in the center of the island. We still brought a map so that we could find our way back, though.
I'm making it official; I love the ocean! It's so beautiful and I love it when the wind coming off of it cools you down. Someday, if I live on the coast, it could be my muse for writing. I got pictures of some of the monuments on the shore, but I can't read the characters, so I don't know what they are for.
I found some writing on the rocks nearby. Probably love notes. Next time I go, I'll have to take a marker and write 'Kim wuz here' or something.
When we were coming back from the shore, we stopped at a 7 Eleven to get some lunch. We were about to go back to the preschool when we noticed a commotion up the street and saw a parade coming for us. They had big costumes and dolls they were carrying around and fireworks that they were blowing off in the middle of the sidewalks. The pics are kinda blurry because the people were in motion, sorry!
Yes, those are horse heads we are seeing...or maybe donkey heads.
This car brought up the rear of the parade. When it was level with us, it stopped and threw out some mints. It was a mad scramble for them (even worse than America!) but I managed to collect a couple.
Afterwards we found a mall that Yu had taken me to a couple weeks ago. We just wandered around and enjoyed the air conditioning until we found the grocery store and picked up some food. Usually, people here use boxes to pack away their groceries. If you want to use plastic bags, you have to buy them. I think I might have to get a re-usable grocery bag while I'm here.
WARNING: POTENTIALLY DISGUSTING PICS AHEAD
A moth we found resting near our bikes.
A dead GDC (Giant Disgusting Cockroach) after a mighty battle with me.
The ocean IS beautiful! It looks like you're having a great time!
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