Taiwan Day 8

On Friday, I visited NTU again and had lunch with my dad’s student, Jenny, to discuss moving to Taiwan for school. We ate at Chopstix, a restaurant close to the business school. Jenny actually lives in Beijing, but she’s getting a masters at NTU and flies from China to Taiwan every couple of weeks to take class. Me and Jenny at lunch:

Chopstix makes a bunch of freshly blended juices and I ordered a starfruit juice:

For lunch, we ordered chinese spinach:

Eggplant with basil:

And flounder with fried peanuts:

After walking around NTU for a bit, my mom and I went across the street to the market (to get my shoe fixed) and walk around the different stalls. In Taiwan, the markets are kind of messy:

And the meat is sold without being refrigerated:

I asked my dad’s wife about the market conditions, and she said that supposedly the meat is butchered earlier in the morning and it’s usually sold pretty fast so they don’t think refrigeration is necessary. As soon as people purchase the meat, they go home and either cook it or refrigerate it, so it’s pretty safe.

We walked around NTU for a while because there’s lots of little shops in the area and eventually made our way back to the hotel so we could meet up with my brother and dad. We went out for dinner and then looked for a place that sells shaved ice (we were looking for the stuff we really liked from the Meet Fresh place, but couldn’t find any shops close to us). My dad found a place that’s pretty famous and we shared a red bean shaved ice:

It’s red bean with condensed milk on top of ice – so delicious!

I also wanted to buy some mochi that was filled with cream, cake, and fruit, and my dad found a bakery that sells it:

David and I were both very happy:

We bought two – one with mango cream and fresh strawberries and another with green tea cream and fresh strawberries. Here’s what they look like:

And when you carefully cut them in half, you can see the strawberry and fresh mango cream:

We walked around the NTU area again because at night, there is a huge night market that’s filled with students and locals. We just ate a big dinner, but walked around the stalls to find little things to eat. This stall sells this open zongzi – sticky rice with sausages and mushrooms:

And we found a place that sells boba tea – one of the more famous ones since they use fresh cream:

Their boba is cooked with rock candy and when you order your tea, you can add more sugar or just take it plain:

David and I shared one with no extra sugar:

We ended up walking around some more and saw this gigantic English sheepdog named Dodo:

We walked back to our hotel, ate the mochi balls, and tried to sleep but were too excited because we were meeting up with my cousin on Saturday to spend another day doing what we do best…EAT!