Continued from Taiwan Day 2 Part 2.

So much for sleeping through the night. Couldn’t go back to sleep in the middle of the night, so we figured we go out to get some supplies from 7 Eleven. It’s 2 blocks from our hotel…which is just 2 blocks too far damnit. I want it to be right around the corner…I know 2 blocks isn’t far but I want it to be super close. I’m also battling some sort of illness the past couple of days. Strep throat maybe? My throat hurts.

I do appreciate being able to come here with just me and RL and browse at our own leisure without the kids.

So much stuff I want to eat and try.

Tiny individually packaged apples.

Our haul for the night. And damn right I ate that egg pudding. RL Loved the fried egg flavored chips. Only in Asia can you get these super fun flavors.

They do taste like fried eggs, it’s crazy.

Breakfast time at the hotel. Well, second breakfast, since my haul at the 7 Eleven was my first breakfast.

Part of the weather forecast says that it’ll rain…Basically all of Taiwan has a chance of seeing rain. We shall see.

Another day of sightseeing in Taiwan. Waiting for our driver to arrive in front of my grandma’s apartment building.

It’s morning time but the kids are already wild.

See, they are wild animals.

Driver arrives, and now we are on our way. Lots of country still in Taiwan even though the population is probably shrinking and there are a lot of empty homes.

Wild.

Looks innocent, but actually a wild little animal.

Cliffside erosion. Those buildings will fall off the edge sooner or later.

Our first destination led us into narrow side streets. I would not enjoy driving a car around these narrow single lane roads.

We see many of these old rural houses partially collapsed and abandoned.

Get Rich. Unsure what that has to do with a crab…

And we are here, at the coastal wetlands.

Stairs up over the levee.

We are here at the coastal wetland to see crabs and mud skippers.

Boardwalk leading out to sea.

All those little white specks are crabs of various sizes.

Some have one giant claw, but they are not always on the same side. Righties and lefties. I think these are fiddler crabs, and the males have the giant claws with females having both of the size smaller size.

Ah ma and Little KL points. Notice ah ma holding little KL’s arm so that he doesn’t throw himself off the boardwalk.

So many crabs.

Crabs eating mud, and then I guess they spit them out and create those little balls of mud?

That’s a giant one! The claw is almost as big as the crab itself.

The boardwalk was closed not much farther behind this point. The tide is still semi high, relatively speaking, so they won’t let you go too far out until it gets to low tide.

We saw tons of crabs, but where are the mud skippers? Would be disappointing if we didn’t see any mud skippers. We tried looking for them in the more wet areas under the boardwalks, but didn’t see any.

Oh mudskippers, where are you?

No mudskippers, just more crabs. Do the males just feed themselves with with their one smaller claw while the females gets to feed with both smaller claws?

We give up looking for the mudskippers, we are going back to entrance to ask one of the guards where to find one.

Just as we were giving up looking for them ourselves, I spotted one. You can see it in the middle of the photo.

Here’s another one, much bigger. Once we spotted them in an area, we started seeing several of them. Mission accomplished on mudskipper sighting!

I see 4 mudskippers.

Walking the levee while we wait for our driver to come back to pick us back up.

Kids, pretend you are mudskippers. Now hop.

He was very proud to have found a snail. He asked for a picture with it.

Wearing their new shirts that they got from Uniqlo.

Too bad we couldn’t go to the end of the boardwalk, would have been cool. But we really didn’t want to wait around for an hour.

They wanted to go ride on these bike sculptures.

There, happy now kids?

Got back in our van, and speaking of bikes, there’s a bike ride going on. I guess cycling has caught on in Taiwan. I don’t remember seeing cyclists in Taiwan a decade ago.

More random temples.

Some sort of festival.

Reminds me of my childhood.

Kids wanted to visit a temple, so we are at a popular temple for this area that’s over a century old.

The back entrance to the temple.

Quite the happening place. Sensory overload, the smell from the incense, the sounds and colors, everything.

I guess I always see temples as hectic places praying to some random deity that I don’t believe in, I never think to visit. But for RL and the kids, they are fascinated by the temple. I mean, I guess I like visiting Japanese temples, but those are at least quiet and zen like. This just seems like a hectic money grabbing scam to me…

I do appreciate all the carvings here though.

I asked ah ma to show the kids what to do at the temple. Ah Ma isn’t very religious so she didn’t know too much about the customs for praying and what not…she did know that we can donate money though…so that’s what we did. The kids each gave 100NT($3) to the donation box.

I guess temples in Taiwan are pretty intricate buildings if you are not used to seeing them.

Anatomically semi correct stone lions.

The street stalls surrounds popular temples selling all sorts of items. Some for offering at the temple, some for just consumption.

Water caltrops, had to look this up as I didn’t know what they were called in English. Used to eat these growing up, so got some for everyone else to try as well.

Alright, that’s enough sensory assault, time to leave the temple.

The water caltrops, looks like little cow heads with horns. In fact, in Chinese it is literally called cow corns. You crack them open and eat the inside white starchy flesh. CL says they taste like potatoes, and she quite liked them. RL liked them too.

Some other sort of celebration for some other deity.

Traditional Taiwanese puppet show. My grandpa used to watch these puppet shows when they used to show them on TV. I remember they’d have flight scenes where the puppets get thrown across the stage and whatnot. Hahah, kinda funny now that I think about it.

RL would love to go to this nursery.

Elephant ears…or taro. Had no idea that taros are just elephant ear plants that we use in America for decor. Wow…mind blown. Now that I see it, I see it being grown everywhere in Taiwan.

Traditional grave yards in Taiwan.

Lunch spot out in the rural country side. Unassuming exterior.

Antique figurines.

Beautiful secret garden inside the walls.

Beautiful, but there are a lot of mosquitos here.

It’s a chicken!

The girls loved the chickens.

It’s hot, and this bunny was not having a good time with this heat. It’s panting quite a bit and looked like it was having a heat stroke. The kids were worried about the bunny 🙁

We were the first ones here, but got the worst seat in the house in the back of the room with no view. Maybe it’s due to our hectic kids? Speaking of hectic, they were being hectic so I suggested that we play charades to try to keep them occupied.

No menu, just whatever they feel like cooking up that day based on their ingredients.

We had asked for no nuts due to PL’s allergy. Of course, a dish with nuts comes out…sigh. So many dishes with nuts here in Taiwan.

Fried fish.

Nose picker, boogie eater.

Yum, braised pork belly. My fav.

Chicken.

Woah, as part of our dessert, succulent leaves dipped in some sort of cold agave syrup . I didn’t know people eat these as food. They tasted a little astringent and has a little spice to it. All I wanted to do was to stick them in the ground and grow more succulents though.

Rice patties, rice patties everywhere.

Cannot unsee taro plants ever again.

Driver dropped us off back in Taichung. Still jetlagged, so everyone takes a nap. RL and I will have a quick drink at the hotel bar before nap time. It’s been a lot traveling with the kids even with help from ah ma. Jetlag doesn’t help. I’m also feeling a little under the weather with a sore throat. Hopefully the alcohol will help…at least it tastes good.

Alright, one more, then nap time.

Dinner time, we walked across the street to the mall from grandma’s apartment. The kids have been asking for sushi, especially Little KL. So we figured we’d try the Kura Sushi located here. It’s Sunday…so we are expecting it to be busy and have a wait.

Yeah…that didn’t work. The wait was for 2 hours, fuck that. We’ll try our luck at the foodcourt in the basement level.

Miss our dog Mobad. Terrible animal.

Pappa Rich!! hah. Apparently the whole entire city is out eating on a Sunday night. The food court is also packed.

We are all tired from waking up from our jetlagged nap, we are a little hangry, and we are a very overwhelmed by all the people and food choices. Having a hard time making a decision.

After circling the foodcourt a few times, we finally decided on getting udon noodles. They’ve got a reasonable line, and perhaps the kids won’t put up much of a fight. It’s so crowded we had to split the group up to two separate tables.

The girls wanted bubble tea for their dessert, Little KL wanted ice cream.

I want Judy to serve me ice cream.

Let’s dig in. Everyone else went shopping while we are left here to eat our ice cream. I got green tea ice cream,

After ice cream, some light shopping for the girls. Then it’s time to head back to our beds.

Not quite to bed yet. I was feeling a little tired, but RL really wanted to check out the rooftop bar for our hotel. Any other night I’d be down, but my throat has been hurting and I may be coming down with something. Blah, getting sick while traveling sucks.

That tall building is ah zo’s apartment building. Very convenient to be staying at a hotel only one block away.

While I’m here at the rooftop, might as well do some blogging. Like always, I’m behind on blogging.

To be continued at Taiwan Day 4 Part 1.