Taiwan Experience

Everyday of my stay in Taiwan with my host family is more amazing than the day before! I have been having a lot of fun since I came and I am so excited about that. Today we visited Chiayi University and went to its library. We then went shopping in PLAZA and after that we headed to Solar Exploration Center which was really cool. After that we visited the salt mountain and went to the seashore, which was really good. We did a bunch of jumping photos with some school guys and went to the salt farm altogether! There the man in charge explained to us how they process that sea salt and we also went to the farm and worked with them. It was my first experience and was so much fun! I also tried an ice cream which was salty and had nuts in it. I liked it although the taste was so strange for me! At night we had a barbecue and we helped the locals wrap fish in aluminium and then salt and then on fire. It was really good and I ate a lot. We also barbecued pork, corn, oysters, ...

Today we had a trip to Alishan mountains and it was amazing! The weather was so cool there and the view was amazing! We stopped a couple of times there and had tea at a tea shop, got some herbal oil for mosquito bites as a present and then went more up! Walking through the forest in the mountains was really a great experience! I love the tropical trees and the superb plants. We also visited ancient grocery stores and markets, tried some new candies and ate a desert jelly, ice and tea! We had lunch in a restaurant and I ate chicken which was very good. The dinner was a special one, we had those chickens cooked in a big pot, with the vegetables in the middle. The taste was great and I ate A LOT! The green tea farms in the mountains were awesome and it is interesting to know that they pick those tea plants by hand and very delicately. We also saw how they process the plant of tea to make it ready for sale. We had green tea at a fire station again, and got a pack of gr...

Today we went to another county in the south, called Tainan. Tainan is almost the oldest city in Taiwan with a lot of nice places. We went to the national park and the calligraphy museum, and had lunch at a Taiwanese fast food restaurant. I had noodles and also some shrimp rolls, which I really liked. We had mango pudding after lunch from a shop nearby, it was lovely and I must try it once more. We had dinner at an Italian Taiwanese restaurant, and I had pasta with chicken and vegetables! It was wonderful. Messaging body seems to be very important in Taiwan as all the shops have sth for message, either wooden or electrical! I bought an electrical one today and a wooden tool some days ago. Tea is a Taiwanese tradition, and they drink tea, both cold and hot every single hour. Wherever we go, we surely drink the tea! They even have green tea ice cream! which looks fantastic and tastes great! I like cold green tea, and my host have given me a package to take home, pl...

Today we had even more fun! We went to a lot of pottery and farmland museums and enjoyed the beautiful artworks of Taiwan. My host, Frank, or Super Frank as we call him, knows everyone in this county. He is just great! I had noodles with sesemi sauce for lunch, in a local restaurant and it was nice! For dinner, we had Haka meal again, at a restaurant and it was better than the previous one. I ate beef, fish and vegetables! We had a special desert at Lilyia's host's beautiful big house, and I liked it! It contained soymilk jelly and ice, etc. Steven and his wife are really nice gorgeous couple with 2 cute kids! After dinner, we went to a foot message salon, and had our feet in herb steam for more than half an hour. It was so fun and relaxing! I drank cold green tea and relaxed! The guy then told us if we had any health problems, and he said I was completely HEALTHY! Feeling so confident now :D I need to sleep now because we should get up early tod...

There is one thing I forgot about yesterday, we had a visit to a place where an old guy made soybean sauce! It was my first time seeing the process of this sauce, and I found that it is very hard and time consuming! The beans had to be in big jars for half a year!!! The man was so hard working and kind... Today my host and the other guests in Chungain went to sculpture museum in the nearby city, which was an hour and a half away by car. It was amazing but unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos. There were excuisite wood carvings and I loved them, then we bought some souvenirs at the market nearby! Then we went for lunch at a restaurant and had Haka meal, which is a combination of a lot of foods in the middle of table, with rice of course! It was OK but not exactly my type, so I mostly took sprouts and a little chicken and vegetables. We tried candies there in markets and got a package as a gift from our hosts. After lunch we went to the National Museum of Arts in whic...