Everyone in Taipei is very nice from what I can tell. My co-worker told me that he would take me around to see a few things here. This past weekend we went to a mountain close to the city (still don’t know the name, Yummi?), went bowling, and went shrimp fishing.
We visited a mountain (Yummi Mountain?) close to Taipei County on Saturday and did some hiking followed by a meal at one of the many local restaurants in the mountain valley. Our hike wasn’t too long because it started to rain shortly after we left the base area. The vegetation is very tropical (of course) and it’s very humid. Oh and the air smells of sulfur fumes due to the hot springs in the area. On our way up we ran into a gigantic beetle and a crab which is seems odd since there is no water near by. My co-worker said it was a “Mountain Crab”. While looking for a place to eat in the “valley” we sampled some local tiny bananas where a girl from Taipei started asking my co-worker what I was doing there (since they don’t see too many foreigners), and had a baked sweet potato. The restaurant we settled on is in a strip where there are people out front constantly trying to get you to come in to eat at their place. The street vendors along this street were also offering all kinds of free samples. Dinner was interesting, consisting of a sweet potato and ginger soup, steamed bread, various vegetables, fried mushrooms, and some beef/pork. The sweet potato soup was very good!
On Sunday my co-worker took me bowling and to go “shrimp fishing”. I don’t know about you but when I think of shrimp fishing I think nets, large nets and ocean. This style of shrimp fishing was indoors in a giant warehouse and you use rods to catch the shrimp just like you would any other fish. The place we went charges by the hour and they give you a rod and bait. I’ve got some pictures of this that I’ll put up later. I learned quickly that shrimp are a pain in the butt to get off hooks and they pinch. My total for the night was 8 shrimp. After we finished the same building has a giant propane powered broiler where we cooked the shrimp we caught. It was quite the experience.