Taiwanese Food and Jade

Today's lecture was on Agro-Rural Food in Taiwan: Typically and Specialty. As quoted " a trip around the island, or around Taipei, is like a visit to the world's best culinary museum", offering all kinds of different ingredients. However it wasn't until later on that night when we all headed to the Shilin night market did we  finally get to taste the local cuisine. As we got off the MRT, and began to make our way to the masses of people, Jack made us try the famous "stinky tofu". I have to admit that it smelled pretty awful and taste like it too, although it didn't taste quite as bad as I thought it would. The flavor is indescribable, perhaps stinky would be the proper noun? Afterwards we had some delicious taro wrap that was very crunchy and sweet. ( I don't remember what it was called :( .....) Next up was another famous dish called the oyster omelet. It sounded good and even sort of tasted good up until I got to the part where it seemed a little bit gelatin like. It was said to be starch, but it didn't look like starch, so in the end it kind of turned me away. You could say I was thinking too much of what it could have been. The Shilin night market reminded me alot of the flea markets back home, except there were no turkey legs, or funnels cakes and less crowded. It had the same feel and atmosphere but just alot more people. There were so many people I think I couldn't really enjoy myself to the fullest, but I still loved looking at all the shops and different foods. I even tried a little crane machine but the little bear fell (devastating moment). Flora and Rebecca were very nice and helpful. I hope that one day I can return the favor to them because they truly have been wonderful to us. 

We were supposed to have had a lecture on Taiwan's Aboriginal Culture but the professor never came. I was kind of disappointed because it seemed like this would have been a very interesting topic. So instead I headed over to NTU soveiner shop. However on the way walking over, a section of a building was blocked off with police and yellow tape. I later found out that a student had committed suicide. Rebecca told me that this was going to be the third case this year for NTU. It was kind of a somber moment realizing just how precious life really is and how we should't take it for granted.

Before we all headed to the Shilin night market, we visited the National Palace Museum. Our tour guide was a volunteer who had been working there for over ten years and knew so much. (That's what I call dedication!) She said that today we would only view 1% of 1% of the collection stored in this museum! This collection of artifacts is so extensive it filled roughly 1900 crates, and each crate had roughly more than 5 pieces in them, amounting to a little less than 700,000 ancient Chinese artifacts! Our tour guide mentioned that we would probably never even get to see every single piece in a lifetime,and to think for one day I only got to see around 60. Wow! Originally belonging to China, these artifacts ended up in Taiwan for safe keepings just before the Japanese were invading China. This was very fortune because the relocation of these artifacts occurred just one day before the invasion. My artifacts were the olive pit because it was so small yet masterfully crafted and the jade. The jade looks just like lettuce! When I had originally walked into the museum's shop before our tour, I saw this piece of lettuce and was thinking to myself why would they be selling lettuce magnets. I wish you could have seen what I saw today, but unfortunately there were no pictures allowed :(. But this gives you all the more reason to put it on your bucket list.