Day 2 (7/20) - Fritz's Group

Today was really an eye-opener. Another long day but it was an enjoyable one.

(Eleanor is going to talk about the drumming so I'm not going to talk much about it. All I'm going to say is - WOW!)

Anyway.

Jioufen Old Street was, for me, the event of the day, although it didn't start off well but it did get better.

Upon arrival, I thought - "Oh no, not Taiwan Storyland again!" The thought kind of ruined the entire visit, blinding everything around me. What made the visit worse was dodging the motorcycles and trucks which tried to flatten the pedestrians when squeezing through the alley. With the humidity and heat, I almost wanted to turn back and head for the kiosk next the bus stop to end this nonsense once and for all.

However, ice with green beans, red beans, "big beans", and chewy cubes stopped me from turning back - since chewy cubes sounded more interesting that drinking cold water under the kiosk. After my first spoon of chewy cubes, I instantly knew that I've made the right decision. What's magical about these chewy cubes is that they become more chewy if you soak they in ice water - sounds quite silly but I never knew that before today! The taste of green, red and "big" beans complimented each other. It was delicious - 10 out of 10. While eating I explained the magic of Chinese characters to Frank. For example, 地瓜 - 地 means earth and 瓜 means melon. So 地瓜 is a melon in the ground - hence sweet potato! Technically speaking, sweet potato isn't a melon, but I'm pretty sure that ancient Chinese didn't know that.

After the ice, I felt refreshed and ready for the heat outside. The ice kind of dropped the temperature by a degree or two of the surrounding but it didn't last long. The magic wore off and I was pouring again after 10 minutes. The free cold drinks along the alleys kept me going. Although hot and humid but it was much . Feeling much better, I began examining my surrounding. The observation struck me with awe. The Old Street didn't feel like "Taiwan Storyland". It's more real - duh - but I felt more comfortable in this Old Street than I did in Storyland. Most probably because my grandparents - on my mother's side - came from Keelung.

Eventually David got bored walking with me and left me to observe some cute dogs. After a few seconds I got bored too and headed for the kiosk with a cold 7-11 water in my hand. I sat on the second floor of the kiosk and watched the sunset. (Here I have to compliment the directors of this camp for putting this visit towards the end of the day -three cheers ***) The sunset was mesmerizing. No words could ever describe how I felt. So to compensate for it, here's a photo:


Oh, by the way, I saw a rat. The gutter was too dark so I couldn't take a photo. Oh and apparently there's a condom shop, I didn't see it - for more information and photos ask Janice about it (Source: Daniel Texas).

After the Old Street, we went to the night-market. For some reasons I tend to associate "night-market" to dodgy things. Buy anyhow, we all know that the night-market has nothing illegal but boundary pushing Prado purses. I've only been to two different night-markets - 通化街 and 士林 - and JiLong is much bigger than both of them. But JiLong Night-market is like a kaleidoscope image, you see a lot of stuff but it's just the same things all over the place.

I had a cup of disgusting "Pearl Milk Tea". It was way too diluted and the pearls tasted as if they've been lying in the fridge for too long. The "Bubble Ice" was good - I think the chocolate flavour was the best. We then shared some mini-Taiwanese Sausages with garlic dices. The "Nutritious Sandwich" was nutritious (fat - a lot, about 60%, protein - two slices of ham and a quarter of suspicious dark looking eggs, fiber - some tomato and cucumber) but it definitely wasn't healthy - David even refused to eat it. I was too hungry to think about what I was eating.

(Christine and Bubble Ice)

I tried the "rainbow pearl tea". It's like "pearl milk tea" but instead of having plain black pearls, you get blue, red, green and white pearls. They don't taste differently to the regular ones. The only thing I managed to discover was that certain coloured pearls are more chewy than the other coloured ones. Curiosity didn't kill the cat but it killed my stomach tonight, I had to buy some Indian roti because I've never had roti before (not sure about the spelling of "roti". Roti is a type of Indian bread). After receiving the mammoth roll, I instantly knew that I'm going to bed with a full stomach tonight. Since I was pretty full after the sandwich (more like a sub to me) and the sausages, I wanted to save the roti as a reward for myself after finishing blogging. However, I couldn't resist Even's request and took a bite for her to see what's inside this gigantic roll. Miraculously, I finished the roti.

The bus ride back to the hotel was really funny. Shu's camera was apparently busted beacuse of a photo of吉安. Poor 吉安, Lev had quite a time ridiculing him (though I have to confess I took part in the laughing!)

Sweaty, sticky and stinky, I dragged myself into the room and started blogging 30min ago.

Thanks to Even, I don't have the roti to handle now - three cheers to Even ***.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's voluntary work at the international fest in YiLan. It's definitely going to be exciting.

(Oh by the way, I can't upload the video which I said I would upload today. Something's wrong with the video uploading system. Though I have no idea how 吉安 managed to upload his MV, I'll ask him tomorrow.)