Lilies on Yangmingshan

The weather had been cold and dreary every single day, so when it finally stopped raining, we decided to go see Yangmingshan (or Yangming Mountain). Xiao Jiu Jiu ("little uncle", the younger of my mom's two younger brothers) drove us to the top of the mountain, where there is supposed to be a beautiful vista.

But there were a couple things I hadn't planned for:

• Since we were visiting a national park, I assumed we would be going hiking. And I definitely didn't want to hike in jeans, so I wore shorts.
• Just because it has stopped raining or become less cold at sea level doesn't mean the same conditions hold true at the top of the mountain.

When we arrived at the top of the mountain, we found that we were the ONLY car in a vast parking lot. When we got out of the car, we were blasted with bitterly cold wind and rain. So we made a mad dash around the vista area, briefly beheld the beautiful fog, and then made a frenzied retreat back to the car.

There was only one other car we saw at the top of the mountain, and it was an empty van. I assumed it was just a regularly scheduled tour van for visitors, but my uncle explained that it also makes special runs at night, to make sure that the spirits have a way to get down the mountain. The story definitely reminded me of the cat-bus in My Neighbor Totoro (minus the cat part).

Our next stop was a valley full of lovely calla lilies.

Apparently, they're a major part of the floral industry in Taiwan. I would have loved to buy some, but I felt guilty for taking such pretty flowers when we would just leave them to wilt and die slow, lonely deaths in a stuffy hotel room.

Next up, time for more food! There were vendors selling various fruits and vegetables that were grown in the nearby gardens. My uncles ignored them and led us up a hill instead. Along the path, we saw rows and rows of tiered vegetable gardens:

Finally, near the top of the hill, we saw a disreputable-looking little shack.

But disreputable-looking places, we learned, often have the greatest food. Maybe it's because your expectations are so low when you see the place, or maybe we were just cold and wet and craving something warm. Whatever the reason, this was probably my favorite meal of the trip.

All of the vegetables we ate were grown in the gardens we had just walked past. We had:

• Sweet yam and ginger soup.
• Some exotic tempura mushrooms (shaped like shiitakes, but with a milder taste).
• A vegetable with bright green, thick, slippery leaves in a light sauce.
• Some more garlic-wok'd greens.
  
• Spicy cabbage.

We also had some more drunken chicken, but the soups and vegetables were the stars of the show.

Night in the City

Later in the evening (after we got back to Tianmu and changed into some dryer clothes), my cousins Shuen Shuen and Chian Chian took us to a place like Dave & Buster's, but pleasantly devoid of gangs and other scary people. Or like Chuck E. Cheese's, but pleasantly devoid of screaming brats and animatronic mouse bands. There was a batting cage where Chris pounded some 80 kph pitches, and acquitted himself with reasonable dignity on the 110 kph pitches. There were also pitching cages where you could see how fast you could pitch and how well you could hit certain spots.

It was interesting to see that all the posters and figurines in the baseball area were of Chien-Ming Wang, which I guess makes sense because he's the lone MLB player from Taiwan (that I know of). My cousins explained, "actually we used to hate the Yankees like everyone else, but we've gotta root for Wang Chien-Ming!" (They insisted on calling him "Wang Chien-Ming" which was very confusing to me at first.)

We also played darts, air hockey, and mini-bowling at this place. Fun times:

Now, for the last adventure of the day -- more food! Shuen Shuen took us to a night market on the way back to the Hyatt, and we bought some very unique food:

• Bell cakes. Little yellow bell-shaped cakes, where the cake batter is cooked in something resembling a bell-shaped waffle iron, and injected with some delicious custard in the middle. Mmmmm...so yummy.
• Tempura everything (squid, tofu, chicken, yams, mushrooms, you name it).
• Spicy papaya salad.
• Beef intestines.
• Pork and scallion burgers on steamed buns.
• Pig's blood cake. Black congealed pig's blood on a stick.

Most of this was fun to try, but I must say that I finally met a food I didn't like when I got to the pig's blood cake. Something about the texture was just too weird. Also, the taste. <shudder>

Final note: I described two meals in this blog post. You may be amused to learn that neither of them counted as breakfast, lunch, or dinner. That's right. We had a grand total of five meals.