The Night Markets

If there is one thing and one place you must visit during your stay in Taiwan is the night Market. Let’s get something straight, something that everybody kept telling me and I kept reading in blogs and articles and refused to believe myself, but it is very true; Taiwanese Night Markets are a lot to take in for the newcomer. What can I tell you, they are busy, packed, noisy and in a simple explanation a fucking overload for all your senses. You will immediately notice the amount of people, the brightness and colorfulness of all the stalls, the pungent smells (both good and bad), music and people shouting, and the lack of personal space. But come on, you came here to experience everything, so, now that you have overcome the smells and personal space issue (which in my case were the hardest thing, because noise and lights are alright in my book), take a deep fucking breath and just dive in this fantastic ocean of new things and possibilities.

The parking lot of a Night Market 

Stinky Tofu

There are many things that are considered staples of the Taiwanese gastronomy like the Beef Noodle Soup, the One Thousand Year Old Eggs, the Tea Eggs and the Bubble Tea, but Stinky Tofu is, no questions asked, THE food to eat when you come to this Island.

You have probably heard the stories already, so I will start this post with two confessions:

1. I love Stinky Tofu, well, depending on how it is prepared.
2. I didn't like it at first.

First Preparation.

Minoru's Diary in Taiwan: The Day to Day Life

Tainan is a very peaceful and easy going place. The locals find it big, noisy and fast paced, but, to be honest, it is nothing like that. If you are used to the buzz of a big city, Tainan will be one of those places where you can just retire and relax.

Yes, there are a lot of scooters and some traffic, but that is only around rush hour (i.e. 8 a.m. or 6 p.m.)  and yes, there is quite a lot of pollution in the air. But there is something about the place that makes it seem, for lack of a better word, peaceful. Maybe is the fact that after 8 p.m. there is little to no traffic, after 10 p.m. there is little to no people outside.

You can always find people around fishing, immersed in their own thoughts.

Fisherman

Slippers & Geta; the rise and fall of a style.

Silly me, when I arrived in Taiwan after being in Spain and the UK for the most part of the winter, I was wearing a Coat, a Vest, a Scarf, Gloves and my trusty Doc Martens… The moment I step down the plane, I immediately thought: - Fuck! Oh yeah! It’s a tropical Island. So I took off my coat and gloves. One minute later the heat was crazy, I took off the vest. By the time I was leaving my shit at the hotel I was fucking sweating my soul  out.

So, yes, I needed to ditch my Doc Martens in order to get something that would help cope the heat that will only get worse and worse as summer approaches. 

So I heard about this place with the colourful slippers I've seen a lot of the locals wear everywhere. Apparently at some point when plastic started being popular around these parts of the world there was a company making the Iconic Blue and White plastic flip-flops many locals can recognise as something everybody has worn at some point in their lives. A few years ago, this same company started producing many different colourful variations of the same flip-flops, and they were a hit, so I thought: -Let's get myself some of them slippers!

They are sturdy, comfortable and indeed, very fucking colourful, and the best part? Well that's got to be the price, you will leave the establishment with a  shinny pair of new slippers and it will only set you back 100 NTD, oh yeah, around 2.5 EUR.

The Plastic Slippers

The Anping Tree House

I must admit that this is not the most exciting place in Tainan, but it is, indeed, a very interesting place worth visiting.

First we need to talk about Banyan trees, they are revered in Asian cultures, they are a symbol of perseverance, immortality and the gift of shelter provided by the gods, for some the branches represent bad energies and are usually associated to haunted places (oh the duality of life!). And I am not surprised at all, these trees start their life as a parasite of other plants, and as they grow bigger they become a tree by themselves (much like human beings), they can continue growing for centuries and cover large areas, they give a lot of shade, which let me tell you, in this subtropical weather is a godsend, and to be perfectly honest, the views from inside are a bit creepy. 

The drill is as usual in the touristic places here in Tainan, you go to the counter, purchase your ticket (30 NTD) and get your ass inside, there will be people at the entrance checking that you are not trying to a smart-ass.  

The Banyan Tree