Taiwan Part One - Qijin

When one thinks of Taiwan, I'm pretty sure that one of the places that is a MUST for visiting would be it's famous night markets. Scattered in many different areas around Taiwan, the night markets are like a small food heaven for both tourists and locals. First off, I'll introduce a new night market that I've never managed to visit before in my life. This night market pretty much specializes in seafood, with endless amounts of seafood stalls and larges restaurants dotted along the streets. This seafood heaven is located in Qijin, off the coast of Kaohsiung. 

 Taking the ferry from Kaohsiung to Qijin

Honestly, I've never been much of a fan of seafood (hello allergies) but the seafood in this place was so fresh, I couldn't smell any of the nasty smells that usually come with seafood. I mean really, night market + seafood = unfresh stuff. But never was I so wrong. Let's just let the pictures prove the freshness heh :)

Grilled Oysters

(By the way, most of these pictures were taken to invoke jealousy from my elder brothers. Are you guys seeing this? Heh)

The sea of oysters :s

Apparently, oysters usually have this super uber fishy smell that so off putting for me. Plus the slimy appearance and stuff, it's particularly ew for me. BUT! I actually stood infront of this stall (shown above) that laid out endless amounts of fresh uncooked oysters. The smell as I stood in front wasn't fishy or anything. There was actually quite a nice aroma coming from it, like eating cooked oysters instead. Or oysters as sashimi. I don't know. I can't explain it but it was mind boggling. I kept asking if they were cooked or not because in my experience, oysters never smelled that nice. :s 

 One of the many seafood stalls

Grilling Shrimp

It was actually pretty funny walking around this night market simply because everywhere you looked, there were people walking around, stuffing their faces with sticks of large seafood. And there were kids chomping away on seafood that were bigger than their faces. I mean really, do you see the size of the squid on that kebab stick? or the crab pinchers? :s But what really beat them all were this:

Fried Octopus. Seriously. They WERE HUGE. They were like more than 30 cm long. I don't think I could ever finish eating that alone :s I saw a few kids walking around with one each though :s

Fried dough bun(?) with oyster

This wraps up day one of night market eating at Qijin. I would definitely recommend this place as a must visit when you're in Taiwan. What's also special about this place is that it kept a bit of its Japanese history. As I walked through the night market, you can see signs that are still written in Japanese character-like strokes and I even saw a shop that still sold hand-made Japanese sandals. I was so tempted to buy a pair! But that would make my luggage overweight T-T They also made a lot of super cute ones for kids heehee

Oh! And one last thing. I heard about this fad going around Taiwan a looooong time ago. The Toilet Restaurant. Serious. TOILET. Apparently, they served food in a bowl shaped like a toilet bowl *smacks forehead*. While I was walking through the night market, I saw this:

And on closer inspection...I SAW THIS:

An Ice cream placed ontop of a plastic cone shaped like a toilet bowl. WOW. Then the shop's sign read: 鮮拉冰淇淋 (Xiān lā bīngqílín). Though it shouldn't be weird, the toilet bowl design gave the sign a totally new meaning. In chinese, 拉肚子 (Lādùzi) means "loose bowels". In general, the sign pretty much means "Freshly pooped ice cream" :s Awkward.

The Taiwanese and their creativity just astounds me. Being part Taiwanese, I kind of wonder where my share of creativity went HAHA

More posts to come! <3

Love,

Natalie