2013 Taiwan Trip Day 5 (Shilin Night Market)

If only it were a bit colder here in the Philippines, our weather could accommodate the sale of candied fruits!!! This is a common thing in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan wherein they’d form fruit kebabs then dip them into a syrup that will harden into a sugar shell afterwards. In some places, to keep the sticky fruit from sticking onto anything or anyone, they would wrap edible rice paper (like the one in the White Rabbit candies) around the fruit!

But well, this isn’t really fruit… It’s cherry tomato with a small slice of plum. It tastes good, but it’s shocking to the tongue as the tomato is really sour and that with every bite a lot of tomato juice spews out…

This is our fifth day in Taiwan, with the highlight being our visit to Shilin Night market.

Taiwan is known for all their snacks, and this happens to be a popular store for giant slabs of fried chicken. They then sprinkle their special pepper onto the chicken, making it really tender, juicy, and above all, tasty.

The line to this store is quite long, and since there have been a lot of people cutting in line, they now have a receptionist who hands out plastic bags to customers. Only those who have plastic bags will be entertained, and those without bags will be assumed to have cut in line.

And can you see how big those slices are? Om nom nommmm

Inside the market are lots of interesting stuff. Care for a warmth pack?

It’s also very common to see stores selling pineapple cake and other Taiwanese biscuits and sweets. As far as I know Taiwan is known not only for their pineapple pastries but their cookies and biscuits in general. My mom would tell me that when she was a little girl, her fond childhood memories were when her grandmother would buy cookies for her in Taiwan, and that great grandma would buy super large tin cans and jars of cookies for her that she could not finish everything!

And as is with my previous posts, duck fever is in Taiwan and there are ducks everywhere. Even parlor games involve duck plushies…

They even have a fish catching game, although the kids playing seem to have no luck in getting fish. I remember seeing a documentary on this a long time ago, and they interviewed a Japanese champion who shared that you need to eye on calm and small fish, and take them as gently as possible or else they’d jump and panic and end up tearing the paper net. There is indeed a whole string of skills associated with this simple game.

This is another source of long lines– a store selling pan fried siopao. Since this is already a very common dish in the Philippines I no longer bothered to fall in line for this dish.

The stinky tofu was stinky, but not as pungent as what I had in mind… Although you’d already be able to smell the odor even ten meters away. It kind of smells like socks but doesn’t, it’s got a smell of its own but at least when the tofu is fried the pungent smell is masked by all the oil.

And I know this is so random, but I just had to take a photo of this extremely cute and chubby cat who was being taken around town by his/her owner! The cutest part was that he/she was in a purely wire cage (unlike those pet carrier boxes where the pet can only see the world through the door) that this cat seems to be having a great time as well.

There’s also a healthy supply of Duffy merchandise here, and this uber cute iPhone case with ducks and an illustration of Taipei 101 behind them! The case was so cute I bought it for my dad who stayed in the hotel virtually the whole time due to his extreme case of cough…

Look at all those Duffy plushies!!!

This is also where we got pasalubongs for the babies we owe gifts to! I got a duck design pyjama set for the daughter of a friend and an angel wing pyjama set for the daughter of mama’s inaanak sa kasal.

I wanted to get dresses for the babies, but due to it being wintertime in Taiwan, all the stuff are long sleeved and made of wool and fleece– the babies will not feel comfy wearing these things here in the Philippines hahaha…

Another thing I noticed is that a lot of store owners have pets to lure more people into the store… even when the items they sell have nothing to do with pets…

And yes I cannot reiterate enough that Taiwan has a duck fever right now…

Another amusing thing is that the Shilin temple is situated right in the middle of all the hustle and bustle… It’s also amusing that it’s open even at night, which is not the case with most temples here in the Philippines…