Since I've been in Taiwan I've tried quite a few different kinds of interesting foods and drinks.
Here are a few of the things I've tried. And yes, every picture you see is something that I have at least tried.
This is done guo cha, or wintermelon tea. It's not real tea so it's fine to drink, and it's very good. They say that wintermelon tea actually can help you not get heat stroke on a very hot day.
A tower of steamer container things to cook bow zi. There isn't an english name for bow zi. It is one of my favorite things to eat for breakfast. This particular bow zi stand is kind of famous in Hualien because it's only $5 for one bow zi. (That is around 15 cents in US money)
This is simply bread, but it is very good. It starts with an M, but I dont remember the name of it.
My attempt at making curry. I dont cook very often. I guess now you can see why.
This was after I got home from going to the night market for the first time. I got fresh fruit and smoothies. The juice stand where I got the smoothie gave me a melon smoothie for free, and maybe that's why I love going to that one so much. The orange looking fruit is mango. That is my favorite fruit in Hualien.
One of the preschooler's dad owns a hot dog restuarant. They serve hot dogs from different places in the world. I think this one was italien.
These are popular during the moon festival which was in September. I didn't really like them.
I went with the sisters on their P-day to get lunch with them a few weeks ago. Interesting story, the lady at this restuarant said she would give us the food for a discounted price, and then when it was time to pay she wanted the full price from us. I guess that is one way of doing business. Needless to say, I probably wont be going back there.
This a pretty popular here. They are too sweet for me. It's tomato covered in pretty much just plain sugar.
I tried this oyster while I was on Penhu Island the first week I was in Taiwan. We were fishing, and after trying a little bit of the oyster, I put the rest on the hook. I snagged some fish after that, but didn't fully catch anything.
This was also on Penhu Island. I was still paranoid about eating the meat then, so I got creative with the bits of meat, fish and strimp that were in my fried rice.
I was hungry and ate half of this while riding my bike before I thought of taking a picture. It's called tong yo bing, which translates to onion oil cake. It's really good.
This had some bean stuff inside. Interesting fact about Taiwan: they consider beans to be a yummy desert.
I learned about these my first week in Taiwan. They are called litchi, but are not my favorite fruit here. They are kind of a clear white inside with one big black seed.
Passion fruit! It's good, but the seeds are kind of sour when you crunch into them and it's a little bit of a shock until you get used to it. I didn't get used to it.
My own creation. Cereal with raisins and bananas! I have to try something a little American every once and a while.
This is also done guo cha, but there is milk too, and the little colored things are chewy.
I don't know how they got this, but at one of the branch FHE's they had this bit of hive with honey and bees that were still alive in it. The yellow bowl has the bees that they picked out of the hive to get to the honey.
I don't remember what this is called, but people really like it here. I think it's ok.
Barley tea. Again, it's ok to drink because it doesn't come from tea leaves.
Hole Long Guo! (I think I spelled it wrong, but that's how it sounds to me) It means fire dragon fruit, and it's one of my favorite fruits here.
I went to a restuarant just today and they had raw fish. I dont know why but I tried it. It tasted ok, but my mind couldn't get used to the idea of eating raw fish so I didn't finish it.
These are kind of like big fried dumplings in a box. Very tasty.
Look closely and see if you can guess what these are. Did you count 8 legs? Yup, I ate one of these too. It was interesting.
The yellow thing tastes kind of like fish fries.
There is a pretty big mall in Hualien called the amart. I like to go there to get grocerys. A few weeks ago I went with the Chu's and we had dinner. It was a lot of food!
This was at a RS birthday party celebration. A lot of times people bring their own bowls and chopsticks to things that involve food. The church has bowls and chopsticks which is lucky for me because I always forget to bring my own.
Greg is holding up a very salty baked fish. Once you got past the salt the fish part was pretty good.
I think the funnest part about eating this is using a toothpick to get the snail out of it's shell. I had this today at the restuarant too. After I ate it, I kind of just sat there looking a the empty shell and wondered why I just ate that. hmm...
Bananas here are amazing. This little banana kind of tasts like the little bananas in a runts candy pack.
This is fried shrimp drenched with mayonaise.
Ok, so if you might have noticed, none of these pictures are really in order. This goes back to Penhu Island also. It's a cactus, and I ate some of it. When the cactus turns purple, you can eat it like fruit and amazingly it actually tastes like it could be fruit.
A clam or oyster, I don't really know which is which. But I did learn that if it's closed, you shouldn't eat it because it's not fresh or died in some unhealthy way. This one was open so I ate it, and it was very salty.
Here's some bean soup desert. It's actually really good!
Fruit is also served for desert a lot of times. Especially watermelon.
This is a rice hamburger.
This is what my fridge looks like at the moment. The top shelf is mine.
Believe it or not, this is actually ice cream. The weird looking brown flaky stuff is peanut butter shavings. And the green is cilantro. I guess it kind of looks like an ice cream burrito.
On Penhu Island again. After we practiced our fishing skills, we BBQed some fish.
This is very close to my house. Over the months as I bike past I saw it start out as like a little lake, and then they started to grow. I probably eat this more than any other food here in Hualien. If you haven't guessed yet, this is a rice field that is almost ready to be harvested.
