first night we got in, California Grill hamburgers! i had the 'mo-fo' burger....yum!
next morning, we headed out to Kenting (the dead south of taiwan). emily is taking in the ocean view from our hotel room.
and behind our hotel was the entrance to the national park with Point Mountain in the background.
never know when you'll need a "stonker-donker"
watching the sunset and having a beer
off to the street vendors!goose head anyone???
or some hello kitty wine?
devin and his new friends
'ecstasy family' eh? yikes
xiaolong bao：小籠包 (small steamed bao with soup inside) yum!
tea eggs...nah, i don't think so
morning view
check out the beach pigs
apparently, poop on a stick is considered food too.
after emily and devin went back up to taipei, catherine and i stayed another night. we went to another -more secluded and more beautiful- white sandy beach called Baisha-wan (白沙灣, literally meaning white sand). i saw about a dozen different kinds of tropical fish!
HELLO! our new friend who decided to park by our spot
catherine tempted by the warm water
really awesome beach!
catherine got scared by the fish coming too close
this was an interested point in our travel. after we left the beach hotel, we went to a convenience store to try and arrange a taxi to the Baishawan beach. first the clerk said she could help, but then lost confidence. then a random lady pulled us outside and had her husband who spoke english help. then another random guy who became our taxi stepped into the conversation too. we had agreed to meet at a certain time with him after our fun at Baishwan. he never showed, and the lady who runs the tea stand behind catherine doesn't speak a word of english.
so we waited, and waited. ate some pretty fishy noodles. waited. then a tour bus shows up, the tea lady asks any one who can speak english to help. about 15 people swarm us. they talk a lot, then a random taxi with 4 other people inside already shows up and takes us away. 2 hours later, we're at the bullet train. 
when we got back to taipei emily and devin took us to the nearby Raohe Night Market: 饒河夜市
and we ate Fried Bao（Jian Bao) 煎包
then we ate 蔥三角餅 cong sanjiaobing (green onion bread)
then we had congzhuabing jia-dan 蔥抓餅加蛋 (green onion pancake with egg)
then we ate wax apples (lian-wu)蓮霧
the temple at the end of the market
awesome Banyan trees throughout taipei. along with the palm trees too!
girl riding around offering a bite of some fish stick.
make sure you always carry your buddha, incense sticks, and a bowl of noodles. he did not look happy with the bird lady (see video below).
Lungshan Temple
I love these kinds of buildings. this were some of the first buildings made during the Japanese Occupation. They turned most of this quarter into museums or shops.
and left some of the traditional signs up too. if you just need some deer antler (or even penis) you just gotta have it!
the new poster boy for Asahi Super Dry!
National Taiwan Museum
love the architecture
vinegar noodles：烏醋麵
yum!and the tiger noodles (辣虎麵) are just as good
we got crazy and tried some betel nut. something you chew and gives you a rush of energy like rock star or even chewing tobacco. 
up close.first take 3-4
chew em up real good
split the first amount out. yuck!
and get crazy!
new year's eve, let's start out with some Japanese Yakiniku (fried meat)
the streets were packed leading up to the 101 tower (was still the tallest completed building at that time...thanks dubai)you can see the video of it down below. listen towards the end, we never realized it was already midnight
going up...?
afterwards we smoked our cigars and drank some more
next day we set out to the mountains so we could recover our bones from the night before. the transfer point was in devin's old neighborhood Xin Dian City.
he lived in a tower right next to this beautiful river
we get to beautiful Wulai (烏來) and start seeing mysterious native signs
so why not have some taiwanese cheetos
beautiful
just beautiful
they also had some wild boar meat there. yum!
that night (our last night) we went to Ximen, where they turned an old Japanese theater house (the Red Theater) into shops and a bar quarter.
catherine got a chance to meet up with her old friend Gilbert who studied in Texas many years ago. the last time she saw him was 9 years ago on her very first trip to Asia.
nasty devin
the Red Theater
coffee and a bloody mary. that's some hair of the dog and a pick me up.
devin took us to his favorite breakfast restaurant called "The Diner." it was so good that if it was in the US i would still go every chance i got!
and then we get back to Seoul with it's biggest snow fall in over 40 years, and a frozen over boiler. this is looking out my window. the buses couldn't make it up into campus so herds of people were climbing up through the thick snow.
ah well, bye bye warm taiwan!
