Hey, dears. Welcome back to Taiwan.

Now, remember that I had no hand in planning this chunk of my trip, so it was not much of a surprise to learn that little was actually planned. If I was traveling by myself, I think this would cause me major stress. Luckily, though, I’ve got Nicholas as tour guide, so I have thrown caution to the wind! I’ll go wherever it takes me! Or wherever the Rubland Brothers take me, for that matter. Sometime on our second day, Nicholas decided we would head south to visit his friend Paul in Chiayi for a couple days. The two met in a physics class at UW and studied computer science together. Paul is from Taiwan, though, and home for the holiday, so we were going to visit him in his home town. Very exciting.

We started the third day of the New Year celebrations with breakfast. (The first day is New Year’s Eve. The second is New Year’s Day; on this day, people are supposed to spend time with their father’s family. The third day is the day to spend time with the mother’s family. Susan from Google told us this.)

Breakfast consisted of danbing, a sort of fried egg omelette thing that was soooooo tasty, and some of the best black tea I’ve ever had. There was also a potted banana tree just casually in the corner.

Then we took the high speed rail down south. Nicholas was worried we would have to stand because only non-reserved seats were available. This meant seats were first-come first-serve, and we weren’t looking forward to being seatless for two hours. Luck won out though!

There was also a meal cart that went down the aisles about halfway through, and I felt like I was on the Hogwarts Express.

It was a few hours before we would meet up with Paul, so we paid a visit to the Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum. This one is much newer than the main branch in Taipei, but we all ended up enjoying this branch much more. It was very well thought out for a nice, educational walk through several layers of Taiwanese culture and history, and the architecture was really cool. The whole building was shaped kind of like a flower petal.

Also, these horse things were there:

My favorite exhibits included the history of tea, textiles, and jade.

The floral exhibit included a cool interactive room filled projector screens that detected movement. We tried to play with it, but little kids kept getting in our way, haha.

There was also a neat temporary exhibit featuring a manga artist’s work.

We got lunch outside at a small market. For me, this meant a mulberry popsicle and a giant thing of Pad Thai that only cost about $1.50. Positively ridiculous. And so delicious.

Then we headed out to Chung Cheng University, where Paul’s family lives. His dad is a professor in Mechanical Engineering!

The buses were pretty hard to figure out, and we eventually realized that we had missed the last one. Even so, the bus route was a milk run, so it would have taken us well over two hours to get to Paul. Instead, we bussed to the nearby high speed rail station and grabbed a taxi. The driver was extremely excited that Nicholas could speak some Chinese, and Nicholas made the brave move to ride in the passenger seat. The ride was over half an hour, and the driver took this opportunity to chat it up. It was super interesting to hear the two talking, watching as they tried to fill in the blanks for Nicholas’s Mandarin and the driver’s English. At one point, the driver explained that he had to take English in high school, and then he added in English, for the backseat to understand: “English, BAD.” He took a hand off the wheel to point dramatically at the ground with his thumb while he shook his head in one vigorous sideways motion. “BAD.”

The driver was a very enthusiastic speaker, and he was animated the whole ride. The only other part of the conversation Jeremy and I were able to follow was when he asked who we were. Nicholas gestured to Jeremy to say they were brothers, and then he nodded in my direction.

“WIFE?!” asked the driver. “No no,” said Nicholas as the car erupted in laughter. Some more mumbled Mandarin from Nicholas, then, “Girlfriend?!” from the driver. Some more “no”s and some more “WIFE”s ensued. All around hilarious. I have a recording of it. Bahahahahaha.

Also, that taxi ride only cost around $20, which I think is 100% worth the two extra hours we would have spent on the bus. Sometimes cars are good.

We parted ways with our driver and dropped our bags off at the guest house of the university. The campus was a ghost town because of the holiday: just us, some stray dogs, and a bunch of giant (pomegranate-sized) fruits that we could not identify.

Paul met us with his entire family (mom, dad, and older brother, Calvin) to take us out for dinner. Can I just say that I adore the Yau family? So sweet and welcoming. We all piled into their van, and off we went into the city. On our way, as the family discussed where they were taking us, Paul asked my favorite question of the night: “Is there any kind of bird you don’t eat?”

With that settled, we arrived shortly at our restaurant. Mama Yau ordered for the whole group, and we awaited in our secluded dining spot as dish upon dish arrived for our feasting pleasure. Coconut curries, udon noodles, fried rice, veggies, greens, beef, the list goes on. And it was all delightful. We barely left anything on the table. And then, Mama Yau surprised me by asking politely, “Well, should we move on to the next spot?”

As we all pushed back our chairs and I tried to hide my surprise, Paul announced happily, “The eating train never stops!”

Our next spot was a dessert and tea shop, and I got some kind of mystery egg dessert that ended up being white cake with cream on top. Delicious.

I slept super well that night. It probably had something to do with the fact that it was the first time I had a room to myself in ten days. And in the morning, I was amused to find how much my hair had expanded in the humidity.

Paul picked us up at 9:30, and of course, our first stop was breakfast. Lots of places were closed, once again, for the New Year, but we managed to find a place Paul used to frequent when he was younger. His family knew the owners, of course. So cute. Our meal consisted of some yummy black tea, more danbing, and some kind of super fluffy sweet toast. Apparently the danbing here was prepared in a more traditional style compared to the ones we had on the previous day, and it was served with what Paul described as “kind of like thick soy sauce.” Paul also had a typical Taiwanese breakfast sandwich, but he did not offer to share this, hahaha. (Don’t worry — we tried some later on.)

The teas all had really bad jokes printed on their lids, and Paul and Nicholas took turns translating these for us. They assured us that the jokes were no funnier in Chinese. Examples included: “Why should you hide in the basement during an air raid?” Answer: “It makes it easier for archeologists in the future.” Also: “When does one and two not equal three?” Answer: “When you’re wrong.”

Cue the drums.

Then a scenic drive through fields of rice and pineapples:

And soon, we arrived at Kumquat Disneyland. This is not the official title, but it is fairly accurate. I’d never even been fully sure what a kumquat looked or tasted like before this day, and I certainly could not have guessed that so many things could be done to make this little fruit into so many different snacks and delicacies.

As we walked in, Paul continually expressed his amazement at how busy the place was. “This is not normal. What is going on? This is insane,” he said to no one in particular. Nicholas hypothesized that everyone was home for the New Year, and it seemed as though everyone lived in Chiayi. Paul didn’t seem satisfied with this answer, as he continued to ask his questions on repeat throughout our visit, all with a big smile on his face.

Not twenty steps into the masses, Paul called out to a woman on a scooter, the only person not on foot. She was the owner, and of course, Paul’s family is friends with them, too. Seems Paul is the big man in Chiayi, hahaha. She went away for a minute and returned with kumquat-flavored iron eggs (look it up, dude) and tofu. Crazy stuff. Like I said, apparently you can get pretty creative with kumquats.

The main factory and tourist buildings were surrounded by pretty gardens and ponds. Paul explained that it was pretty common for locals to bring their kids here just to hang out and grab a few snacks, like a community park.

Apparently these things are called breadfruit:

We also explored the tourist building and some areas of the factory that were open for viewing.

And then we explored the gift shop, of course.

Here’s us snacking on kumquat iron eggs, kumquat tofu, kumquat jelly, kumquat flan, and kumquat juice. These people do not mess around with their kumquats.

Then I made the mistake of asking Nicholas to take a picture of me.

*sigh…* It was really hot by this point, over eighty degrees, so we decided to take a minute to cool off at Paul’s house with some Switch games.

Even as we entered the house, both Calvin and Mama Yau asked if we had had lunch yet. The whole time we were playing games, it felt like we were eating into our lunch time. No surprise, then, that lunch was next.

Lunch consisted of pork buns, sticky rice, radish cake, potstickers, and soup. Oh, and more tea, of course.

Here’s a nearby Starbucks that may seem like an ordinary Starbucks but is, in fact, somewhat of a tourist destination due to its flashy triangle roof. As we walked past it, we had to maneuver around several groups of people posing for pictures. #SeattlePride.

Next was Pineapple Hill! This was the actual name of this place, unlike Kumquat Disneyland. We were greeted by crates and crates of fresh pineapples being sliced on the spot into to-go cups, and I remarked that I had never seen a non-perfect pineapple before. Notably, there was one with a big hole missing from the side, and there was a whole crate filled with pineapples shaped like watermelon slices!

Pineapple Hill was a little less novelty-filled than Kumquat Disneyland, but we were still able to try pineapple ice cream, pineapple juice, and pineapple vinegar. We also had a great view of the pineapple fields.

Then back to Paul’s house for some more Mario Kart (and some napping, on my part), before heading out for dinner. Paul had originally wanted to head out a lot earlier, but we were all tired and hot, so we were moving a bit slower than planned. Because of this, and because of the added New Year crowds, our wait for our restaurant ended up being preposterous. We took a number (541) and were astounded to see on the overhead counter that the current table number being seated was 374. It was like we were at the DMV, except we were surrounded by Mandarin and gift shops and food stalls instead of tiled floors and plastic chairs and bureaucrats. Oh, I forgot to mention that our restaurant was conveniently located in a night market, so we had no problem dilly dallying for the next two hours as the table numbers crept up and up and up.

Finally, the numbers reached the 500s, and we awaited our turn eagerly on the sidelines. The restaurant was called Smart Fish (HIGHLY RECOMMEND), and they are famous for their seafood soup.

Dudes. This soup was insane.

Four young men in their twenties stood at the front of the restaurant, facing the open street, as they performed a carefully choreographed dance in front of three of the largest pots I have ever seen. Of course, it seemed that only they could understand their wild dance, because it made absolutely no sense to the rest of us. They used medium-sized sauce pans (the kind you might boil a box of noodles in) as ladles to shuffle the soup from the middle pot to the one on the right. Then one boy would stir the pot on the left and dish up a few giant bowls of soup while another stood at the pot on the right, filling up plastic bags with soup and tying them closed with pieces of balloon ribbon. Next, they would scoop soup from the right pot and move it back to the middle! It made no sense. This crazy dance continued in an endless flurry of motion, moving soup from one pot to another and back again, adding giant bags of raw meat and eyeballed scoops of seasonings willy-nilly.

At one point, a boy dumped so much of a new ingredient into the pot on the right that some sloshed over the edge and onto the street, coating my calves in its salty goodness. I took this as my cue to take an extra step back. Not two seconds later, the boy splashed himself as he attempted to stir the too-full pot. He looked up at me, still stirring, and yelled, “SOOOOOO FISH!”

Great moment. Great moment.

And in case you were wondering, it was worth the wait. I swear, every time I think about that soup now, I start to salivate. I CRAVE THE FISH.

We only got one small bowl of soup to share because you can get endless refills on the broth (seriously, so tasty I cannot describe), and because we each got a bowl of Chaiyi’s famous braised turkey over rice. Also so delicious.

Ugh. I miss that soup like you wouldn’t believe. I miss that soup like I miss my boyfriend.

Okay, it’s a little different, but it aches just the same.

Did I sleep as well the second night? Of course not; I was too busy thinking about the soup! And I also stayed up until four again to work on the blog. The Rubland Brothers just pack these days so tightly that it’s the only time I can get some alone time with the internet.

Our last day in Chiayi began with a tour of the University campus.

Unrelated, but below is a fun bug bite I sustained sometime the night before. It somehow managed to transform the whole shape of my arm.

Then we did some breakfasting, which consisted of soup dumplings, shumai, and pickled veggies. So yummy, and these soup dumplings were about a tenth of the cost of Din Tai Fung in Seattle.

Oh, we also stopped at a KFC drive-thru to pick up some “life-changing” egg tarts. Yes, you heard that right. KFC sells egg tarts in Taiwan. They were delicious.

Also, I wanted to demonstrate something that is mind-bogglingly common here:

Three people on a scooter. One is a baby. Sometimes one is a dog. Sometimes there is a dog and a baby. It is madness. Utter madness.

Then we went into downtown Chiayi and did some shopping/ tea drinking/ exploring. A very cute little area.

Is it just me, or does this stroller look exactly like a kumquat with a face??? Kumquat Disneyland is messing with my brain.

Lots of pretty things to look at here!

And there were these crazy fluff flowers. I took pictures of three life-stages: Closed-Up Grape Mode, Maximum Fluff, and Wilty Dead String Floss.

There was also a Japanese restaurant that required diners to remove their shoes before entering.

And a couple other sights, below. We caught a glimpse of a ripped Taiwanese man doing handstands on a stack of chairs, but I couldn’t get close enough to get a very good picture.

Then it was time for the goodbyes. (Not for long, though. Paul is on the same flight back with the Rubland Brothers.) Paul dropped us off at the train station, and we waited the long wait for a standing-room only train. There wasn’t even room for us to fit on the first one, but we eventually made it on, and I decided to use my backpack as a chair. This put my face at butt-level, as you can see. Life is all about give and take.

Back to Taipei, we go! (And to bed, finally, I go.)

一切安好/ yi qie an hao/ best wishes,
-Lizzy-wa