Day 7! Free Day!!!

Saturday, July 14th!! 


While most the group members went hiking, I decided to catch up with Cindy, one of the Taiwanese girls who had previously came to USC for the exchange program. We left for breakfast at 8:30am in order to go to this famous Taiwanese style breakfast place near Shandao Temple.

 Shandao Temple!! So beautiful!

 Long Line to get in!! Waited almost 30 minutes!

 mmm!!! Best breakfast ever! Dou Jiang, sao bing you tiao, hou bing with egg!!

The breakfast was so much better than Young He Dou Jiang!!!

阜杭豆漿

2樓之28

No. 108號, Section 1, Zhōngxiào East Road, Jhongjheng District, Taipei City, Taiwan 100

02-2392-2175

For lunch, we tried out a Japanese style, udon noodle place near Howard Hotel!! The place was called Dosan Kanroku Sanuki Udon! This noodle place is also very famous because the owner came from Japan and still practices the art of handmade udon noodles!!! The noodles were very QQ (Taiwanese slang for chewy) and the side agedashi tofu that we ordered was very flavorful and silky!!!

土三寒六讚歧烏龍麵 Dosan Kanroku Sanuki Udon
大安区復兴南路一段126巷6号
No. 6, Lane 126, Fuxing South Road Sec 1, Da-an District
Opening hours: Mon - Fri 1130 – 1430; 1700 - 2100 No credit cards. No service charge.
Transportation: 捷運忠孝復興站1号出口，往北
MRT Zhongxiao Fuxing Station Exit 1

 What I ordered: Cold udon noodles with cod roe, Parmesan cheese, crumbled fish cake (i think), raw egg, and scallions. Sounds unappetizing.. but it was really good!!! 

 Mix it all up!! 

Cindy ordered a shrimp tempura + fish cake hot udon noodle soup!! So good!

When we headed back to the hotel, it was starting to get a bit gloomy outside. It looks like I was about to experience my first rain in Taiwan!!!! (Well at least for this trip!) Braving the weather, a group of us decided to hit the Jade Market to buy some goodies!! While I didn't get anything, it was really interesting to see all the jade items being sold there! It made me wonder how much of the merchandise was "real" jade!!!

After the jade market, we went to karaoke at Party World near Zhongxiao Fuxing!!! Ahh so much fun! It is surprising to find a culture so in love with karaoke! The food was great the karaoke place too! Those chicken wings... drool!! Such a fun way to celebrate the end of a long week with my fellow friends! 

Day 6! A lovely day in Tamsui!!

Today was our trip to Tamsui, one of the major ports in Taiwan! This is my third time visiting Tamsui, but it is the only time I have seen Tamsui without a typhoon present! Thus, I finally got to enjoy the beautiful scenery! 

At Tamsui, we met up with Lisa, her friend, and some of the Taiwan girls who had previously visited USC!!!! When we first arrived, Patty and I decided to buy some iron eggs to share with the group. Iron eggs are dehydrated eggs that had been marinated in soy sauce. The end result is a small, hard, chewy black egg with a gummy like consistency. Iron eggs have always been one of my favorite snacks so it was fun sharing it with other people! 


In Tamsui, we went to La Cuisine (香料廚房) for a very delicious lunch! I ordered the set meal which came with amuse bouche (sparkling fruit wine), corn soup, salad, entree (braised pork knuckle), dessert, and milk tea! The portions were pretty generous and the food was great!

Later on, we walked around Tamsui and ate some super tall ice cream! I had this last time I came to Tamsui, but I didn't expect the ice cream to be as tall as it was!

The ice cream melted very fast and was very mild- more like an ice slush!! 

To my dismay, we then boarded a small boat in order to cross to the pier! Personally, I get extremely seasick, especially on small motor boats.... and this one was no exception!! The entire ride was bumpy and miserable, but I guess it was a memorable experience!

At least I was able to force a smile before the boat rapidly took off!!! 


I must say though, the pier was very beautiful and may have even been worth the awful boat ride there!!

After some epic picture taking on the pier, we took the bus back to the other side! Before we left, we decided to try the Tamsui specialty food- Ah-gei!!! I've had this dish before and remembered it to be both delicious and filling!!! The ah-gei that we tried this time did not disappoint!! The outer tofu skin was nice and chewy, but not overly rough! The vermicelli inside was pretty flavorful and the fish cake holding the ball of goodness all together was very mild and soft. Overall, this was a pretty good ah-gei! I would have expected no less since the place we went to seemed to be the most popular ah-gei shop around!!

Before we left Tamsui, we turned to see the sunset- the perfect end to a beautiful day!

As we hopped back on the MRT, heading back to Taipei, I took one last look at the setting sunset and felt all the stress and tiredness from the past few days slowly lift off my shoulders! What a nice way to end the work week! 

After we went home, I met up with Michelle, one of my friends from USC! While everyone decided to get some Momo paradise for dinner, I wandered around the Zhongxiao Fuxing area and shopped a little bit. I even got to try some of the original Ten Ren tea!! (Though it was quite disappointing...) 

We ended our night by trying out some Taiwan nightlife!! Woot woot! Details will not be posted... but it was  definitely quite the experience! 

Day 5!

Today we met at 11:30am and went to TMU. On the way, our taxi driver got lost and drove us by NTU before realizing that he was at the wrong hospital. In the end, we made it to TMU but our taxi fare was almost 30 NT more than usual! When we arrived, we ate lunch in the hospital cafeteria, which was buffet style. I got the 5 grain rice with wintermelon, mapo tofu, Taiwanese A vegetables, and a chicken drumstick. The food was very tasty and looked pretty healthy as well! During our break, before class, I went to WuXing Market and bought a UV umbrella from one of the everyday goods shop for 30 NT. For our class, we learned about a medical mission to Swaziland from Dr. Shih. He was a very humorous man who gave us a very interesting presentation on his trip to Swaziland. 


We then went for a tour of TMU! This was definitely a highlight of the day!!! First stop, we got to see the Traditional Medicine section of the hospital. There, we were introduced to Dr. Lin, who performed acupuncture on both Neema and James. It was extremely interesting to learn that Chinese medicine doctors had to learn Western biomedicine before pursuing Eastern, Chinese medicine. It was also interesting to learn about the various herbs that the hospital and pharmacy sold!! Personally, I have always been interested in learning more about Chinese herbal medication and being able to see all the different herbs was both intriguing and exciting! 

We then got to see the weight management department of the hospital. It was extremely shocking to learn that overweight and obesity are becoming major problems in Taiwan society. I have always thought that these problems were more exclusive to the U.S and China. However, we learned that many Taiwanese are getting more and more obese, causing hospitals to start weight management departments.   The weight management departments offered diet plans, exercise rooms, and also gave the patients opportunities to choose certain operations, such as the lap band!


Moving on, we got to see the VIP wards of the hospital. It was interesting to see that in a country with national health care, there were still some aspects of unequal care. In this case, if you had money, you could pay for more comfort and bigger rooms in the VIP ward. This experience showed me a whole different side of Taiwan health care in a sense that those with money could still pay for better care, while those without money had to settle for equal, lesser care. 


Overall, the hospital tour was very enlightening because not only did we get to see different parts of the hospital, we also learned about the different problems Taiwan healthcare and society have to deal with. For example, we learned that doctors are no longer specializing because of the high number of malpractice suits and the comparatively low salaries. Thus, hospitals are struggling to find doctors for their ob/gyn departments. However, Taiwan's fertility rate is extremely low; thus, not too many ob/gyn doctors are needed since not many babies are born!!  


After the hospital, a few of us hit up the Hello Kitty Sweets Cafe. Let's just say... I was in heaven! I'll let the pictures do the talking!

Hello Kitty Love!!