Dinner and Night Markets

Tonight we were taken out to dinner by some of John's works connections here in Taiwan, it was a really fabulous meal, we were seated in a small private dinning room and our hosts choose all the food.  Which can be a little worrying but at the same time I believe that when you are the guest in another's country its the tradition to allow the host to choose.

Everything was delicious, we had Pork thigh, we had chicken, vegetables (which I love in China they are always fresh and always always full of flavour), there was bamboo, Tofu soup, Taiwanese pizza and dessert of watermelon and date pizza.  All fabulous!!

We then headed for the night markets, and that was where we finally really got to see some of the traditional Taiwan, there were stalls selling all kinds of weird and wonderful foods, that smelt either fabulous or I am not kidding like actual shit.  There were iphone covers, dog outfits, clothes, watches, fans, chopsticks, you name it they had it.

Dogs - now lets talk about dogs, as with most 'westerners' that they eat dog, everyone in the market had dogs, and they clearly love their dogs.  They had fans on their dogs to ensure they kept cool, they were all well groomed, all either held or were being played with.  So I am thinking perhaps we think they eat dog and perhaps they actually don't its probably just one of those urban myths.

Having said that, have not seen a Cat here, well until tonight when at the market we saw a couple of kittens in cages for sale, I asked one of our hosts tell me they are pets and he just looked at me, I took it that he didn't understand, as they were very cute kittens and reminded me of my two beautiful boys at home whom I miss so very much.

We brought a coke each tonight, as it was hot, like stinking hot and sticky, the coke was in a glass coke bottle, you know the ones that cost you like $4 in Australia per bottle here they are about 65c each.  Go figure.

At the end of the market is a temple and we went in and had a look around it was very beautiful.  The funniest thing was when we came out there were people scratching scratchies and both Leanne and I laughed at this until John pointed out one of the traditions in the temple is to ask for things and they had probably asked for wealth, which in a country like this I understand. 

I adored these markets and had a wonderful evening.  Tomorrow we head back to Shanghai so the facebook firewall hits and this will be my way of communication.

Until I blog again, goodnight and peace and happiness to you all.