Exploring Hsinchu

Well today was chalk full of Hsinchu adventures. Japie, Emma and I got a tour of Hsinchu county by Japie's landlord Michael. He is such a nice man, and spent the entire day today driving us around and showing us some of the hidden places that foriegners just don't know about, or have no idea how to get to.

The first place we went to is a buddist monk temple that is pretty close to my house. It's beside the "Green Grass Lake", really there's like no water left, so it's a big hole full of a little water and really tall grass. Very green and pretty. That's where I took the picture of the gold pagota.

The next place we went to is a temple/garden thing that was full of statues and random beautiful things. When we got out of the car we were surprised by a pig hanging out in the parking lot, a little random. He seemed to really like Japie and gave him a big wet pig kiss on his leg. There we saw a giant statue of a famous warrior guy giving the thumbs up, sitting on a leopard print blanket. There were also some egyptian statues as well as a statue of nepoleon, also random but very fun (yeah I made everyone pose like dorks, but really those are always the best pics).

After that we headed to the science park to check out a couple of pretty lakes. The science park is a like a mini city inside Hsinchu where a bunch of engineers work. It's the reason why I have a job here because all of engineers have money and growing families. The first lake was really beautiful and full of turtles. I tried to take a picture of them but it looked like water with a black small blob, so sorry no turtle pics. But it was fricking full of them, and tiny little bright green baby ones too, so cute. The second lake was full of coy fish. I thought of Chris when I saw them, and his pond in his back yard.

Next we went to the ocean to a giant sea food market for lunch. Michael ordered for all of us, and he chose some interesting choices. We ate a giant white fish that tasted like cod, grilled tuna, oyster soup, tiny stir-fried shrimp (still with their head, shells and tails) and a sea cucumber and veggie dish. Like I said in my last post. Sea cucumber is not bad, this time I had it I really liked the sauce they cooked it with. Now the tiny shrimp things were gross. It was like eating stir-fried shrimp shells, mmm.

After that Japie made us go around a little lake in giant swan boats. It turned out to be pretty fun actually. And since it was his idea, we all made him pay... As we were leaving I finally had the opportunity to take a pic of a truly Taiwanese phenomenon, big dogs on a scooter. It's seriously stressful when you're driving and you see these big ass dogs on the foot of someones scooter. Only in Taiwan.