Taiwan Trip: Part 1

First day in Taiwan. Had breakfast at an authentic Chinese place. Deep fried dough broken up into a bowl with vinegar and soy milk (it curdles up to be like liquid tofu), deep fried dough sandwich, and a steamed cabbage bun. A little salty but nice.

Went to the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall (AKA Freedom Plaza) and found the military band and rifle and saber drill teams practicing on the grounds. Pretty cool. I posted a video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=241bXvhckw8). The building behind is a concert hall.

Inside the memorial hall was an exhibit on the general, which included what Eric calls the Shek-mobile. It's a Cadillac, which amused me. The other exhibit was Chinese calligraphy, which for obvious reasons was pretty much lost on me.

Lunch was at a Japanese-Italian fusion place. We had a curry-risotto dish with bacon. It was strange but good. The afternoon tea at a place called (yep) Afternoon Tea. Chestnut cake was interesting.

I had managed to avoid jet lag this morning since we got here in the evening and I slept through the night. Here's hoping the 3+ hour nap I took this afternoon/evening doesn't set me back too much. Had Peking duck and some local liquor for dinner. Eric's dad brought out a bottle that was made in 1992. Eric doesn't care for the liquor particularly, but it reminded me of feni. It's made of sorghum.