Drinking Snake Blood (Mildly Graphic)

If you are on the squeamish side of things I would recommend waiting for a later post to read this blog. This is not like the movies where they say no animals were harmed. There was a snake that was grievously harmed (killed) for this.

The setup. A friend of mine from my student days in Beijing happened to be in town a few weeks ago so my girlfriend, my friend, his coworker, and me all went to a dinner then headed to the Mengjia area of Taipei. We first went through the Longshan temple which was still decked out for new year and then my friend had a fun fortune telling. Below is a picture from inside the temple

Then it was time to head to the infamous Snake Alley in search of snake blood to drink and good times for all, execpt for the snake of course. Here's how it's done:

Step 1: Choose a restaurant. The best ones are the ones with live snakes. Bargain for a good price and then have the owner choose a nice one for you.

Step 2: He hangs it up in full view of all passers-by while it is still alive and squirming.

Step 3: Owner slices and dices the live snake and bleeds it into a cup.

Step 4: Owner continues his grisly work while an assistant takes the cup full of blood and mixes it with some booze and water (but not too much!).

Step 5: Drink that shot glass of snake blood before it begins to coagulate but remember not to look back at the snake that is still squirming.