Yilan!

This weekend I took a short trip with my girlfriend, her high school friend, and 3 friends of the high school friend to the Northeastern Taiwanese city of Yilan. I had never been to the city before and I did zero prep work to know the sights and attractions I wanted to see (such is the great benefit of having a girlfriend who is an amazing party/trip planner). After we first got there everyone went out to a traditional "museum" spread over a huge area of land with lots of shops and stores. We were able to see the guy below pulling sugar to make traditional candy.

I also got quite a view of one of the local hotties while I was in Yilan/Luodong.

After a quick stop at a riverside park and a roll down a hill it was decided that we would venture out for a night of shrimp fishing. Now, I had been shrimp fishing before. It is a very Taiwanese activity that tacitly encourages you to drink, smoke, and chew betel nut while you do it--maybe like bowling in the US minus the betel nut). Basically, you grab a pole and sit around a small cloudy pool put a little bait on your tiny hook and test your luck. Somehow these guys are more than slippery and despite your best efforts you dont land many of them. When you do land them then you have to be careful since they have some decent pincher claws.

When you take them off the hook that means you have to be careful. Then again you can just use my strategy of just ripping their claws off as you take them off the hook.

Once you have used your allotted time you take the catch to be cleaned and barbecued. We had 6 people and not many shrimp. But we were beyond lucky. A little Taiwanese lady who had been using what I can only imagine was super bait handed us a basket full of shrimp. Instead of having 12 shrimp we were suddenly in the great situation of having about 35 more. With the glut of shrimp we found that they made fantastic toys.

The next day we didnt do too much before going back to Taipei. As we dropped off our rented scooters we went inside a store to get some gifts. The owner and her daughter, below, were facinated by the black girl with us and her braids. So much so that they asked her to braid the her hair. The thing was the owner was really nice but the little girl was incredibly shy--to shy to even talk to us or say thanks.

As we left the owner/mother spoke to me in Chinese and said the daughter was too nervous since she could not speak English but after seeing us her goal was to be able to learn English when she got older so she could talk with foreigners.