Back from vacation III

Tuesday Night: This was the night that we are determined to eat some "exotic" street food after the bland Ramen at XimenDing (Sunday) and the usual Japanese food at the foodcourt at Sogo (Mon). We were deeply apprehensive because of the bad experience in finding LiaoNing Night Market, but this TongHua-LingJiang Night Market is a lot more reputable. We walked from Taipei 101 all the way to LingJing street and we are happily greeted with a buzzing Night Market scene. Success in our night adventures at last! We intentionally chose a restaurant that serves duck blood and smelly Toufu, YUM! But in the end I am the only one that ate them, the rest ate second rated steak and spaghetti. Still it is a good try. In my opinion, the duck's blood is absolutely delicious, but not very different from the pig's blood that used to be available in Singapore. The Toufu though is a disappointment. It is texturally different, but it is not exactly worth the bad smell. After enjoying the night market shopping, we send the kids back. My wife and I then went for the Pub performance again for yet another wonderful performance by 張晉樵. He was the second performer though, so we had to endure a deafening recital of the top 10 Taiwanese oldies by a female first performer.

Wednesday Day: After running out of the Must See, today is a day to catch up with all the touristy spots that we don't mind since we have the time. We visited the CKS Memorial hall. It was a beautiful plaza with imposing building. Unfortunately, I was wearing sandles and so I could only enjoy the interior from afar. But overall it was a worthwhile trip. We then walked to the Peace Park and that was also an educational trip to see the monuments to remember the 228 Incident.

There are 2 major concerns after the Must-sees were completed. Not enough shopping (both the one is WuFenPu and LingJiang-TongHua were cut short because of tired kids) and not enough authentic Taiwanese food. We decide to resolve both of this by trying out the Underground malls at the Taipei Main Station. Without enough research, we later realise that we only covered one out of the possible four. Anyway, we managed to try their dumplings which I think is quite good. And I bought 葱抓饼 and 猪血糕。 I highly recommend the former and thumbs down the latter. The former is like Roti Prata but with spring onions and is really flavorful. The latter is essentially rice dumpling but it is really just a starchy cake. Somewhat like tapioca cake if you are into that Nonya food. The shopping however is lousy despite the shade and aircon. The products are not unlike a Night Market's, but the variety pales in comparison. I would give Underground malls a miss unless the cool shopping is really a big plus for you.