Day 4: Ximending... and the Smelly Tofu Experience...

~ 17th March 2014~

Ximen Red House... built with red bricks la...

Ximen is the first pedestrian zone in Taiwan. So that makes it the oldest place for street food? It is also known as the mecca of youth culture, which we don't find it interesting at all as we're way past the age of youthfulness. Anyway, even if I'm in my teens I am a different type of teenager. I'm a bookworm. I make a cocoon out of my blanket and roll inside with a book all the time.

The photo above is the Ximen Red House. I do not remember what does the building represent but I just know it's a landmark of the place. Please find out more if you are interested. Nowadays, you can get any information by browsing through Google. Google holds all the answers to your questions, no matter how lame your question might sound.

The entrance to the mecca of youth culture...

Ta da~! We're finally here. We're salivating all over because we couldn't wait for food. I guess it was the wrong place because all along we could only see shops and more shops for phone accessories and shops selling bags and clothes and shoes and more bags and more shoes and more clothes. We can't possibly eat that for dinner! We persisted and marched on, chanting for food along the way. Food... food.... food.... food.... we need food.... we need food... we're gonna faint anytime soon.

Skewers of sort....

I got my squid and I was happy. It wasn't cheap at all, talk about street food being cheap. Almost everything is deep fried. We don't really fancy deep fried food. Never mind.... will do for now.... search for more food.... foood.... foooooddddd....

The famous smelly tofu.... Taiwan's well-known delicacy... 

I've wanted to try the stinky tofu. From afar, you could smell them. The smelly tofu smells like you are standing in a heap of rubbish to be burned in the incinerator with a few dead and rotten carcass right under your feet. Add with the smell of clogged drain that has not been cleared off for years. Can you imagine that kind of smell now? Then, put that smell into your mouth, and start chewing. The deep fried tofu will spurt out the oil in your mouth. For one quick second, you could taste the exotic taste and aroma of deep fried tofu with all the added vinegar with their different kind of spiciness which I detested. You may find it surprising that you could actually taste the smell. Talk about our taste buds connected to our sense of smell.  After that one second came and go, beware, for that smell of the clogged drain together with the stinkiness of the rubbish heap with dead carcasses would burst out in your mouth. Kindly chew faster before you throw up~! If you love it, then continue eating until you finish everything. If you take this as a challenge, it's a good try. You will find that eating durian is a million times better than eating this. I find no joy at all biting into something that smells so bad, I prefer licking my own feet. How could they turn this into one of the country's delicacies? I think it's the same as how we could term durian as the king of all fruits~! I ate 5 pieces and dedicated 3 more to the dustbin. Pinky couldn't take any deep fried food as her face was bursting with pimples. Mi mama was not adventurous enough to try this. I wished hubby was with me. He would love to try this. Sorry, I'm not going to learn how to make this at home. I think I will need to soak the tofu in ammonia, or just soak them in a pot of urine.

Dustbins are hard to find in Taiwan. I wonder where the authorities want the tourists to keep their rubbish? Keep everything inside the pocket? 

Too much cheese spoils the fun....

There was a long queue at the Prince Cheese Potatoes stall. Anything with cheese and potatoes should taste marvelous. I followed the Singaporeans' unwritten rules. Any stalls with long queue, go for it. I think I never learn from the same mistakes. The stall with the longest queue in Singapore has the lousiest food. Sorry, if you beg to differ. The stall with no queue has a better taste. Thus, the conclusion that I could make is, the majority of Singaporeans and I have different sense of taste. Again, in Taiwan. We were both salivating over this but we were looking for a place to sit. How could we possibly eat this while walking? When we were young, *cough cough*, sounds like we are ancient, we wouldn't mind walking around and eating. All of a sudden, my travel buddy demanded that we stop visiting any street food vendors, instead we should enjoy ourselves in restaurants with tables and chairs and air-conditioning system. I agreed with her wholeheartedly. In the first place, she was the one who wanted so much to visit all the places with night markets. I made a mental strike through for Shihlin Night Market. We never step foot there no matter how great the comments were about the place. And we have no regrets. Back to the Prince Cheese Potatoes, the one that I wanted with scallops was sold out. We settled for that... don't remember what but there was too much cheese so it wasn't fun eating after a few mouthfuls. Going to the dustbin again.

Taiwan's famous white bitter gourd....

I've got what I wanted. That was trying out the smelly tofu. Pinky has what she wanted. Trying out the white bitter gourd drink mixed with carrots. Or did she mix them with papaya? Girl, what did you mix them with? Was it honey dew? Ahhh.... I suppose it was honey dew. But the honey dew couldn't cover the bitterness at all. It was so bitter. I would be a bitter person if you ask me to drink this everyday. I would be a bitter Incredible Hulk, sulking and yelling at anyone standing in front of me. I did try taking a sip of it. It was good for health and anything good for health is not delicious. Everything that's not good for health tastes the best~! That, you have to agree with me.

Watsons... open 24 hours for 365 days...

You see that Watsons behind? I don't know what's with the trend of shopping in Watsons. There were so many people in Watsons in the middle of the night, buying like there's no tomorrow. That includes my travel buddy. She bought everything from toothpaste to toothbrush and she even bought a box of whatever to colour her hair. I have no knowledge of all those stuff. I did some quick conversion and I don't find it any cheaper compared to Malaysia. But if you do Australian Dollar conversion then it was worth buying. So, she bought a lot of stuff to ship back to Australia. Even with the postal fee, it was still cheaper. I was loitering outside while waiting for her to do her shopping. I got my night of hiking and taking photos of Taipei 101, she has her share of shopping in Watsons. All was well. We were two happy but extremely tired people. Mi mama has more energy than both of us. 

Walking around....

By 10:30p.m. the hawkers started packing their stuff. My energy level was at 0%. Screaming for recharge. Well, if you have booked a tour guide, a whole day tour would cost you NT$3 000 and the tour would start from 9a.m. and end at 5 p.m. Every extra hour, you will be charged accordingly. No thank you ya.... we could do this on our own. Anyone can do this, if you know Chinese. Come on, even the Westerners who backpacked around the world could do it without knowing a single word of Chinese. Well, if you ask me to go alone, I don't think I could survive. That's why I have my travel buddy with me~! Hehehheehe..... time to go back to our temporary dilapidated yet modernized comfortable nest. How's that? A mixture of old and new. You can only find that in Taiwan.