Day 7: Proper Dinner at Shuishe, Sun Moon Lake....

~ 20th March 2014 ~

Off we went to hunt for dinner. There wasn't much choice to choose from and since we're looking for Chinese food so the most obvious choice would be to walk into a shop with Chinese words written, duh~! There weren't many people. There's another shop a few doors away, I suppose, with more customers. Maybe sometimes it's good to join the crowd. 

The lady gave us a menu. I have no need of a menu. Creative food they have, indeed.... indeed.... I let mi mama and Pinky decide because if they need to translate every word from the menu for me, they would end up throwing chairs at me. Don't bother, then... In the end both of them also didn't know how to order. We called for the assistance of the waitress. She was really 'kind' to recommend the best dishes for us. I would rather have instant noodles from 7-11 if I knew we would have to pay by the thousand of NT$ for something so not worth having. Usually they have this set order which was so not worth paying.

The first soup dish came. What on earth are those black solids? It must be century eggs which I don't eat. There's this funny taste in some of the Taiwanese dishes. My tongue refused to acknowledge what the taste was and my tongue definitely place Penang food as the measuring stick.

I had no idea what was that. Couldn't even make it out from the pictures. Maybe I should check with the travel buddy. Some vegetables? Definitely not noodles as we had rice for dinner.

A plate of grass which I don't chew. That should be the emperor's vegetables just stir-fry with some salt and water. Simple... I can do that... Lend me your kitchen... I can cook better...

Do you know how much I love steam chicken but do you know how much I dislike how the Hongkies prepare them cold? This one is COLD as well. I like my steam chicken hot and juicy~!

Then came the presidential fish. I'm taking it from direct translation. It's a type of fresh water fish. You need a lot of skills to have your chopsticks manoeuvre around the sharp bones which stick out from all directions. We thought we had ample of time to finish our dinner early then I could spend some time writing postcards to send to my friends in the States and send a few to homeland. I would need some time thinking of what to write. The picking of flesh bones ate away our night time. We were not tired from walking around the whole day. We became really tired having an open surgery on the presidential fish.

While waiting for mi mama and Pinky to clean up the fish like a cat, I doubt any cat would want that fish.... the cat would choke and die a premature death, I managed to walk to the next door to get a packet of postcards. I even had the time to start writing each piece of postcard and licked all the stamps without swallowing them. Pinky gave up on that fish so left mi mama eating that fish. The next round we ordered any fish, we were smart enough to ask whether it's fresh water fish or fresh catch from the sea. Mi mama has a phobia for freshwater fish. Until today, I don't buy freshwater fish to be served on our dining table.

Finally, the waitresses or maybe the shop owner herself, came to us to tell us that they would be closing soon. They were already done mopping the floor on the front part. They must be thinking from which jungle we came out from that we took so many hours just to eat a fish~!!

We went for a short walk after that. The road was really short. Just a few steps and we reached a dead end with a post box there for me to drop my postcards. Such a strategic place. And I found something else, too.

I tried making a phone call home but I have no money and I don't know what was written on the public phone. It's so complicated so even if there's an emergency, a public phone would be redundant to me. 

That's all for our wish to walk around. Shuishe town was so small and dead, I can scream out loud to check and see how many humans are alive there. Gone was our wish to sit in a cafe for a cuppa. The only place most alive is 7-11. Whoever owns the chain of 7-11 in Taiwan is definitely a multi-gadzillionaire. 7-11 makes more money than the shopping malls, according to my quick evaluation. 

So, that's how we spent our day at Sun Moon Lake. We had to leave early the next morning...