Evergreen Plaza Hotel Tainan

... temples we looked at then we took a longer drive to the place we really wanted to see, salt mountain! We had to take our scooters on a 40 drive on the highway to the Taiwan Salt Museum. Taiwan used to make a lot of salt until it became cheaper to produce in Australia and they no longer make it anymore. At the museum we learned all about how they make salt. We then went to the gift shop to try a salty Popsicle. I mean you can't travel all the ...

... something else and I decided to have a shower. I then discovered a shower head facing down from the ceiling and so decided to use that. OMG, what an amazing shower, it was like showering under a waterfall. Not restricted by the 4 minute showers anymore, but yet still feeling the guilt of a long shower, I just stood there until I was starting to prune. Totally amazing!<br><br>When Daniel came back we decided to just cab to get some food. I had asked the driver ...

... and nodded regularly at the tour guide. I took some pictures of the burial mounds, which were constructed in the late Ming Dynasty to honor the 5 concubines who committed suicide when their emperor was succeded.<br><br>After having a lunch of Beef Noodle Soup, we made our way to the Chihkan Tower. The tower was built on a site originally occupied by the Dutch. Today, there is a Japanese Style Fort there and it is surrounded by commemorative stone tablets (which pay tribute to ...

... all different kinds of flavors are really popular here, so while ate the market I tried the salty egg.... it was um salty and not my type of taste. They also had curry boiled eggs and a black egg that no one could really explain to me what it was. Also I gathered that in Kenting they produce a lot of onions of all different varieties. So you can get them really cheap here.. white, purple, etc all kinds of onions. Next we headed to the Hot Springs where we changed into our ...

... of red or yellow watermelon that they have here. The most popular fruits here are watermelon, mango, dragon fruit, papaya, and apples. We went to the night markets here on Thursday and Friday night. The night markets here are definitely something you have to experience if visiting Taiwan. At the markets they have all different kinds of foods in addition to vendors selling everything from purses, jewelry, shoes, and clothes. Typically you can find things much cheaper ...

Okay so this is like my 5th day is Taiwan. So far I have visited a Buddhist Temple, spent time getting familiar with Tainan, and met professors at National Cheng Kung University. The first couple of days were very exhausting. The flight from Chicago to Tokyo was almost 15 hours. I was going stir crazy around hour 6, lol. But the flight overall was uneventful and nice. They fed us alot which I didnt expect. Once we arrived in Tapei we ...

... an "icy dessert". Of course we Americans were expecting ice cream. Not quite. Dr Wu's idea of an "icy dessert" is a bowl filled with a baseball sized lump of sugared taro root, wet peanuts, cold green beans, small marshmellow like globs of rice dough (called sticky rice), and a larger blob of sticky rice with some sort of soft fruit (maybe a date?) in the center, all covered with snow cone shavings. The ice shavings are then flavored with a squirt of a brown syrup made from brown ...

... chaotischer und nicht so sauber sind, wei bei usn, was aber eher an der Mentalitaet der Leute liegt. Auch verdienen die meisten so viel Geld, dass sie sich ein gutes Leben leisten koennen, zwar ohne grosse Spruenge zu machen und viel ins Ausland zu reisen (woran sie auch gar nicht so interessiert sind) aber doch mit allerlei Luxus und Spass. Richtig noble Plaetze findet man hier auch unschwer, wie zum Beispiel die ...

... sorgen und den Hausfrieden aufrecht erhalten sollen. Ueber jeder Tuer haengen rote Banner mit Glueckwuenschen fuer das neue Jahr, die Wohlstand bescheren sollen. Die Zahl vier ist gleichlautend mit dem Wort fuer Tod, so dass es in guten Hauesern, z.B. Restaurants oder oeffentl. Gebaueden kein viertes Stockwerk gibt. Ungerade Zahlen sind sowiso nicht gluecksfoerdernd und so durfte ich vor kurzem nicht bei einer Hochzeit dabei sein (obwohl ich im Vorfeld herzlich dazu ...

... angeflattert, vom Weihnachstmarkt, den Christbauemen in der Stadt sowie vergangenen Jahren bei uns zu Hause, so dass die Englisch-Schueler jetzt auch eine Vorstellung davon haben, wie es bei uns so aussieht. Wie sich das gehoert, habe ich auch ein paar Weihnachtskarten und Presente fuer meine Arbeitskollegen geschrieben und wurde dafuer auch mit netten Kleinigkeiten beglueckt. Unter anderem habe ich einer Englisch Lehrerin deutschen Weihnachtstee gegeben, und ...