Day 20 (1/17) Ending on a bang

I'll keep the recap of my 25th hour in Taiwan brief.

Lunch with the grandparents.

My grandfather is awesome, but I don't think I've ever seen a photograph of him smiling... making him all the more awesomer, if you ask me.


Back at home, they relayed some last minute instructions/wisdom. This included home buying (renting vs. owning), financial (save!) and marriage advice. Regarding the latter, I will be sure to find a nice Taiwanese girl of similar disposition with that special twinkle in her eyes.

Spent the rest of the afternoon wandering about, did a bit of shopping, last minute errands...

then sukiyaki for dinner with Amy, Jim and Robin.
One last bowl of shredded ice

with lemon jelly and tapioca pearls, I think.


Totally random, but just the way I likes 'em.

Afterwards, Jim and I sped around the city on his motor scooter. We headed to a dimly lit underpass (the best kind) and I fiddled around a bit on it myself

The 'little sheep' can really fly.


What a rush.

Day 19 (1/16) Formosan sand

Broke fast and explored the oceanside for much of the morning.


This must be what owning an island is like. We've had the pool, jacuzzi, sauna, steam room, restaurant, rec center and now the beach--basically the entire resort, it seems--all to ourselves.


Taiwan rocks


Aunt and I.


Sea snake? Eel? I hope so, 'cause we helped it along into the water. The waves kept pushing it back though, which must be how it got ashore in the first place.


Assorted junk dad found on the beach: a knife and a pretty nice Nokia cell.

We then headed over to visit my grandmother at the Buddhist monastery where her ashes are. No recap necessary.

Afterwards it was onto nearby Yehliu Geopark.


Because I'm too lazy to explain what you're seeing.


Heart?

Some old ladies scraping the rocks for seaweed. There were a lot of them.



Getting my rocks off. Wait... what?



The queen's head.

Next stop was Jing San, an area known for their duck. The town had a bustling marketplace but there was one particularly busy storefront, and that's where we lunched. The kitchen continuously churned out side and other dishes, while at the front there was one guy chopping up cooked ducks and another plating or packaging them to go.


You line up for your duck and grab any other side dishes of your choice and head over to one of at least eight other storefronts nearby used exclusively as dining rooms.


Lunch. Clockwise from top: noodles, bamboo shoots, some sort of innards, salt and pepper fried crab, duck, squid and celery. Little in the way of presentation... it's all about the food, and the food is good.

Day 18 (1/15) Breaking out the swim trunks from JHS

Took my aunt to Din Tai Fung for a tasty lunch of steamed dumplings and shumai.
Then it was off to a vacation-within-a-vacation to an oceanside resort the aunt with the monkey is a member of. The bus ride to Wanli, northern Taiwan, took about 75 minutes.



Wasn't sure what exactly the place was called; there were different names on different signs.


It was kind of dreary out so I put off on exploring the beach.



From a handy little guide in my suite.

Hit up the pool instead as well as the nearby jacuzzi, sauna and Japanese-style steam room.

Sat down to a leisurely meal next. We were literally the only patrons at the restaurant, on that floor at least.This would turn out to be a theme throughout our stay. There was a large wedding banquet being held at another part of the resort so maybe that's where everybody was.It was my first experience with a made-to-order buffet and will probably be the best, as we had the chefs and servers all to ourselves. It was the ultimate personalized dining experience.

After dinner I wandered down to one of the basement levels which had been advertised as a recreation room with a photo of a weight room and everything. It turned out to be some pool and tennis tables, a playground set and a video arcade, with only a couple treadmills and bikes.Seeing as there was nobody else there, it would've been pretty cool to have my own personal video arcade, if the games weren't all from the 80s and 90s.