Day 46: Farm Girl in the City!

First Taipei MRT ride alone!

I totally felt like a probinsyana when I got off the bus, because there seemed to be too much going on everywhere I looked. (I later found out that it was one of the busiest areas in Taipei, something like Manila's Makati or Seoul's Gangnam.) After getting over the "shock", I was able to find my way to the MRT to meet Pei-ling, my first ever Couchsurfing host outside of the Philippines.

She brought me to the Raohe Night Market and Wufenpu Clothes Market, which were fortunately near her home. Raohe Night Market isn't the biggest night market in Taipei, but it was definitely big enough for me. We just went around once to see all the stalls (food, clothes, objects, game booths), and I already felt that I saw too much. Anything bigger, louder, busier and more crowded than that would be too much to handle for this girl who's just spent the last 1.5 months in a relatively quiet farm. Wufenpu Clothes Market is their Dongdaemun, where local and imported unbranded clothes are sold for retail and wholesale. I would've bought a lot if I was on shopping mode that night.

Some of the stalls at the Raohe Night Market

List of things we had:
1. 豬血糕 Pork blood (rice) cake - similar to soondae but chewier and the flavor mostly came from the spices they added
2. Waffle that was "not a waffle" - The batter was a bit like gelato rather than the usual watery ones. We later learned that it contained glutinous rice powder. We got a "limited edition" flavor: Red Wine Cranberry - which was really good! It's crunchy when eaten hot but chewier and more flavorful when eaten cold.
3. 愛玉 Ai Yu - The jelly supposedly comes from some plant, and it didn't seem to have any flavor if not for the lemon that was added.
4. Glutinous rice balls with sweet fillings, which I bought mainly because the different colors looked pretty~
5. 蚵仔麵線 Oyster Misua from a 70 year old store that was really good. The soup was a bit sweet and thick, and the oysters went really well with it. It's probably the best misua soup I've ever had.
6. Flavored grilled chicken - which was basically chicken sprinkled with different flavorings
7. Peanut ice with beans. pudding and condensed milk
8. Tea drinks - Mine was a light and refreshing 青草茶 while Pei-ling got this really bitter tea. So bitter that the owner didn't want to sell it to her without her assurance that she won't throw it away, because it takes hours to make it. It was the MOST bitter thing I've ever tasted - the bitter taste just doesn't go away even after a small sip, and there was NO OTHER taste or fragrance in it, unlike say black coffee or bitter gourd. It was just pure bitterness which was supposed to be good for your liver.

Eating all of these confirmed our itinerary the next day - exercise!

I think the reason I like meeting strangers is because there's that "only in the present" element. You're not part of each other's pasts so there's no burden, and you're not pressured to be part of each other's future so there's no commitment. You just enjoy and make the most of the moments spent together. If things don't go well, it's easy to forget and there are no hard feelings because you're strangers after all. If things do go well, you can keep in touch, gain a new friend and more precious memories, just like what happened on my first night in Taipei.

My gracious host, Pei-ling