Day 56: Live Fish

When I noticed some new flowers and fruits in the farm, I realized that two months is not so short after all. I chose this farm and came here for experience, and I did get that, and a family that has taught me so much.

This morning, the family's ex-neighbor came to visit again. We've gone on two food trips with him, and Auntie calls him the fat uncle. ㅋㅋ But even if he looks intimidating, he's actually very nice. He talks gently, is funny, and is quite an insightful person. On top of that, his English isn't bad! Auntie was (for the nth time) complaining about her husband to him, and told him about my "having no plans to get married within the next 10 years" so we ended up talking about love. The fat uncle asked me to define what love is. Early morning bangag-ness + language barrier = me spacing out. I just answered... trust? understanding? He said what about "giving without expecting anything in return"? (Sige na, ikaw na.) I felt like I was listening to a lecture! He even talked about how it's difficult to be completely sincere when treating others and even more difficult to be honest with ourselves. He also asked another trick question: "When are you unhappy?" He said we're unhappy because we're lonely. We're lonely when we expect too much from people and try to get them to do what we want. Thinking about it, it does make sense. I consider myself a lonely person and if you know me, I like being independent and doing things my way.

Longtan Temple and Lake

Today I also finally got to go to the lake I usually just see from inside the car (or on the motorcycle). There's a temple and a bridge in the middle of it, so we walked around for a bit before heading off to dinner.

And tonight's dinner is *drumroll please* 活魚 which translates to... live fish? It's basically their version of Dampa, where you get to choose live seafood and have it cooked on the spot. Their version has only two kinds of (REALLY HUGE) fishes, and the restaurant looks fancier. The smallest fish they had weighed 10.5 斤, which when converted, is more than 6 kilograms!

A live fish restaurant in 石門 Shimen

It was such a fancy meal, with that one huge fish divided and cooked into 5 different dishes, which were all really, really good. I was hungry when we got to the restaurant, but I got super full even with a half cup of rice, which means I ate a huge amount of fish! Uncle even joked that I might not want to eat fish for at least a month when I get home.

紅燒魚   |   蒜泥魚片   |   豆瓣魚   |   砂鍋魚頭

The best and prettiest 糖醋魚 (sweet and sour fish) I ever had!

This is not a food blog, and I am no expert on food, so I won't go into the details of each dish, except for the best sweet and sour fish I ever had. It's not too sweet nor too sour, and definitely not orange. It was really flavorful, and perfectly fried (at least for me). Do you know that taste in fast food fries that makes you keep on eating it? There's a hint of that in the fish! (That's the best way I could describe it, sorry >.<) I asked Auntie (the good cook) if she could identify what was in it, and she said there's definitely sugar, black vinegar, soy sauce and minced garlic. Time for another experiment? We'll see! ^^

We were only able to finish about half of the dishes!

It was such a good dinner, and our waitress was also very lively and talkative. When she saw me, she asked if we were the same age. I asked her how old she was, and I was surprised to find out that she was still in middle school! She's eight years younger than me! Should I be happy that I was mistaken for a 15 year old? :)