day 22! shida

For once weather.com was right on target, and predicted 100% chance of rain. Welp. It went from sprinkling -> drizzling -> raining -> pouring -> raining -> drizzling -> pouring....many many times throughout the day. I turtled up (oh hon T_T i miss you) and tried to ignore the fact that an ocean was being dropped on Taiwan. We really did pick an inopportune month to travel here. :) Even though there have been plenty of non-raining moments, the fact that the weather forecast every day is "thunderstorms" kind of casts a bleak shadow on the day. :) I dunno, I learned from living in Pittsburgh that the weather affects my mood and mindset way more than it ought to.

So, spent most of the day indoors waiting for a reprieve where I could sneak out and do things. Never got it, but decided to walk to Shida to get some baozi's from that place we went to last time we were there. It's really good!! Probably the best baozi's I've ever had in my life. T_T Although a nikkuman from Japanese konbini (convenient store) comes close. :)

Michael tagged along for baozi's (I was planning to shop around a bit at Shida while I was at it, last time I didn't really feel like it and their stuff tends to be girlier and not stuff I could see myself wearing). We managed to NOT GET LOST! :D Thank you google maps! The rain was pretty yuck but as long as you dress for the weather it's alright. Poor Michael's sneakers have "breathable" tops and his socks were soaked in 5 minutes.

We decided to try one of these "large sausage wrapped around small sausage".  Minds out of the gutter please! :)

They're a pretty common snack that we've seen a lot of, but were never that interested in. The "large sausage" is actually just rice encased in whatever they use to wrap sausages with? And the small sausage is a normal Taiwanese sausage. They put lettuce, sauce, spices, ginger, etc. in there. It's just a hot dog really, but with a rice bun instead of a bread bun.

We were not impressed. :( No more sausage.

We also grabbed an oyster pancake since we had to walk through the Shida area to get to the baozi place. After securing the goods, walked back through and did a bit of shopping...

I've decided to make an effort to take pics of stuff OTHER than food so y'all don't think I'm sitting here eating myself to death. :p This was one shop we stopped by. Pretty cute, all their stuff consisted of dresses, and big shirts/tops that you can wear over the dresses (since Asian fashion is all about layering). You could mix and match whatever you wanted, and any two items you buy are 500nt (~$17). I picked up two dresses cuz the shirts all have weird english. :3 foblish?

Some shirts they had up for display...."magazine"? why??? what does it mean??

Clothes clothes clothes!!! Cute little asian clothes. T_T I want to catch them all!

So usually these little boutiques go and buy clothes wholesale (like from that wufenpu we went to way back at the start of the trip and put out one set of everything they have in their inventory for people to rifle through. When you actually want to buy something, though, they'll find a new article of you want in these packages of wrapped clothes, and you get to take that home instead.

Michael found a crepe store, and wanted to try since he said he's never had crepe before. 

It was...unlike any crepe I've ever seen before. This was a savory crepe, turned out to basically be a salad inside a waffle cone.

Got my daily milk tea here. :D Almond milk tea is amazing!!!!! Love it.

That was pretty much it for the night though. Did a bit of shopping, wandered around in the rain for a while, went on a quest for laundry detergent, then back home. :)